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Old 07-14-2024, 06:24 PM   #13
Elvellon
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Join Date: Aug 2023
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Elvellon has just left Hobbiton.
Quote:
They were before us in the westward march, but we passed them; for they are a numerous people, and yet keep together and move slowly
This is contradicted by the text added from Of Dwarves and Men a couple paragraphs later:

Quote:
They had crossed Eriador and reached the eastern feet of the Mountains (Ered Lindon) a year or more ahead of all others
Yes, technically Beor "passed them" because his folk arrived in Beleriand through while Marach's folk were taking the long way south around the mountains, but the reason he gives of size and speed heavily implies that Beor means he and his folk literally, physically, passed them.

Which brings me to the next point:

Quote:
First came NE-KE-0.2 <Moved up Marach {led}[leading] his people over the Mountains; [...] And Marach [...] came down the Dwarf-road [...]
We learn in Of Dwarves and Men that the Folk of Marach "came up from southward" instead of "over the Mountains". I'm wondering why this was not taken up into the text, but the part about them not attempting to find passes, and "seeking a road round the Mountains" was. The way that the two texts are combined, it seems like Marach's people abandoned the plan to find a way around, and they went back north and came "down the Dwarf-road". If the intention is that they crossed over the mountains at a point to the south and then went "down the Dwarf-road" after coming up the west-side of the mountains, that's not clear as it is.

What's more, it seems to me that as it stands, we have two unique reasons for why the folk of Marach were delayed: first, as Beor explains it, because they are numerous and slow; and second, because they went south before coming back north. These are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but neither do they play very nice together. It seems better to me to go with one or the other, and much as I prefer the additional information from D&M, removing it does less harm to the text than trying to modify Beor's description of the the people of Marach's circumstances.

Last edited by Elvellon; 07-14-2024 at 09:44 PM.
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