[Findegil]

I have ordered the Book and read that text myself. Easy for a native German. Having some experience with the Schütz translations, I have many doubts if by retranslating we would find anything even near to the original. Schütz was not very good at rhyme. It is clear, that in the 26 lines of poetry he took many liberties and nonetheless would not even try to take up rhythm, flow or even kind of rhymes used in the original. As an example, the word 'sand' in the second line cries out 'none Tolkien!' to me. I wouldn't be surprised if reading the original we would not find the information that the cave did have a sand flour. But as that is only my personal impression, please take it only as warning.

So what can we say about Mim? He first began to craft in Dorthonion, by Tarn Aeluin; ...

That is not so clear. The text says that he always worked from memory. Therefore this only assures that he had been in Dorthonion in his youth and that what he saw there inspired him deeply. And from the context we as well can say that these were days of peace in Dorthonion, so well before the Dagor Bargolach.

... for a long period he devoted himself to making naturalistic crafts out of his memories ...

I don't agree fully to 'naturalistic'. Mîm himself makes in the later text a very clear distinction between the things that inspired his craft and the artefacts that he produced. He says that he still can memories the artefacts he made but no longer the things that inspired them and I at least think this is part of his issue of remaking anything.

About Mîm's life as given in NoME: Taking aside the 400 years for a moment, I would rather say the story lines work very well together: Young Mîm wanders around in the peaceful Beleriand before Finrod founded Nargothrond. As he visits Dorthonion where Finrod's brothers ruled at this time, the two might have meet there. Finrod planning to build Nargothrond would than naturally ask a Dwarf he did know before hand for help. For how that relationship was than poisoned there are a lot of candidates:
- Finrod, seeing how big a task it was, asking the Dwarves from the Ered Luin as well for help and since these dismissed the Petty-Dwarves that might be enough.
- Maybe Mîm was only early involved in the planning and when it became clear that Finrods plans were made for the enlargement of the halls of Nulukkhizdīn, driving the Petty-Dwarves out of their old home the relation shifted.
- Or he came late and assumed that they had found the halls of Nulukkhizdīn deserted, and only when he found out that they had driven out the Petty-Dwarves by force he tried to take revenge upon Finrod.

The 400+ years are an issue, but not a big one:
- On the one hand we know that at least on first generation Dwarf was very long lasting: Durin I., the Deathless. He died 'before the end of the Elder-days', which means from the context during the First Age of the sun, having outlifed all the long years of the Stars since the awakening of the Dwarves. So it might be that Tolkien saw a decline in longevity for the Dwarves and planed much longer time for the earlier generations to which Mîm might have belonged.
- If we assume that Mîm was of the line of the 7 chieftains, than we are told that in these lines from time to time Dwarves were born that were so similar to the chieftains of old that they got the same name. So for example Mîm II. could have been the helper of Finrod and Mîm III. would then be the host of Tuirn later to be killed in Nargothrond.

At this point we might consider anew when Mîm does utter this ‘Klage’: I find it rather forced to connect the plundering of Bar-en-Danwedh by the Orcs to the story as told in Mîm's Klage. In CoH Mîm is not sleeping on his chest of treasures and the attack of the Orcs is not a surprise for him. Thus if the Mîm of Mîm's Klage and Mîm from CoH are one and the same person, I would assume that the Mîm from CoH is a somewhat recovered version from the earlier Mîm of Mîm's Klage: In CoH he is described as poor, old, isolated and bitter against the world outside that has wronged him and his folk in many ways. When caught by Androg Mîm did even bit him, like Mîm reports of himself in his 'Klage'. As well CoH reports that the Men shot arrows at Mîm and his sons. And we learn in CoH that Mîm from time to time works in his smithy, all by himself, as we would expect from a person haunted by a back story like told in the 'Klage'. So my best guess is, that what we have in ‘Mîm’s Klage’ is a report of one of Túrin’s men of what he heard when at one day Mîm came out of his smithy (for a time, because the ‘Tink-tonk, tonk-tink! No time to think!’ suggest that he is going back to work) during a fruitless try in his craft. And the friendship that Mîm develops to Túrin might be the response to his ‘It was not always so, and it is not good that it is so now.’ from the ‘Klage’.

One last point: 'Complaint' does not sound fully right as translation of german 'Klage' in this context. I would rather take 'Lament'. ('Dirge' would fit from the sense as well, but does not sound a bit like Tolkien for me.)

Respectfully
Findegil