Thread: Name Changes?
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Old 08-29-2023, 10:14 AM   #72
gondowe
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I was reviewing the texts and I am going to try to explain my line of thought. But correct me if I'm mistaken in points.

For some time now, I tend to emphasize the dates on which the texts and corrections and notes are supposedly written. I suppose you will agree with me that many of these situations are undatatable and more so after the publication of TNoME in which other dates are given by Hostteter to some texts.

With respect to the Hador/Magor matter, we are supposed to be talking about this reversal of history as contained in hasty pencil notes to a c.1959 text, (WJ, 229, 233), and corrections to these notes we cannot know when they were made.

We also know from experience that Tolkien tended to vary his views frequently in later years, or to forget some changes that occurred to him at another time. The thing is, while Tolkien probably intended to swap Magor for Hador, he too probably forgot or changed his mind again.

An example, in my opinion, is Of Dwarves and Men (c.1967-1970, because, as CT said, the fact that the texts were written on 1968 calendars is not a terminus a quo, but rather means that they were written from that date onwards) in POME, 307 where "Hador... the chieftain who commanded... when first entered Beleriand". That is to say, that here he returns to the initial conception (or in other words, it could be said that Hador was Marach).

Another example would be TNoME, 323 where in a text from c.1965 it says that "... Eärendil (son of Tuor, the great-great-grandson of Hador)" where if this g-g-gs refers to Eärendil the genealogy is the habitual, and if he refers to Tuor, Hador I think he would be in the position of Hathol, not Magor (probably a mistake of the Professor so common in him, although we do not know if by default or excess).

What I want to say with all this is that, in my humble opinion, in a case with as much tradition as this and there being a "finished" narrative that implies, in addition to the QS, the Narn, the Tale of Years and the Athrabeth, the data about the supposed dates of the texts make us be, at least a little prudent. But it's just my opinion.

By the way, I've not found in this forum (correct me again if I'm mistaken) a proposal change in two names:

Dor Daedeloth> Dor-na-Daerachas per WJ, 183, 187, 338-9
Dor Firn i guinar > Dor Gyrth i chuinar per Letters no 332.

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