[Galin]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

Well, as to the survival of Numenorean lore, besides the general statement in Akallabeth that "all their learning" went down under the wave (which of course does allow for whatever Elendil's flotilla might have stowed), there is the comment in the intro to Aldarion and Erendis that it was "the single story (as opposed to records and annals) that survived at all from the long ages of Numenor before the narrative of its end."

(The Akallabeth, naturally, was Exilic; in one place Tolkien says that tradition ascribed its authorship to Elendil himself).

But I asked if the notion that almost no Numenorean writings survived the Downfall was in print, as in published by the author . . .

. . . meaning if Tolkien himself didn't publish any of this, then he wasn't bound by it, and thus was free to explain, for example (Vinyar Tengwar 48) how a document about Elvish fingers and numerals was preserved in the archives of Gondor by strange chance from the Elder Days: "( . . . ) but a copy apparently made in Numenor not long before its downfall: probably by or at the orders of Elendil himself, when selecting such records as he could hope to store for the journey to Middle-earth.

Or Tolkien can write a note to The Shibboleth of Feanor (note 17), which reads in part: "As is seen in the Silmarillion. This is not an Eldarin title or work. It is a compilation, probably made in Númenor (...) All however are 'Mannish' works."


One could press this author-published bit from the Prologue: "The beginning of Hobbits lies far back in the Elder Days that are now lost and forgotten. Only the Elves still preserve any records of that time, and their traditions are concerned almost entirely with their own history, in which Men appear seldom and Hobbits are not mentioned at all.")

[as an aside here: I can think of an Elvish tradition that concerns the beginnings of a people "far back" in the Elder Days, in which even Men do not appear: The Awakening of the Quendi, a tradition in which the Sun exists before the Elves awaken.]

A typescript of the Annals of Aman offers the Númenorean transmission as well. Rúmil still makes the Annals, but: "Here begin the 'Annals of Aman'. Rúmil made them in the Elder Days, and they were held in memory by the Exiles. Those parts which we learned and remembered were thus set down in Númenor before the Shadow fell upon it."


Anyway, as already noted, Tolkien himself also published that poem 14 (ATB) depended upon the lore of Rivendell, "Elvish and Numenorean", concerning the heroic days of the end of the First Age; which seems to contain echoes of the Numenorean tale of Turin and Mim the Dwarf.

Back in that old discussion, I believe my opinion turned on Bilbo having used Arnorian sources in preference to Elven ones, which required a headcanon assumption: that Elves, as immortals, didn't write "history" in a manner that would make much sense to mortals. As an example, look at Bilbo's own song on Earendil, composed in a mock-Elvish mode: if you didn't already know the story, you wouldn't have any idea what the hell was going on.

That, or we could imagine that Bilbo chose which QS to translate due to length -- if a fully Elvish QS existed in Rivendell in the first place. Or maybe Bilbo preferred one in which Elves awake before the sun, simply due to a fascination with the concept. In any case, I imagine Bilbo's translations include much more than Quenta Silmarillion itself, and contains Elvish traditions along with mixed and Mannish texts (including The Drowning of Anadune for one, in which the Elves teach the Numenoreans that the World is round before the fall).

More late text from JRRT about Elvish lore.

"All peace and all strongholds were at last destroyed by Morgoth; but if any wonder how any lore and treasure was preserved from ruin, it may be answered: of the treasure little was preserved, and the loss of things of beauty great and small is incalculable; but the lore of the Eldar did not depend on perishable records, being stored in the vast houses of their minds. When the Eldar made records in written form, even those that to us would seem voluminous, they did only summarise, as it were, for the use of others whose lore was maybe in other fields of knowledge*, matters which were kept for ever undimmed in intricate detail in their minds.'

*Author's footnote

'And as some insurance against their own death. For books were made only in strong places at a time when death in battle was likely to befall any of the Eldar, but it was not yet believed that Morgoth could ever capture or destroy their fortresses."

JRRT, The Shibboleth of Feanor