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Old 01-27-2005, 11:10 AM   #31
Aiwendil
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Join Date: Mar 2001
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RD-SL-27

The second Silmarillion map does suggest that the ford is a few miles north of the confluence. However, as Findegil noted:

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The map itself was old. But the Road was put in later. All changes made to the map are recorded, but they are in no way dated (which seems in many instances nearly impossible to do anyway). The only slight evidence that I could find is the name "Duin Dhaer" as a replacment of "Gelion" and "Rathmalad" for "Rathloriel". These changes were at least made in the same period as the similar changes in the TY Version D (Rathloriel -> Rathmallen). But that does only tell us that the map was still used at that time. It does not provide us with any evidence that the Dwarf-road shown represented Tolkien view at that time or that it was drawn in at that time.
If we doubt the map sufficiently to suppose that there is an unindicated and improbable continuation of the road into the mountains the crosses Ascar near its source, then surely we can also doubt the distance it gives between the ford and the confluence of the rivers. We are dealing with small distances on a large-scale map. If the dwarf road were drawn just a bit further south then the apparent distance of a few miles would evaporate, and there would be no difficulty in believing that the treasure was drowned in Ascar. And indeed, the fact that the road runs so perfectly parallel to the river suggests that it is in fact following the river on its north side, and is perhaps a shade closer than the map literally indicates.

So I do not think that there is necessarily a problem with the ford being over Duin Daer and the gold ending up in Ascar - first of all because the map may exaggerate the short distance between the Ascar and the road, and second because even if the distance as drawn on the map is taken to be several miles, it's possible that the map doesn't represent Tolkien's final intention. Indeed, if Tolkien did see a problem with the gold being transported from the ford to Ascar, by far the easier solution would have been simply to bring the ford closer to the confluence.

It seems to me, then, much more natural to suppose that the ford remained over Duin Daer and that "Ascar" in TY was a slip. But I admit that this depends on two suppositions: 1. that the ford is closer to the confluence than the map indicates; 2. that "ford of Ascar" was a mistake.

I am still not happy with either alternative, then. The relevant principle here is:

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5. Information in sources of lower level priority is to be preferred over information in sources of higher level priority where the item of information in source of higher level priority can be reasonably demonstrated to be an error, whether a "slip of the pen" or from inadequate checking of previous writing.
And, despite the fact that I strongly suspect that the TY reference is a "slip of the pen", I cannot convince myself that this can be "reasonably demonstrated" (which is, however, a necessarily vague criterion).

So my dilemma is that I am inclined to think that the ford remained over Duin Daer, but that I am also inclined to view our principles as supporting the change to Ascar.

I definitely need to consider this further.

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§51d laughed -> answered:
I agree with Findegil here; if it is out of character for an Adan to laugh at Melian, it is surely also out of character for an Elf. I do think that there is a general change in tone after the Lost Tales, and in fact I suspect that if Tolkien had re-written the story in the '50s, he would not have had Beren laugh. However - that is not justification for our exclusion of it. We do not really have any hard evidence against the laughter.
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