[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

Surely, Littleheart was not a companion of Eärendil, but that doesn't mean that he should have been jettisoned so lightly.

Littleheart in Tolkien’s writing is, true, not mentioned under that name in anything published outside of The Book of Lost Tales. So Littleheart still existed, unmentioned under that name, in Tolkien’s conception, or he had been written out in Tolkien’s conception.

If Littleheart still existed in Tolkien’s conception, and his role was somewhat the same, then obviously in the published Simarillion he is one of Eärendil’s three mariner companions on his voyage to Tirion in Vingilot, that is he is Falathar, or Erellont, or Aerandir. Or possibly Tolkien for some reason just dropped the character altogether. But your assumption that Littleheart was just “jettisoned” is only an unverified assumption, and I am not going to argue any unverified assumptions, for or against.

And even if Voronwë made to Aman at last, and had a son there, why should his son dwell now in Tol Eressëa?

Well, if Littleheart existed in Tolkien’s conception, then he would have to dwell somewhere. Tolkien in The Book of Lost Tales puts him in as the gong-warden in the Cottage of Lost Play in Tol Eressëa. However Tolkien says nothing about when exactly Littleheart was fathered, though Voronwë says nothing to Tuor about having a wife when he guides Tuor to Gondolin. It is only another unverified assumption by you that Voronwë later married and fathered Littleheart in Aman. Yet considering that Voronwë in Tolkien's later conception was a mature Elf, though still somewhat young, and had been born in Middle-earth, and that no Elf had gone from Middle-Earth to Aman for ages before Eärendil and Littleheart and perhaps other companions did so, I imagine that Tolkien imagined that Littleheart was born shortly after Tuor and Voronwë came to Gondolin. Presumably Voronwë married then.

Tolkien could imagine that his Littleheart was born at a time that he might have been of age to be a mariner who accompanied Eärendel to Kôr. I see nothing that speaks against Tolkien’s imagining.

Nor do I see anything in your revised fan-fiction that would cause any difficulty.

And all of Littleheart's elven names strike me a bit odd - naturally - and I cannot make my mind whether to keep him in my revised version.

A poor reason to use by someone who is concerned only that his Elvish names make sense phonetically in Quenya or Sindarin. Personally, I see nothing wrong with any of the Elvish forms given.

I am NOT talking about Ottor from Angeln - I am talking about Aelfwine from England and his stay at Eressëa - with needed emendations of course.

You mean Ælfwine, not Aelfwine, of course. Your English is as bad as your Elvish. And up until now you were not talking about this at all, only about your wish to produce a new version of “The Cottage of Lost Play.”

I admit, such a project needs a lot of tinkering with the texts, but I am COMPLETELY hellbent on keeping Aelfwine and his stor(y)ies.

The sheer abundancy of the mentions of Aelfwine and his teaching in the late writings, brings your claim to naught (at least in my opinion).

Not in my opinion. Not a surprise.

And wouldn't it be more likely that a script written in Old English would be preserved (if somewhat in a fragmentary form) all the way up to Tolkien's time than a book written 7000 years ago (also in a language and script completely unknown in later times - it would take a Champollion to decipher it - referring, of course, to Bilbo's books and the writing system in which they were written - Tengwar).

Yes, in theory that would seem to be more likely. But in fact your story is pure fiction, just as Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings is pure fiction, as is Robert E. Howard’s story series about Conan the Barbarian. The backstory behind how the books came to be, as set forth by implication in the books themselves, is obviously phony, and the resultant works are none the worse for that. People expect fantasy fiction to be fictional.

I first encountered the Bilbo Baggins theory in a fanzine article soon after the Ballantine edition was first printed. I don’t recall which fanzine but I believe someone was quoting Tolkien. That the published Silmarillion was supposedly adapted from Bilbo Baggins’ Translations from the Elvish is put forth in various modern articles, not seriously of course.

Please think before you respond and see if what you want to post makes sense.