[Galin]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

I'm not disposed to impose a rather artificial bright line of Publication as the be-all of 'canonicity,' especially since there are mistakes and inconsistencies even in the works that were published in Tolkien's lifetime.*

Yet I'd say Tolkien himself considered already published material as canon -- which doesn't seem artificial to me, but sensible when one is building a Secondary World. It's not even a Tolkien issue. It's a writer's issue.

And even when Tolkien decided to make a change -- if he is "knowingly" altering something already in print (like the way Bilbo came by the One, for instance) -- I submit that he's treating already published texts as canon. In other words, text already in print is simply not the same animal compared to texts that can be changed over and over again without undermining the world of Middle-earth.

And if Tolkien thinks a given already-in-print alteration "needs" to be, why does he often invent an internal reason for the seeming inconsistency? You don't need to do that if you are altering something that no one has read about yet. Different animals.

And I know Tolkien desired purposed inconsistencies within his legendarium, but that is about art and choice -- it's not about the simple fact that private texts exist -- texts that readers only now know about due to Christopher Tolkien's decision to publish them -- which is not a negative comment in any way concerning his choice to publish these papers.

In any event, if that is the line then it's impossible to talk about ""Nandor" or the definition of "Eldar," since all of that only appeared in print after his death. For that matter, so did Mithrellas.

I can talk about anything Tolkien wrote while considering what he published as canon. And not that you said otherwise, but I can add to the canonical world of Middle-earth with posthumously published texts.

And I think the definition of Eldar is rather clear in The Lord of the Rings. Plus the legend of Elvish blood in the line of Dol Amroth seems clear enough too . . . so here I have no problem speaking of Mithrellas, as it doesn't contradict author published text obviously . . . noting too, that in some versions of the legend, the Elf was Nimrodel herself.

It's not like Tolkien said in 1966 "OK, this is all I'm going to publish, everything else is just unreliable background stuff not to be taken seriously."

Of course not. Nor am I saying that.

But what Tolkien did note, for example, was that he could not make ros a Beorian word after realizing it was noted as a Sindarin word in the Appendices, and thus he tossed out a few pages of nice, late "lore" because of a detail in the Appendices that many folks might not even read.

Where it comes to First Age matters, I would give precedence to QS/Annals materials over the LR appendices. This was, to Tolkien, THE account of the Elder Days, to which the LR just alluded in places, with some quicky sketches in the Appendices.

It certainly is more detailed. But what if contradictions occur?

Christopher Tolkien wrote: "It was the "moon-runes" that Elrond declared (at the end of the chapter A Short Rest) to have been invented by the Dwarves and written by them with silver pens, not the Runes as an alphabetic form -- as my father noted with relief.

I mention all this as an illustration of his intense concern to avoid discrepancy and inconsistency, even though in this case his anxiety was unfounded." Christopher Tolkien, note 8, Of Dwarves And Men, The Peoples of Middle-Earth

Discrepancy and inconsistency with what? Why would Tolkien be intensely concerned to avoid inconsistencies with a text no one had ever read, or will read? He's reasonably concerned rather with unwanted inconsistencies in print.

And why, for example, do you think Christopher Tolkien's opinion is that his father would surely have felt bound by Celebrimbor the Feanorian?

It's also the case that T was quite capable of retaining the same text while changing meaning out from under it. There is no question whatsoever that when he wrote the Lorien chapters the Elves of Lorien spoke their own Silvan language; the idea that it was just accented Sindarin was a later ret-con. (For that matter, Sindarin itself in the LR was a ret-con; the language at the time of writing was Noldorin).

I realize that we have ret-cons, and as I stated in my post above, I think both oversight and changing conceptions play a part here. That said, I'm not at all sure Tolkien's footnote was the best way to go here . . .

. . . but I accept it, as it's published by the author

And if it hadn't been, would it be a necessary "fact" that the East Elves of Lorien spoke Sindarin with such an accent that Aragorn and Boromir couldn't understand the songs about Mithrandir? Or, since it is published, is there any way I can interpret the footnote that for me, seems less jarring given the text that was never revised in both Appendix F and the tale proper?

For example, your own citation of "High Elves" was clearly a published mistake on Tolkien's part, since Luthien was not one and never was.

Depends upon how "High Elves" is defined

Also the "House of Finrod" mistake which stood for years in LR printings.

Well, we know Felagund was Inglor at the time, and I'd rather say that the "mistake" here is Tolkien changing the name of Finrod to Finarfin for the second edition -- especially given the reason he objected to this Elf being called "Finrod" -- having a Sindarin name, as noted in PE17.

In short: in my opinion Tolkien created an unnecessary inconsistency between the first and second edition here, as Finarfin remains a Sindarized name according to The Shibboleth of Feanor.