Quote:
Quote:
"It may be suggested that whereas my father set great store by consistency at all points with The Lord of the Rings and the Appendices, so little concerning the First Age had appeared in print that he was under far less constraint. I am inclined to think, however, that the primary explanation of these differences lies rather in his writing largely from memory. The histories of the First Age would always remain in a somewhat fluid state so long as they were not fixed in a published state; and he certainly did not have all the relevant manuscripts clearly arranged and set out before him."
Foreword, The Peoples of Middle-Earth
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To me, this is another way to say that Tolkien (and quite naturally in my opinion), treats fixed work as canon.
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Or is Christopher saying that, without a bound book ready to hand and his manuscripts in disorder, his father's memory couldn't keep it all straight? This would apply especially to the 'late writings' 1968-73, since not only was Tolkien elderly, but due to an unfortunate accident his papers had become hopelessly jumbled during the move to Bournemouth. To take one example of his fading mental powers: the Glorfindel essays state that he was now stuck with the name because it had appeared in print in the Lord of the Rings, therefore Glorfindel of Rivendell must necessarily be the same person as Glorfindel of Gondolin and an explanation of how this was possible was necessary. But of course, there was nothing whatsoever preventing him from just renaming the Gondolin hero; it seems he was getting somewhat confused (or he could have let it ride, as he did with Legolas and Galdor)