Tolkien's final First Age timeline

[Arvegil145]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

One interesting point is that they said it was "too at variance with the established chronology for comfort". They're right, and that means that if someone was trying to use this timeline, they should probably use the Reddit variant. But I'm trying specifically to work out what Tolkien's "final version" would have been - and he was in no way bound by his own earlier dating schemes.

And one thing that worries me is that they say "We know that the Valar delayed moving against Utumno until after the Elves... came to Valinor." That would mess up my tidy logic on the Arising of Men, so I have to go and hunt down that source and see if it actually says that... and when it was written.

In regards to mistakes Tolkien made when calculating VY into SY, I'd rather keep the sun-years as fixed, and alter the VY to fit them - since this is the 'Round World' conception we're talking about, so Sun existed from the beginning, and the Elves would naturally track time via the Sun, the VY being secondary.

As for Utumno, I checked the index to look for reference to it throughout NoME, but I can't remember anything that says that the 'Valar delayed moving against Utumno until after the Elves came to Valinor'...though I could be wrong of course.



As an aside, where do your 'Beleriand Years' begin? With the coming of the Noldor (Fingolfin or Feanor)?

Because the latest mention of the duration of 'Beleriand Years' I could find was in the chapter XVIII ('Elvish Ages and Numenorean' from 1965), p. 150:

Eärendil his father wedded Elwing in FA 525, being then 23. Elrond may have been born about 527–530. He was thus at least 70 at the fall of Thangorodrim in c. FA 600.

So this text has the 'Beleriand Years' lasting for 600 years, instead of 590.