* *A New Project ~~~ Revising the Ainulindale* *

[Findegil]

Aiwendil, Maedhros are you still with me in this project?

I will break another lance for the footnote.

If we consider the original tradition of the text it is like this:
- Rumil writes the Ainulindalë in Valinor.
- Pengoloð reads the Ainulindalë in Valinor.
- Pengoloð makes a copy out of memory of Ainulindalë in exile.
- Pengoloð tells the Ainulindalë and his additions to Ælfwine.
- Ælfwine makes a translation of the Ainulindalë obviously with the copy of Pengoloð in front, but he adds the additions and the frame work of the talk he had with Pengoloð.

In this circumstances the footnote to §19 about the end of the vision of the Valar before the dominion of Men started must either be an after thought of Ælfwine of an verbal aside of Pengoloð which came to Ælfwines memory only after he had finished that passage or a later instruction by Pengoloð when he had read the text for correction or a footnote in Pengoloð copy to make clear that this was not Rumils original text.

Under all this conditions I assume that Pengoloð did read Ælfwines text and did in that way sanction both the footnote to § 19 and the written account of his sight of Yavanna as a tree.

Since we have skipped Ælfwine the tradition of the text must be different:
- Rumil writes the Ainulindalë in Valinor.
- Pengoloð reads the Ainulindalë in Valinor.
- Pengoloð makes a copy out of memory of Ainulindalë in exile.
- Bilbo reads the copy of Pengoloð and makes a translation.

Since we know from late sources that Pengoloð left Middle-earth in the middle of the second age we can be sure that he did not speak with Bilbo. Therefore we must either assume that:
a) Pengoloð made the additions to Rumils work himself or
b) Pengoloð wrote other works which Bilbo combined in his translation or
c) we have another step in the tradition of the text which is similar to Ælfwine, meaning that this unknown scribe talked to Pengoloð, got instructions from him and made the additions to Rumils text when he made a copy.

Under assumption a) the footnote to §19 and the addition of the early history of the Valar in Arda would mean that Pengoloð found these information essential enough to add them to Rumils work.

Under assumption b) Bilbo would be the one to make the footnote and the addition in order to provide the right authorship to the information.

Under assumption c) our text would be a bit artificial since we are only forced to take out frame work of talk because we do not know the scribe by name. Now the footnote to §19 would have again the same meaning as in the old tradition of the text.

It is only under assumption c) that I can see a good reason not to provide the Yavanna as a tree episode in another footnote similar to that in §19. Since here it would be a change of a spoken word of Pengoloð to a written one.

Respectfully
Findegil