Silmarillion - Akallabêth - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

Aiwendil · 10-10-2011, 04:35 PM

Certainly it's true that the actual text given in HoMe V called 'The Fall of Numenor' cannot be the (intra-Legendarium) 'real' text representing the Elvish tradition - if for no other reason than that many names and plot elements had changed since it was written in the 1930s.

But I think it's very reasonable to assume that Tolkien did have this text in mind when he mentioned the Elvish tradition; or rather, that he had a hypothetical, 'up to date' version of it in mind. What's compelling about this is that it makes the supposed intra-Legendarium textual history match quite closely with the real textual history, for the 'Akallabeth' was indeed (at least on the most mundane, prosaic level) a mixed tradition, created by combining the two other texts.

Now, whether the hypothetical, up to date, Elvish 'Fall of Numenor' would be one with a round world cosmology is an interesting but, I think, ultimately insoluble, question. But I think you suggest an interesting possibility: an Elvish tradition with a round world, a Mannish tradition with a flat world, and a 'mixed' tradition in which the world begins flat and is made round. The possibility that what is 'mixed' about the 'mixed tradition' is that the Change of the World is a compromise between an always-round earth and an always-flat earth is one that hadn't occurred to me before.

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10-10-2011, 04:35 PM	#7
Aiwendil Late Istar Join Date: Mar 2001 Posts: 2,224	Certainly it's true that the actual text given in HoMe V called 'The Fall of Numenor' cannot be the (intra-Legendarium) 'real' text representing the Elvish tradition - if for no other reason than that many names and plot elements had changed since it was written in the 1930s. But I think it's very reasonable to assume that Tolkien did have this text in mind when he mentioned the Elvish tradition; or rather, that he had a hypothetical, 'up to date' version of it in mind. What's compelling about this is that it makes the supposed intra-Legendarium textual history match quite closely with the real textual history, for the 'Akallabeth' was indeed (at least on the most mundane, prosaic level) a mixed tradition, created by combining the two other texts. Now, whether the hypothetical, up to date, Elvish 'Fall of Numenor' would be one with a round world cosmology is an interesting but, I think, ultimately insoluble, question. But I think you suggest an interesting possibility: an Elvish tradition with a round world, a Mannish tradition with a flat world, and a 'mixed' tradition in which the world begins flat and is made round. The possibility that what is 'mixed' about the 'mixed tradition' is that the Change of the World is a compromise between an always-round earth and an always-flat earth is one that hadn't occurred to me before.