Dagor Dagorath/Turin returning?

[Aiwendil]

Looking at UT now, I realize the text I had in mind is more 'note' than 'essay' (it seems to be associated with the brief narrative of the choosing of the Istari). The relevant bits:

Originally Posted by Tolkien

It is said that in later days (when again a shadow of evil arose in the Kingdom) it was believed by many of the "Faithful" of that time that "Gandalf" was the last appearance of Manwë himself, before his final withdrawal to the watchtower of Taniquetil. (That Gandalf said that his name "in the West" had been Olórin was, according to this belief, the adoption of an incognito, a mere by-name.) I do not (of course) know the truth of the matter, and if I did it would be a mistake to be more explicit than Gandalf was. But I think it was not so. Manwë will not descend from the Mountain until Dagor Dagorath, and the coming of the End, when Melkor returns. To the overthrow of Morgoth he sent his herald Eönwë. To the defeat of Sauron would he not then send some lesser (but mighty) spirit of the angelic people, one coëval and equal, doubtless, with Sauron in their beginnings, but not more? Olórin was his name. But of Olórin we shall never know more than he revealed in Gandalf.

Originally Posted by Tolkien

Will thou learn the lore that was long secret
of the Five that came from a far country?
One only returned. Others never again
under Men's dominion Middle-earth shall seek
until Dagor Dagorath and the Doom cometh.

[Galin]

OK that's what I guessed, thanks, but neither of these two can be dated to 1972 I think... or at least we don't know that, correct?

I thought (perhaps wrongly) that the Andreth prophecy might be the 'latest' reference which includes Turin, but I'm not sure if it's the latest hint at some sort of final battle.

[Aiwendil]

You know, I think you are right, and I have been misinterpreting what Christopher Tolkien says about the dating of these texts. I had thought that when he said:

I know of no other writings about the Istari save some very rough and in part uninterpretable notes that are certainly much later than any of the foregoing, and probably date from 1972

. . . he was including the note/poem that I mentioned, but now that I look more closely, I think he was referring only to the note immediately following (and the 'uninterpretable' notes that he later managed to interpret and published in HoMe XII). This is supported by the fact that among those late notes given in XII, there is an apparent reference to the narrative of the choosing of the Istari as now being 'lost', which would indicate that it (and presumably the notes on its reverse side) had been written before 1972. As far as I can tell, CT offers no guess as to the date of either the narrative or the note/poem.

One interesting result of this would be that if the narrative is definitely from before 1972, then the latest version of the Blue Wizards' names was clearly 'Morinehtar' and 'Romestamo', not the more popular 'Alatar' and 'Pallando'. (Maybe other people already knew this, but I had always thought it was unclear which set of names was later.)

[Galin]

Yes I agree with all that, meaning that's how I interpret the chronology.

I think we have Morinehtar and Romestar/Romestamo because, or at least possibly because, Tolkien could not find the older text at the moment, and couldn't remember the old names (again at the moment), so he invented new names.

I also think 'Blue Wizards' is earlier than Tolkien (in a letter) doubting the 'other two' had distinctive colours, and so (unless there is something else), this 'Blue Wizards' description may also be more popular than the 'other two'...

... although it's not hard to see why, if so

I note that Hammond and Scull write that with the letter Tolkien seems to have forgotten about these sea blue robes and so on. Possibly of course, but this seems to confirm that Tolkien never again referrred to these Wizards as blue.

That we know of so far? Anyway I digress