*Feanor,Turin and the Second Prophecy of Mandos*

[Aiwendil]

I can't see an contradiction for the Second Prophecy in the fact that Valinor was removed from the world. We are talking about the old concept of the world made round only by a hand stroke of Eru. He could have done in the end what ever he wanted.

So you suggest that the world was made flat again before the end? I suppose that could work; but note that, as the Dagor Dagorath is written, it is not Iluvatar that starts the whole thing, but Melkor. The world, it seems, would have to be flat priot to Melkor's creeping in through the Door of Night.

What we can read out of this, is that the final end of the Tale of Eä was a direct intervention of Eru himself.

That's an excellent point.

Together with the statement found in the Silmarillion that only Men will take part in the Second Music and the elvish 'estel' as Finrod reveals it to Andreth, I believe this means that Arda healed as a continuation of the tale of Eä and a dwelling place for the Elves is created by the Second Music.

Is it explicitly said that only Men will take part in the Second Music? I thought it was merely left uncertain whether or not the Elves would take part.

You've made some good observations. I think we should probably refrain from making any definite decisions, though, until we are actually editing the text.

I was recently arguing about the Dagor Dagorath with M. Martinez on his forum, and another thought occurred to me there: if we include the Second Prophecy of Mandos, should we include the corrections made to it in LQ2? The validity of that text is highly dubious; it was really merely a typed copy of the QS37 and parts of the Q30. Tolkien then went through it and made some very cursory corrections, mostly just updating the old names. He did not correct any of the actual substance of the old narratives. However, he did make some interesting corrections to the Second Prophecy of Mandos:

1. He changed 'Turin . . . coming from tha halls of Mandos' to 'Turin . . . returning from the Doom of Men at the ending of the world'.

2. He added the words 'and Beren Camlost' next to that sentence.

3. He placed a large X next to the last paragraph.

If we include the Second Prophecy of Mandos, we need to decide whether to keep or reject these changes.