***Poll of the references of Rúmil and Pengoloð in the Ainulindalë ***

[lindil]

I think it s important to remenber that we don t try to write a modern version of the Silmarillion.
The Silmarillion exist : it s the book of Christopher Tolkien.

An extremely salient point Antoine.

Just to clarify, my vote is now firmly with Rumil and Pengolodh and deleting Aelfwine.

Our situation is in many ways parallel to Bilbo's [sans real Elves to talk to] in that we have a library:
HoME
Silm
UT
The Hobbit
Adventures of TB
The Letters
the RGEO
Various articles of JRRT in the Vinyar Tengwar journal

Not all of which agree with each other [to put it mildly], present varying depths of treatment, are in a variety of languages and dialects, some are of dubious historical 'purity' and the quality of writing varies greatly.

From this we are trying to create a compostite narrative of the pre-LotR era history of M-E and Valinor just as Bilbo did.

But back to the vote;

I would emmend, Antoine, your suggestion in the following way;

The Music of the Ainur
This was made by Rúmil of Túna in the Elder Days. It is here written as it was spoken {in Eressëa to Ælfwine} by Pengoloð the Sage. To it are added the further words [of]that Pengoloð spoke {at that time *}concerning the Valar, the Eldar and the Atani; of which more is said thereafter.

*eliminate because the 'at that time' depends upon Aelfwine.


On the Eressea question, that seems tougher. It seems in the FoG we have been happy to keep ambiguities [that could be explained logically] as long as we do not have to explain them ourselves in the text.

The Eressea reference seems to be of the same order.


Aiwendil posted:

The fact is that in the text, Eressea appears because Pengolodh is speaking to Aelfwine there. Eliminate that conversation (as we must) and you eliminate Eressea.

But could not the same be said of Pengolodh himself? He appears because someone has to speak to Aelfwine.

If we keep the speaker because there are no grounds for contradiction with his presence, should not the same standard apply to the location from whence he speaks?

[ February 16, 2003: Message edited by: lindil ]