3 Concerning Naugrim, Ents and Eagles

[Aiwendil]

I've finally looked at the rest of the items.

DE-EX-01: I’m uncertain about this. I think there are three issues. First, the fact that Tolkien rejected this passage (and omitted any statement on Dwarf-women in the final version of this text), and second, the fact that some of the five passages here contradict each other, and it is difficult to tell which story has precedence. It is true, however, that of these versions, b, d, and e all seem to be more or less in agreement. Third, in ‘Dwarves and Men’, we have the note that ‘Durin slept alone’, in reference to the other six dwarf-fathers being placed in pairs. This seems to offer a different meaning for Durin’s ‘aloneness’ than that in the passages from LQ/‘Concerning the Dwarves’. Of course, it doesn’t directly contradict LQ/‘Concerning the Dwarves’ - Durin could have been ‘alone’ in both senses. But we might consider whether it implicitly suggests that the story of the six brides for seven brothers had been abandoned.

DE-EX-03, -04, -05, -06: Here Findegil combines the dialogue between Aulë and Iluvatar from LQ with that between them from Letter 212. I find myself uncertain about this, and I’m tempted to suggest that we should take one or the other. On the other hand, the additions are not very disruptive and it reads fairly well. So perhaps this combination is OK.

I think a word got dropped in DE-EX-04; it should be:

DE-EX-04<Letters; no. 212 Though you have devised a language for them, they can only report to AD-02.2{thee thine}< For consistence with Of Dwarves and Men, HoME 12 you your> own thought.

Incidentally, a small point: the change from ‘thou’ to ‘you’ comes from ‘Concerning the Dwarves’ (HoMe XI), not ‘Dwarves and Men’ as indicated in the marked-up text. Also, might I suggest that for convenience of reading ‘Dwarves and Men’ be abbreviated ‘D&M’ instead of spelled out fully each time?

DE-EX-07: This goes hand in hand with DE-EX-01, of course, and depends on whether we are going to retain the story of the six dwarf-women.

It feels slightly odd to mention the departure of the Elves across the sea here, since that has of course not happened yet. When this text was written, it was obviously intended to come much later in the Quenta Silmarillion. But I suppose it’s not the only case of forward-looking references, so it may be fine.

DE-EX-07.1: I can’t agree with this one. The source is Christopher Tolkien’s statement:

and at the head of the page he suggested that the legend of the Making of the Dwarves should be altered (indeed very radically altered) to a form in which other Dwarves were laid to sleep near to the Fathers.

As Christopher notes, this is a very radical change, and I think it is a quintessential case for principle 2b - an unworkable projection. If Tolkien had developed this idea more fully, he would have had to say where these new dwarves came from - i.e. how and by whom were they made? Without that story, it is merely a projected revision. Moreover, it is not here said that Iluvatar is the one who laid them to sleep near to the Fathers, and it seems to me unwarranted to alter passage a of ‘Concerning the Dwarves’ in this way.

DE-EX-07.2: In this long addition from ‘Dwarves and Men’, I worry more about the anachronisms. The whole passage comes very much from a later point of view. It does contain good information that I think we would definitely like to include somewhere, though. I wonder if it would work better later, when Dwarves first enter Beleriand and meet the Sindar. Of course, the ‘Third Age’ reference would still be an anachronism, but that could be either tolerated or removed.

Actually, this brings up a fundamental point that I don’t think we’ve discussed. We have so far assumed that we are following QS77 in moving the creation-story of the Dwarves to just after the building of Valinor and combining it with ‘The Ents and the Eagles’. But is there not something to be said for the option of following Tolkien’s placement of it in LQ? That is, not telling about the creation of the Dwarves until after the flight of the Noldor, when it is then told retrospectively? Of course, that would leave ‘Ents and Eagles’ somewhat homeless. I’m not necessarily arguing that we should do that, but we should at least think about it and be able to enunciate why we are following QS77 in this regard.

DE-EX-08: This is a debatable one - on the one hand, Tolkien left this information out of the revised version of this text, which normally I would say means we should consider it rejected. But on the other hand, in LotR appendix A we have closely matching information on dwarf-women, so it seems the ideas here were not rejected.

DE-EX-09: I don’t see much value in this addition. It doesn’t really add anything beyond what is immediately after stated about Dwarvish and Elvish beliefs.

DE-EX-10: I think this is good. But the footnotes (particularly the second one) strike me as very much informal commentary/speculation by Tolkien, and I think we may want to reconsider including them.

DE-EX-11: This addition seems completely redundant with what was said before, and I would remove it.

DE-EX-12: This looks good, and in this case I think the footnote is fine.

DE-SC-05: I missed this footnote, but I agree it should be included.

DE-SC-06: I think I’m still inclined to omit this half sentence. Yes, it’s true that it is explicitly looking forward in time, but Yavanna’s reference to the sun makes it sound as if the sun is something already known and familiar to both her and Manwë, which I don’t think can be the case.

DE-SC-08: On reflection, I think I agree we should omit this, as in Findegil’s draft, since Tolkien rejected it.