New Tolkien book coming!

[Galadriel55]

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Aha! It works! Same code as for bolding, but replace the B with "spoiler". To read text, highlight it.

Cheers!

[William Cloud Hicklin]

All right: just to disturb the 'canonicity' applecart further: Gil-galad's name, in very late (ca 1969) writing, was Finwain. Which raises new questions about his parentage.

Another: the Great Eagles were, explicitly, Maiar in bird-form

And this: to answer long speculation, Cirdan was definitely not one of the "first Elves" who awoke beside Cuivienen, because all of that first generation refused to go on the Journey and became Avari

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

All right: just to disturb the 'canonicity' applecart further: Gil-galad's name, in very late (ca 1969) writing, was Finwain. Which raises new questions about his parentage.

Also Finellach in another text, ca. 1965 (Of the Lands and Beasts of Numenor), though apparently this was already in HoME XII. I'd interpret Finwain as Young Finwe.

There's so much in here! The evolution of the timelines and generations is a study in itself, though for 'canonicity' purposes there's one text which falls a decade later than the rest. Certain chunks of it are very much "The History of Unfinished Tales", and Hostetter makes it very clear where this is the case; but the bulk of it is entirely new.

I'm finding the most fascinating bits not to be the big picture stuff and the philosophy - though there's some that I will definitely come back to - but the little nuggets of trivia you stumble onto along the way. My favourites so far:

- Generational Schemes, p. 128 - the family tree of Ingwe! For the first time, we have his father Ilion - 4th gen descendent of Iminye - his wife Ilwen, and his son Ingwil, brother of Indis.

- Key Dates, p. 95 - that the Eldar at Cuivienen were watched over by the future Istari, with new names, plus Melian - 'the only woman, but the chief'.

- Beards, p 187 - that Radagast 'had only short, curling, light brown hair on his chin'.

- Hair, p. 186 - that Ingwe had curly hair! Presumably this carries over in some measure to his descendents. Oh, and Gil-Galad had silver hair - as William Cloud Hicklin says, up goes the applecart again!

- Elvish ages and Numenorean, p. 152 - that at one point, Tolkien considered making Galadriel Celeborn's second wife!

And it just goes on and on! The entertainment habits of the Numenoreans - what happened to Finrod when he was building Nargothrond - less embarrassing names for Elmo and Teleporno - there's so much in here. I love it. It's mad.

hS

[William Cloud Hicklin]

also, that Ingwe was Imin's great-grandson. And confirmation that Aragorn, Denethor, Boromir and Faramir were all genetically beardless. (Take that, Viggo's designer scruff!)

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

also, that Ingwe was Imin's great-grandson.

Someone's going to have to try and figure out the order of the generational schemes and timelines, if we want to know Tolkien's final position. I think they're all listed as 'ca. 1959'.

Tolkien gives 14 detailed timelines/generation schemes around Cuivienen:

- One in The March of the Quendi (ca. 1959)
- Three in Key Dates (early 1959)
- Two in Calculation of the Increase of the Quendi (ca. 1959)
- One in A Generational Scheme (mid 1959)
- Seven(!) in Generational Schemes (summer 1959)

CH indicates a connection between the final scheme in Key Dates and the first one in Calculation..., and the phrasing of The March... suggests it comes pretty early, so it looks like the Generational Schemes are Tolkien's final thoughts. In which case Ingwe is the 24th generation from Imin!

EDIT: One that sneaks under the radar because the pieces are in the wrong order... per The Numenorean Catastrophe..., Valinor "should remain a physical landmass (America!)... it would just become an ordinary land...". Which means that, per The Making of Lembas, lembas is (unleavened) cornbread!

hS

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Nah, wheat (explicitly). Don't be fooled by UK usage "corn" = "any grain"

I can testify that ca. 1969 Britons simply didn't eat maize/sweet corn - except those who had lived among Americans.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

Nah, wheat (explicitly). Don't be fooled by UK usage "corn" = "any grain"

I can testify that ca. 1969 Britons simply didn't eat maize/sweet corn - except those who had lived among Americans.

Disagree. Not on the second, but the first. Tolkien specifically refers to it (3:IV, Text 2) as "Western Corn", and the text comes well after the apparent decision regarding the 'end of "physical" Aman' in 3:XV. We'd need to demonstrate that the idea in 3:XV was actually rejected to make the maize idea untenable.

We know that this idea of non-native species needing to be introduced was one Tolkien considered - a very similar situation arises with rabbits and chickens in 3:XIII (Of the Land and Beasts of Numenor), and CH highlights that this is because they were not present in NW Europe at that time. The way 3:IV ([i]Lembas[i]) both introduces and removes "Western Corn" looks like a very strong case to me.

The explicit use of "wheat-corn" comes from a hastily hand-written note, and is immediately after an unclear word. It's entirely possible this actually reads "sweet-corn" in the original!

hS