Tolkien's final First Age timeline

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Galin

I think the idea that Feanor asked Galadriel for her hair only shows up in The Shibboleth of Feanor however, which is later than any 1959 text (in GNOME), or even Elvish Ages and Numenorean, dated to 1965.

In your chart linked above you've got Feanor making the Silmarils before Galadriel was even born -- okay, based on NOME texts . . .

. . . but in The Shibboleth (1968 or later), Galadriel was born in the Bliss of Valinor (which includes the vague addition: "it was not long in the reckoning of the Blessed Realm, before that was dimmed") and the Eldar said that her hair had snared the light of the two trees, and many thought that this this saying gave Feanor the idea of blending the light of the Silmarils that later took shape as the Silmarils: "For Feanor begged three times . . ."

My interpretation is that Feanor begged for her hair before making the Silmarils. And if so, thus, in what "mode of thinking" was Tolkien involved with here, in 1968 or later? Noting too, that in another late text, Eldarin Hands and Fingers:

Carl Hostetter then refers the reader to XVI where Tolkien notes that the Elvish growth rate from conception to maturity should be comparable to Humans, with Elves reaching maturity at 24 loar (Sun Years), and in which, with respect to later weddings in the "Early Years" before the March, the Elves were usually 24/21-24 [granted CFH also refers to Elvish Ages and Numenorean too, but this text still pre-dates the "nette remark"].

In other words, I don't think we necessarily have a text in which Feanor begs a notably young Galadriel for her hair, as by the time the idea arises, we don't know where Tolkien was with respect to certain earlier notions or dates.

This is some good detective work. I think you're right that the "nette remark" probably indicates that Tolkien returned to the 1:1 Elvish growth rate - "little slower" could still mean 3:1 (by contrast with the 144:1 he occasionally wandered into), but "if at all" precludes that. And it does seem to be the latest text on aging. It probably doesn't mean they married at 24, though - that would undo all the work on getting the Ambassadors to be unmarried adults, which doesn't rely on growth rates anyway. (One caveat: the "nette remark" is undated except in that it preceeds a 1968 text; it could concievably by pre-"Elvish Ages".)

It's a great catch that the story of Galadriel's hair only shows up in the Shibboleth (as quoted in Unfinished Tales): that really surprises me! I'd always assumed that her gift to Gimli was written to be a mirror of her rejection of Feanor, but it looks like the Feanor story may actually have been written to explain the Gimli one!

I think the only way to reconcile "teen Galadriel" with "inspired the Silmarils" is to shift the date the Silmarils were made right down to just before Feanor drew his sword on Fingolfin. The Annals of Aman say the making of them took 10 sun-years, so there's just enough room in my timeline for Feanor to pester Galadriel at about age 10 and still make them before he breaks the peace. ... except that Melkor's work to sow discord in Valinor was because of the Silmarils, so he would have to have corrupted Feanor in under 10 years, which seems unlikely.

Hmm...

Okay. The published Silmarillion makes Feanor's exile 12 years. The Annals of Aman has 40 years [of the Trees] between the forging of the Silmarils and the breaking of the Peace, and one year [of the Trees] for Feanor to make the Silmarils.. If we take both those figures to be sun-years, we get this:

- 5413: Birth of Galadriel.
- 5420: Feanor begins work on the Silmarils.
- 5421: Completion of the Silmarils.
- 5461: Breaking of the Peace of Aman, banishing of Feanor.
- 5473: Death of the Trees.

So Feanor saw 7-year-old Galadriel, was wowed by her hair, and when she kicked him on the ankle he went off in a sulk to make some jewellery. That kind of hangs together.

It means neglecting the "nette remark", but in various places in NoME Tolkien considered that aging should run slower in Aman under the Trees. It's not perfect, but at least it hangs together.

EDIT: Actually, the "nette remark" is specifically talking about the Common Eldarin period, and uses the past tense to describe Elvish aging. I don't think it conflicts with "Elvish Ages" at all.

hS

[Galin]

Admittedly, I'm making a broader statement here about Tolkien's possible mindset in the later phases of his writing. We can't know, but what I'm suggesting is that by the time this idea (Feanor asking for Galadriel's hair) rolled into JRRT's mind, much of what he'd written nearly 10 years earlier could have been forgotten . . .

. . . or replaced with something simpler. And if so, when Tolkien wrote The Shibboleth of Feanor, can we even be certain he had not reverted to the old date of Galadriel's birth in the Annals of Aman and injected the new ratio. I agree it would undo much of what he thought 10 years before (if he even remembered it) and even 3 years before (if he remembered that), but for all we know, an older Tolkien might have undone certain things for simplicity, or undone certain things because he no longer had his old texts to hand in any case, and was "creating anew" so to speak.

That said, I can certainly understand the approach that Tolkien was thinking X in 1959, and even Y in 1965, so why should we assume he simply dropped so much of it in 1968 or later. I agree it makes sense to approach things this way too -- but I keep in mind that Tolkien, just for one often-used example, actually chose to publish Celeborn as one of the Sindar in 1967 RGEO . . .

. . . then in 1968 "or later" seemingly forgets this, and writes at least two different Celeborn histories! And I'll admit that "maybe Tolkien changed his mind" due to a lack of evidence -- the Shibboleth providing no dates nor any trace of how fast Galadriel became a mature woman -- is not the most compelling of arguments, but there that is.

Before NOME was published, for example, some folks on the web have compared the "young" Galadriel who takes part in the rebellion to the more mature Galadriel who ultimately rejects the One. Perhaps an older Tolkien came to believe that the reader needed no more than this?

Perhaps not

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

EDIT: Actually, the "nette remark" is specifically talking about the Common Eldarin period, and uses the past tense to describe Elvish aging. I don't think it conflicts with "Elvish Ages" at all. hS

Can you expand on this?

So far, in my head anyway, Tolkien's "final" thought here is based on the "nette remark" (I had thunk so before NOME actually, given that this was published in VT) -- and now in combination with XVI (from NOME), but if you think the two are internally consistent I'd like to see more of your argument as to why.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

However, in trying to assign weight to various things Tolkien wrote down, one can't go exclusively by chronology, because it's certainly the case that T had in his mind, and committed to paper, everything from considered ideas worked out in great detail with full commitment, to on the other hand passing notions he jotted somewhere and soon rejected or forgot. To me the "nette remark" smacks more of the latter than the former.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Second post because utterly unconnected to the first:

While Tolkien wavered as to precisely the rates at which Elves (and Numenoreans) matured, the consistent thread in all of these writings is that these longeval races nonetheless grew from birth to first maturity (~20 years in human terms) at a much faster rate than the rate of their aging, compared to humans. Roughly speaking, we spend a quarter of our lives (0-20) growing up, and then the remaining 3/4 (20-80) decaying. For both Elves and Dunedain, though, while Tolkien vacillated on what the ratio was it was much, much greater than 1:3. Aragorn's was about 1:10, and Elves naturally way, way more.

This reflects back to a position I have long held, which was a minority position even before PJ cast a teenager to play Frodo and carved it in pop-culture stone: Frodo was not physically a teenager at 33 (and thereafter, because Ring). He was 33 in our regular human terms.* Hobbits, like Dunedain and Elves would fit the pattern: growth to adulthood at our rate, but slower decline thereafter. In ratio terms 1:4, since the average Hobbit life expectancy ("as often as not") was 100.

I have always thought that Hobbits coming of age at 33, (besides the maths of one gross), was the university don's droll little joke-- No society as sensible as the Shire would ever consider young people in their twenties to be "adults!"

*Mentally and emotionally, of course, he was 50, a middle-aged bachelor, not an ingenue. PJ never understood that.

[Aiwendil]

Originally Posted by Galin

Admittedly, I'm making a broader statement here about Tolkien's possible mindset in the later phases of his writing. We can't know, but what I'm suggesting is that by the time this idea (Feanor asking for Galadriel's hair) rolled into JRRT's mind, much of what he'd written nearly 10 years earlier could have been forgotten . . .

. . . or replaced with something simpler. And if so, when Tolkien wrote The Shibboleth of Feanor, can we even be certain he had not reverted to the old date of Galadriel's birth in the Annals of Aman and injected the new ratio. I agree it would undo much of what he thought 10 years before (if he even remembered it) and even 3 years before (if he remembered that), but for all we know, an older Tolkien might have undone certain things for simplicity, or undone certain things because he no longer had his old texts to hand in any case, and was "creating anew" so to speak.

In fact, we know that by about the time of the writing of "The Shibboleth of Feanor", Tolkien had either rejected or forgotten* much of what he had developed over the course of the many "Time and Ageing" texts of c. 1959, since in the two texts given in ch. XIX, "Elvish Life-Cycles", he presents a completely different approach to Elvish longevity in the form of cycles of renewal. On its own, this doesn't specifically invalidate the date he had arrived at for Galadriel's birth, but taken together with the new element of Galadriel's hair as inspiration for the Silmarils, it certainly suggests very strongly that Tolkien did not consider the final form of the c. 1959 chronology to be fixed or correct.

*It is fairly clear that in the writings from this time period, Tolkien had occasional lapses of memory. Nonetheless, I think it unlikely, given the amount of time he had evidently devoted ten years earlier to working out the details of Elvish growth and ageing, that this can be attributed simply to forgetfulness.

[Galin]

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

In fact, we know that by about the time of the writing of "The Shibboleth of Feanor", Tolkien had either rejected or forgotten* much of what he had developed over the course of the many "Time and Ageing" texts of c. 1959, since in the two texts given in ch. XIX, "Elvish Life-Cycles", he presents a completely different approach to Elvish longevity in the form of cycles of renewal.

Well, that's what I get for skipping around! Hadn't read XIX yet (still haven't read XX) even though I've jumped to much later sections of the book. As I say, I'd been aware of the nette remark since Vinyar Tengwar, and indeed, looking at text II in XIX for example -- erm, now that you point it out --

Elves lived in life-cycles? sc. birth, childhood to bodily and mental maturity (as swift as that of Men) . . ."

So, so far, for me, still going with the external chronology and the nette description.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Galin

So far, in my head anyway, Tolkien's "final" thought here is based on the "nette remark" (I had thunk so before NOME actually, given that this was published in VT) -- and now in combination with XVI (from NOME), but if you think the two are internally consistent I'd like to see more of your argument as to why.

Unfortunately my claim is weakened (though not destroyed) by a misreading of the text. Most of "Eldarin hands..." is spent discussing Common Eldarin, and so the meanings and details it gives can be attributed only to that period when the elves spoke CE. So, for instance, "No distinction was felt between right and left by the Eldar" could be treated as referring only to the eldest days, if one were really concerned by the conflict with Maedhros' "learned to wield his sword with his left hand".

But the "nette remark" isn't one of these: it's referencing the Quenya word nette, a descendent of the CE neter. So I was wrong.

The reason I wasn't completely wrong is that the main text goes on to highlight how old a word "nette" is - appearing very closely in Sindarin and Telerin. So it could still be a word from the period of the March, which means that "the growth of Elvish children after birth was little if any slower" could still mean "in the period when this word was formed" - ie, the March.

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

However, in trying to assign weight to various things Tolkien wrote down, one can't go exclusively by chronology, because it's certainly the case that T had in his mind, and committed to paper, everything from considered ideas worked out in great detail with full commitment, to on the other hand passing notions he jotted somewhere and soon rejected or forgot. To me the "nette remark" smacks more of the latter than the former.

This is an important point to remember when trying to mind-read Tolkien. And ultimately, despite all the work he put into them, I think all his First Age timelines fall into the "transient" category: he was perfectly happy to change the dates, and indeed the entire dating system, repeatedly. (Heck, at one point in NoME he even considered changing the published, LotR Tale of Years!) So the 'definitive timeline' concept is one Tolkien never really had in his later years.

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

In fact, we know that by about the time of the writing of "The Shibboleth of Feanor", Tolkien had either rejected or forgotten* much of what he had developed over the course of the many "Time and Ageing" texts of c. 1959, since in the two texts given in ch. XIX, "Elvish Life-Cycles", he presents a completely different approach to Elvish longevity in the form of cycles of renewal. On its own, this doesn't specifically invalidate the date he had arrived at for Galadriel's birth, but taken together with the new element of Galadriel's hair as inspiration for the Silmarils, it certainly suggests very strongly that Tolkien did not consider the final form of the c. 1959 chronology to be fixed or correct.

*It is fairly clear that in the writings from this time period, Tolkien had occasional lapses of memory. Nonetheless, I think it unlikely, given the amount of time he had evidently devoted ten years earlier to working out the details of Elvish growth and ageing, that this can be attributed simply to forgetfulness.

Okay, yeah, I totally misread the date on 1.XIX and had it down as yet another 1959 piece... Okay, quick timeline on Elvish aging:

- 1959a: NoME 1.IX,X. Growth from birth was 1:144 in Aman, 1:100 outside; Galadriel is said to be 20 at the exile, or "in years about 20 x 144 = 2880". Pregnancy was briefly calculated to be 900 months (75 years). At another point, growth-years were 1:10 in Middle-earth, 1:100 in Aman, and 1:50 for Aman-born elves in Middle-earth.
- 1959b: NoME 1, most text before 1.XV. 9-12 year pregnancy, maturity at 1:12 rate, and then 1:144 (sometimes 1:100 in Middle-earth). In some texts, in later Ages the mature rate quickened even more: 1:48 "in these latter days" (1.IX). At a later date, Tolkien specifically noted that the increased rate should not happen.
- 1959c: NoME 1.XVI,XVII. 1 year pregnancy, to maturity at 1:1 rate, then at 1:144. Tolkien states that slower growth is "unlikely".
- 1965: NoME 1.XVIII. In Middle-earth, "the Growth Years were relatively swift". 3 year pregnancy, grow to 24 at 1:3 rate, then 1:144 after that. The return to Middle-earth was at these rates.
- 1967-8: NoME 2.III, the "nette remark". Growth after birth is "little if at all slower than that of the children of Men". If referring to a specific time-period, it's probably the Great March, but could be Third Age (the "writer" seems to be Gondorian).
- 1969: NoME 1.XIX, Text 1. Elves age in cycles, and none had actually entered a new cycle before the end of the Third Age.
- 1970: NoME 1.XIX, Text 2. "birth, childhood to bodily and mental maturity (as swift as that of Men)". Cycles, with the first being the bearing and raising of first set of children, followed by a "youth-renewing" and then a second set of children. This renewal weakened over time, until by the end of the Second Age such renewals were rare.

It's clear that elves in Middle-earth, probably both before and after the sojourn in Aman, should be viewed as having a 1-year gestation, 24 years to full-grown, and then a 1:144 rate thereafter. The outstanding question is whether Tolkien intended this to apply in Aman, under the Trees. Every time he wrote separately about that period, he gave it a longer growth rate; but the specific note in 1.IX saying "No quickening" would seem to negate this. On the other hand, the 1965 1.XVIII seems to imply a quickening took place: "The [Growth-Years] were relatively swift, and in Middle-earth = 3 loar". And the 1970s 1.XIX indicates that elves were reaching "old age" sooner as time passed, implying some form of quickening still existed.

The view that Galadriel was "young and eager" at the exile was long-held; her specific age of 20 is mentioned in multiple texts from 1959, as well as the 1965 text. I think it's dangerous to assume Tolkien tossed this out when he came up with the hair story, especially since the Shibboleth itself discusses her ill-will towards Feanor in conjunction with "from her earliest years".

Given that the 1:3 rate is from a text mostly discussing Middle-earth, I think we have to assume that it was forgotten entirely. That makes the only options for growth in Aman either 1:1, or 1:12. At 1:12, Galadriel would be born around 5233, giving 240 years for Feanor to be inspired, harass her, make some jewels, make a sword, get kicked out, and come back. That's... feasible.

It would mean that the Silmarils took ca. 1 growth-year to make, which is nicely poetic; and that Feanor was exiled for 1 growth-year, ie, "go away for as long as it took Miriel to bear you".

(Unless there's a later source for how long either of those things took; I think both those dates come from the Annals of Aman.)

hS