Of the Coming of Men Into the West

[Findegil]

About the speach of Beor: I agree that to eliminat the referecen toBeor passing by Marach is safer. BUt I do not see why the poeple of Haleth shouldn't wait for a message from Beor. However, for Beor to know about them they had to be in contact. And as Beor did know they were of the same mind (renegades from the service of the Dark Lord), they must have had a way of communication. Thus way shouldn't they asked Beor to send a message after he found a way over the Mountains?


I don't think your change is to drastic, but I would propose to keep the text of DM a bit more together:

Of the Kindreds and Houses of the Edain
§13 NE-KE-00.1 <DM The Atani were three peoples, independent in organisation and leadership, each of which differed in speech and also in form and bodily features from the others - though all of them showed traces of mingling in the past with Men of other kinds. These peoples the Eldar named the Folk of Bëor, the Folk of Hador, and the Folk of Haleth, after the names of the NE-KE-00.15<editorial addition<most renowned> chieftains{ who commanded them when they first came to Beleriand}. The Folk of Bëor were the first Men to enter Beleriand - they were met in the dales of East Beleriand by King Finrod the Friend of Men, for they had found a way over the Mountains. They were a small people, having no more, it is said, than two thousand full-grown men; and they were poor and ill-equipped, but they were inured to hardship and toilsome journeys carrying great loads, for they had no beasts of burden.> Soon after the departure of Felagund the other Men of whom Bëor had spoken came also into Beleriand. First came NE-KE-00.2 passage moved down {the Haladin; but meeting the unfriendship of the Nandor they turned north and dwelt in Radhrost, in the country of Caranthir son of Fëanor; and there for a time they had peace, though the people of Caranthir paid little heed to them. The next year, however,} Marach {led}leading his {people over the Mountains}; NE-KE-00.3 <DM{Not long after} the first of the three hosts of the Folk of Hador. They came up from south-ward, and two others of much the same strength followed before the fall of the year.>{and they}They were a tall and warlike folk, and they marched in ordered companies; and the Green-elves hid themselves and did not waylay them. NE-KE-00.5 <DM They were a more numerous people; each host was as great as all the Folk of Bëor, and they were better armed and equipped; also they possessed many horses, and some asses and small flocks of sheep and goats. They had crossed Eriador and reached the eastern feet of the Mountains (Ered Lindon) a year or more ahead of all others, but had not attempted to find any passes, and had turned away seeking a road round the Mountains, which, as their horsed scouts reported, grew ever lower as they went southwards.> And Marach hearing that the people of Bëor were dwelling in a green and fertile land, NE-KE-00.3{came down}[followed] the Dwarf-road and settled his people in the country to the south and east of the dwellings of Baran son of Bëor. There was great friendship between the peoples NE-KE-01{, though they were sundered in speech, until they both learned the Sindarin tongue.}.> [b]NE-KE-01.2[b] <Ros Note 13 The Atani had never seen the Great Sea before they came at last to Beleriand; but according to their own legends and histories the Folk of Hador had long dwelt during their westward migration by the shores of a sea too wide to see across; it had no tides, but was visited by great storms. It was not until they had developed a craft of boat-building that the people afterwards known as the Folk of Hador discovered that a part of their host from whom they had become separated had reached the same sea before them, and dwelt at the feet of the high hills to the south-west, whereas they {[the Folk of Hador] }lived in the north-east, in the woods that there came near to the shores. They were thus some two hundred miles apart, going by water; and they did not often meet and exchange tidings. Their tongues had already diverged, with the swiftness of the speeches of Men in the Unwritten Days, and continued to do so; though they remained friends of acknowledged kinship, bound by their hatred and fear of the Dark Lord (Morgoth), against whom they had rebelled. Nonetheless they did not know that the Lesser Folk had fled from the threat of the Servants of the Dark and gone on westward, while they had lain hidden in their woods, and so under their leader Bëor reached Beleriand at last{ many} years before they did.> The next year, however, came <Moved down the Haladin; NE-KE-00.3 <DM They were probably more numerous than the Folk of Bëor, but no certain count of them was ever made; for they came secretly in small parties and hid in the woods of Ossiriand[u];] {where the Elves showed them no friendship.}> but meeting the unfriendship of the Nandor they turned north and dwelt in {Radhrost}[Talath Rhúnen], in the country of Caranthir son of Fëanor; and there for a time they had peace, though the people of Caranthir paid little heed to them.>

Respectfully
Findegil

[Elvellon]

Originally Posted by Findegil

BUt I do not see why the poeple of Haleth shouldn't wait for a message from Beor.

Beor made them wait an awfully long time if they did. Or they waited an awfully long time after receiving tidings. Sure, again, we can add in our own rationalizations, but we're rationalizing as a result of combining texts, not because Tolkien intended it.

Beor only mentions tidings in the LQ version where the Haladin speak the same language, and are then the first to come over after Beor, and not in small secret groups.

Originally Posted by Findegil

However, for Beor to know about them they had to be in contact.

Well of course he knows about them, because that dialogue comes from the version of the QS where he is in direct contact with them, and they speak the same language, and they're waiting for tidings, ostensibly from him and his folk. But that doesn't appear to be the case anymore in Of Dwarves and Men, where there's no evidence that Beor knew anything about the Haladin (or Marach, in fact). Each group merely arrives on its own in its own time over the course of several years. Because by the late 60s, Tolkien seems to have expanded the entire westward march to be something far slower and grander than it originally was, with each of three folks significantly more distinct in language, appearance, and dress from one another.

That's why I go back to my earlier point, which is that I think Christopher made a mistake in The Silmarillion by including the text about awaiting tidings. Once CT swapped the the folks of Haleth and Marach, it no longer made sense for Beor to know they were awaiting tidings.

Sure, it's not a deeply troubling plot hole in need of patching, but I do think there's a good case to be made here that in the process of combining two texts, that JRRT likely considered to be mutually exclusive to one another, CT and GK, and by extension this project, allowed some minor inconsistencies to slip through the cracks.

[Findegil]

Okay, I see now your point. So you think that we should skip Bëor's mentioning of the Folk of Haleth waiting fo rtiddings east of Ered Luin or are suggesting that we should skip all the talk between Felagund and Bëor about the other Atani?

To skipping the waiting for meassage, I would be okay with that. But that he did know about the others is at least for the Folk of Marach asured in DW and I don't see why he should not have knowledge of the wandering Haladin as well.

Respectfully
Findegil

[Elvellon]

Originally Posted by Findegil

Okay, I see now your point. So you think that we should skip Bëor's mentioning of the Folk of Haleth waiting fo rtiddings east of Ered Luin or are suggesting that we should skip all the talk between Felagund and Bëor about the other Atani?

To skipping the waiting for meassage, I would be okay with that. But that he did know about the others is at least for the Folk of Marach asured in DW and I don't see why he should not have knowledge of the wandering Haladin as well.

Respectfully
Findegil

Oh no, not that drastic. I would just remove ", awaiting tidings before they venture further".

[Arvegil145]

Originally Posted by Elvellon

Oh no, not that drastic. I would just remove ", awaiting tidings before they venture further".

I'm a bit confused - what exactly is drastic?

Even in Tolkien's latest musings I find it incredibly unlikely that not one person (in the case of the Houses of Beor and Marach) couldn't understand the speech of the Halethrim (or vice versa).

The most isolated tribes on the planet still have some contact with other tribes - otherwise they'd collapse in an incestuous black hole.

While the Houses of Beor and Marach might've been relatively isolated from the Halethrim (especially in language), I fail to see how they had no contact? Especially in Tolkien's later conception of Men awaking c. 3,000 years before the Exile of the Noldor.



All of the above aside, the fact that the published Silmarillion (as well as the texts on which we're founding our project) has c. 300 years between the Awaking of Men and their arrival in Beleriand consisting of a ton of different cultures, phenotypes, etc. is one of the two things that had me seriously considering Tolkien's 'Round-world', post-1958 writings (it's why I left the project in the first place).

[Findegil]

I seems we are all in on line of sought: Bëor had knowledge about the Folk of Marach and the Folk of Haleth.

And for the Folk of Haleth waiting for tiddings from Bëor's folk, I would agree to Evellon's suggestion:

§10 But Felagund learned from Bëor that there were many other Men of like mind who were also journeying westward. 'Others of my own kin have crossed the Mountains,' he said, 'and they are wandering not far away; and the Haladin, a people NE-CM-01{that speak the same tongue as we}[of a different speech], are still in the valleys on the eastern slopes NE-CM-01.02{, awaiting tidings before they venture further}. There are also Men {of a different speech,} with whom we have had dealings at times. They were before us in the westward march, but we passed them; NE-CM-01.5{for }they are a numerous people, and yet keep together{ and move slowly}, being all ruled by one chieftain whom they call Marach.'

Arvegil145, you shouldn't have left for that reason. I also think that the timeline is much more credible with a Round Earth Version. And others have made simillar comments. Consens was that our finished Flat Earth Version could be a good starting point for the poeple that would be interrested to create a Round Earth Version.

Respectfully
Findegil

[Arvegil145]

Originally Posted by Findegil

Arvegil145, you shouldn't have left for that reason. I also think that the timeline is much more credible with a Round Earth Version. And others have made simillar comments. Consens was that our finished Flat Earth Version could be a good starting point for the poeple that would be interrested to create a Round Earth Version.

Respectfully
Findegil

Oh, it wasn't the only reason - the other reason was that I was beginning to get uncomfortable with the whole idea of fusing together texts from the 1910s and the 1970s (for example); since then however, I've grown completely zen to all things Tolkien (even dumb stuff like RoP).

But the real reason was that 2015 was a terrible year for me (or rather its end). I'd just leave it at that.

[Elvellon]

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

I'm a bit confused - what exactly is drastic?

To Findegil's question "are suggesting that we should skip all the talk between Felagund and Bëor about the other Atani?" I was saying no, I am not suggesting such a drastic change.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

Even in Tolkien's latest musings I find it incredibly unlikely that not one person (in the case of the Houses of Beor and Marach) couldn't understand the speech of the Halethrim (or vice versa).

The most isolated tribes on the planet still have some contact with other tribes - otherwise they'd collapse in an incestuous black hole.

While the Houses of Beor and Marach might've been relatively isolated from the Halethrim (especially in language), I fail to see how they had no contact? Especially in Tolkien's later conception of Men awaking c. 3,000 years before the Exile of the Noldor.

I agree with all of that, but to me those factors have to take lower priority than Tolkien's own last words on the subject.

What we know from Of Dwarves and Men is that the three tribes "differed in speech", and the Folk of Haleth so much so that they "were strangers to the other Atani, speaking an alien language". In The Problem of Ros we find: "The language of the Folk of Haleth, so far as it was later known, appears to have been unrelated (unless in remote origin) and unintelligible to the other two peoples," to the extent that "This was the reason, in addition to their admiration of the Eldar, why the chieftains, elders, and wise men and women of the Atani learned Sindarin."

Even though I think Sil77 made a small mistake by leaving in the line about "awaiting tidings", it's more easily hand-waved there because Christopher didn't include any of the above detail regarding languages. But this project does, so it stands out more to me as not fitting together. Of course there could have been some communication of some kind along the westward march, but as far as evidence for it in the latest texts, there's nothing about the folks of Haleth and Beor communicating. Unless I'm missing something. And when reading strictly the text of DM on its own, there's no reason to conclude that Haleth awaited tidings from (to paraphrase) "strangers who spoke an unintelligible language". They would have done their own reconnaissance, and it seems they did just that, by coming over secretly in small groups.

Anyway, I've spent more time on this one small suggestion than I ever intended, no doubt making it seem like a bigger issue than I actually think it is!

[Findegil]

I think the three of us are now all in agreement about the change.

Respectfully
Findegil

[Arvegil145]

I agree with Findegil - it's all okay.

Originally Posted by Elvellon

And when reading strictly the text of DM on its own, there's no reason to conclude that Haleth awaited tidings from (to paraphrase) "strangers who spoke an unintelligible language".

Just a minor tidbit - while the DM mentions Haleth as being one of the original leaders of the Three Houses, CT has this to say:

Haleth was not the name of the chieftain who commanded the Folk of Haleth when they first came to Beleriand: see XI.221-2 and the genealogical tree, XI.237. But this is probably not significant, in view of what is said at the end of the paragraph: these people 'were called the Folk of Haleth, for Haleth was the name of their chieftainess who led them to the woods north of Doriath where they were permitted to dwell.'

- 'Of Dwarves and Men', note 41, p. 325


However, in the same note CT goes on to say:

On the other hand, the statement that Hador was the name of the chieftain who led the Folk of Hador into Beleriand seems to ignore that greatly enlarged and altered history that had entered in the chapter 'Of the Coming of Men into the West' (cf. note 38), according to which it was Marach who led that people over the Mountains, and Hador himself, though he gave his name to the people, was a descendant of Marach in the fourth generation (see XI.218-19 and the genealogical tree, XI.234).

I have a sneaking suspicion (nothing concrete of course) that Tolkien followed up on his swap of Magor and Hador and ultimately ended up further swapping Marach with Hador - or at any rate, perhaps he was to identify Marach with Hador ('Marach' being a Mannish name and 'Hador' being an Elvish one, I can easily imagine Marach being called Hador by the Elves).

Of course, all this is pure speculation and shouldn't be included in the work - but I always wondered why Hador was included with the likes of Hurin, Turin and Beren when Elrond was comparing Frodo to the heroic 'elf-friends of old': he is important obviously, but that important?

Perhaps Tolkien also felt that way, and just like in the case Galadriel and Celeborn, he kept progressively elevating his status to match Elrond's description of him.

Anyway, I'm rambling...