Of the Coming of Men Into the West

[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.