Tolkien's final First Age timeline

[Arvegil145]

Also, I see that you didn't include the birth years for Idril and Finduilas. Is there any reason why?

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

All this, I think, could be resolved by assuming an unknown rate of Elvish existence in Aman and therefore adopting the AAm spacing of the dates (+ perhaps some modifications in Feanor/Finwe/Miriel case to bring it in line with MR and Shibboleth?).

So! Excitingly, "adopt the AAm spacing of the dates" starts out really strong. Shibboleth tells us Miriel lived until Feanor was "full-grown"; the Statute tells us Finwe waited 12+12+3 years before remarrying; the latest life-cycles give (in Middle-earth) 3 years gestation, 72 years to full growth. So we will always need at least 72+12+12+3+3 = 102 SY between Feanor and Fingolfin's births.

The Final Timeline (rev 3), which maintains the AAm SY gaps between the Finwean births, says Feanor and Fingolfin are born 105 SY apart. Allowing 3 years for Finwe and Indis to actually conceive, that's spot on! Feanor grew up at a 3:1 speed, which presumably means a 144:1 speed once he hit 24.

Unfortunately that means Findis doesn't exist, unless she and Fingolfin were twins. Which... isn't impossible. Let's go with that.

Finarfin is born 383 SY after Fingolfin, making Fingolfin 26.14 at his begetting. That seems a long gap between children - but of course there's Irime to consider. If we assume an even split, Findis/Fingolfin and Irime would all be full-grown plus about 115 SY at the next birth; in other words, Finwe and Indis started planning the next child when the previous was an adult. (That's slighly longer than Finwe waited after Feanor, which probably only annoyed Feanor more: "you only gave me 30 SY! Why do they get a hundred?!")

There are 680 years between Fingolfin and Fingon's births; that makes Fingolfin 28.14 when he has his first child. That's a bit old, but not unreasonable, and he may have married late. Turgon is born when Fingon is 26.14; that's the first date which seems intractably late, but since the most usual pattern was to have only one child, Turgon may have been a late decision.

Finarfin was also 28.14 at Finrod's birth, and we know he married at 26.83. We're seeing a pattern here of "wait a VY after the last thing happened", whether it's your wedding or your previous child reaching adulthood; yet another reason for Feanor to be annoyed by his father's haste!

(EDIT: It's tempting to say that the generation of Fingon, Turgon, and Finrod are typically born when their older sibling is 26. Trouble is, despite only being 1 extra life-year, it means doubling the space between children. That would push all of Aegnor, Galadriel, and Argon past the Silmarils, and mean Galadriel was actually born 200 years after the Exile. Obviously we're not doing that!)

So... as far as it goes, the AAm timeline actually works. We would expect the full birth pattern of the House of Finwe (per the Shibboleth lists) to look like this:

• 3321 - birth of Feanor
• 3420 - marriage of Finwe and Indis
• 3426 - birth of Findis & Fingolfin
• 3617 - birth of Irime
• 3809 - birth of Finarfin
• 4001 - birth of Maedhros
• 4096 - birth of Fingon
• 4192 - birth of Maglor
• 4383 - birth of Celegorm
• 4480 - birth of Turgon & Finrod
• 4574 - birth of Caranthir
• 4671 - birth of Angrod & Aredhel
• 4765 - birth of Curufin
• 4862 - birth of Aegnor & Argon
• 4956 - birth of Amrod & Amras
• 5041 - creation of the Silmarils
• 5053 - birth of Galadriel

That actually looks really good! The only problem is the girls: Galadriel ends up after the Silmarils, but still about EDIT:26 at the Exile, and Aredhel comes in about 600 years earlier than she should per XXII. Ironically, putting her in her AAm birthdate would place her in 5074 - close enough that she could easily share a birth year with Galadriel, given the approximations in here. But then they'd both be younger than the Silmarils, and Argon would be younger still.

But... we can just leave them out. I'm convinced; the AAm ages can stay, we'll just assume some unattested Valinoran practices.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

Also, I see that you didn't include the birth years for Idril and Finduilas. Is there any reason why?

Because they weren't in the sources I was working with. Assuming the Gateway has Idril's birthdate right as 1479, she would be born when Turgon was 35, which is really really late.

EDIT2: So I Have My Books(TM) now. The source for Idril is NoME 1.X, and it's not a year: it's a calculation. Tolkien wanted her to be 22 in 495. Under the XVIII aging rules I'm following, she's actually still growing at that point, making her less than 72!

We can instead use the "mortal equivalent" aging from XVIII, in which 24 life-years is equivalent to 18 mortal years. If Idril is equivalent to mortal 22, that makes her actual effective age 29. She aged about 3.43 life years in Beleriand, making her about 25.5 when she reached it. If the exile took 1 life-years, she was 24.5 when the Trees died. She had lived at that time 81 + 72 = 153 years, meaning she was born 5320: a century before Feanor broke the peace.

To my continued amazement, that's about the same time as the 1479 date in AAm. I love how these keep lining up. She's older than Tolkien had her on entering Beleriand (he wanted 17, which is about a year younger than her even in mortal-equivalent dating), and still doesn't fit with "young Galadriel", but she works.

Finduilas, per Shibboleth (Parentage of Gil-Galad), was born to Arothir/Orodreth and a Sindarin lady. Per X, she was either 20 or 21 in FA 472; if we take those as "mortal equivalent", she would have been either 26.7 or 28. At 26.7, she would have been born in FA 16, making her not the "youngest Exile" but the "oldest Beleriandic Noldo".

If 20/21 is her actual age, then she was born in FA 409/412; shortly after Finrod found Beor. But she would have been far too young to be betrothed, so I prefer FA 16. (Tolkien had FA 290 OR YT 1483, both based on calculations of her age.)

hS

[Arvegil145]

BTW, how exactly do you calculate these dates?

And, say, I took the FA dates in AAm, beginning in 1050 and ending in the death of the Trees in 1495.

And I took the FA dates in NoME, beginning in 850 and ending in the death of the Trees in 888.


Is there any way to get a conversion scale between the two frameworks?

[Arvegil145]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

So! Excitingly, "adopt the AAm spacing of the dates" starts out really strong. Shibboleth tells us Miriel lived until Feanor was "full-grown"; the Statute tells us Finwe waited 12+12+3 years before remarrying; the latest life-cycles give (in Middle-earth) 3 years gestation, 72 years to full growth. So we will always need at least 72+12+12+3+3 = 102 SY between Feanor and Fingolfin's births.

The Final Timeline (rev 3), which maintains the AAm SY gaps between the Finwean births, says Feanor and Fingolfin are born 105 SY apart. Allowing 3 years for Finwe and Indis to actually conceive, that's spot on! Feanor grew up at a 3:1 speed, which presumably means a 144:1 speed once he hit 24.

Unfortunately that means Findis doesn't exist, unless she and Fingolfin were twins. Which... isn't impossible. Let's go with that.

Finarfin is born 383 SY after Fingolfin, making Fingolfin 26.14 at his begetting. That seems a long gap between children - but of course there's Irime to consider. If we assume an even split, Findis/Fingolfin and Irime would all be full-grown plus about 115 SY at the next birth; in other words, Finwe and Indis started planning the next child when the previous was an adult. (That's slighly longer than Finwe waited after Feanor, which probably only annoyed Feanor more: "you only gave me 30 SY! Why do they get a hundred?!")

There are 680 years between Fingolfin and Fingon's births; that makes Fingolfin 28.14 when he has his first child. That's a bit old, but not unreasonable, and he may have married late. Turgon is born when Fingon is 26.14; that's the first date which seems intractably late, but since the most usual pattern was to have only one child, Turgon may have been a late decision.

Finarfin was also 28.14 at Finrod's birth, and we know he married at 26.83. We're seeing a pattern here of "wait a VY after the last thing happened", whether it's your wedding or your previous child reaching adulthood; yet another reason for Feanor to be annoyed by his father's haste!

(EDIT: It's tempting to say that the generation of Fingon, Turgon, and Finrod are typically born when their older sibling is 26. Trouble is, despite only being 1 extra life-year, it means doubling the space between children. That would push all of Aegnor, Galadriel, and Argon past the Silmarils, and mean Galadriel was actually born 200 years after the Exile. Obviously we're not doing that!)

So... as far as it goes, the AAm timeline actually works. We would expect the full birth pattern of the House of Finwe (per the Shibboleth lists) to look like this:

• 3321 - birth of Feanor
• 3420 - marriage of Finwe and Indis
• 3426 - birth of Findis & Fingolfin
• 3617 - birth of Irime
• 3809 - birth of Finarfin
• 4001 - birth of Maedhros
• 4096 - birth of Fingon
• 4192 - birth of Maglor
• 4383 - birth of Celegorm
• 4480 - birth of Turgon & Finrod
• 4574 - birth of Caranthir
• 4671 - birth of Angrod & Aredhel
• 4765 - birth of Curufin
• 4862 - birth of Aegnor & Argon
• 4956 - birth of Amrod & Amras
• 5041 - creation of the Silmarils
• 5053 - birth of Galadriel

First of all, before I make any other comment - I think you really should stress when a date is approximate or within a given range. And when dealing with such dates, I think maybe you ought to round them up/down to the nearest "pretty" number (ala 860, 865, 870, etc.; as well as the SY dates too).


With that out of the way:

I was thinking that, maybe, instead of keeping the relative differences between dates in AAm in regards to births, marriages, etc., we should keep their rough yet absolute difference according to the old AAm conception of VY:SY = 1:9.582 - what I mean is this (these are of course just examples):

1) Let's take Feanor's birth as our cornerstone: FA 3321 according to the scheme (YT 1169 in the AAm)

2) Now take the birth of Fingolfin from AAm - YT 1190 (AAm) - which is 21 VY after Feanor's, so c. 201 solar years difference

3) Then take Finarfin's birth for example - YT 1230 (AAm) - which is 40 VY after Fingolfin's, so c. 383 solar years difference from that of Fingolfin's

...etc.


Now, if we take Feanor's birth as FA 3321, that means:

- the lower bound for marriage of Finwe and Indis is in c. 3423 (though - are you sure about the 12 + 12 + 3 years of waiting for Finwe?)
- Findis is born between c. 3423 and 3522
- Fingolfin is born in c. FA 3522
- Irime is born between c. 3522 and c. 3905
- Finarfin is born in c. FA 3905
- Fingon (YT 1260) is born in c. FA 4193
- marriage of Finarfin and Earwen is in c. FA 4384
- Turgon and Finrod (YT 1300) are born in c. FA 4576
- Aredhel and Galadriel (YT 1362) are born in c. FA 5170
- Argon is born sometime after c. FA 5170 (say, c. 5300 or something)



I'm not overly concerned about the large gaps between births of parents and that of children since this is Aman and everyone is indulging in pursuits other than child making all the time.


Anyway, I'm not that enthusiastic about my own proposal though since YT 1495 would end up as FA 6444! Well after the First Age ended according to the scheme.

EDIT: I forgot, why no Luthien? Or any events from YT Beleriand?





P.S. I'm not sure about the 'Men corrupted by Sauron' part however, since this is never mentioned again outside of NoME and seems to contradict the stuff in PoME.

Also, about that quote from the Athrabeth ("at the beginning of the history of our people, before any had yet died") - if we take it at face value, an important thing to note is that Men's original lifespan was c. 200-300, the same as that of the Numenoreans, at least according to a late (c. 1968) text:

The life of the Númenóreans before their fall (the 2nd fall of Man?) was thus not so much a special gift as a restoration of what should have been the common inheritance of Men, [to live] for 200–300 years.

- NoME, 'Notes on Ore', p. 223

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

BTW, how exactly do you calculate these dates?

Depends on the dates. I think I know what you're asking, see below in comments on your birthdate-list.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

And, say, I took the FA dates in AAm, beginning in 1050 and ending in the death of the Trees in 1495.

And I took the FA dates in NoME, beginning in 850 and ending in the death of the Trees in 888.

Is there any way to get a conversion scale between the two frameworks?

To directly convert between the two, just use the ratio (1495-1050)888-850), or 445:38. That is, 1 AAm VY = 38/445 NoME VY, or 1 NoME VY = 445/38 (=11.71) AAm VY.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

First of all, before I make any other comment - I think you really should stress when a date is approximate or within a given range. And when dealing with such dates, I think maybe you ought to round them up/down to the nearest "pretty" number (ala 860, 865, 870, etc.; as well as the SY dates too).

All dates in the Final Timeline rev 3 are either precise or marked "Ca." I understand the urge to make the dates "prettier", but the purpose of the Final Timeline is to say what Tolkien did, and he hadn't done that. Absolutely he would have - but he didn't.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

I was thinking that, maybe, instead of keeping the relative differences between dates in AAm in regards to births, marriages, etc., we should keep their rough yet absolute difference according to the old AAm conception of VY:SY = 1:9.582 - what I mean is this (these are of course just examples):

This is what I just did. The key difference is that I took from NoME, and from the notes to AAm, the late change of Feanor's birth year to 1179. That pulls everything else earlier, as I showed in my list. (By the way, I added Idril and Finduilas to the end of the post, not sure if you saw that; I ended up posting it after you'd replied.)

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

are you sure about the 12 + 12 + 3 years of waiting for Finwe?

This is taken directly from the final version of the Statute of Finwe and Miriel. Finwe spent 12 years appealing to Miriel before going to Manwe; Mandos required 12 years before he would approve the dissolution; and Finwe married Indis 3 years later (a year after meeting her). Unless there's a later source, I'm confident.


I'm not overly concerned about the large gaps between births of parents and that of children since this is Aman and everyone is indulging in pursuits other than child making all the time.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

Anyway, I'm not that enthusiastic about my own proposal though since YT 1495 would end up as FA 6444! Well after the First Age ended according to the scheme.

The problem here is that by NoME, Tolkien had shortened the years in Aman. Any application of AAm dates to NoME timelines has to account for that; I did so on the Timeline by cutting out a chunk of time between the Finwean births and the making of the Silmarils.

Given the uncertainty around the births, I think I will avoid adding them to the Timeline proper at all; I will stick an appendix on the end with our "best calculation", which looks to be this one.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

EDIT: I forgot, why no Luthien? Or any events from YT Beleriand?

They're in the Grey Annals, right? The difficulty is how to anchor them - is Luthien's birth "this long after the Teleri sail" or "this long before Morgoth returns"? With Feanor I have a specific date mentioned in NoME to pin things on; I don't think that exists for Luthien, or the Beleriand stuff.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

P.S. I'm not sure about the 'Men corrupted by Sauron' part however, since this is never mentioned again outside of NoME and seems to contradict the stuff in PoME.

I stand by my position that the contradiction is an illusion. The second visit of the "Lord of the Dark" to Men in the Athrabeth is so Sauron, playing exactly the game he did six thousand years later in Numenor.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

Also, about that quote from the Athrabeth ("at the beginning of the history of our people, before any had yet died") - if we take it at face value, an important thing to note is that Men's original lifespan was c. 200-300, the same as that of the Numenoreans, at least according to a late (c. 1968) text:

Good catch. That's why it's an approximate date, but I think I'll go ahead and push it down to the end of the VY anyway.

hS

[Arvegil145]

EDIT:

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

Depends on the dates. I think I know what you're asking, see below in comments on your birthdate-list.



To directly convert between the two, just use the ratio (1495-1050)888-850), or 445:38. That is, 1 AAm VY = 38/445 NoME VY, or 1 NoME VY = 445/38 (=11.71) AAm VY.

No, I meant - take for example the Awaking of Men (VY 1075 I assume): how did you arrive at 862/50 (FA 1778) figure? As in, can you walk me through the process?

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

All dates in the Final Timeline rev 3 are either precise or marked "Ca." I understand the urge to make the dates "prettier", but the purpose of the Final Timeline is to say what Tolkien did, and he hadn't done that. Absolutely he would have - but he didn't.

I meant 'ca.' in regards to separation of the Folk of Hador and Beor and the like.

EDIT: Maybe you should expand the explanation in your scheme as to why Men awoke in 862/50 (based on the VY 1075 date), and why the 'awakening' and 'arising' of Men are not one and the same.

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

This is what I just did. The key difference is that I took from NoME, and from the notes to AAm, the late change of Feanor's birth year to 1179. That pulls everything else earlier, as I showed in my list. (By the way, I added Idril and Finduilas to the end of the post, not sure if you saw that; I ended up posting it after you'd replied.)

In regards to Feanor's birth year, did you mean this:

The entry in AAm for the Valian Year 1179 (p. 92) gave the birth of Feanor in Tirion and his mother's name Byrde Miriel. Afterwards my father changed this date to 1169...

- MR, p. 205

Because CT says that Tolkien changed 1179 to 1169, not the other way around.

Unless of course there's something else that I'm missing.


EDIT: Yeah, sorry, I missed your edit - and I've also had a lot on my plate recently, so I didn't read your post carefully in the first place.

I'm pretty amazed that our timeline is matching up this well in regards to Idril.

And, at the risk of reopening this can of worms, I still think that our best course is to discard the 'very young Galadriel' idea - I think that the Shibboleth trumps the other, earlier texts - and yes, you can speculate if Tolkien would've moved the making of the Silmarils much later, but that's all there is to it. So, I don't think it would be too much of a compromise to put her year of birth around c. 5000 - that's not that off from your calculation, and yet still makes her older than the Silmarils. (I would also move Aredhel's birth to the same year as Galadriel's, as in AAm - that would just require moving Argon after c. FA 5000.)

I wonder what would be Celebrimbor and Orodreth's years of birth? I would imagine something close to that of Idril's. It's weird though how few births there are in the 3rd generation after Finwe (i.e. his great-grandkids), and how long the gulf between parents' and children's birth years is.

Also, BTW, Curufin should be the 4th son, not Caranthir - all the later texts have them in this order.

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

They're in the Grey Annals, right? The difficulty is how to anchor them - is Luthien's birth "this long after the Teleri sail" or "this long before Morgoth returns"? With Feanor I have a specific date mentioned in NoME to pin things on; I don't think that exists for Luthien, or the Beleriand stuff.

There's a whole chunk of YT entries in the Grey Annals, including the birth year of Luthien (YT 1200, WotJ p. 9 - but also see MR, p. 106, note to §81), building of Menegroth (YT 1300, WotJ pp. 10-11), the coming of Denethor (YT 1350, WotJ pp. 13-14), etc.

EDIT: Or are you referring to the '27 years after the arrival of the Noldor' figure in the NoME as the anchor? Because the Grey Annals also has 'YT 1132' (WotJ, p. 7) as the year in which the Vanyar and Noldor left, which follows perfectly the 'YT 1133' figure of their arrival in Aman in AAm that Tolkien was referencing in the NoME.

[Galin]

Okay my head is spinning.

And marveling at all the cross-referencing work being done here

Advice alert: I'm someone who (at least so far) pays little heed to the 1959-ish texts, and even the 1965 text. I've adopted the late Elvish Life-cycles idea, and so, given its wonderful brevity/vagueness regarding who was born when, should I go back to The Annals of Aman and just plug in 144?

I realize that's arguably problematic when we get to the Rebellion, but if I recall correctly, don't we see Tolkien doing that with respect to crossing the Grinding Ice or sailing back to Middle-Earth -- in other words, don't we see Tolkien seemingly not minding the notable amount of actual time that passed here, given (simply) the larger ratio.

Or am I forgetting something obvious? Or something else.

[Arvegil145]

Originally Posted by Galin

Advice alert: I'm someone who (at least so far) pays little heed to the 1959-ish texts, and even the 1965 text. I've adopted the late Elvish Life-cycles idea, and so, given its wonderful brevity/vagueness regarding who was born when, should I go back to The Annals of Aman and just plug in 144?

I realize that's arguably problematic when we get to the Rebellion, but if I recall correctly, don't we see Tolkien doing that with respect to crossing the Grinding Ice or sailing back to Middle-Earth -- in other words, don't we see Tolkien seemingly not minding the notable amount of actual time that passed here, given (simply) the larger ratio.

Or am I forgetting something obvious? Or something else.

Funny thing is, that's exactly what Tolkien did at first - that is, just use the existing AAm dates for the First Age but plug in the 144 figure instead of the 9.582: however, that gave an absurdly long First Age (c. 65,000 years give or take). In fact, even longer than that, since at one point he moved the Awakening of the Elves to YT 1000 (so now it was c. 72,000 years instead).

So instead, he decided to more or less keep the length of the First Age as it was before (c. 4-6,000 years, depending on text), and instead seems to have settled on there simply being less Valian years on the whole. (I'm not sure I like the use of the term 'settled' here - it would be more accurate to say that this was the direction he was going in.)

For example, the timespan between the Awaking of the Elves and the death of the Two Trees in AAm lasts from YT 1050 to YT 1495.

However, in one of his later conceptions, the timespan is from VY 850 (Awakening of the Elves) to VY 888 (death of the Trees) - this is what Huinesoron is using in his reconstruction.



And as to the flight of the Noldor - your guess is as good as mine...Evidently, 720 (solar) years was too much, but c. 50 (solar) years was too little??? But 144 is 'just right'?

As I mentioned in one of my previous comments, he also made Feanor take 72 (solar) years to reach Beleriand...by sea...The professor is an enduring mystery.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Galin

given its wonderful brevity/vagueness regarding who was born when, should I go back to The Annals of Aman and just plug in 144?

As Arvegil says, this was exactly what Tolkien wanted desperately to do. There's whole chapters of NoME where he's struggling to justify to himself the extreme lengths between events that 1 VY = 144 SY would bring. This is where we get "gestation = 900 months = !75!solar!years" from - he just really wanted it to work!

In the end, and the basis for this "Final Timeline", he scrapped the whole system; the latest system of dates Tolkien actually provides are based on VY 850 for the Awakening, and VY 888 for the death of the Trees. Converting between them is largely what I'm overwhelming this thread with.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

No, I meant - take for example the Awaking of Men (VY 1075 I assume): how did you arrive at 862/50 (FA 1778) figure? As in, can you walk me through the process?

Sure! Using the last three paragraphs VI.A, the Quendi awoke in VY 1000, Men awoke in VY 1075, and Orome found the Quendi in VY 1085. At the time, 1 VY = 144 SY, meaning the gap between the two awakenings is 10800 SY.

That's far too long for the later timeline where the Quendi awake in VY 850 - it would put the Awakening of Men somewhere in the early Third Age. So I have instead used the ratio between the three dates.

In VI.A, there are 85 VY between the Quendi awakening and being found. In XIII.1, there are 14. That means 1 XIII.1 VY = (14/85) = 0.165 VI.A VY. We can multiply the 75 VY between the two Awakenings by that number, to get a XIII.1 gap of 12.353 VY; and 850 + 12 + (0.353 x 144) = 862/50, the date on the Final Timeline. (You can get the same result by converting everything into SY, which has the advantage of not needing to multiply fractions of 144.)

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

EDIT: Maybe you should expand the explanation in your scheme as to why Men awoke in 862/50 (based on the VY 1075 date), and why the 'awakening' and 'arising' of Men are not one and the same.

I agree I should probably clean up some of the explanations; I'll try to do that once we stop fixing them!

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

Because CT says that Tolkien changed 1179 to 1169, not the other way around.

Urgh, that is a complicated note, but I think you've read it right. There's also additional dates in this and note 4: 1170 for Miriel's death, 1172 for the Statute, and 1185 for Finwe's wedding to Indis.

This all makes the sequence of composition very important. The ball-point pen amendments to AAm are earlier than NoME VII, which quotes the 1169; but 1170/1172/1185 doesn't line up with the latest Finwe & Miriel (which has the 12/12/3 gaps I mentioned; see MR pp 258-261). I think from MR p205 that the AAm changes are contemporary with Finwe & Miriel 1, so 12/12/3 is the dating I will be using.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

And, at the risk of reopening this can of worms, I still think that our best course is to discard the 'very young Galadriel' idea

Galadriel! Galadriel! Clear as mud is all your tale!

Okay: to be 20 at the Exile, Galadriel would be born 13 SY before the AAm date for Feanor breaking the peace. Is 13 years long enough for her to grow tresses, and be verbal enough to refuse Feanor, and old enough for her refusal to offend him, and for him to make the Silmarils, and for Melkor to stir up enough trouble to cause Feanor to make and draw a sword?

It seems unlikely. Instead, let's do the same "mortal equivalent" trick as with Idril, making Galadriel 26.7 life-years at the Exile; that works out to 456 SY, putting her birth in 5018. AAm has the Silmarils only taking 10 years to forge, so Galadriel would have been 23 SY = 7.7 life-years = 5.7 mortal-years when Feanor started the work. As Shibboleth says: "from her earliest years she had a marvellous gift of insight into the minds of others".

... I need to rework the calculations, don't I? There's several points which give me freedom to move things: like VII fixing Feanor's begetting rather than his birth, which would let me move the whole AAm timeline back a bit; or the FM4 date of Finwe's second marriage being earlier than in the AAm notes, which again could let me close the Feanor:Fingolfin gap. I'll take a look at it and see what works best.

I'll need to look at the Grey Annals separately; I haven't even given them thought until now.

hS

[Huinesoron]

Okay! Birth and marriages of the House of Finwe in Aman. Dates in bold have direct textual support; dates in italics are extrapolations from known dates and deduced 'standard intervals':



The 1169/1179 issue for Feanor has gone away entirely in this timeline. NoME VII cites both his birth and begetting dates, and then says "this is 270 SY after Finwe landed in Aman"; the 270 SY is his begetting, so I have used that date + 3sy as the start point for the timeline.

I've also not used the given date for Fingolfin's birth; rather, because FM4 gives a later account of the date of Finwe and Indis' marriage, I have taken the relative date of 5 VY (=48 SY) after the marriage; for the rest of the timeline, I have treated that date as equivalent to AAm 1190 and calculated from there.

This is the only way of "using the Annals of Aman dating" which gives a reasonable pre-Silmaril date for Galadriel and Aredhel (or Ireth; I think the Shibboleth gives the last name for her?). In fact, it's so reasonable that I was happy to switch it out for the date I calculated in my last post - they're only 12 SY apart!

With the addition of Findis, Fingolfin is born very quickly after his older sibling, which feels like it lends weight to Feanor's feeling that his father was looking to replace him. Perhaps that's why Fingolfin's own children are so widely spaced - he didn't want them feeling the same way.

There's a lot of assumptions in this timeline. I (currently) think it's the best option, but it's also far less firm than the rest of the Final Timeline. My current plan is to remove all Valinorean birth dates entirely to an appendix, so that they're clearly a "best guess" rather than a solid theory.

hS

[Arvegil145]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

Okay! Birth and marriages of the House of Finwe in Aman. Dates in bold have direct textual support; dates in italics are extrapolations from known dates and deduced 'standard intervals':



The 1169/1179 issue for Feanor has gone away entirely in this timeline. NoME VII cites both his birth and begetting dates, and then says "this is 270 SY after Finwe landed in Aman"; the 270 SY is his begetting, so I have used that date + 3sy as the start point for the timeline.

I've also not used the given date for Fingolfin's birth; rather, because FM4 gives a later account of the date of Finwe and Indis' marriage, I have taken the relative date of 5 VY (=48 SY) after the marriage; for the rest of the timeline, I have treated that date as equivalent to AAm 1190 and calculated from there.

This is the only way of "using the Annals of Aman dating" which gives a reasonable pre-Silmaril date for Galadriel and Aredhel (or Ireth; I think the Shibboleth gives the last name for her?). In fact, it's so reasonable that I was happy to switch it out for the date I calculated in my last post - they're only 12 SY apart!

With the addition of Findis, Fingolfin is born very quickly after his older sibling, which feels like it lends weight to Feanor's feeling that his father was looking to replace him. Perhaps that's why Fingolfin's own children are so widely spaced - he didn't want them feeling the same way.

There's a lot of assumptions in this timeline. I (currently) think it's the best option, but it's also far less firm than the rest of the Final Timeline. My current plan is to remove all Valinorean birth dates entirely to an appendix, so that they're clearly a "best guess" rather than a solid theory.

hS

You've outdone yourself - somehow you made all this mess make sense, and without too much speculation!

I don't think there's anything better that you could've done with what we have.

Appendix is alright, but I think a better solution might be to color-code the dates, like in Space_Lemmon's reddit timeline.


Just a few minor nitpicks: it should be Amros and Amrod/Amarthan, since Tolkien switched the birth order of the twins; also, Aredhel is the latest name, since it appears in the final 'Maeglin' text from the '70s; and Orodreth seems to have replaced Arothir - judging by this c. 1972/3 quote by Tolkien:

It may anyway be observed that though Quenya names were not used, those used were probably all the names of renowned heroes in the royal lines of old as recorded in legend. Some may come from tales now lost; but Húrin, Túrin, Hador, Barahir, Dior, Denethor, Orodreth, Ecthelion, Egalmoth, Beren are from legends recorded.

Implying that Orodreth was yet again the character's name. While we're on the subject of Orodreth - perhaps it's best to leave Finduilas' birth year as Tolkien wrote it (FA 272), regardless of the (outdated) calculations he used, especially since if we used FA 16, Orodreth would only be c. 190 years old when Finduilas is born - and another thing to note is that, since the Noldor in Beleriand generally tended not to have children, I think the refuges such as Nargothrond, Gondolin and Doriath might have been an exception, since they were hidden and life there went almost as usual as in Aman (until their destruction, of course).

So I think it would be best to leave Finduilas' birth year after the founding of Nargothrond - not that it matters, since you're not including the last 6 centuries, but anyway.



Also, have you checked the Grey Annals yet? Because I forgot to mention that the chapter 1.XXII of the NoME also has YT 1300 and 1350 as the dates for the building of Menegroth and the coming of Denethor, respectively. And more.

And finally, what do you think about this quote from 1.XVIII, concerning Celeborn:

According to Elvish calculations, the period between the arrival of the Eldar in Aman and the end of the First Age in the Overthrow of Morgoth, was 3,100 löar. If that is correct,[fn5]* then Celeborn was of unknown age when he entered Beleriand, but certainly 24 and full-grown, added in 3,100 löar nearly 21 life-years and was 45[fn6]* at the end of the First Age. He married Galadriel shortly after when she was 28 (21 [mortal equivalent]). In TA 3021, when bereft of Galadriel he was 68 + 21 = 89 (66+ [mortal equivalent]) and advanced in “maturity".

However, the above passage has two footnotes attached to it:

Footnote 5: It probably was not; it was very likely longer. In that case Celeborn must have been a descendant (not son) of Elmo and born in Beleriand.

Footnote 6: At least (thus = 33–34 [life-years]).

The second footnote, if I'm interpreting it right, means that Tolkien meant to replace Celeborn's age from 45 to 33/34 at Bel. 600?