Tolkien's final First Age timeline

[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