Tolkien's final First Age timeline

[Huinesoron]

Okay, timeline is stable again with the revised Finweans.

On aging: the only pre-Valinor reference to the 72 years is Celeborn, who is already a dubious date on so many levels; not least that we've had to discard the 3100 years already, so he should be born in Beleriand (or Aman) now regardless.

Various texts mention the idea that the aging rate of the elves changed over their history. For example XVI says "All the elaborate calculations [about aging] are both cumbrous, and in early narrative (Awaking and Finding, March, etc) quite unworkable." Tolkien seems to have used and rejected this idea at various times, but since we need to reconcile XIII.1 and XVIII, it is the best tool around. The Eldar simply grew up slower after they reached Aman.

(I think the only direct use of 72 years that affects the timeline is Miriel's death; everything else is around "mortal-equivalent" ages or just comparatives within the AAm.)

So yeah, I'm happy with it as it is.

Beleriand/the Grey Annals remains a mess.



Blue highlighting is events pushed after Melkor's unchaining; orange is events pushed back before Elwe's awakening.

Working from left to right:

• Event - what it says on the tin
• GA - dates in the GA
• GA Full - what the dates would be if we adopted the full length of GA/AAm. We can't do this (because "the Trees died in 888" is a later source); it's here for reference.
• LT - Late Timeline dates, with the last few dates adjusted to use 888/144 rather than 888/1 for the death of the Trees. Tolkien's calculation actually used 889/1, so this would be legitimate. The argument against it was "3100 years", but we're already at 3265 and counting.
• Elwe - GA events anchored on Elwe's awakening.
• Unchaining / Trees slain / First Battle - GA events anchored on these three events. All very similar.
• Luthien (1 Age) - GA events anchored on "Luthien was born 1/3 of the way through the Captivity".
• Trees / Unchaining / First Battle - the result of scaling the GA down to match the LT time between Elwe's awakening and the relevant event.
• Nearest AAm (and reference columns) - each event is anchored on SY from the nearest AAm event to it

In GA, Denethor arrives 479 SY before the unchaining of Melkor; none of these options even come close, even the ones that push Luthien's birth back to the March.

I think the best single timeline is actually the Luthien one: it's non-compressed (unlike the Relative ones), and is the only one that gets at least the Orcs into Beleriand before Melkor is unchained. I don't see any way we can hybridise the Elwe timeline with any of the late-anchored ones: whatever you do, events are going to swap positions. Any of the compressed timelines would of course work, but I've avoided compressing related events in Aman; taking any of these would mean Menegroth only takes 300 SY to build rather than 500, for example, and I feel like Tolkien would have kept the 500.

But I'm open to being convinced. What looks least-wrong?

hS