Possible 4 part.
Quote:
Originally posted by Aiwendil
4. Remove the whole passage with the Orcs, replacing it with a sentence of summary from ToY or some other source. This has the virtue of avoiding the problem altogether. It also has the virtue that it does not involve a potential contradiction with ToY (with "spies" or with "Sauron"). It has the disadvantage that it involves the removal of a lot of text.
|
From
Tale of Years
Quote:
|
509 Maeglin captured by spies of Melkor (Sauron?).
|
§ 37 [On a time when Eärendil was yet young, and the days of Gondolin were full of joy and peace {(and yet Idril's heart misgave her, and foreboding crept upon her spirit like a cloud)}, Maeglin was lost. Now Maeglin loved mining and quarrying after metals above other craft; and he was master and leader of the Elves who worked in the mountains distant from the city, seeking for metals for their smithying of things both of peace and war. But often Maeglin went with few of his folk beyond the leaguer of the hills, though the king knew not that his bidding was defied; and so it came to pass, as fate willed, that Maeglin] {Now it so chanced that not long after Maeglin went to the hills for the getting of ore, and} straying in the mountains alone was taken [prisoner] by some of the {Orcs} [spies of Melkor] prowling there, and they would do him evil and terrible hurt, knowing him to be a man of the Gondolindrim. This was however unknown of Tuor's watchers. [Maeglin was no weakling or craven, but the torment wherewith he was threatened cowed his soul, and] {But} evil came into the heart of Maeglin, and he said to his captors: “Know then that I am Maeglin son of Eöl who had to wife Aredhel sister of Turgon king of the Gondolindrim.” {But they said: “What is that to us?” And Maeglin answered: “Much is it to you; for if you slay me, be it speedy or slow, ye will lose great tidings concerning the city of Gondolin that your master would rejoice to hear.” Then the Orcs stayed their hands, and said they would give him life if the matters he opened to them seemed to merit that; and Maeglin told them of all the fashion of that plain and city, of its walls and their height and thickness, and the valour of its gates; of the host of men at arms who now obeyed Turgon he spake, and the countless hoard of weapons gathered for their equipment, of the engines of war and the venomous fires.
§ 38 Then the Orcs were wroth, and having heard these matters were yet for slaying him there and then as one who impudently enlarged the power of his miserable folk to the mockery of the great might and puissance of Morgoth; but Maeglin catching at a straw said:}“Think ye not that ye would rather pleasure your master if ye bore to his feet so noble a captive, that he might hear my tidings of himself and judge of their verity?”
§ 39 Now this seemed good to the {Orcs} [them], and they returned from the mountains about Gondolin to the Hills of Iron and the dark halls of Morgoth; thither they haled Maeglin with them, and now was he in a sore dread....
In retrospect, this seems as an hybrid between option 3 and 4. I think it has the virtue of being in accordance with TOY and it gives us too the possibility that Sauron could be one of those spies.
It is basically the same as Aiwendil's proposal but with a little more detail.