[Aiwendil]

This whole section feels wrong. More specifically, there is not the same sense of vigilance we find in UT as he enters through the gates. There is a boasting that seems out of place for any of the latter elves, and the reference to the gondolindrim guarding the encircling mntns themselves w/ no mention of the eagles except that some had better eyesight!

I disagree in general. I don't think the boasting is out of place at all; there's no reason the exiled Noldor, particularly in Gondolin, could not be a bit arrogant. We certainly have examples of other Elves being arrogant or even bordering on evil - Thingol or the House of Feanor, for example. The absence of any mention of the Gondolindrim guarding the mountains, as well as no mention of the eagles, does seem a bit wrong, though. Perhaps we could insert that from elsewhere.

If you could come up with a proposal for an emendation to this passage, that might make it easier to address the problems.

And then concluding the same section is the prelude to an already deleted concluding run on phrase [ the sentence continues!]

Upon a time the king caused his most cunning artificers to fashion a suit of armour for Tuor as a great gift

I imagine, though I don’t recall the beginning of FG-TG-O4 being deleted for the simple fact that the artificers of Gondolin had already made Tuor his gear and left it at Vinyamar.

You're right. Not deleting the preceding phrase was an error.

I propose that we keep the concluding section of FG-TG-O3 and modify it so that the axe that is the gift

Since it seems that in the original, the armour, helm, shield, and axe are implied all to have been made by the cunning artificers, this is, I think, okay.

2 points further, I would like to graft on from the Hobbit, a bit about the Gondolin metalsmith’s ‘glowing blue in the presence of Orcs’ metallurical effects. If JRRT went into such detail about the armor we are now replacing with an axe, the least we can do is detail it as much as our principles allow. Any objections?

As innocuous as this seems, I'd rather not do it, simply because we don't know for sure that Dramborleg shone in the presence of Orcs. It's possible that this only applied to daggers and swords. Also, I think it would be difficult to find an a good wording without creative writing.

Also I changed in my bit above speech of the Gondolindrim to ‘speech of the Sindar’ .
This may or may not fly, I would definetly like feedback, but the name of his axe is sindarin now, right? That being so is their Sindarin so special in Gondolin that it gets it’s own designation? If it is, then the original emendation should stand.

"The speech of the Sindar" is fine. "Dramborleg" is definitely Sindarin now, and Sindarin is indeed the commonly spoken tongue in Gondolin.

OK I just read it and it had newly plucked swans feathers no mention of wings. I also erad in WotJ that uncharacteristically JRRT had the BolT FoG in front of him [or recently read] when he did UT Tuor.

I think "wings" is fine as a semi-metaphorical way of referring to the feathers.

Another possibility that would obliterate much of my suggestion above is that we insert a rider stating that new armor was made for Tuor to replace the original, because ‘the skill of the smiths of the city had increased marvelously in the many years of their sojourning therein.’

I'd rather not do this. I think from the description of the armour in UT that the intent was simply to move Tuor's gaining of the armour from Gondolin to Vinyamar, not to introduce a second suit of armour.

So I'd rather keep UT as it is and simply delete the crafting of the armour from Gondolin.

‘many years’ should I think be replaced with as exact a number as we can give it. And after looking in WotJ the number is 7.

I'm mildly disinclined toward this, simply because it's stylistic editing. I don't see any particular need for the text to give an exact figure, so why change it?

We also have in the Grey Annal entry that after Turgon decides against heeding the words of Ulmo “Tuor was held in honour, for his kindreds sake”. If it has not been done so, this would be a nice addition to the earlier mention of Turgon ‘bidding’ him to stay.

I agree entirely.