[William Cloud Hicklin]

AAAARRRGGGGHHHHHHH!!!

I'm sorry, but my head is becoming extremely sore from repeated collisions with a brick wall.

Let's try this: Imagine a Venn diagram with two overlapping circles, like the MasterCard logo. Label one 'Lord of the Rings' and the other 'Silmarillion.'

Now, New Line gets everything inside the LR circle, including the overlapping portion. New Line gets nothing outside it, including the remaining portion of the Silmarillion circle. Clear? I hope so.

However, let's be clear about what lies inside that overlapping area. One can't claim that because Aragorn tells a brief version of the Lay of Leithian below Weathertop, that thereby every element of the subset 'Beren and Luthien' is thereby moved into the overlapping area. Only the specific elements and incidents Aragorn relates fall into that zone. No Huan the Hound, no Nargothrond or Finrod, no Hunting of the Wolf, no overthrow of Taur-in-Gaurhoth: all those elemenmts remain in the non-overlapped part of the Silmarillion circle, and off-limits.