Well far better from you than from me in any case. The only letter I ever sent to Christopher Tolkien was trampled by his magic wild boars...
... which is what the letter asked for however, desiring proof that they existed
Anyway, especially considering the phrase you raised, I thought that maybe you had 'cracked the case' on this point [meaning, come up with a good explanation outside of a seeming error] with something even H&S and Anderson maybe hadn't thought of yet. But now is the idea undermined somewhat [opening with besides seems to suggest this] by a description in PME?