[Maédhros]

I'm sorry that I have not posted in the Project for a long time, but hopefully my contributions will be more frequent from now on.

Lets have a summary of the previous discussion of BL-EX-03:

Findegil:

BL-EX-03: Here I added the discription of Berens journey through the Ered Gorgorath. Tolkien did not used it the recomenced version and a point can be made that we should therfore leave it out. But I think it was scipt because it was retrospectiv and thus broke the naritive therefore I moved it this place.

Aiwendil:

BL-EX-03: This needs a bit of thought. As much as I like the passage, I am really quite hesitant to include it, since Tolkien left it out of the revised version. I can think of a possible motivation for this removal – it is said in QS (as found in the ’77) that Beren “spoke of it [the journey] to no one after, lest the horror lest the horror return into his mind; and none know how he found a way, and so came by paths that no Man or Elf else ever dared to tread to the borders of Doriath”. I need to think about this further, but for the moment I must say I’m inclined not to re-introduce the passage.

Findegil:

BL-Ex-03: I can understand your point, but there is at least one passage that comes to mind that does contradict your theory. And that passage comes from the most highest priority source we have: "The Lord of the Rings"; volume 2: "The Two Towers"; book IV; chapter IX: "Shelob's Lair":
Quote:
There agelonge she had dwelt, an evil thing in spider-form, even such as once of old had lived in the Land of the Elves in the West that is now under the Sea, such as Beren fought in the Mountains of Terror in Doriath, and so came to Lúthien upon the green sward amid the hemlocks in the moonlight long ago. How Shelob came there, flying from ruin, no tale tells, for out of the Dark Years few tales have come. ...

I must say that my memory of that passage was based on the German translation which makes the passage even more explicit by making it Shelob (or rather Kankra) herself who fought with Beren. But anyway here we have a passage that tells us that Beren fought against spiders on his way to Doriath. I would therefore argue that even if he never spoke about it the poet of the Lay took the elvish experience of the Ered Grogoroth and Dungorthed and the freedom of poesy and worked out a passage fitting to the occasion. If I imagine Frodo writing his account of his quest with no more information than what we have in the new version of the Lay and in QS as found in Sil77, how could he than say that Beren had fought with the spiders?

Aiwendil:

BL-EX-03: I agree that it must have been known that Beren fought with spiders in Nan Dungortheb. The real issue, I suppose, is only the ract that Tolkien did not include the passage in the revision. I must think on this a bit more, but for the moment, I'm still inclined not to use it.

I want to post now, the rules that we use in the Project:

1. The first priority is always given to the latest editions of works published during Tolkien's lifetime.

2. Secondary priority is given to the latest ideas found among Tolkien's unpublished texts and letters, except where they:
a. violate the published canon without specifically correcting an error or
b. are proposed changes that do not clearly indicate the exact details that must be changed and how they are to be changed.

3. If no sources that fall under number 2 can be used to form the actual narrative of a section, then any text or summary created by Christopher Tolkien may be used, provided it does not violate the canon established for that section by numbers 1 and 2 above.

4. No new names and no new expressions in Elvish or in any of J.R.R. Tolkien's special languages may be introduced; all names or expressions in J.R.R. Tolkien's special languages that are updated must be changed either in accordance with a universal change by Tolkien or with a logical reason and a sound etymology.

5. Information in sources of lower level priority are to be preferred over information in sources of higher level priority where the item of information in source of higher level priority can be reasonably demonstrated to be an error, whether a "slip of the pen" or from inadequate checking of previous writing.

6. The actual words used by J.R.R. Tolkien or the editor or summarizer of his work may only be changed, including change by deletion or addition, when:
a) they are minimally changed to agree with statements elsewhere in the canon recognized as of greater validity or to are replaced with words or phrases from later or alternate restatements of the same material for reasons of consistancy or are changed to agree with alternate phrasings used by Tolkien of the same or better validity
b) they are minimally changed to avoid great awkwardness of expression such as ungrammatical constructions or too great a difference in style from the passage or section/chapter into which they are now to be inserted.
c) they are minimally added to in order to expand a sentence fragments or an incomplete phrase into a construction that fits grammatically in the new environment
d) they are deleted to avoid redundancy in new passages compiled from more than one source
e) they are, in verse passages, minimal changes that do not add new information to the tale, to maintain the proper metre and rhyme or alliterative pattern of the original verse.

7. Personal aesthetics are not to be used in establishing the actual events in the narrative; all changes and decisions must be justified by the above principles, either:
a) with explicit indication; that is, a text of greater precedence contradicting a text of lesser precedence, or
b) with implicit indication that JRRT almost certainly would have changed/deleted it. But we must base this on some evidence or text from JRRT or CJRT; that is, a text of greater precedence suggesting beyond reasonable doubt a contradiction with a text of lesser precedence, or
c) in cases where two options are given precisely equal validity by the above guidelines, by a majority vote based on personal aesthetics and individual opinions.
A corallary is that we may not disregard any text or note, old idea or projected change, by JRRT unless it is invalidated by one of the above principles, explicitly or implicitly; that is, we must have a REASON for rejecting something.

It is obvious that the The Lay of Leithian recommenced is newer than the original Lay, but the fact is as Findegil pointed it out, Beren did in fact had an encounter with them as stated in the canonical LOTR.
I wonder at the following, if one persons reads our Translations from the Elvish, wouldn't he tell us why there is nothing about the encounter that Beren had in Nan Dungortheb with the spiders, that he had already read in LOTR.

I'm sorry for posting this Aiwendil, but you made the following point:

As for Sador/Sadog: I have long been convinced that we cannot implement the proposed alteration of the character to a Drug. Still, a presentation of all the valid material as a single narrative is one of the main goals of this project, so there is something to be said for placing this material in the First Age, irrespective of its original context in "Of Dwarves and Men".

It is my view that we should include the fragment from the original Lay, because it is a valid material (canonical in fact) into the narrative.