[Galin]

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

Yes, that is also more or less how I think the things probably stand. The doubt I expressed in my previous post was not so much intended to suggest that this thesis is incorrect as it was intended to point out that, even if it is most likely correct, there remains some room for alternative interpretations. I think you are probably quite correct about how DA, the Akallabeth, and the cosmological issue are related; I just wouldn't go so far as to say you are certainly correct.

And I hope my posts are not reading that I am certain, especially since you are the first to engage with my suggestion, which is why I put it on the web (to test it and consider other paths).

The hypothetical scenario I had in mind was more along the following lines. Suppose that the Elvish tradition with respect to the shape of the Earth was that expressed in FN and Akallabeth - that is, an originally flat world made round at the time of the Cataclysm. But at some point, a Mannish tradition arises to the effect that the world is and always has been flat. This is the view held by the author of DA. Now suppose that the author of DA is aware that the Elves (and the Dunedain) have a different tradition from his own concerning the shape of the world - but that he misconstrues what that tradition is. Knowing that the Elves (or Dunedain) of his day claim that, contrary to his own belief, the world is round, he naturally assumes that they hold that the world was always round (just as he holds that it was always flat), and therefore in DA he ascribes to the Elves of Second Age the view that he believes they would have had.

This scenario was, in fact, the one I envisioned when I first read DA years ago - and indeed, I think it's probably the natural thing to think if one has not yet read Morgoth's Ring and is used to thinking of the Akallabeth as the 'true' story. I now think it's probably wrong (that is to say, I think it's not likely that Tolkien had such an idea in mind), but I still think it's at least a plausible story.

Maybe I'm misreading you here, but I'm wondering about this part...

But at some point, a Mannish tradition arises to the effect that the world is and always has been flat. This is the view held by the author of DA.

... in other words, even without reading Morgoth's Ring, what part of the text of DA is arguably leading the reader to think that the author (of DA) thinks the World is flat?

Christopher Tolkien notes:

'In The Drowning of Anadune the Nimir (Eldar) had come to the Adunaim an expressly taught that the world was of its nature round ('as an apple it hangeth on the branches of heaven', section 23), but Zigur coming had gainsaid it ('The World was not a closed circle', section 31). In this work the author knows that the world is of its nature a globe; but very few of the Adunaim had believed this teaching until the voyages of the survivors of the Downfall taught them it was true.'

Doesn't the author of DA believe that the World is, and always was, round -- and so yet recounts the Mannish tradition (as a belief) that it was once flat but made round at the Downfall?