[lindil]

Aiwendil posted:

I think it's better to drop Eressea. Any justification that we might concoct for keeping it would be just that: a concoction. The fact is that in the text, Eressea appears because Pengolodh is speaking to Aelfwine there. Eliminate that conversation (as we must) and you eliminate Eressea.

Well, but does not the burden of proof lay for dropping it, i.e. 'keep 'X' until proven problematic/contradictory'?

My concoctions are to not create a scenario that would, within the text be used as an explanation, but rather to illustrate that even if Aelfwine is extracted, Erresea is still viable, and explainable by at least 2 hypothetical, but plausible scenarios. Meaning, that the original text still stands as pausible [inc. Eressea] minus Aelfwine. Eressea does not need Aelfwine to still be a viable place for Pengolodh to have uttered his words and thus in some distant time between the 2nd age arising of Sauron/raising of Eregion [when Pengolodh left] and the time Bilbo was compiling TftE.

So the resulting vagueness of the Aelfwineless text works thus to our advantage.

But to whom is he [Pengolodh-lindil added] speaking? It seems to me that the only way to keep Pengolodh is to assume that he wrote the material. The only reason he is "speaking" in the original text is that he is instructing Aelfwine, and Aelfwine is recording it. Clearly someone must have recorded it.

We need not concern ourselves with whom Pengolodh is speaking. There are thousands of otential audients in Eressea for P. to speak to any one of whom could have written it down. Again the vaugeness of the remaing text works to our advantage in deleting only that which in and of itself [Aelfwine] is contradictory.

Whether he was in Eressea at the time is a separate issue. Here my concern is this: if Pengolodh did not write this until after the War of Wrath and his return to Tol Eressea, how did it come to the Numenoreans? I suppose it could have been brought in the early days of the 2nd age, when contact was still maintained with the Elves. But to me it seems more likely that it was brought by the Edain, along with the rest of their Silmarillion-related lore. I think that eliminating Eressea is the superior choice, because it leaves this ambiguous.

I respectfully disagree - We know from 'Aldarion and Erendis' that Elves came with gifts from Eressea and that this was not a rare thing in the time before the darkening of Numenor. Indeed the last postulate re: Glorfindel [if I recall correctly] is that he came back to M-E via Numenor. Anyway we are not creating a special circumstance to have things coming from Eressea to Numenor. Indeed any Numenorean Silmarillion or Ainulindale would almost certainly have had Elvish/Eressean input.

Aiwendil again: "I suppose no one is interested in the possibility of doing as CRT did and moving the Pengolodh material to "Of the Beginning of Days"? Such a move would have the virtue, at least, of removing the need to justify Pengolodh's additions."

L: If it keeps the 'Yavanna raising her hands' quote in an easier fashion. That is fine with me. CJRT also moved the inro and 'extro' material around as seemed to best work. One of our goals is to keep as much as lore as the principles permit, so it seems your proposed change is theoritically plausible.

A:'Speculation regarding the nature of the myth and so forth is all very interesting, but I think it's unnecessary if the ambiguity holds. What do other people think about this?'

L: agreed.



as an aside:


I'm forced to disagree with this. You're correct that we're not writing The Silmarillion. But neither, I think, are we writing Bilbo's "Translations from the Elvish". That is, our finished text is not meant to literally be the text of Bilbo's books. I was always under the impression, at any rate, that Bilbo's volumes were The Silmarillion, transmitted through Numenor to Rivendell.

[ February 23, 2003: Message edited by: lindil ]