[Aiwendil]

Bot-20: Sometimes it would be better to read more before writing. It is ture that this passage came from much earlier in the text, but none the less it is from a description of the War that destroyed the Lamps and Almaren. The structure in the Ainulindalë is strange enough as already observed earlier. This seems to be a results of Tolkiens frame story. First we have Pengolodh quote the work of Rumil and telling in very short words the first strife (end of §23 and §24) with Melkors flight (end of §24), the Valar taking shape (§25) and Melkors return and taking shape (mid to end of §26) and the Battle after Melkors return which is here call ‘the first battle of the Valar and Melkor for the dominion of Arda’ (§27). Then follows the interlude with Pengolodh speaking to Ælfwine and vise versa (§28 to §29) but then with Pengolodh speak now free and not quoting from Rumils work the story returns to the first strife that was ended by the flight of Melkor before Tulkas (beginning of §31) continues through the making of the Lamps and Almaren (rest of §31). §32 retells then again Melkors return and the following Battle with the destruction of the Lamps and Almaren.

Ah, very well noticed! The account given by Rumil is a bit murky, since it doesn’t mention the Lamps or Almaren by name, but I think you are right that §27 refers to the time when the Lamps were destroyed. So your placement of Melkor taking physical form is correct.

MT: Then it seems to me, we have to discuss each element in turn. The more I read in the text the more find my self inclined to use elements of it. Like the dome of Varda. And I as well do not fully agree that Arda interpreted as one world amid many is bound to the round earth. I think we have some where a mixed text with both a flat earth and other world around. I will search for it.

It looks like the question of what we should and should not use from MT is likely to be a difficult and contentious one. I must say that I am very much disinclined to use the Dome of Varda, but we can discuss that in its proper place.

However, rereading the Ainulindalë and Christopher Tolkien’s discussion of it, I think I find some support for your position regarding Arda as one world among many, for the Ainulindalë D has:

And amid all the splendours of the World, its vast halls and spaces, and its wheeling fires, Ilúvatar chose a place for their habitation in the Deeps of Time and in the midst of the innumerable Stars. And this habitation might seem a little thing to those who consider only the majesty of the Ainur, and not their terrible sharpness - as who should take the whole field of Arda as the foundations of a pillar and so raise it until the cone of its summit was more bitter than a needle - or who consider only the immeasurable vastness of the World, which still the Ainur are shaping, and not the minute precision to which they shape all things therein.

So the cosmology of Ainulindalë C and D (for they are here almost identical) does already have a vast universe and “innumerable Stars”. Given this, I am more amenable to keeping the first passage from MT II.

How so ever, since we seem to agree that the Valar gathered light from the Lamps, as they do that in all version in which the Lamps are included, they have to store it some where. Are we then including the vats earlier? Does not sound right to me, so it might work.

That’s a fair point, and I’m not really sure what the best approach is here. I do tend to view the vats as replacing the cauldrons, so that the light of the Lamps would indeed be stored in the vats. But I will think about this more.

Who of us is now to produce the combined draft? But probably we both should wait until we cleared the open questions.

Yes, let’s try to clear up some more of the open questions and then one of us (I don’t mind doing it, but also don’t mind if you do it) can produce a new draft.

ArcusCalion, I’m curious to hear your thoughts on these points too before we go too far down the road of producing a new draft.