Yes I think translations from the Elvish by B.B. can refer to the Elvish languages, not necessarily to Elvish accounts, although I do think even one more purely Elvish account can be employed to offset certain (mis)conceptions in an indirect sort of way. And as I say, for me part of the genius of
The Drowning of Anadune is that it's a Mannish account that yet serves to reveal the teaching of the Western Elves. Interestingly, in a late note:
Quote:
'All peace and all strongholds were at last destroyed by Morgoth; but if any wonder how any lore and treasure was preserved from ruin, it may be answered: of the treasure little was preserved, and the loss of things of beauty great and small is incalculable; but the lore of the Eldar did not depend on perishable records, being stored in the vast houses of their minds. When the Eldar made records in written form, even those that to us would seem voluminous, they did only summarise, as it were, for the use of others whose lore was maybe in other fields of knowledge*, matters which were kept for ever undimmed in intricate detail in their minds.'
*Author's footnote
'And as some insurance against their own death. For books were made only in strong places at a time when death in battle was likely to befall any of the Eldar, but it was not yet believed that Morgoth could ever capture or destroy their fortresses.'
JRRT Shibboleth of Feanor
|
Quote:
|
WCH wrote: (...) (According to this theory, even the Annals would not have been contemporaneous Elvish records a la medieval chronicles, but a Numenorean or Dunedainic reconstruction of the timeline of the Elder Days.)
|
Another instesting description belongs to a typescript of one version of the Annals. For those who have not read HME...
Quote:
'Here begin the 'Annals of Aman'. Rúmil made them in the Elder Days, and they were held in memory by the Exiles. Those parts which we learned and remembered were thus set down in Númenor before the Shadow fell upon it.'
Morgoth's Ring, note to Annals of Aman*
|
In my opinion
The Tale of Years was going to supersede the Annals (which themselves had grown fuller in parts and more like
Quenta Silmarillion) but in any case, although I'm not sure this is necessarily how Tolkien would have
finally worded it, Numenor is in the mix...
... as again in material later published by JRRT in
The Adventures of Tom Bombadil:
Quote:
|
'... No. 14 also depends on the lore of Rivendell, Elvish and Númenorean, concerning the heroic days at the end of the First Age; it seems to contain echoes of the Númenorean tale of Túrin and Mim the Dwarf.'
|