[Aiwendil]

Thanks for the well-wishes! It was nothing really serious, but I was in bed with a fever for a week and simply not able to muster much brain-power for anything. But as I'm well on the road to recovery, here are the few remaining comments:

Originally Posted by Findegil

DE-EX-10, second footnote: If, as Aiwendil thinks, this is Tolkien think with the pen, then taking the footnote as it is would change Tolkien's uncertainty to one of the author of our text. To avoid that we could edit out the uncertainty.

I could live with something like this:

Footnote to the text: {What effect would this have on the succession? Probably} [T]his 'return' would only occur when by some chance or other the reigning king had no son. The Dwarves were very unprolific and this no doubt happened fairly often

DE-EX-11: This still seems redundant to me. The first sentence is:

{... the}The reappearance, at long intervals, of the person of one of the Dwarf-fathers, in the lines of their kings - e.g. especially Durin - is not when examined probably one of rebirth, but of the preservation of the body of a former King {Durin (say) }to which at intervals his spirit would return.

But this comes immediately after we have said:

The Dwarves add that at that time Aule gained them also this privilege that distinguished them from Elves and Men: that the spirit of each of the Fathers (such as Durin) should, at the end of the long span of life allotted to Dwarves, fall asleep, but then lie in a tomb of his own body, at rest, and there its weariness and any hurts that had befallen it should be amended. Then after long years he should arise and take up his kingship again

So the addition from Last Writings adds nothing. Moreover, that addition is phrased in such a way as to make it seem that we are just now turning to the topic of Dwarvish reincarnation, whereas in fact we’ve already been discussing it.

Not necessarily redundant, I suppose, is the second sentence:

But the relations of the Dwarves to the Valar and especially to the Vala Aule are (as it seems) quite different from those of Elves and Men

However, this is somewhat enigmatic; I think the most likely meaning is that this reincarnation is the responsibility of Aulë, which is redundant with:

The Dwarves add that at that time Aule gained them also this privilege that distinguished them from Elves and Men

So on the whole I think I would still remove this addition from Last Writings in its entirety.

DE-SC-06:

Originally Posted by Findegil

In the later conception of the Valar it is unthinkable that they would not know about the sun before its making. They might not have precived the importance or greatness of that source of light, but even so the Vision of Eä cased before the dominion of Men began, I don't belive it cased before Men awoke. And anyhow the Ainulindalë was over all. All the Valar therefore must have been a rough idea about the history of Eä to come and must have include some idea about the sun. In addition Yavanna is speaking about Middle-earth and here words are reported by an unknown author in retrospec. So what ever she actually said in reffering to the light to come over that part of the world would in retrospec of the author be interpretable as the Sun.
And about not knowing what to do when the Trees are dead: It is one thing to know roughly what is the final result and quiet another to archive that result when the time for your action comes along, especially if (as we are told they were not) the Valar did not have a clear vision of the time scale of the Music and the Vision. It seems that none of the events in the history could be fortold by the Valar with precise timing.

This is getting somewhat into textual interpretation, but I think it’s fair to say that despite having seen the Vision of Eä, the Valar very often act as if they don’t know how even the broad strokes of history will unfold. When they make the Lamps, there is no suggestion that they know these will be replaced by the Trees; nor when they make the Trees that these will be replaced by the Sun and Moon. It’s not at all obvious to me that the Valar must have known that the Sun and Moon would someday exist, though it is quite possible that they might have. But in any case, since this sentence was written at a time when the cosmology had been changed and the Sun existed from the beginning, it still seems safer to me to omit the phrase.

DE-SC-08: Okay, we will restore that passaged.

I thought we had agreed to keep it removed? I don't have a strong feeling either way, but it was removed by Tolkien so I'm inclined to omit it.