Findegil wrote:
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What makes the idea of an fottnote more bearable to me in these particular text ist the fact that we have a footnote in the original text, which does do exactly what we want do do with the remark about Yavanna seen as a tree: it provides a quote from Pengolodh.
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In the original text, it's not a footnote (unless I'm missing something). It's a completely intra-textual aside made to Aelfwine.
We have no indication that it is anything more than a spoken comment; we have no indication that Pengolodh edited or annotated Rumil's portions of the Ainulindale at all, much less that he added this particular comment as a footnote. That's my chief objection.
We have been proceeding as if the Ainulindale we are working on is supposed to literally be the Ainulindale, the document that existed in Arda. I've commented on that decision a few times - but now that we are doing it that way, we might as well continue in that manner. And it seems to me that if we are creating the literal Ainulindale then we ought to be even stricter with regard to changes such as this than we would be in a mere abstract account of events.
What I mean is that what is in doubt is not the idea that Pengolodh saw Yavanna as a tree. If this were the Fall of Gondolin or another section where we were
not expressly trying to create a Middle-earth document, there would surely be nothing wrong with inserting mention of Yavanna as a tree in whatever way we could.
But what is in doubt here is the idea that Pengolodh added this footnote to the text. I think that it is too risky to decide that he did.