[the phantom]

it was written by JRRT, so why should we disregard it?

If anything, we should disregard text from the Silmarillion, since although JRRT did write it, Christopher Tolkien edited it.

Surely this is something that can be said about many of the events described by JRRT in his writings. If we can say in this case: “Well this is just an old myth and not necessarily true”, why can we not apply the same reasoning in other cases? Why should it be restricted just to the Hobbit? Why should we not be free to apply it to LotR too? And the Silmarillion ...

I am not sure how it can be regarded as speculative relying on a statement that is there in one of JRRT's published works.

Hmm...I believe I'm hearing the footsteps of a problem that has stalked hundreds, no thousands, or maybe millions of Tolkien debates.

The age old questions "What is real?", "What is literal?", "What was the final version?", "What were his final ideas?", and so on. I'd rather not open up that can of worms in yet another thread, which is why I suggest sticking to things less open for interpretation.

I'll refer back to a point made by The Saucepan Man..

Or are we free to disregard anything written in the Hobbit that tells of things that happened long in the past but cannot be sustantiated by a character with first hand knowledge or corroborated by evidence elsewhere in JRRT's writings?

Well, that sort of describes the way I view things. Not that I completely disregard statements like that, in fact I usually accept them, but I do not accept them unconditionally. I prefer to say "I believe JRRT's statement, but I suppose by a great stretch of the imagination it might perhaps, maybe, just possibly not be 100% concrete, so I'll let other people believe differently".

Remember, I said earlier that I didn't (and still don't, and probably never will) believe the arkenstone was a Silmaril, but I'm willing to let others believe it. I like things to be left open to people's imagination. It's more fun that way. Look at how much fun we're having with this topic. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]