For all who study tolkien's languages!

[William Cloud Hicklin]

If Aelfwine survived past the later 50s, the only element of his frame-story which we know to have survived even that late is Pengolodh- no Cottage of the Play of Sleep, or Olore Malle, or any of the rest of the very, very early conception that seems to have some of the air of Peter Pan. Certainly the Faring Forth and Rekindling of the Magic Sun and Tol Eressea-as-Britain etc etc were all long rejected. It no more belongs in a "Silmarillion Remix" than does Tevildo Prince of Cats.*

Tolkien left us with an unsolvable puzzle- one which he couldn't solve for himself - as to the provenance of the Legendarium. The earliest was the Eriol/Aelfwine tale, the English or proto-English mariner who finds Tol Eressea and learns True History there. But then there are also (b) the Bilbo vector, his Translations From the Elvish -> Red Book rendering True History learned from books and living witnesses in Rivendell, and then (c) the "Mannish tradition" vector, garbled distortions of True History as passed down by the Dunedain and (apparently) to the present. The three can't really coexist, except by unconvincing ret-con.

------------------------

*There exists a wonderfully-illustrated but otherwise foolish Fall of Gondolin which grafts the early 50's "Long Tuor" onto the old 1917 Tale- the effect is not unlike concatenating the 1925 and 1959 "Ben-Hur."

[Findegil]

You even left one Tradition out: (d) Lost Raod/Notion Club tradition of history recived trough dream journeys.

Respectfuly
Findegil

[Galin]

I think B and C can work together convincingly. Unless I missed something (always possible) the published account (second edition anyway) merely vaguely relates that Bilbo used sources, both living and written, in Imladris. But to my mind, that much need not mean that Bilbo is delivering "true" history. When he translates Mannish works written in Elvish, actually I feel it makes more sense that he would not substantially alter works of antiquity, even if certain living sources knew better.

The sources are historical, yes, but art as well I would say. And I have a hard time imagining that Glorfindel, for example, would instruct Bilbo to revise a major notion found in the Mannish Silmarillion -- say, that the Sun and Moon hailed from two trees, and Men awoke with the rising of the sun -- simply because he knew that it wasn't really true.

Moreover this wouldn't be necessary I think, as certain specifically Elvish accounts (like The Awakening of the Quendi, if itself an Elven-child's tale filled with counting lore) could illustrate the Sun existing before the Elves awoke.

Translate those faithfully and let the reader read all, compare and decide.

And it seems an open option to imagine that much of the living aid concerned the languages or difficult texts of a linguistic nature, perhaps the translation of any works by Pengolodh. These too could contain "hints" of "truer" traditions, for comparison to arguably garbled Mannish works.

That's my opinion anyway, although I think I've chatted with WCH, at least, about this before?

Probably

[William Cloud Hicklin]

I did have the notion that (b) and (c) could perhaps be reconciled by, as you say, having Bilbo translate specifically Dunedainic works originally composed in Sindarin; my conceit was that the Elves don't write "history" as a mortal mind would understand it (however, the existence of the Annals makes this idea problematical, unless those too are explained as Numenorean retro-chronicles like much of the ASC.)

However, that leaves no room for (a), the Eriol/Aelfwine vector. I suppose it's worth noting that the passages in the Prologue concerning Translations From the Elvish were added in the Revised Edition (1965), and might therefore be considered to represent Tolkien's latest written thought on the matter.