Tolkien's final First Age timeline

[Galin]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

Unfortunately my claim is weakened (though not destroyed) by a misreading of the text. Most of "Eldarin hands..." is spent discussing Common Eldarin, and so the meanings and details it gives can be attributed only to that period when the elves spoke CE. So, for instance, "No distinction was felt between right and left by the Eldar" could be treated as referring only to the eldest days, if one were really concerned by the conflict with Maedhros' "learned to wield his sword with his left hand".

On this point, GA simply notes: "Thereafter Maedros wielded his sword with his left hand." while QS note that he: "lived to wield his sword with left hand more deadly than his right had been."

Okay, after a very brief bit of research on the web, with nothing answering my question specifically, I'll just toss it out here: if one is truly ambidextrous, but chooses a specific hand to learn a skill -- such as sword fighting -- won't the person be better at this with the chosen hand? And if so, wouldn't Maedros, despite being ambidextrous, have to do some amount of training to get just as good, or better, at swordplay, as he had been with his right hand.

I guess one might wonder why he didn't initially train equally with both hands, but that's avoiding the question

The reason I wasn't completely wrong is that the main text goes on to highlight how old a word "nette" is - appearing very closely in Sindarin and Telerin. So it could still be a word from the period of the March, which means that "the growth of Elvish children after birth was little if any slower" could still mean "in the period when this word was formed" - ie, the March

If we take this as so, if the nette remark refers to an early period of the March, what time period does Elvish Ages and Numenorean refer to? In EA&N the GYs were said to be: "relatively swift and in Middle-earth = 3 loar. The LYs were very slow and in Middle-earth = 144 loar."

So while the word swift here appears to refer to/contrast to the 1:144 Life Years, the March of the Quendi was in Middle-earth in any case.

Or have you changed your mind that the "nette remark" and EA&N can be pressed into one internal narrative, considering this . . .

It's clear that elves in Middle-earth, probably both before and after the sojourn in Aman, should be viewed as having a 1-year gestation, 24 years to full-grown, and then a 1:144 rate thereafter.

I'm not arguing. I'm just wondering what to do with EA&N here. I lean toward tossing it out (for my "final" mindset on the matter) -- even if EA&N can be stitched in without contradiction -- I'm not sure it needs to be, and the "as swift as that of Men" from XIX is steering me toward that end.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

A while back, I put together an incomplete document summarizing the dates of all the HoMe texts, and I've started to add the NoMe texts to it as well. If I finish, I'll let you know.

That would be excellent.

Originally Posted by Galin

If we take this as so, if the nette remark refers to an early period of the March, what time period does Elvish Ages and Numenorean refer to? In EA&N the GYs were said to be: "relatively swift and in Middle-earth = 3 loar. The LYs were very slow and in Middle-earth = 144 loar."

So while the word swift here appears to refer to/contrast to the 1:144 Life Years, the March of the Quendi was in Middle-earth in any case.

"Elvish Ages and Numenorean" is... actually a bit of a pain. It seems to cover everything: Galadriel's return to Middle-earth, the death of Arwen, but also Celeborn's aging between the March and the fall of Morgoth.

Originally Posted by Galin

Or have you changed your mind that the "nette remark" and EA&N can be pressed into one internal narrative, considering this . . .

I'm not arguing. I'm just wondering what to do with EA&N here. I lean toward tossing it out (for my "final" mindset on the matter) -- even if EA&N can be stitched in without contradiction -- I'm not sure it needs to be, and the "as swift as that of Men" from XIX is steering me toward that end.

I still think it's possible to reconcile "Elvish Ages" as the post-March data, with the "nette remark" as pre-March. So those two can be reconciled with each other. The trouble, as you rightly note, is NoME 1.XIX, which is explicitly discussing the post-March period (it mentions the Second Age), and so directly contradicts "Elvish Ages".

So - despite the birth-dates in Galadriel's line being the original cause of Tolkien's messing about with aging rates, and "Elvish Ages" being his final word on the subject - I think we reluctantly have to accept that "Elvish Ages" was forgotten or rejected. That leaves us with the very simple picture that elves in Middle-earth have always reached full growth in about 24 solar years (per "Generational Schemes", the "nette remark", and "Elvish Life-Cycles").

So in the wide view: yes, my mind has changed.

Elvish aging in Aman is... unresolved, and basically hinges on whether one chooses to accept that Tolkien's repeated citing of Galadriel as effective-age 20 at the exile (NoME 1.IX, X, XI, & XVIII) still holds true when she's also the inspiration for the Silmarils. I think it does; and the last explicit "slower aging in Aman" text appears to be NoME 1.XI, "Ageing of Elves", which sets a 1:12 growth rate.

(It's worth noting that the 1:1 rate was introduced in NoME 1.XVI, which states that "All the elaborate calculations based on... 12:1... are both cumbrous, and in early narrative (Awakening, and Finding, March, etc.) quite unworkable. Also unlikely." That puts aging in Aman into a grey area, after the "early narrative"; and I don't believe it is ever explicitly brought out of this uncertainty.)

hS