Name Changes?

[Arvegil145]

Originally Posted by gondowe

Hello everybody. How are you folks? I've out of this web since the Concerning...the Hoard revolution. But I read this updates now and only want to make my opinion about this name changes.

Of course I agreed about Inngwil but... this is a fast thinking.

In its time I considered the matter of Magor/Hador change, but, refresh me if I'm wrong: as I include a Tale of years of first age, the change of this names, wouldn't mean a reinvent of born years and year lines?, in spite of possibly the last known desire of Tolkien but never developed in narrative that feed the change.
Well, I possibly must re-study the texts but, a priori, I'm not agreed with this.

Greetings

1) Earlier idea:

- Magor (born in 341)
- Hathol his son (born in 365)
- Hador Lorindol, Hathol's son (born in 390; became the Lord of Dor-lomin in 416; died in Dagor Bragollach in 455; husband of Gildis and the father of Gloredhel, Galdor and Gundor)


2) Later idea:

- Hador Lorindol (born in 341; and at some undisclosed date becomes the Lord of Dor-lomin*; he also receives the Dragon-helm at a much earlier date)
- Hathol, Hador's son (born in 365)
- Magor Dagorlind, "the sword-singer in battle", Hathol's son (born in 390; became the Lord of Dor-lomin after his father Hathol's unknown date of death; died in Dagor Bragollach in 455; husband of Gildis and the father of Gloredhel, Galdor and Gundor)


In other words, Tolkien simply switched the names 'Magor' and 'Hador' in the genealogical table of the 'House of Hador': i.e. he gave Hador's dates and deeds to Magor, and vice versa (except the Lordship of Dor-lomin!) - it's really not a monumental change.





*footnote - if going by the age at which Hador became the Lord of Dor-lomin in the earlier conception (aged 26), Hador should become the Lord of Dor-lomin in 367 (i.e. 341 + 26 = 367) in the later conception - but this is just speculation


P.S. It also makes far more sense for Hador, the original Lord of Dor-lomin, to be the son of Malach Aradan, who spent much of his life serving Elven lords: to the point of adopting an Elvish name ('Aradan') and naming his children in Elven tongue ('Adanel' and 'Hador').

[gondowe]

I was reviewing the texts and I am going to try to explain my line of thought. But correct me if I'm mistaken in points.

For some time now, I tend to emphasize the dates on which the texts and corrections and notes are supposedly written. I suppose you will agree with me that many of these situations are undatatable and more so after the publication of TNoME in which other dates are given by Hostteter to some texts.

With respect to the Hador/Magor matter, we are supposed to be talking about this reversal of history as contained in hasty pencil notes to a c.1959 text, (WJ, 229, 233), and corrections to these notes we cannot know when they were made.

We also know from experience that Tolkien tended to vary his views frequently in later years, or to forget some changes that occurred to him at another time. The thing is, while Tolkien probably intended to swap Magor for Hador, he too probably forgot or changed his mind again.

An example, in my opinion, is Of Dwarves and Men (c.1967-1970, because, as CT said, the fact that the texts were written on 1968 calendars is not a terminus a quo, but rather means that they were written from that date onwards) in POME, 307 where "Hador... the chieftain who commanded... when first entered Beleriand". That is to say, that here he returns to the initial conception (or in other words, it could be said that Hador was Marach).

Another example would be TNoME, 323 where in a text from c.1965 it says that "... Eärendil (son of Tuor, the great-great-grandson of Hador)" where if this g-g-gs refers to Eärendil the genealogy is the habitual, and if he refers to Tuor, Hador I think he would be in the position of Hathol, not Magor (probably a mistake of the Professor so common in him, although we do not know if by default or excess).

What I want to say with all this is that, in my humble opinion, in a case with as much tradition as this and there being a "finished" narrative that implies, in addition to the QS, the Narn, the Tale of Years and the Athrabeth, the data about the supposed dates of the texts make us be, at least a little prudent. But it's just my opinion.

By the way, I've not found in this forum (correct me again if I'm mistaken) a proposal change in two names:

Dor Daedeloth> Dor-na-Daerachas per WJ, 183, 187, 338-9
Dor Firn i guinar > Dor Gyrth i chuinar per Letters no 332.

Greetings

[Arvegil145]

Originally Posted by gondowe

I was reviewing the texts and I am going to try to explain my line of thought. But correct me if I'm mistaken in points.

For some time now, I tend to emphasize the dates on which the texts and corrections and notes are supposedly written. I suppose you will agree with me that many of these situations are undatatable and more so after the publication of TNoME in which other dates are given by Hostteter to some texts.

With respect to the Hador/Magor matter, we are supposed to be talking about this reversal of history as contained in hasty pencil notes to a c.1959 text, (WJ, 229, 233), and corrections to these notes we cannot know when they were made.

We also know from experience that Tolkien tended to vary his views frequently in later years, or to forget some changes that occurred to him at another time. The thing is, while Tolkien probably intended to swap Magor for Hador, he too probably forgot or changed his mind again.

I should have mentioned this in my last post, but I forgot: the decision to swap Magor with Hador is incorporated into the Athrabeth. As CT says:

In hasty pencillings on Hador table II the note saying that Magor and Hathol served no Elf-lord but dwelt near the sources of Teiglin, and that Hador was the first lord of Dor-lomin, was struck out; while at the same time Hador Lorindol first lord of Dorlómin was written above 'Magor (the Sword)', and "Magor Dagorlind the Sword singer in battle" above 'Hador Lorindol'. This reversal has been seen already in emendations made to the carbon copy only of the text of the chapter (pp. 225-6, §§16, 31-2 - where my father changed 'Glorindol', not to 'Lorindol', but to 'Glorindal'). That this was not an ephemeral change is seen from the 'Athrabeth', where Adanel is the sister of Hador Lorindol, not of Magor.

[gondowe]

Yes, I know. But, still in my opinion, as the Athrabeth is of the same time, it could only reveal that the swap is a thought of this years 1958-59 (or the unknown date of the pencilled notes) and that perhaps later was forgotten or rethought.

Greetings

[Arvegil145]

Originally Posted by gondowe

Yes, I know. But, still in my opinion, as the Athrabeth is of the same time, it could only reveal that the swap is a thought of this years 1958-59 (or the unknown date of the pencilled notes) and that perhaps later was forgotten or rethought.

Greetings

A lot of 'ifs', 'coulds', 'maybes'...

Do I think that it's possible that Tolkien changed his mind later on? Certainly. But you can make the same argument about half of the stuff that we included in 'The New Silmarillion' - especially the names: Tolkien kept changing those all the time as if he was changing his socks!

Also, I'm quite aware that Tolkien in his late years had a habit of just inexplicably changing some elements of the story, the most egregious example of it being IMO the fact that he seems to have totally forgotten about the existence of Fingolfin in the notes to the 'Maeglin' text!


However, in the absence of any concrete, textual proof that he reverted back to the older idea, the evidence is pretty clear: the latest texts dealing with the subject of Hador's family tree have him as the son of Malach Aradan and brother to Adanel.

[Findegil]

Arvegil145 you convinced me at least. I suport the change. It will make same toilsome reading to bring to trough, but as you siad, we addopted changes with less clear evidence.

Respectfully
Findegil

[gondowe]

Ok. The ifs, coulds and maybes are only in order to be prudent. With the years I learned to be so.
I only wanted to share my opinion.
I do think that there are proofs that it was not his last idea about the matter as wrote in my previous post. But if you are convinced it's ok, go on.

Greetings.