Tolkien's final First Age timeline

[Arvegil145]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

EDIT: I went through and calculated it out how the Final Timeline would look with faster aging, and to my amazement it actually... fits together?



Crucially, the two methods of calculating Finrod & Turgon's birth give the same value. Only one event moves around, and I don't see "Finarfin was married only after Fingon was born" as a crucial point in Tolkien's mind.

The ages given by the AAm timeline / aging system look very deliberate: both Finarfin and Turgon were begotten almost exactly when their older siblings reached full growth (meaning that blisteringly short gap between Feanor and Fingolfin hits even harder). I would actually quite like to use this.

But... is it too much? Am I mind-reading Tolkien too far? Is this really justified as "simple calculations" when I'm moving entire blocks of the timeline around?

hS

Some issues I have (not sure if they're actual issues, or just me feeling incredulous):

1) it says in the table that Feanor was only 2 (regular) years old when Miriel died, but can't be the case according to 'Shibboleth' (or even the AAm)

2) why is the time difference between the begetting of Finrod and Finarfin & Earwen's marriage 105 years, while the time difference between the begetting of Fingolfin and Finwe & Indis' marriage is less than 30 years - besides, Findis is said to have been Fingolfin's older sister, which makes this matter even worse! I think this needs some consultation from the text on 'Finwe and Miriel' in MR

3) I still think maybe the best course is to simply keep the relative spacing between the dates in AAm (unless otherwise stated)

4) (unrelated to the above) - I've been re-reading PoME, and have my doubts about the whole 'Sauron corrupting Men' business...Anyway, in both Of Dwarves and Men and in a note to the Problem of Ros, it is Melkor who is consistently mentioned as the instigator of the original Fall of Men - for example:

The Atani and their kin were the descendants of peoples who in the Dark Ages had resisted Morgoth or had renounced him, and had wandered ever westward from their homes far away in the East seeking the Great Sea...

- PoME, 'Of Dwarves and Men', p. 306

and

When their vanguards at last reached Beleriand and the Western Shores they were dismayed. For they could go no further, but they had not found peace, only lands engaged in war with Morgoth himself, who had fled back to Middle-earth. "Through ages forgotten," they said, "we have wandered, seeking to escape from the Dominions of the Dark Lord and his Shadow, only to find him here before us."

- PoME, 'Of Dwarves and Men', p. 306

+

Their tongues had already diverged, with the swiftness of the speeches of Men in the 'Unwritten Days', and continued to do so; though they remained friends of acknowledged kinship, bound by their hatred and fear of the Dark Lord (Morgoth), against whom they had rebelled.

- PoME, 'The Problem of Ros', note 13, p. 373


All these things considered, I think we should push back the Awaking of Men even earlier - maybe we should adopt the (of course) modified and adjusted date of VY 1075 from VI.(Text A)?

Then again, though, one could always interpret the above quotes as being done in the name of Melkor/Morgoth and not literally by him in person. I'm not sure - you know the NoME texts much better than I do.


P.S. Maybe you could also add this in your timeline:

The Elvish loremasters were of opinion that both languages [Hadorian and Beorian] were descended from one that had diverged (owing to some division of the people who had spoken it) in the course of, maybe, a thousand years of the slower change in the First Age. Though the time might well have been less, and change quickened by a mingling of peoples; for the language of Hador was apparently less changed and more uniform in style, whereas the language of Beor contained many elements that were alien in character. This contrast in speech was probably connected with the observable physical differences between the two peoples.

- PoME, 'Of Dwarves and Men', p. 308

+ this quote (which I gave an excerpt of above)

It was not until they had developed a craft of boat-building that the people afterwards known as the Folk of Hador discovered that a part of their host from whom they had become separated had reached the same sea before them, and dwelt at the feet of the high hills to the south-west, whereas they [the Folk of Hador] lived in the north-east, in the woods that there came near to the shores. They were thus some two hundred miles apart, going by water; and they did not often meet and exchange tidings. Their tongues had already diverged, with the swiftness of the speeches of Men in the 'Unwritten Days', and continued to do so; though they remained friends of acknowledged kinship, bound by their hatred and fear of the Dark Lord (Morgoth), against whom they had rebelled. Nonetheless they did not know that the Lesser Folk had fled from the threat of the Servants of the Dark and gone on westward, while they had lain hidden in their woods, and so under their leader Beor reached Beleriand at last many years before they did.

- PoME, note 13 to The Problem of Ros, p. 373


By the way, does the last sentence imply that Beor was living by the Sea of Rhun at some point in his life, or am I misinterpreting the quote?




P.S. Do you have any plans of forming an ultimate timeline?

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

1) it says in the table that Feanor was only 2 (regular) years old when Miriel died, but can't be the case according to 'Shibboleth' (or even the AAm)

2) why is the time difference between the begetting of Finrod and Finarfin & Earwen's marriage 105 years, while the time difference between the begetting of Fingolfin and Finwe & Indis' marriage is less than 30 years - besides, Findis is said to have been Fingolfin's older sister, which makes this matter even worse! I think this needs some consultation from the text on 'Finwe and Miriel' in MR

The answer to both of these is that this timescale was calculated by taking the AAm dates and adjusting only for the revised growth rates (ie, keeping everyone's ages the same at the various life events that affect them). In AAm, Miriel died 1 VY after Feanor's birth, which makes him less than 1 "growth-years" at the time.

It would be quite ridiculous to try and apply both the altered growth-rates and the Shibboleth to the timeline, and so of course I've done exactly that:



(The Shibboleth states that Miriel hung on until Feanor reached full growth - 72 years at this point. Finwe & Miriel 4, which postdates January 1959, gives the 12/12/3-year gaps from her death to Finwe's remarriage. XVIII provides that an Elf-woman needed to rest for at least 2 growth-years = 6 SY between children, more if she gave more of her vigour to the child. The rest is explained inline.)

It's silly. Turgon took 8 Life-Years, but Fingolfin only took the standard 2? The dude who faced down Morgoth single-handed? But any extension of the rest-period after Fingolfin's birth means extending the rest-period after Fingon's, to keep Turgon and Finrod in the same year - or changing Fingolfin's age when Fingon was born - or making Irime and Finarfin twins, which isn't actually contradicted by the text - or something. In any event, once you start down this path it leads to madness.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

3) I still think maybe the best course is to simply keep the relative spacing between the dates in AAm (unless otherwise stated)

It's certainly the sanest course, but it means explicitly ignoring the later developments on Elvish lifecycles.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

4) (unrelated to the above) - I've been re-reading PoME, and have my doubts about the whole 'Sauron corrupting Men' business...Anyway, in both Of Dwarves and Men and in a note to the Problem of Ros, it is Melkor who is consistently mentioned as the instigator of the original Fall of Men - for example:

All these things considered, I think we should push back the Awaking of Men even earlier - maybe we should adopt the (of course) modified and adjusted date of VY 1075 from VI.(Text A)?

The Awakening is already in the Timeline in 1778, which is the 1075 date as amended. It looks like 'Dwarves and Men' in particular is directly drawing from the Athrabeth here, which also explicitly connects the Master to Morgoth. It looks like "Sauron corrupting Men" is a discarded idea, and the best date we have is that 1075 (though at the time, while Melkor found Men, it was still Sauron corrupting them during the Captivity; never mind, never mind...)

EDIT: Actually, yes mind. ^_^ If "Of Dwarves and Men" is drawing from the Athrabeth / the Tale of Adanel, then there are two separate visits of "the Master" to early Men. He finds them very early, gives them gifts and proclaims himself Lord of the Dark. He then goes away for "a long time", and returns on a day when "the Sun's light began to fail, until it was blotted out and a great shadow fell on the world" and has them build a Temple.

I think that second visit is supposed to be Sauron, playing exactly the same trick he did in Numenor. The story holds that they are the same person - but it's a tale carried down the ages, and retold by someone who doesn't exactly believe it. This fits perfectly well with the later statements, since the original corruption is indeed by Melkor.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

P.S. Maybe you could also add this in your timeline:

The Elvish loremasters were of opinion that both languages [Hadorian and Beorian] were descended from one that had diverged (owing to some division of the people who had spoken it) in the course of, maybe, a thousand years of the slower change in the First Age. Though the time might well have been less, and change quickened by a mingling of peoples; for the language of Hador was apparently less changed and more uniform in style, whereas the language of Beor contained many elements that were alien in character. This contrast in speech was probably connected with the observable physical differences between the two peoples.

This I like. It has a precise date - 1000 years before the Hadorians entered Beleriand. I'm not sure we can precisely date the sojourn by the Sea of Rhun, so I have to leave that out for now.

On which point: Beor could have led the "Lesser Folk" all the way from Rhun to Beleriand, but the quote doesn't require it. "The Noldor departed Middle-earth, and eventually returned under their leader Feanor".

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

P.S. Do you have any plans of forming an ultimate timeline?

Outside the period from the Awakening to the Exiles reaching Beleriand, I feel like the timeline is pretty well known. All I'd be doing is copying the tables from Tolkien Gateway; it doesn't seem necessary.

hS

[Arvegil145]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

The answer to both of these is that this timescale was calculated by taking the AAm dates and adjusting only for the revised growth rates (ie, keeping everyone's ages the same at the various life events that affect them). In AAm, Miriel died 1 VY after Feanor's birth, which makes him less than 1 "growth-years" at the time.

It would be quite ridiculous to try and apply both the altered growth-rates and the Shibboleth to the timeline, and so of course I've done exactly that:



(The Shibboleth states that Miriel hung on until Feanor reached full growth - 72 years at this point. Finwe & Miriel 4, which postdates January 1959, gives the 12/12/3-year gaps from her death to Finwe's remarriage. XVIII provides that an Elf-woman needed to rest for at least 2 growth-years = 6 SY between children, more if she gave more of her vigour to the child. The rest is explained inline.)

It's silly. Turgon took 8 Life-Years, but Fingolfin only took the standard 2? The dude who faced down Morgoth single-handed? But any extension of the rest-period after Fingolfin's birth means extending the rest-period after Fingon's, to keep Turgon and Finrod in the same year - or changing Fingolfin's age when Fingon was born - or making Irime and Finarfin twins, which isn't actually contradicted by the text - or something. In any event, once you start down this path it leads to madness.

All this, I think, could be resolved by assuming an unknown rate of Elvish existence in Aman and therefore adopting the AAm spacing of the dates (+ perhaps some modifications in Feanor/Finwe/Miriel case to bring it in line with MR and Shibboleth?).

This I like. It has a precise date - 1000 years before the Hadorians entered Beleriand. I'm not sure we can precisely date the sojourn by the Sea of Rhun, so I have to leave that out for now.

On which point: Beor could have led the "Lesser Folk" all the way from Rhun to Beleriand, but the quote doesn't require it. "The Noldor departed Middle-earth, and eventually returned under their leader Feanor".

Just a reminder that the 'c. 1000 years of separation' is immediately followed by this:

Though the time might well have been less, and change quickened by a mingling of peoples; for the language of Hador was apparently less changed and more uniform in style, whereas the language of Beor contained many elements that were alien in character.

- PoME, 'Of Dwarves and Men', p. 308

Outside the period from the Awakening to the Exiles reaching Beleriand, I feel like the timeline is pretty well known. All I'd be doing is copying the tables from Tolkien Gateway; it doesn't seem necessary.

You'd be surprised. Oh, it's well known sure, but there are hidden gems not included, as well as modifications that contradict many of the dates. Not to mention all the dates from family trees which diverge here and there ever so slightly...

[Arvegil145]

Also, I see that you didn't include the birth years for Idril and Finduilas. Is there any reason why?

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

All this, I think, could be resolved by assuming an unknown rate of Elvish existence in Aman and therefore adopting the AAm spacing of the dates (+ perhaps some modifications in Feanor/Finwe/Miriel case to bring it in line with MR and Shibboleth?).

So! Excitingly, "adopt the AAm spacing of the dates" starts out really strong. Shibboleth tells us Miriel lived until Feanor was "full-grown"; the Statute tells us Finwe waited 12+12+3 years before remarrying; the latest life-cycles give (in Middle-earth) 3 years gestation, 72 years to full growth. So we will always need at least 72+12+12+3+3 = 102 SY between Feanor and Fingolfin's births.

The Final Timeline (rev 3), which maintains the AAm SY gaps between the Finwean births, says Feanor and Fingolfin are born 105 SY apart. Allowing 3 years for Finwe and Indis to actually conceive, that's spot on! Feanor grew up at a 3:1 speed, which presumably means a 144:1 speed once he hit 24.

Unfortunately that means Findis doesn't exist, unless she and Fingolfin were twins. Which... isn't impossible. Let's go with that.

Finarfin is born 383 SY after Fingolfin, making Fingolfin 26.14 at his begetting. That seems a long gap between children - but of course there's Irime to consider. If we assume an even split, Findis/Fingolfin and Irime would all be full-grown plus about 115 SY at the next birth; in other words, Finwe and Indis started planning the next child when the previous was an adult. (That's slighly longer than Finwe waited after Feanor, which probably only annoyed Feanor more: "you only gave me 30 SY! Why do they get a hundred?!")

There are 680 years between Fingolfin and Fingon's births; that makes Fingolfin 28.14 when he has his first child. That's a bit old, but not unreasonable, and he may have married late. Turgon is born when Fingon is 26.14; that's the first date which seems intractably late, but since the most usual pattern was to have only one child, Turgon may have been a late decision.

Finarfin was also 28.14 at Finrod's birth, and we know he married at 26.83. We're seeing a pattern here of "wait a VY after the last thing happened", whether it's your wedding or your previous child reaching adulthood; yet another reason for Feanor to be annoyed by his father's haste!

(EDIT: It's tempting to say that the generation of Fingon, Turgon, and Finrod are typically born when their older sibling is 26. Trouble is, despite only being 1 extra life-year, it means doubling the space between children. That would push all of Aegnor, Galadriel, and Argon past the Silmarils, and mean Galadriel was actually born 200 years after the Exile. Obviously we're not doing that!)

So... as far as it goes, the AAm timeline actually works. We would expect the full birth pattern of the House of Finwe (per the Shibboleth lists) to look like this:

• 3321 - birth of Feanor
• 3420 - marriage of Finwe and Indis
• 3426 - birth of Findis & Fingolfin
• 3617 - birth of Irime
• 3809 - birth of Finarfin
• 4001 - birth of Maedhros
• 4096 - birth of Fingon
• 4192 - birth of Maglor
• 4383 - birth of Celegorm
• 4480 - birth of Turgon & Finrod
• 4574 - birth of Caranthir
• 4671 - birth of Angrod & Aredhel
• 4765 - birth of Curufin
• 4862 - birth of Aegnor & Argon
• 4956 - birth of Amrod & Amras
• 5041 - creation of the Silmarils
• 5053 - birth of Galadriel

That actually looks really good! The only problem is the girls: Galadriel ends up after the Silmarils, but still about EDIT:26 at the Exile, and Aredhel comes in about 600 years earlier than she should per XXII. Ironically, putting her in her AAm birthdate would place her in 5074 - close enough that she could easily share a birth year with Galadriel, given the approximations in here. But then they'd both be younger than the Silmarils, and Argon would be younger still.

But... we can just leave them out. I'm convinced; the AAm ages can stay, we'll just assume some unattested Valinoran practices.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

Also, I see that you didn't include the birth years for Idril and Finduilas. Is there any reason why?

Because they weren't in the sources I was working with. Assuming the Gateway has Idril's birthdate right as 1479, she would be born when Turgon was 35, which is really really late.

EDIT2: So I Have My Books(TM) now. The source for Idril is NoME 1.X, and it's not a year: it's a calculation. Tolkien wanted her to be 22 in 495. Under the XVIII aging rules I'm following, she's actually still growing at that point, making her less than 72!

We can instead use the "mortal equivalent" aging from XVIII, in which 24 life-years is equivalent to 18 mortal years. If Idril is equivalent to mortal 22, that makes her actual effective age 29. She aged about 3.43 life years in Beleriand, making her about 25.5 when she reached it. If the exile took 1 life-years, she was 24.5 when the Trees died. She had lived at that time 81 + 72 = 153 years, meaning she was born 5320: a century before Feanor broke the peace.

To my continued amazement, that's about the same time as the 1479 date in AAm. I love how these keep lining up. She's older than Tolkien had her on entering Beleriand (he wanted 17, which is about a year younger than her even in mortal-equivalent dating), and still doesn't fit with "young Galadriel", but she works.

Finduilas, per Shibboleth (Parentage of Gil-Galad), was born to Arothir/Orodreth and a Sindarin lady. Per X, she was either 20 or 21 in FA 472; if we take those as "mortal equivalent", she would have been either 26.7 or 28. At 26.7, she would have been born in FA 16, making her not the "youngest Exile" but the "oldest Beleriandic Noldo".

If 20/21 is her actual age, then she was born in FA 409/412; shortly after Finrod found Beor. But she would have been far too young to be betrothed, so I prefer FA 16. (Tolkien had FA 290 OR YT 1483, both based on calculations of her age.)

hS

[Arvegil145]

BTW, how exactly do you calculate these dates?

And, say, I took the FA dates in AAm, beginning in 1050 and ending in the death of the Trees in 1495.

And I took the FA dates in NoME, beginning in 850 and ending in the death of the Trees in 888.


Is there any way to get a conversion scale between the two frameworks?

[Arvegil145]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

So! Excitingly, "adopt the AAm spacing of the dates" starts out really strong. Shibboleth tells us Miriel lived until Feanor was "full-grown"; the Statute tells us Finwe waited 12+12+3 years before remarrying; the latest life-cycles give (in Middle-earth) 3 years gestation, 72 years to full growth. So we will always need at least 72+12+12+3+3 = 102 SY between Feanor and Fingolfin's births.

The Final Timeline (rev 3), which maintains the AAm SY gaps between the Finwean births, says Feanor and Fingolfin are born 105 SY apart. Allowing 3 years for Finwe and Indis to actually conceive, that's spot on! Feanor grew up at a 3:1 speed, which presumably means a 144:1 speed once he hit 24.

Unfortunately that means Findis doesn't exist, unless she and Fingolfin were twins. Which... isn't impossible. Let's go with that.

Finarfin is born 383 SY after Fingolfin, making Fingolfin 26.14 at his begetting. That seems a long gap between children - but of course there's Irime to consider. If we assume an even split, Findis/Fingolfin and Irime would all be full-grown plus about 115 SY at the next birth; in other words, Finwe and Indis started planning the next child when the previous was an adult. (That's slighly longer than Finwe waited after Feanor, which probably only annoyed Feanor more: "you only gave me 30 SY! Why do they get a hundred?!")

There are 680 years between Fingolfin and Fingon's births; that makes Fingolfin 28.14 when he has his first child. That's a bit old, but not unreasonable, and he may have married late. Turgon is born when Fingon is 26.14; that's the first date which seems intractably late, but since the most usual pattern was to have only one child, Turgon may have been a late decision.

Finarfin was also 28.14 at Finrod's birth, and we know he married at 26.83. We're seeing a pattern here of "wait a VY after the last thing happened", whether it's your wedding or your previous child reaching adulthood; yet another reason for Feanor to be annoyed by his father's haste!

(EDIT: It's tempting to say that the generation of Fingon, Turgon, and Finrod are typically born when their older sibling is 26. Trouble is, despite only being 1 extra life-year, it means doubling the space between children. That would push all of Aegnor, Galadriel, and Argon past the Silmarils, and mean Galadriel was actually born 200 years after the Exile. Obviously we're not doing that!)

So... as far as it goes, the AAm timeline actually works. We would expect the full birth pattern of the House of Finwe (per the Shibboleth lists) to look like this:

• 3321 - birth of Feanor
• 3420 - marriage of Finwe and Indis
• 3426 - birth of Findis & Fingolfin
• 3617 - birth of Irime
• 3809 - birth of Finarfin
• 4001 - birth of Maedhros
• 4096 - birth of Fingon
• 4192 - birth of Maglor
• 4383 - birth of Celegorm
• 4480 - birth of Turgon & Finrod
• 4574 - birth of Caranthir
• 4671 - birth of Angrod & Aredhel
• 4765 - birth of Curufin
• 4862 - birth of Aegnor & Argon
• 4956 - birth of Amrod & Amras
• 5041 - creation of the Silmarils
• 5053 - birth of Galadriel

First of all, before I make any other comment - I think you really should stress when a date is approximate or within a given range. And when dealing with such dates, I think maybe you ought to round them up/down to the nearest "pretty" number (ala 860, 865, 870, etc.; as well as the SY dates too).


With that out of the way:

I was thinking that, maybe, instead of keeping the relative differences between dates in AAm in regards to births, marriages, etc., we should keep their rough yet absolute difference according to the old AAm conception of VY:SY = 1:9.582 - what I mean is this (these are of course just examples):

1) Let's take Feanor's birth as our cornerstone: FA 3321 according to the scheme (YT 1169 in the AAm)

2) Now take the birth of Fingolfin from AAm - YT 1190 (AAm) - which is 21 VY after Feanor's, so c. 201 solar years difference

3) Then take Finarfin's birth for example - YT 1230 (AAm) - which is 40 VY after Fingolfin's, so c. 383 solar years difference from that of Fingolfin's

...etc.


Now, if we take Feanor's birth as FA 3321, that means:

- the lower bound for marriage of Finwe and Indis is in c. 3423 (though - are you sure about the 12 + 12 + 3 years of waiting for Finwe?)
- Findis is born between c. 3423 and 3522
- Fingolfin is born in c. FA 3522
- Irime is born between c. 3522 and c. 3905
- Finarfin is born in c. FA 3905
- Fingon (YT 1260) is born in c. FA 4193
- marriage of Finarfin and Earwen is in c. FA 4384
- Turgon and Finrod (YT 1300) are born in c. FA 4576
- Aredhel and Galadriel (YT 1362) are born in c. FA 5170
- Argon is born sometime after c. FA 5170 (say, c. 5300 or something)



I'm not overly concerned about the large gaps between births of parents and that of children since this is Aman and everyone is indulging in pursuits other than child making all the time.


Anyway, I'm not that enthusiastic about my own proposal though since YT 1495 would end up as FA 6444! Well after the First Age ended according to the scheme.

EDIT: I forgot, why no Luthien? Or any events from YT Beleriand?





P.S. I'm not sure about the 'Men corrupted by Sauron' part however, since this is never mentioned again outside of NoME and seems to contradict the stuff in PoME.

Also, about that quote from the Athrabeth ("at the beginning of the history of our people, before any had yet died") - if we take it at face value, an important thing to note is that Men's original lifespan was c. 200-300, the same as that of the Numenoreans, at least according to a late (c. 1968) text:

The life of the Númenóreans before their fall (the 2nd fall of Man?) was thus not so much a special gift as a restoration of what should have been the common inheritance of Men, [to live] for 200–300 years.

- NoME, 'Notes on Ore', p. 223

[Galin]

Okay my head is spinning.

And marveling at all the cross-referencing work being done here

Advice alert: I'm someone who (at least so far) pays little heed to the 1959-ish texts, and even the 1965 text. I've adopted the late Elvish Life-cycles idea, and so, given its wonderful brevity/vagueness regarding who was born when, should I go back to The Annals of Aman and just plug in 144?

I realize that's arguably problematic when we get to the Rebellion, but if I recall correctly, don't we see Tolkien doing that with respect to crossing the Grinding Ice or sailing back to Middle-Earth -- in other words, don't we see Tolkien seemingly not minding the notable amount of actual time that passed here, given (simply) the larger ratio.

Or am I forgetting something obvious? Or something else.

[Arvegil145]

Originally Posted by Galin

Advice alert: I'm someone who (at least so far) pays little heed to the 1959-ish texts, and even the 1965 text. I've adopted the late Elvish Life-cycles idea, and so, given its wonderful brevity/vagueness regarding who was born when, should I go back to The Annals of Aman and just plug in 144?

I realize that's arguably problematic when we get to the Rebellion, but if I recall correctly, don't we see Tolkien doing that with respect to crossing the Grinding Ice or sailing back to Middle-Earth -- in other words, don't we see Tolkien seemingly not minding the notable amount of actual time that passed here, given (simply) the larger ratio.

Or am I forgetting something obvious? Or something else.

Funny thing is, that's exactly what Tolkien did at first - that is, just use the existing AAm dates for the First Age but plug in the 144 figure instead of the 9.582: however, that gave an absurdly long First Age (c. 65,000 years give or take). In fact, even longer than that, since at one point he moved the Awakening of the Elves to YT 1000 (so now it was c. 72,000 years instead).

So instead, he decided to more or less keep the length of the First Age as it was before (c. 4-6,000 years, depending on text), and instead seems to have settled on there simply being less Valian years on the whole. (I'm not sure I like the use of the term 'settled' here - it would be more accurate to say that this was the direction he was going in.)

For example, the timespan between the Awaking of the Elves and the death of the Two Trees in AAm lasts from YT 1050 to YT 1495.

However, in one of his later conceptions, the timespan is from VY 850 (Awakening of the Elves) to VY 888 (death of the Trees) - this is what Huinesoron is using in his reconstruction.



And as to the flight of the Noldor - your guess is as good as mine...Evidently, 720 (solar) years was too much, but c. 50 (solar) years was too little??? But 144 is 'just right'?

As I mentioned in one of my previous comments, he also made Feanor take 72 (solar) years to reach Beleriand...by sea...The professor is an enduring mystery.