Tolkien's final First Age timeline

[Arvegil145]

Can you give us an update, @Huinesoron ?


Anyway, I've been musing over the 'Cirdan' text in the PoME - and, depending on how you interpret the following quote, it might suggest that at least some of Olwe's children were born in Middle-earth:

Thus he [Círdan] forfeited the fulfilment of his greatest desire: to see the Blessed Realm and find again there Olwë and his own nearest kin.

- PoME, 'Last Writings', p. 386

Now, given the fact that this was written in the last year or so of Tolkien's life (1972/3), the family tree of Elwe and Olwe might've changed somewhat.

For example, we see in the NoME (3.XVI.Text 1, pp. 348-9), that in mid-60's (?) Tolkien at least considered Earwen to be a sister of Elwe and Olwe (and Nelwe), but that whole passage was struck through.

Nonetheless, there are only few interpretations of the above passage that I can think of:

1) Elmo still existed as a character at this point - and he had more children (or grandchildren) than just Galadhon, or Celeborn as in the revised timeline, and some of them went to Aman: and it is these that are referred to as '...and his own nearest kin'

2) Earwen was reintroduced as a sister of Elwe and Olwe in Tolkien's final years, and she goes to Aman with Olwe - and she and her children (Finrod, Galadriel, etc.) are referred to as '...and his own nearest kin': possible, but given that Tolkien struck out the passage that refers to her as a sister of Elwe and Olwe years before + Tolkien going out of his way to make Indis the same generation as Finwe (otherwise, Earwen would be generation above Finarfin), I find it unlikely

3) Cirdan had siblings/nephews/nieces who went to Aman - maybe the most likely interpretation, however the way the passage is worded ('...find Olwe and his own nearest kin...'), I think it might allude to

4) Olwe already had children (either just the sons, or sons + Earwen - my money is on just the sons, since I have a feeling that Tolkien wanted Earwen to be of an age with Finarfin)


Unfortunately, there's nothing concrete here, and I don't think you can draw a strong conclusion one way or another. However, I'd like to point out that Ingwe conceived children in Aman too.



Oh yeah! Why I made this post in the first place - here's the relevant passage as to Cirdan's existence at Cuivienen:

Before ever they came to Beleriand the Teleri had developed a craft of boat-making; first as rafts, and soon as light boats with paddles made in imitation of the water-birds upon the lakes near their first homes, and later on the Great Journey in crossing rivers, or especially during their long tarrying on the shores of the 'Sea of Rhun', where their ships became larger and stronger. But in all this work Círdan had ever been the foremost and most inventive and skilful.

- PoME, 'Last Writings', note 29, pp. 391-2


First off, I think you have to revise the timeline again, due to "during their long tarrying on the shores of the 'Sea of Rhun'"...

Second, while this quote alone doesn't necessarily say that Cirdan was alive during the Elves' existence at Cuivienen, the "in all this work" part makes me think that Cirdan was alive at least when the Elves reached the Sea of Rhun.

Moreover, and I think this is the strongest evidence for him being born at Cuivienen, there's this:

Pengolodh alone mentions a tradition among the Sindar of Doriath that it was in archaic form Nōwē, the original meaning of which was uncertain, as was that of Olwë.

- PoME, 'Last Writings', note 30, p. 392


Nōwē here refers to Cirdan's original name - and the only characters we find (other than Elenwe and Voronwe) which have the suffix -wë are Ingwë, Finwë, Elwë, Olwë, Nelwë (replacement for Elmo?) and Lenwë (+ Morwë and Nurwë, the abandoned OG leaders of the Avari).

This, plus the above quote about boat-making, indicates to me Cirdan was most certainly born at Cuivienen.

[Arvegil145]

Before I make my point about Ents, it occurred to me that maybe you could add certain dates before the First Age (i.e. before VY 850/1) -

1) the creation of the Two Trees (VY 1/1)

2) the creation of the Dwarves by Aule, and other still applicable events (https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Year_of_the_Trees_1000 )



As to the Ents - Elves were clearly in contact with the Ents at some point; when exactly? Who knows. But it seems that they inspired Ents towards language.

There's this quote from Letter 131:

Even some whole inventions like the remarkable Ents, oldest of living rational creatures, Shepherds of the Trees, are omitted.

However, given the numerous developments in the legendarium since that letter (c. 1951), I can hardly take that letter as the 'latest'.

Especially given these three quotes in conjunction:

1)

The fëar of the Elves and Men (and Dwarves via Aulë, Ents via Yavanna) were intrusions into Eä from outside. As the Valar were sent into Eä.

- NoME, 'Primal Impulse', Text A, p. 290; indicating that Ents are some kind of equivalent to the Dwarves

+

2)

Durin I, eldest of the Fathers, 'awoke' far back in the First Age (it is supposed, soon after the awakening of Men)...

- PoME, 'Last Writings', p. 383

+

3)

Learn now the lore of Living Creatures! First name the four, the free peoples: Eldest of all, the elf-children; Dwarf the delver, dark are his houses; Ent the earthborn, old as mountains; Man the mortal, master of horses

- LOTR one-volume edition, 'Book Three', 'Treebeard', p. 464



How do you make sense of this mess?

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

Can you give us an update, @Huinesoron?

The Master wants updateses, yes he does. Nice Master, very kind to poor Huinessssoron.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

I think the death of the Trees should be VY 887/144, if we follow the timeline faithfully (i.e. 24 VY exact after the Finding - that is VY 863/144, if you adopt the change).

Agreed, after checking the source. Which is only 1 SY off where I already had it.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

And as the second anchor point you can take the 'First Battle of Beleriand' which occurred around the time that Feanor was getting to Middle-earth: and since that only took 1 solar year in your timeline (incl. Fingolfin and co. over Helcaraxe) - how does the timeline work in this context?

The timeline anchored from the First Battle is shown in the image (twice, once direct, once relative); it's basically identical to anchoring on the Trees. The First Battle would have to take place in 887/144 or 888/1; presumably Sauron had everything ready to go when Melkor started screaming about spiders.

In any event: I have decided to anchor on the birth of Luthien/3 Ages concept. I don't want to use a compressed GA, as I specifically didn't compress the "blocks" in AAm. Anchoring on either end gives problems. And Luthien's birth is the only date which has an internal logic to it (the rest are basically just 50 years apart each time). Obviously Tolkien would have just rewritten the entire thing - but if for some reason he hadn't, I think this is the most likely solution for him to have used.

The Late Timeline is updated to match this conclusion; I've also removed Celeborn to his own little section at the bottom saying that he's not in there.

Originally Posted by Last Writings

Thus he [Círdan] forfeited the fulfilment of his greatest desire: to see the Blessed Realm and find again there Olwë and his own nearest kin.

I think "his own" is deliberately there to avoid implying Olwe's family - "Olwe and his nearest kin" would mean that, so "his own" looks like an attempt to be explicit that it is Cirdan's kin. The fact that the sentence puts Olwe first might imply that Olwe is close kin to Cirdan; presumably he'd be an uncle, since as you rightly say, Cirdan Nowe was born at Cuivienen.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

However, I'd like to point out that Ingwe conceived children in Aman too.

Source? I'm not doubting it, I just don't remember seeing it. It would make sense - Ingwe seems to have been the most impatient to reach Aman, so he and Ilwen would avoid having more children on the March, and their second was born just before it.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

First off, I think you have to revise the timeline again, due to "during their long tarrying on the shores of the 'Sea of Rhun'"...

That's in there; they linger by Rhun from 2232 to 2362.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

Before I make my point about Ents, it occurred to me that maybe you could add certain dates before the First Age (i.e. before VY 850/1) -

1) the creation of the Two Trees (VY 1/1)

2) the creation of the Dwarves by Aule, and other still applicable events (https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Year_of_the_Trees_1000 )

The Trees, yes; that's a nice fixed date. The Dwarves I can't do, for the same reason I've avoided the Council of the Valar; I have no evidence either way on whether Tolkien would keep the actual SY between those events and the Awakening, or the relative dating between the Trees and the Awakening. (Same goes for all the Almaren stuff, which has ends up looking much quicker against the 850 VY between the Trees and the Quendi - there's just no useful data.)

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

How do you make sense of this mess?

Well, obviously Fangorn is Tom Bombadil, as they are both Eldest...

No, all right. If we want to accept both "Ents are the first rational creatures" and "Elves are eldest", then I think we have to say that the Ents consider themselves to have only become rational when they acquired language. Fangorn hints at this, when he says Some of us are still true Ents, and lively enough in our fashion, but many are growing sleepy, going tree-ish, as you might say. Tree-ish Ents are no longer "true Ents" - just as pre-speech Ents weren't.

So the Ents were the first to be incarnated, and Ere iron was found or tree was hewn... it walked the forests long ago. But until Elves began it, of course, waking trees up and teaching them to speak..., they weren't (in their own view) truly Ents.

As for when... the published Silm has Yavanna coming up with the idea for Ents right after Aule creates the Dwarves, but Manwe says they will only come to be after the Children awaken. If we want the Ents to walk before the Quendi awake, then they must have been created at that time. When that would be, I'm not going to try and guess.

hS

[Arvegil145]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

The Master wants updateses, yes he does. Nice Master, very kind to poor Huinessssoron.

Sorry about that! It did sound like that to me on second viewing, but anyway...

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

In any event: I have decided to anchor on the birth of Luthien/3 Ages concept. I don't want to use a compressed GA, as I specifically didn't compress the "blocks" in AAm. Anchoring on either end gives problems. And Luthien's birth is the only date which has an internal logic to it (the rest are basically just 50 years apart each time). Obviously Tolkien would have just rewritten the entire thing - but if for some reason he hadn't, I think this is the most likely solution for him to have used.

I still have reservations about the whole '3 ages of the imprisonment of Melkor' - perhaps you could convert the 2874.6 figure (in the AAm) into something similar but more duodecimal - let's say 2,880 SY years (20 x 144).

Or otherwise - you could simply keep the whole 144 x 15 (i.e. 2,160 years) idea...I don't know.


Also! I thought that you would shave off 144 SY from the timeline - so that the timeline would end in c. 5,930 or so.

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

The Late Timeline is updated to match this conclusion; I've also removed Celeborn to his own little section at the bottom saying that he's not in there.



I think "his own" is deliberately there to avoid implying Olwe's family - "Olwe and his nearest kin" would mean that, so "his own" looks like an attempt to be explicit that it is Cirdan's kin. The fact that the sentence puts Olwe first might imply that Olwe is close kin to Cirdan; presumably he'd be an uncle, since as you rightly say, Cirdan Nowe was born at Cuivienen.

If you're going to remove Celeborn because he's problematic, you really ought to remove Galadriel, Celebrimbor, Gil-galad (though he doesn't feature in the timeline), etc.

My point is that Celeborn's ambiguous origins are no different than Galadriel's - in other words, please just refrain to using what Tolkien's own published texts involve, regardless of utter insanity that followed and progressively intensified as Tolkien was heading towards his '80s.

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

Source? I'm not doubting it, I just don't remember seeing it. It would make sense - Ingwe seems to have been the most impatient to reach Aman, so he and Ilwen would avoid having more children on the March, and their second was born just before it.

Sorry, I was busy with other stuff - here it is:

Alone among the Eldar I have no wife, and must hope for no sons save one, and for no daughter. Whereas Ingwe and Olwe beget many children in the bliss of Aman. Must I remain ever so?

- MR, 'Later Quenta', §10, p. 258

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

That's in there; they linger by Rhun from 2232 to 2362.

Sorry, I'm a dumbass.

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

The Trees, yes; that's a nice fixed date. The Dwarves I can't do, for the same reason I've avoided the Council of the Valar; I have no evidence either way on whether Tolkien would keep the actual SY between those events and the Awakening, or the relative dating between the Trees and the Awakening. (Same goes for all the Almaren stuff, which has ends up looking much quicker against the 850 VY between the Trees and the Quendi - there's just no useful data.)

There's no 'Almaren stuff' in the revised timeline, since the whole 'Two Lamps' and the consequences of their destruction aren't a part of it.

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

No, all right. If we want to accept both "Ents are the first rational creatures" and "Elves are eldest", then I think we have to say that the Ents consider themselves to have only become rational when they acquired language. Fangorn hints at this, when he says Some of us are still true Ents, and lively enough in our fashion, but many are growing sleepy, going tree-ish, as you might say. Tree-ish Ents are no longer "true Ents" - just as pre-speech Ents weren't.

So the Ents were the first to be incarnated, and Ere iron was found or tree was hewn... it walked the forests long ago. But until Elves began it, of course, waking trees up and teaching them to speak..., they weren't (in their own view) truly Ents.

As for when... the published Silm has Yavanna coming up with the idea for Ents right after Aule creates the Dwarves, but Manwe says they will only come to be after the Children awaken. If we want the Ents to wake before the Quendi awake, then they must have been created at that time. When that would be, I'm not going to try and guess.

According to the latest version of the legendarium, Men awoke after the Dwarves - the whole "awaking after the Children of Iluvatar" makes zero sense unless the Ents awoke after Men.



EDIT: sorry, I left an [/I] instead of [/QUOTE]

[Arvegil145]

BTW, @Huinesoron, what do you think about the idea of creating a post (recorded)-Fourth Age timeline?

There is, to my surprise, actually some meat to the basic skeleton that Tolkien mentioned in his '1960 of the 7th Age' comment - it most certainly wouldn't be a simple repetition of the dates of the SA and TA.

Though I suppose that 'meat' might be significantly cut down if one were to exclude the 'Notion Club Papers'...

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

I still have reservations about the whole '3 ages of the imprisonment of Melkor' - perhaps you could convert the 2874.6 figure (in the AAm) into something similar but more duodecimal - let's say 2,880 SY years (20 x 144).

Or otherwise - you could simply keep the whole 144 x 15 (i.e. 2,160 years) idea...I don't know.

Yes, you could do any of those things. "Three Ages" is the only one for which there are multiple sources tied to it (the AAm entry for his release, and the GA entry for Luthien's birth), so I have used it as the version with the "most evidence". It also gives the best Beleriand dates ("best dates" being the same logic I used for the Finwean calculations). Out of curiousity, here's where the three versions fall in the timeline, with the Unchaining fixed to the death of the Trees:

• 1153 - "Heresy" among the Quendi.
• 1681 - Chaining of Melkor ('duodecimal AAm' = 2880 SY)
• 1686 - Chaining of Melkor ('AAm' = 2875 SY)
• 1778 - Awakening of Men.
• 2016 - Finding of the Quendi.
• 2232 - Great March begins.
• 2373 - Vanyar and Noldor pass Greenwood after Orome drives out Sauron's evils, and settle east of Anduin in Atyamar.
• 2401 - Chaining of Melkor ('3 Ages' = 15 VY = 2160 SY)
• 2426 - Teleri begin to arrive in Atyamar, having come around the southern end of Greenwood.
• 2652 - The March is over.
• 2808 - Noldor and Vanyar arrive in Aman.
• 2833 - Chaining of Melkor ('3 Ages' = 12 VY = 1728 SY)
• 3084 - Teleri under Olwe depart Beleriand.
• 4561 - Release of Melkor

Using the AAm date definitely doesn't work, falling before even the Finding. The choice between 15 VY or 12 VY can be based on two things:

1. Per VI.B. "the rescue of the Quendi must be … before the assault upon Utumno". How far away do the Quendi need to be before the Valar will risk assaulting Melkor? Is "beyond the Greenwood" far enough? Equally, would they really wait more than 1 VY after the Quendi reached Beleriand to start the attack?

2. Tinuviel, Tinuviel. 12 VY puts her birth in 3409, as on the Timeline; 15 VY pushes it back to 2880, which is 223 SY before Elwe awakens.

I think the combination of the direct statement from VI.B, and the calculations from Luthien, make 2833 the best date for the Chaining. If you wind up creating your own timeline, you can weight the evidence differently; all it affects is the Fall of Utumno and the Beleriand dates.

Bonus calculation: per AAm, the war with Utumno lasted 11 "VY" (at 9.58 SY): a running battle 1090-92, the siege from 1092-1099, and the Chaining in 1100. If that timeline is maintained, then the war begins 105 SY before the Chaining. If the Chaining is 2401 (15 VY), then the war starts in 2296 while the Quendi are in Rhun; if the Chaining is in 2833, the war starts in 2728, one SY off from half a VY after "All the Eldar of the main host are in Beleriand".

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

Also! I thought that you would shave off 144 SY from the timeline - so that the timeline would end in c. 5,930 or so.

XVII.2 gives the years between the Finding and the death of the Trees. I adjusted to match that.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

If you're going to remove Celeborn because he's problematic, you really ought to remove Galadriel, Celebrimbor, Gil-galad (though he doesn't feature in the timeline), etc.

The issues with Celeborn and Galadriel are completely different. Celeborn - whoever he's related to - is dated once, with a big "at least" and a huge "if this calculation is correct (it probably isn't)". Since we've thrown out the 3100 SY, there's no basis left to his birthdate. Galadriel, meanwhile, has too many sources; I list three on the Timeline and I think we've discussed others.

Celebrimbor the Sinda is hilarious, because it doesn't fit with anything else - Daeron has no wife and an infatuation with Luthien, so this Celebrimbor would have to be born in the Second Age, so can't be a descendent of Feanor or a resident of Gondolin. You already convinced me to drop that one.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

There's no 'Almaren stuff' in the revised timeline, since the whole 'Two Lamps' and the consequences of their destruction aren't a part of it.

They're not mentioned in any post-AAm/GA source, no. Neither are the birthdates of the descendents of Finwe, the building of Menegroth, or frankly most of the stuff we're putting in here. Given that the Valar were building domes to grow trees in because the Sun just wasn't shiny enough for them, I'd need a solid source saying there weren't Lamps before I'd say they never existed.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

According to the latest version of the legendarium, Men awoke after the Dwarves - the whole "awaking after the Children of Iluvatar" makes zero sense unless the Ents awoke after Men.

You see why I'm leaving the Ents out. The sources disagree too strongly.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

BTW, @Huinesoron, what do you think about the idea of creating a post (recorded)-Fourth Age timeline?

There is, to my surprise, actually some meat to the basic skeleton that Tolkien mentioned in his '1960 of the 7th Age' comment - it most certainly wouldn't be a simple repetition of the dates of the SA and TA.

Though I suppose that 'meat' might be significantly cut down if one were to exclude the 'Notion Club Papers'...

Honestly, I agree that a Grand Unified Timeline of all the Ages of Arda, from the arrival of the Valar to the release of Rings of Power Season 2, would be both amazing and hilarious. But having seen how complicated it is just for this piece of the First Age, I'm not sure I could handle it!

For one thing, the latest source on "how long ago was this" is NoME 1.VI (the "1960 of the 7th Age" text), which adds 3000 years to the usual "6000 years" version, contradicts the astronomy in LotR, and aligns best with stuff from the Lost Road era. And let's not even ask how long the Valar were in Arda before the creation of the Trees!

(3500 AAm VY, but that's about a fifth of the time between the creation of the Trees and the Awakening of the Quendi. You'd probably want to either treat the pre-Trees stuff as 144SY years, making it 504 000 SY, or keep the ratio of 3500:1000 for Beginning-Trees:Trees-Awakening, which makes it about 428 000 SY.)

hS

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

Honestly, I agree that a Grand Unified Timeline of all the Ages of Arda, from the arrival of the Valar to the release of Rings of Power Season 2, would be both amazing and hilarious. But having seen how complicated it is just for this piece of the First Age, I'm not sure I could handle it!

Lies, lies, lies. Of course I went ahead and did it.

The Unified Tolkien Timeline runs from the entry of the Valar into Arda, through to the discovery of the Notion Club Papers. It's not complete - I've skipped the bulk of the Grey Annals and Tale of Years (2nd-4th ages), and the Lost Road material from the 7th Age is missing - but it gets the outlines in place.

I've used the current Late Timeline in its entirety, and drawn on the Ages discussion. As we're using latest sources, the question of how long ago this all was is simple: Bel. 310 is 16 000 years before 1960 CE. I've used the 2700-year Fourth Age from the Ages thread, and put the end of the Fifth Age at the end of the 4.2-kiloyear event; the dates pretty much line up, though it looks like our own Age must be coming to an end...

hS

[Arvegil145]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

The issues with Celeborn and Galadriel are completely different. Celeborn - whoever he's related to - is dated once, with a big "at least" and a huge "if this calculation is correct (it probably isn't)". Since we've thrown out the 3100 SY, there's no basis left to his birthdate. Galadriel, meanwhile, has too many sources; I list three on the Timeline and I think we've discussed others.

Celebrimbor the Sinda is hilarious, because it doesn't fit with anything else - Daeron has no wife and an infatuation with Luthien, so this Celebrimbor would have to be born in the Second Age, so can't be a descendent of Feanor or a resident of Gondolin. You already convinced me to drop that one.

Did we threw away the 3,100 years idea?

As to Celebrimbor, descendant of Daeron, I have no comments other than one - maybe you shouldn't treat that which Tolkien wrote last as scripture. (Not saying you do - but anyway...)

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

They're not mentioned in any post-AAm/GA source, no. Neither are the birthdates of the descendents of Finwe, the building of Menegroth, or frankly most of the stuff we're putting in here. Given that the Valar were building domes to grow trees in because the Sun just wasn't shiny enough for them, I'd need a solid source saying there weren't Lamps before I'd say they never existed.

Other than being very conspicuously absent from c. late '50s to Tolkien's death in 1973?

All else is fanfiction in the worst way possible.

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

For one thing, the latest source on "how long ago was this" is NoME 1.VI (the "1960 of the 7th Age" text), which adds 3000 years to the usual "6000 years" version, contradicts the astronomy in LotR, and aligns best with stuff from the Lost Road era. And let's not even ask how long the Valar were in Arda before the creation of the Trees!

If I'm being honest, I don't give a toss about 'strange astronomy!' - is this really going to be the crux of all this stuff? Unless you're an astronomer, I can't see why anyone would give a single damn about the intricacies of this stuff.