* *A New Project ~~~ Revising the Ainulindale* *

[Maédhros]

These clearly suggest that some or much of the surrounding text is the invention of Pengolodh. That is - surely he is not simply reading Rumil's text and adding only phrases like "thou must understand, Aelfwine". He is giving an oral account, no doubt based closely on Rumil's written account, but not matching it word for word. We have so far ignored the fact that in the old version it was an oral account and in our new version it is a written one; we have not tried to wipe out Pengolodh's embellishments and reconstruct Rumil's written text because there is no way of establishing which words exactly Rumil used. Instead, we have more or less pretended that Pengolodh's oral version is exactly Rumil's written version, with only obvious first and second person phrases removed.

Yes, that sums it better than I did.
For the record, I think that Aiwendil's emendation is very good.