Gnome or Elf?

[Galin]

In the early Tale of Tinúviel Beren was seemingly first a Man, then an Elf (a Gnome), and ultimately a Man again of course.

'The rejected passage given on p. 71, together with the marginal note 'If Beren be a Gnome (as now in the story of Tinúviel) the references to Beren must be altered' (note 4), is the basis of my assertion (p. 52) that in the earliest, now lost, form of the Tale of Tinúviel Beren was a Man (...) Beren was a Man, and akin to Mavwin, when the extant Turambar was written; he became a Gnome in the extant Tinúviel; and this change was then written into Turambar.'

Christopher Tolkien, commentary, Turambar And The Foalóke