3 Concerning Naugrim, Ents and Eagles

[Aiwendil]

I've been a bit under the weather for the past few days, and thus moving more slowly with this. But I may as well post what I have at the moment. A few more thoughts should follow soon.

DE-EX-01: You both make good points, and I agree the story of the dwarf-women was not rejected. The part that chiefly concerned me was that the possible re-interpretation of 'Durin slept alone' in 'Dwarves and Men' might mean that the detail of six dwarf-women, and Durin without a mate, might have been rejected. However, that detail was well-established, and I think much less ambiguous evidence would be needed to conclude that it was rejected. So I agree to use this passage.

DE-EX-07:

Originally Posted by Findegil

I found a contradiction that we must adress: In Quendi and Eldar, dated 1959-60, it is said that, the Dwarves 'claimed to have known Beleriand before even the Eldar first came there'. This is contradict, in a way, by the Passage (e) from Concerning the Dwraves, dated 1969-70, that we toke up into our text: "But it is not known when Durin or his brethren first awoke, though some think that it was at the time of the departure of the Eldar over sea." Even so we could argue that 'some think' as a qualifier is enough to make the contradiction bearable, but I would here rather use principle 2b and skip the second half of the sentence.

'Concerning the Dwarves' is from c. 1958, though isn't it (The same time as LQ)?

In any case, I think that there is sufficient doubt expressed in both passages that they needn’t be considered to contradict each other. The Dwarves claim to have been in Beleriand before the Elves; others say that the Dwarves did not awaken until the Eldar departed over the sea.

DE-EX-07.1:

Beside that I will again break a lance for DE-EX-07.1. How do we think that with the 6 couples and one additional male and the reported unprolific behaevier of the Dwarves with in such a short time as given between the awakening of the Elves and the Eldar reaching Beleriand such a variation like the Petty-Dwarves would be reached?.

In my opinion, it's still the case that the additional dwarves are an unworkable projection. The making of additional dwarves would undoubtedly have entailed significant changes to the legend as told in 'Concerning the Dwarves' and Letter 212. Which means that in my opinion, if the statement about the Petty-dwarves in 'Quendi and Eldar' is deemed to conflict with the story of the origin of the Dwarves, then it too must be rejected. However, I would still point out that it is (as far as I can see) only stated that the Dwarves claimed to have been in Beleriand before the Elves. This ties in nicely with the fact that - as we are about to say - this is the Elvish myth about the Dwarves’ origin. Perhaps in the Dwarvish myth there are additional Dwarves beyond the 7+6.

I can’t quibble with the calculations Findegil has provided, though I would question whether it is necessarily a valid assumption that the information about Dwarvish marriage and reproduction found in Appendix A applies equally well to the first Dwarves as it does to the Dwarves of the late Third Age. I could easily imagine that early in their history, Dwarves were more likely to marry, married at a younger age, and had more children.

As for 9.582 vs. 144 - as I explained in the other thread, I am now convinced that the 144 figure for the Elvish yén and the 9.582 figure for the Valian Year coexisted simultaneously, and that the idea of a 144 year Valian Year entered later and was part and parcel of the proposed revised chronology, with Men awakening much earlier. But I think it would be best if we can retain ambiguity on this.

All in all, then, I think that we cannot add these additional Dwarves, but must either:

a) reject the statement that Dwarves were in Beleriand before the Elves
b) accept the statement about the Dwarvish claim but deem in non-contradictory (either because it is only a claim or because we can imagine the early dwarves being more prolific than their descendants) or
c) somehow leave the text ambiguous so that even though additional Dwarves are not explicitly mentioned, nothing contradicts the possibility that either Aule or Eru added additional Dwarves

DE-EX-07.2: Yes, as I look more carefully at other possible placements for this material, I think I agree that this is the best place for it. I still find it a little awkward that it jumps forward to talk about the awakening of the fathers and the dispositions of the Dwarvish clans, but that is not a problem per se.

DE-EX-08:

If we would discard this passage because Tolkien did not take it up into his final version, we would need to form some text from LotR, Appendix to contain the information about the female dwarves. In other cases like that we prefered to restore the rejected passages, and I think that is here the better way as well.

I’m not sure that follows - we needn’t say anything about Dwarvish women here at all. However, I am not much against including this passage; its content, at any rate, seems to be on very firm ground.

DE-EX-09:

I don't see that this is redundant with what follows. What I includes from that Letter is: 1. That what was told so far is the Elvish version of the story. 2. That Elves and Men know nothing of the fate of the fëa of the Dwarves after death. Only the second could be said to be redundant to the false belief that Dwarves return to earth and stone. But is that a statment about the dwarvish fëa at all?

That’s a good point. However, the fact that this Elvish belief (that they return to earth and stone) is contrasted with the Dwarvish belief that they are gathered to Mandos suggests that the Elvish belief does somehow pertain to the fëa. So I think I’d prefer to remove the statement about Elves and Men knowing nothing of the fate of Dwarvish fëar after death (though retaining the statement that this is an Elvish myth).