Tolkien's final First Age timeline

[Arvegil145]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

- The birth of Galadriel. With the timelines we have, she cannot simultaneously be pre-adult at the Darkening, and older than the Silmarils, but that's what the two latest sources tell us. If Tolkien wanted to reconcile them, he would have needed to dramatically reduce the timeline between those two events, and he never indicated such a change.

- The birth of Aredhel. I'm annoyed by this, because it's actually one of the last dates Tolkien added to the Annals of Aman. But the Annals make the Aman years about 1.5x the length they are in later timelines, and I just can't fit her in before the Silmarils are created without pretty much inventing dates for all Finwe's descendents. So she has been excluded.

Does your project treat works published during Tolkien's lifetime as taking precedence over those that are later but unpublished?

I ask because I think that Galadriel being pre-adult at the Darkening is at odds with what is said about her in The Road Goes Ever On (p. 60):

She [Galadriel] was the last survivor of the princes and queens who had led the revolting Noldor to exile in Middle-earth.

- emphasis mine


Well, technically, not literally at odds with it, but rather I find it unlikely (or at least unsatisfactory) that a teenager (for all intents and purposes) was one of the principal leaders of the rebellion of the Noldor. (Her being pre-adult would also drastically reduce her share of responsibility in the rebellion IMO.)

And, regardless of how you feel about the above argument, I'd still think the simplest solution to all this mess with Galadriel is to just bite the bullet and incorporate the AAm date instead (which also solves the Aredhel problem since they share the same birth year).

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

- The Awakening of Men. Tolkien wanted this to be both well before the fall of the Trees, and at least 50 (long) Valian Years after the Awakening of the Quendi. But he also wanted only 38 VY between Elves awakening and the Trees going dark. It doesn't fit; I'd have to invent a date.

I'm curious about how you would handle this (even though you said you wouldn't, but, indulge me?).

Not quite sure if this was Tolkien's 'final' idea (pretty sure it isn't, actually), but my favorite is the one where Sauron was responsible for the fall of Men (which at least gives a clear lower limit for the Awaking of Men, which is after Melkor is taken captive).



EDIT: I was thinking that, perhaps, it is possible to Sherlock our way to a rough date of the Awaking of Men by constraining the dates via the clues given to us about the Awaking of the Dwarves. There are two major sets of evidence I'd like to present.


1) In The War of the Jewels, there are two rough dates given for the Awaking of the Dwarves:

- a) the Dwarves awake at about the same time that the Eldar leave for Valinor (dates from c. 1958):

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.

- WotJ, 'Later Quenta', 'Concerning the Dwarves', Text 'e', pp. 211-2


- b) the Dwarves are already awake before the Eldar reached Beleriand (dates from c. 1959/1960):

Indeed it was one of their grievances against the Eldar that they had hunted and slain their lesser kin [Petty-dwarves], who had settled in Beleriand before the Elves came there.

- WotJ, 'Quendi and Eldar', 'Appendix B', 'The Petty-dwarves', pp. 388-9

So, in conclusion, if we adopt the earlier 1.a, then the Dwarves awake either in c. VY 870 (Noldor and Vanyar depart) or c. VY 872 (Teleri depart). Alternatively, if adopt the later 1.b, then the Dwarves awake some time before c. VY 869.


The next piece of evidence is:

2) In The Peoples of Middle-earth, there are likewise two contradictory ideas as to when the Dwarves awake in relation to Men:

- a) the Awaking of the Dwarves precedes that of Men (dates from c. 1969):

They refer to legends of the Ages of Awakening and the arising of the Speaking Peoples: first the Elves, second the Dwarves (as they claimed), and third Men.

- PoME, 'Of Dwarves and Men', Note 21, pp. 321-2


- b) the Awaking of the Dwarves postdates that of Men (dates from c. 1972/3):

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

Therefore, depending on whether we adopt 2.a or 2.b, the Awaking of Men either predates (2.b) or postdates (2.a) the Awaking of the Dwarves - whose awaking took place either in c. VY 870-2 (1.a), or some time before c. VY 869 (1.b).


In other words, if we assume the later texts from both 1 and 2, the Dwarves should awake before c. VY 869, and Men should awake not long before the Dwarves.

To be perfectly honest, I kind of prefer the earlier version of 1 (1.b) because it at least gives us a nice, concrete figure (VY 870/2) - and if we take the 'Dwarves awake when the Elves leave for Valinor' to mean 'when the Teleri leave', then that gives us c. VY 872 as the date for the Awaking of the Dwarves: and since it is said in 2.b that the Dwarves awoke shortly after Men, depending on your definition of 'shortly', one could put a provisional date for the Awaking of Men as, say, c. VY 870 (departure of Noldor and Vanyar). Which also means that Men existed for almost 3,000 years before they arrived in Beleriand.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents.


P.S. What do you think about this timeline (based on yours) that I found on reddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/tolkienfans...ted_first_age/

+ the image (https://i.imgur.com/VZ3LnUK.png)

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

Does your project treat works published during Tolkien's lifetime as taking precedence over those that are later but unpublished?

It does not, which is one reason it isn't anywhere near the New Silmarillion forum. The reason I've excluded Galadriel is that "Galadriel is older than the Silmarils" and "Galadriel is a teenager at the Death of the Trees" are both later statements than "this is how many years there were between the making of the Silmarils and the death of the Trees". I have a horrible feeling that last statement is actually sourced to the Annals of Aman, so yes, using the AAm date would be by far the easiest option. I can't, though, because the point is "latest" - but I couldn't bring myself to hypercompress the Silmarils-to-Exile timeline as the sources would indicate.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

I'm curious about how you would handle this (even though you said you wouldn't, but, indulge me?).

Okay, so. NoME 1.VI(B) gives a timeline of:

• VY1000: Awakening of Eldar
• VY1090: Finding of Eldar
• VY1100: Arising and Fall of Men, during the Captivity of Melkor.

The simplest solution would be to simply scale the Finding:Arising gap to the final Awakening:Finding gap. There are 14 VY from the Awakening to the Finding; so there should be 1.56 VY between the Finding of the Quendi and the Arising of Men. That would place the Arising in VY 866/80, which... actually works really well? It's 9 years after the March begins, when the Eldar are camped out at Rhun. There is no clear date for the fall of Utumno, but if we read "The Valar delay moving against Utumno for fear that war would affect the Quendi" to mean "the Valar did not attack Utumno until the Eldar had moved away", then Utumno probably falls sometime in those 9 years (why would they wait longer?). In fact, the Arising of Men might have occured because of the fall of Utumno, mystically speaking. Sauron is free to move around at this point - he's not attested harassing the Eldar for at least another solar century.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

EDIT: I was thinking that, perhaps, it is possible to Sherlock our way to a rough date of the Awaking of Men by constraining the dates via the clues given to us about the Awaking of the Dwarves. There are two major sets of evidence I'd like to present.

Oops, I forgot about the Dwarves entirely! Taking your sources, Tolkien's latest written ideas on them are:

1. They "'awoke' far back in the First Age (it is supposed, soon after the awakening of Men)" - PoME p.383, ca. 1972-3
2. They (specifically the Petty Dwarves) "settled in Beleriand before the Elves came there" - WotJ p.389, ca. 1959-60

So I think I have to take the reverse of your position: the Dwarves awoke not long after Men, somewhere in the later years of VY866. If we call this VY866/144, it gives them 2VY + 54SY (ie 342SY total) to invent racism and drive the petty-dwarves into Beleriand proper. I have no problem with that timeline, and when I get a chance I will integrate both this and Men above into the document.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

P.S. What do you think about this timeline (based on yours) that I found on reddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/tolkienfans...ted_first_age/

+ the image (https://i.imgur.com/VZ3LnUK.png)

Oh, neat! I didn't realise I was Reddit-famous. It looks like they have a more reliable VY > SY conversion (I freely admit I didn't check for off-by-one errors, or typos in Tolkien's calculations), so I should probably adopt those. That probably means going back and checking that the dates are originally VY, and that I haven't misplaced something by wrongly converting a SY date.

I disagree on their methodology for the Valinorean years; I still agree with what I said on the timeline, that "It seems likely that Tolkien would have retained the relative spacing within each of these sets of dates". But that's a judgement call! It's entirely legitimate to do it their way - I just didn't.

One interesting point is that they said it was "too at variance with the established chronology for comfort". They're right, and that means that if someone was trying to use this timeline, they should probably use the Reddit variant. But I'm trying specifically to work out what Tolkien's "final version" would have been - and he was in no way bound by his own earlier dating schemes.

And one thing that worries me is that they say "We know that the Valar delayed moving against Utumno until after the Elves... came to Valinor." That would mess up my tidy logic on the Arising of Men, so I have to go and hunt down that source and see if it actually says that... and when it was written.

hS

[Arvegil145]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

One interesting point is that they said it was "too at variance with the established chronology for comfort". They're right, and that means that if someone was trying to use this timeline, they should probably use the Reddit variant. But I'm trying specifically to work out what Tolkien's "final version" would have been - and he was in no way bound by his own earlier dating schemes.

And one thing that worries me is that they say "We know that the Valar delayed moving against Utumno until after the Elves... came to Valinor." That would mess up my tidy logic on the Arising of Men, so I have to go and hunt down that source and see if it actually says that... and when it was written.

In regards to mistakes Tolkien made when calculating VY into SY, I'd rather keep the sun-years as fixed, and alter the VY to fit them - since this is the 'Round World' conception we're talking about, so Sun existed from the beginning, and the Elves would naturally track time via the Sun, the VY being secondary.

As for Utumno, I checked the index to look for reference to it throughout NoME, but I can't remember anything that says that the 'Valar delayed moving against Utumno until after the Elves came to Valinor'...though I could be wrong of course.



As an aside, where do your 'Beleriand Years' begin? With the coming of the Noldor (Fingolfin or Feanor)?

Because the latest mention of the duration of 'Beleriand Years' I could find was in the chapter XVIII ('Elvish Ages and Numenorean' from 1965), p. 150:

Eärendil his father wedded Elwing in FA 525, being then 23. Elrond may have been born about 527–530. He was thus at least 70 at the fall of Thangorodrim in c. FA 600.

So this text has the 'Beleriand Years' lasting for 600 years, instead of 590.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

In regards to mistakes Tolkien made when calculating VY into SY, I'd rather keep the sun-years as fixed, and alter the VY to fit them - since this is the 'Round World' conception we're talking about, so Sun existed from the beginning, and the Elves would naturally track time via the Sun, the VY being secondary.

I disagree. The timeline is sourced to NoME 1.XIII(1), in which the key error (SY 2016 = VY 864/144) is actually expressed as "end of VY 864". Tolkien was clearly treating the VY as primary, so for this specific project, I have to follow his lead. I can totally see the argument for using the SY dates throughout in other contexts, though!

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

As for Utumno, I checked the index to look for reference to it throughout NoME, but I can't remember anything that says that the 'Valar delayed moving against Utumno until after the Elves came to Valinor'...though I could be wrong of course.

I think the source is 1.VI(B), which states "It seems clear that the rescue of the Quendi must be secret (as far as possible) and before the assault upon Utumno - otherwise this very peril ["involv[ing] the Children in misery or destruction"] would have occurred. The Great March must occur behind a screen of investment, and before any violent assault had begun."

Which... might well mean that the March was completed before Utumno was attacked. Except this is the same source as I was using for the Arising of Men! In the span of six paragraphs, Tolkien establishes:

• The Captivity began after the March completed.
• Men awoke during the Captivity.
• Men awoke 1440 SY after the Finding

Which... could work. If we say the March was completed when the Teleri sailed, that's about 1100 SY after the Finding. Men would then awaken 300 years later, around the time Alqualonde was built. They then have, oh, call it 1500 years before they arrive in Beleriand.

But, that directly contradicts the last information on the Dwarves (that they awoke after Men and entered Beleriand before the Eldar. Is there a solution that satisfies both?

Maybe. VI(B) uses the term "Arising and Fall of Men", which doesn't quite say that the Arising is the same as the Awakening. VI(A), a slightly earlier text, begins with: "Men must 'awake' before the Captivity of Melkor. [Footnote:] But see later. men were probably corrupted by Sauron after the Captivity (100 VYs later)." So we could have a situation where Men awaken during the March, but are only discovered after it.

But... that's absolutely not what VI(A) was angling for (it specifically has Melkor discovering Men before the Finding), so maybe I was best to leave it out. ^_^

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

As an aside, where do your 'Beleriand Years' begin? With the coming of the Noldor (Fingolfin or Feanor)?

Good question. It looks like I've treated "the Noldor arrive in Middle-earth" and "FA 1" as synonyms. I don't think I have a source for that; I certainly didn't write one down.

hS

[Arvegil145]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

I think the source is 1.VI(B), which states "It seems clear that the rescue of the Quendi must be secret (as far as possible) and before the assault upon Utumno - otherwise this very peril ["involv[ing] the Children in misery or destruction"] would have occurred. The Great March must occur behind a screen of investment, and before any violent assault had begun."

Which... might well mean that the March was completed before Utumno was attacked. Except this is the same source as I was using for the Arising of Men! In the span of six paragraphs, Tolkien establishes:

• The Captivity began after the March completed.
• Men awoke during the Captivity.
• Men awoke 1440 SY after the Finding

Which... could work. If we say the March was completed when the Teleri sailed, that's about 1100 SY after the Finding. Men would then awaken 300 years later, around the time Alqualonde was built. They then have, oh, call it 1500 years before they arrive in Beleriand.

But, that directly contradicts the last information on the Dwarves (that they awoke after Men and entered Beleriand before the Eldar. Is there a solution that satisfies both?

Maybe. VI(B) uses the term "Arising and Fall of Men", which doesn't quite say that the Arising is the same as the Awakening. VI(A), a slightly earlier text, begins with: "Men must 'awake' before the Captivity of Melkor. [Footnote:] But see later. men were probably corrupted by Sauron after the Captivity (100 VYs later)." So we could have a situation where Men awaken during the March, but are only discovered after it.

But... that's absolutely not what VI(A) was angling for (it specifically has Melkor discovering Men before the Finding), so maybe I was best to leave it out. ^_^



Good question. It looks like I've treated "the Noldor arrive in Middle-earth" and "FA 1" as synonyms. I don't think I have a source for that; I certainly didn't write one down.

hS

I think that quote from VI.(B) is pretty vague.

"The Great March must occur behind a screen of investment, and before any violent assault had begun." - the way I see it, this could mean two things:

1) The assault on Utumno doesn't start until the March is completed (i.e. all three groups arriving in Valinor)

2) The assault doesn't begin until the March is started, and the Eldar are sufficiently far away to be relatively safe (I suppose Avari are screwed though either way...but I digress...)


I much prefer interpretation no. 2, and not just because it gives me less of a headache - I prefer it mainly because I just can't see the Valar hanging around for hundreds of years waiting and waiting, especially since the assault of Angband was already under way when the Eldar started the March, and that would undoubtedly be of terrible proportions - but still evidently not terrible enough to not do it while the Eldar were still in Middle-earth.

In regards to VI.(A) - what about that footnote about Sauron corrupting Men after the Captivity of Melkor?




Anyway, in regards to the 'Beleriand Years' - I think that Tolkien still treated the arrival of Fingolfin as 'YS 1'/'FA 1'/'Bel. 1' regardless of 'flat-world'/'round-world' frameworks.


By the way, what source did you use for the 20 solar years figure for the exile of the Noldor? And if it's unsourced and we're making stuff up, I'd lean more toward the figure in the Difficulties in Chronology (p. 71):

Therefore the Crossing of the Ice should be in FA 1496.

This was a change from YT 1500, given that he thought 720 years is a bit too much - so it's "only" one VY now: of course the VY here is 144 solar years, but, like I said - if it's a matter of making up a figure, you can just take this up but convert it into the old c. 10 years duration of VY...or you can just take Tolkien on his word and make it 144 years! (Please don't...what was he thinking!!??)

And as if that wasn't bad enough, take a look at this from the same text as the above (pp. 72-3):

A better solution is 3) The Rate of Growth of those born in Beleriand was 10 = 1. But of those born in Aman it was 50 = 1 in Beleriand. But it began to increase as soon as they left Valinor, say after the Doom of Mandos. The Valian Year spent in reaching Beleriand via the ice aged all the Exiles about 2 years (it took 144 Sun-years) = 72 (but Fëanor reached Beleriand in one half the time = Bel. 50 and so only aged 1 year).

So not only did Fingolfin and co. take 144 solar years (!) to reach Beleriand, but, get this, Feanor (who was in something of a hurry!) took 72 years (!!) by SHIP (!!!) to reach Losgar...


Anyway, I'm only pointing out this quote because I had to get it off my chest. If you ever decide to give a date for Feanor's landing in Middle-earth, I'd just make something up and give it, say, a (normal) year after the destruction of the Trees (and even that is still too much IMO).

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

I much prefer interpretation no. 2, and not just because it gives me less of a headache - I prefer it mainly because I just can't see the Valar hanging around for hundreds of years waiting and waiting, especially since the assault of Angband was already under way when the Eldar started the March, and that would undoubtedly be of terrible proportions - but still evidently not terrible enough to not do it while the Eldar were still in Middle-earth.

I prefer it myself, and for the same reason. But I don't feel confident saying it's definitely what Tolkien preferred.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

In regards to VI.(A) - what about that footnote about Sauron corrupting Men after the Captivity of Melkor?

Okay, I've had to take a step back and think about this. if the "Awakening of Men" (VI.A) and the "Arising and Fall of Men" (VI.B) are separate events, then both accounts can be true: men Awaken before the Finding of the Quendi, and are corrupted during the Captivity of Melkor.

VI.A's final timeline has:

• VY 1000: Quendi awake
• VY 1075: Men awake
• VY 1085: Quendi found

Rescaling to the Final Timeline, that puts the awakening of Men around VY 862/50. The "arising and fall" takes place after the Finding - "not very long (in Elvish terms)" - for which the VY 866/80 date works nicely. Men have been around for about 600 years by the time they "arise" (move out of their original lands?) and are corrupted by Sauron. Perhaps we should be picturing something like the Fall of Numenor - Numenor reached its greatest power right before its fall, and perhaps the original Men did too.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

By the way, what source did you use for the 20 solar years figure for the exile of the Noldor? And if it's unsourced and we're making stuff up, I'd lean more toward the figure in the Difficulties in Chronology (p. 71)

I think it's just the Annals of Aman, which kill the trees in 1495, and land Feanor in Beleriand in 1497.

You looked at 1.X, but I think 1.XVIII actually supersedes it. 1.XVIII claims "the March [back to Middle-earth] took a whole life-year of the survivors at whatever rate they were living, sc. to the young [but] "grown" it added 1 growth-year (3 loar); to the older and full-grown 1 life-year (144 loar)." The Timeline assumes that when Tolkien later said Elves aged as fast as Men he still meant "in their own terms", so this puts an upper limit of 3SY between the death of the Trees and Fingolfin reaching Middle-earth. If we keep the AAm ratio of 2:5 for Feanor and Fingolfin's journeys, then yes, Feanor takes something like a year, and with no making up of stuff.

hS

[Huinesoron]

Okay! I've gone back and redone all of the calculations, and reassembled the Timeline for the third time.

• There may still be some off-by-one errors, but they shouldn't carry through to other dates (I calculated everything at once).
• Men and Dwarves are in. Galadriel and Aredhel are still out.
• I've tried to explain my reasoning a bit better in some of the notes.
• Every item is footnoted to show which source it comes from. Lower number footnotes are later sources.

I am quite pleased to have worked out a solution to the whole Men/Utumno issue. It doesn't match the Reddit version, but I believe it holds up as a plausible "Final Timeline".

hS