Tolkien's final First Age timeline

[Huinesoron]

Reposting the Late Timeline for the new page.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

What Tolkien is saying here is effectively that his entire 'Scheme 7' was based on Elves reaching adulthood at 24 loar, even in FA 2016, by generation 20+!

To cut the Gordian knot here: the only reference to 72 year adulthood prior to Aman is the birth of Celeborn. The first person referenced in XVIII as having that growth rate is Galadriel, who was born in Aman. Therefore, the aging rate of the Quendi before they reached Aman is not relevant to this timeline. I'll add yet another note on how speculative Celeborn is.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

3) the infinitely more reasonable (and prettier) 5 generations from OG Elves to Ambassadors (seriously, the later figure of 24/25th generation for the Ambassadors is as comical and ugly as the 72 years for Feanor crossing the ocean)

Absolutely definitely and emphatically agreed. But Tolkien gonna Tolk.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

Problem here is of course that it makes Galadriel and Celeborn first cousins.

Not a problem for the Timeline, thankfully! If Tolkien had written in 1973 that Feanor married himself and was his own father I'd cheerfully put it in (wait, he didn't, right??).

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

The latest we hear of Celebrimbor's descent is from 'Of Dwarves and Men' (c. 1969):

I don't think the gymnastics required to square this with his other accounts is worth it, even if possible.

Look, it's perfectly simple. After leaving Curufin to sail with Celeborn, returning to Curufin, leaving him again, popping into Gondolin for 30 years, and evacuating to the Havens, Celebrimbor was actually guarding Elrond and Elros at the Third Kinslaying. He was knocked out and lost his memory, becoming as a child, so Maglor adopted him as well, giving him the name "Celebrimbros". He went with Elrond and Elros to the War of Wrath, got knocked out and lost his memory again, was re-adopted by Maglor after he chucked the Silmaril in the Sea, and then the two of them ran into Daeron (also a wandering crazed minstrel) and Daeron adopted him too. It's all explained in NoME 2: Tolkien's Newspaper Doodles, coming soon to a bookstore near you.

... yeah all right we'll leave him as Curufin's.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

As I mentiond before, AAm has an interesting note attached to it (note to §81, p. 106):

So if we're following the AAm post Feanor's birth, we should keep this addition. And I think this note might postdate the same entry in the GA.

That's just a reference to the 1200 entry in the Grey Annals, though, which specifically says "nobody knows when Luthien was born, but legend says it was after 1 Age of Melkor's imprisonment". That's my point - the 1200 date is entirely conditional on the Chaining of Melkor.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

I tend to agree with Melkor being the only one to corrupt Men - however, how is Melkor supposed to come back to Men (the 'second visit') after he is captured (i.e. after the fall of Utumno)?

He's not. Ignore the "Arising and Fall" source entirely, it's implicitly rejected by later sources. Men awoke around *1075, and were visited by Melkor within the lifespan of the first generation. Sometime between then and the Fall of Utumno a thousand years later, possibly (though not definitely) sneaking out of the theoretically-besieged Utumno, he returned and completed their corruption. Somewhere in the 3000 years that followed, a small number of them repented and fled, and wound up in Beleriand just in time to meet him again. I think Athrabeth says that he stopped showing up in person, which being chained in Mandos would do to a chap.

hS

[Arvegil145]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

Reposting the Late Timeline for the new page.



To cut the Gordian knot here: the only reference to 72 year adulthood prior to Aman is the birth of Celeborn. The first person referenced in XVIII as having that growth rate is Galadriel, who was born in Aman. Therefore, the aging rate of the Quendi before they reached Aman is not relevant to this timeline. I'll add yet another note on how speculative Celeborn is.

I think we're talking past each other - the rate of 'ageing' and the time at which Elves have their first children prior to the March is absolutely, completely inseparable from the 'Scheme 7' (the basis for XIII.1).

I mean, try constructing the 20-30 generations of Elves via '72 years as adulthood + 3 years of gestation', and see where you end up. (The timeline is either too long or it's too short, depending on how you apply the '72 years').

And regardless, you will inevitably end up with your own timeline, not that of Tolkien.

In other words - you can either preserve the timeline or you can preserve the '72 years to adulthood' figure - but combining it is going to end up with a Frankenstein's monster of a timeline.

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

Not a problem for the Timeline, thankfully! If Tolkien had written in 1973 that Feanor married himself and was his own father I'd cheerfully put it in (wait, he didn't, right??).

The problem is that, if it's adopted, the whole 'Idril v Maeglin' storyline loses much of its weight.

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

That's just a reference to the 1200 entry in the Grey Annals, though, which specifically says "nobody knows when Luthien was born, but legend says it was after 1 Age of Melkor's imprisonment". That's my point - the 1200 date is entirely conditional on the Chaining of Melkor.

Is it though? Again, depending on when this note dates from, I could easily imagine Tolkien divorcing himself from the 'ages of the chaining of Melkor' idea.

Regardless, it's an explicit addition to the AAm, so I think it should be regarded as such, and adopted into your revised AAm timeline.

In fact, from there, you can anchor the early dates of GA in YT 1133/1200, and the later dates in c. 5473/4 (rough date of the First Battle of Beleriand). The mess in the middle I leave to your capable hands.

And yes, I'm aware of all the problems with this method - it's just that I don't think they are as problematic as they appear to be.

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

He's not. Ignore the "Arising and Fall" source entirely, it's implicitly rejected by later sources. Men awoke around *1075, and were visited by Melkor within the lifespan of the first generation. Sometime between then and the Fall of Utumno a thousand years later, possibly (though not definitely) sneaking out of the theoretically-besieged Utumno, he returned and completed their corruption. Somewhere in the 3000 years that followed, a small number of them repented and fled, and wound up in Beleriand just in time to meet him again. I think Athrabeth says that he stopped showing up in person, which being chained in Mandos would do to a chap.

This seems as good as it'll ever be - I agree.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

I think we're talking past each other - the rate of 'ageing' and the time at which Elves have their first children prior to the March is absolutely, completely inseparable from the 'Scheme 7' (the basis for XIII.1).

I agree we're talking past each other. The rate of aging & the time Elves have their first children prior to the March is absolutely, completely irrelevant to the "Late Timeline". It's not mentioned! "72 years" comes up precisely once before the birth of Feanor: with Celeborn. "3 year gestation" has additionally been used once, with Indis. That's it. There is no problem to answer here, unless the problem is "sources which differ can never be combined", in which case the whole concept of this timeline has to be discarded.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

I mean, try constructing the 20-30 generations of Elves via '72 years as adulthood + 3 years of gestation', and see where you end up.

(I did in fact try this at one point, it was a niiiightmare.)

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

The problem is that, if it's adopted, the whole 'Idril v Maeglin' storyline loses much of its weight.

Timelines care nothing for narrative weight!

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

Is it though? Again, depending on when this note dates from, I could easily imagine Tolkien divorcing himself from the 'ages of the chaining of Melkor' idea.

Regardless, it's an explicit addition to the AAm, so I think it should be regarded as such, and adopted into your revised AAm timeline.

I'm confused. It seems clear to me that at some point, Tolkien noted [some of the] dates from the Grey Annals onto the Annals of Aman. That doesn't make them a new, more recent source for those dates - it just means he made some notes. The source for 1200 Luthien remains the Grey Annals, which state it's an estimate based on the Captivity of Melkor.

~

Adopting the 2016 Finding has immediately messed up the Finwean dates something awful. Since the 5018 date for Galadriel and Aredhel is counting backwards from 888/1, it remains fixed, while Finrod's birth jumps back 153 SY. That messes up the "standard gap between children" - Finwe's remains 192 SY, Finarfin's is now 245 SY, and Fingolfin's children are spaced 383 and 736 SY.

I think the best approach is to recalculate based on an approach I rejected before: using Feanor's AAm birth year (360 SY after Finwe reached Aman), and keeping Fingolfin's birthdate in AAm 1190 despite moving his parents' marriage back about 50 SY. That version of the timeline puts Finrod's birth in 4423, 595 SY before Galadriel - which means an even gap between the four children of Finarfin is 198 SY, and means I can keep the calculations pretty much as they are.

As a bonus, this method on the new timeline means that "AAm 1362" falls in 5017 - only one year out from our "Galadriel at 20" date for Aredhel and Galadriel. I'm more than happy to take that as evidence!

hS

[Arvegil145]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

I agree we're talking past each other. The rate of aging & the time Elves have their first children prior to the March is absolutely, completely irrelevant to the "Late Timeline". It's not mentioned! "72 years" comes up precisely once before the birth of Feanor: with Celeborn. "3 year gestation" has additionally been used once, with Indis. That's it. There is no problem to answer here, unless the problem is "sources which differ can never be combined", in which case the whole concept of this timeline has to be discarded.



(I did in fact try this at one point, it was a niiiightmare.)

Sorry if I didn't make myself clear (it's my fault) - I understand that this issue only emerges occasionally - however, what I'm trying to say is that, unless the 24-year adulthood figure is adopted, the entire 'Scheme 7' collapses, and therefore XIII.1 is useless.

You might as well throw away the entirety of XIII.1 (the basis of the timeline), since it is predicated upon a completely different idea of Elvish ageing.

Even if it doesn't seem obvious immediately, I guarantee that the XIII.1 would get completely wrecked if the later figure were applied.

You can relatively easily get away with certain things, however, this ('Scheme 7') is too specific to do so.

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

Timelines care nothing for narrative weight!

Maybe not, but Tolkien's '60/'70s are definitely calling out such a thing as..."unnatural".

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

I'm confused. It seems clear to me that at some point, Tolkien noted [some of the] dates from the Grey Annals onto the Annals of Aman. That doesn't make them a new, more recent source for those dates - it just means he made some notes. The source for 1200 Luthien remains the Grey Annals, which state it's an estimate based on the Captivity of Melkor.

I'm confused that you're confused! Yes, obviously, Tolkien might've grafted some GA dates onto AAm - however, they are there, in the AAm context!

I don't even know if Tolkien would've kept the whole 1/3 captivity of Melkor when he added this note to the AAm.

Maybe, maybe not - but at least now you have a concrete figure in an 'AAm framework'.

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

Adopting the 2016 Finding has immediately messed up the Finwean dates something awful. Since the 5018 date for Galadriel and Aredhel is counting backwards from 888/1, it remains fixed, while Finrod's birth jumps back 153 SY. That messes up the "standard gap between children" - Finwe's remains 192 SY, Finarfin's is now 245 SY, and Fingolfin's children are spaced 383 and 736 SY.

I think the best approach is to recalculate based on an approach I rejected before: using Feanor's AAm birth year (360 SY after Finwe reached Aman), and keeping Fingolfin's birthdate in AAm 1190 despite moving his parents' marriage back about 50 SY. That version of the timeline puts Finrod's birth in 4423, 595 SY before Galadriel - which means an even gap between the four children of Finarfin is 198 SY, and means I can keep the calculations pretty much as they are.

As a bonus, this method on the new timeline means that "AAm 1362" falls in 5017 - only one year out from our "Galadriel at 20" date for Aredhel and Galadriel. I'm more than happy to take that as evidence!

Again, whatever makes the mess slightly less of a mess.

[Huinesoron]

Okay, timeline is stable again with the revised Finweans.

On aging: the only pre-Valinor reference to the 72 years is Celeborn, who is already a dubious date on so many levels; not least that we've had to discard the 3100 years already, so he should be born in Beleriand (or Aman) now regardless.

Various texts mention the idea that the aging rate of the elves changed over their history. For example XVI says "All the elaborate calculations [about aging] are both cumbrous, and in early narrative (Awaking and Finding, March, etc) quite unworkable." Tolkien seems to have used and rejected this idea at various times, but since we need to reconcile XIII.1 and XVIII, it is the best tool around. The Eldar simply grew up slower after they reached Aman.

(I think the only direct use of 72 years that affects the timeline is Miriel's death; everything else is around "mortal-equivalent" ages or just comparatives within the AAm.)

So yeah, I'm happy with it as it is.

Beleriand/the Grey Annals remains a mess.



Blue highlighting is events pushed after Melkor's unchaining; orange is events pushed back before Elwe's awakening.

Working from left to right:

• Event - what it says on the tin
• GA - dates in the GA
• GA Full - what the dates would be if we adopted the full length of GA/AAm. We can't do this (because "the Trees died in 888" is a later source); it's here for reference.
• LT - Late Timeline dates, with the last few dates adjusted to use 888/144 rather than 888/1 for the death of the Trees. Tolkien's calculation actually used 889/1, so this would be legitimate. The argument against it was "3100 years", but we're already at 3265 and counting.
• Elwe - GA events anchored on Elwe's awakening.
• Unchaining / Trees slain / First Battle - GA events anchored on these three events. All very similar.
• Luthien (1 Age) - GA events anchored on "Luthien was born 1/3 of the way through the Captivity".
• Trees / Unchaining / First Battle - the result of scaling the GA down to match the LT time between Elwe's awakening and the relevant event.
• Nearest AAm (and reference columns) - each event is anchored on SY from the nearest AAm event to it

In GA, Denethor arrives 479 SY before the unchaining of Melkor; none of these options even come close, even the ones that push Luthien's birth back to the March.

I think the best single timeline is actually the Luthien one: it's non-compressed (unlike the Relative ones), and is the only one that gets at least the Orcs into Beleriand before Melkor is unchained. I don't see any way we can hybridise the Elwe timeline with any of the late-anchored ones: whatever you do, events are going to swap positions. Any of the compressed timelines would of course work, but I've avoided compressing related events in Aman; taking any of these would mean Menegroth only takes 300 SY to build rather than 500, for example, and I feel like Tolkien would have kept the 500.

But I'm open to being convinced. What looks least-wrong?

hS

[Arvegil145]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

Okay, timeline is stable again with the revised Finweans.

On aging: the only pre-Valinor reference to the 72 years is Celeborn, who is already a dubious date on so many levels; not least that we've had to discard the 3100 years already, so he should be born in Beleriand (or Aman) now regardless.

Various texts mention the idea that the aging rate of the elves changed over their history. For example XVI says "All the elaborate calculations [about aging] are both cumbrous, and in early narrative (Awaking and Finding, March, etc) quite unworkable." Tolkien seems to have used and rejected this idea at various times, but since we need to reconcile XIII.1 and XVIII, it is the best tool around. The Eldar simply grew up slower after they reached Aman.

(I think the only direct use of 72 years that affects the timeline is Miriel's death; everything else is around "mortal-equivalent" ages or just comparatives within the AAm.)

So yeah, I'm happy with it as it is.

Beleriand/the Grey Annals remains a mess.



Blue highlighting is events pushed after Melkor's unchaining; orange is events pushed back before Elwe's awakening.

Working from left to right:

• Event - what it says on the tin
• GA - dates in the GA
• GA Full - what the dates would be if we adopted the full length of GA/AAm. We can't do this (because "the Trees died in 888" is a later source); it's here for reference.
• LT - Late Timeline dates, with the last few dates adjusted to use 888/144 rather than 888/1 for the death of the Trees. Tolkien's calculation actually used 889/1, so this would be legitimate. The argument against it was "3100 years", but we're already at 3265 and counting.
• Elwe - GA events anchored on Elwe's awakening.
• Unchaining / Trees slain / First Battle - GA events anchored on these three events. All very similar.
• Luthien (1 Age) - GA events anchored on "Luthien was born 1/3 of the way through the Captivity".
• Trees / Unchaining / First Battle - the result of scaling the GA down to match the LT time between Elwe's awakening and the relevant event.
• Nearest AAm (and reference columns) - each event is anchored on SY from the nearest AAm event to it

In GA, Denethor arrives 479 SY before the unchaining of Melkor; none of these options even come close, even the ones that push Luthien's birth back to the March.

I think the best single timeline is actually the Luthien one: it's non-compressed (unlike the Relative ones), and is the only one that gets at least the Orcs into Beleriand before Melkor is unchained. I don't see any way we can hybridise the Elwe timeline with any of the late-anchored ones: whatever you do, events are going to swap positions. Any of the compressed timelines would of course work, but I've avoided compressing related events in Aman; taking any of these would mean Menegroth only takes 300 SY to build rather than 500, for example, and I feel like Tolkien would have kept the 500.

But I'm open to being convinced. What looks least-wrong?

hS

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).


And in regards to the GA - 300 SY vs 500 SY building Menegroth is completely trivial from the perspective of Elves, isn't it?

The dates approaching the death of the Trees won't be pretty - but you dealt with that in the AAm, haven't you? 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?

[Arvegil145]

@Huinesoron - I was wondering if we could deduce when the Ents were awakened? Or even if Tolkien gives a specific time range.