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[TheLostPilgrim]

Is there any indication that Tolkien would've, if he had had the time or longevity, brought some of the other stories and legends in The Silmarilion to a more complete state? I mean the way he worked on The Children of Hurin until that work was complete and in a novel format? More a finished story rather than a summary or brief history of one?

Also, are there any tales which are almost close to completion or are in a state complete enough to publish as full stories (like CoH), but have not been edited/released due to CRRT's old age and the amount of time such a project would need?

If the entire saga of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings makes up but a few pages in The Silmarillion. being written in much the same "history" sort of style as that work is, I imagine you could fill an entire library with books if Tolkien had had the time to bring all of the legends and tales in The Silmarillion to a full length, fully fleshed out state.

[jallanite]

Apparently almost 100% of J. R. R. Tolkien’s posthumous works on Middle-earth have been published in The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, The Children of Húrin, and in the 12-volume HoME series. Linguistic material is still being published in the publications Parma Eldalamberon and Vinyar Tengwar (see http://www.elvish.org/).

I have never heard of any unpublished Tolkien material related to Middle-earth that is close to being a completed story. Indeed I have never heard of any unpublished Tolkien material related to Middle-earth at all, save for purely linguistic material being published in Parma Eldalamberon and Vinyar Tengwa, which is probably not what you are talking about.

The last three volumes of the HoME series contain a number of almost-complete or complete items that mostly fit in with The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and the published Silmarillion.

Morgoth’s Ring (HoME 10):

1. “Laws and Customs Among the Eldar” (pp. 207–53). Several essays during which J. R. R. Tolkien expresses, among much else, the idea that Elves are reborn to new parents. This idea is later changed but otherwise the ideas here are probably later accepted. Mostly concerned with Míriel.
2. “Later Versions of the Story of Finwë and Míriel” (pp. 254–60). Mostly more essays on Míriel and death of Elves.
3. “Athrabeth Finrod Ah Andeth″ (pp. 301–66). Mainly a discussion between a mortal wise woman and an elf about the fates of both races. Here first appears J. R. R. Tolkien’s new idea that Elves are not reborn but return from Mandos in adult form. A complete story.
4. “Myths Transformed” (pp. 367–431). A number of essays circling around the cosmos of The Silmarillion not agreeing with the findings of modern science: flat Earth, Sun and Moon created later, etc. Tolkien first tries to remodel the Silmarillion but soon gives up and decides to regard the Silmarillion as distorted Mannish tales passed on among Men, as garbled and incorrect legend within his imaginary world. Orcs remain a problem. Do Orcs have souls? It seems that Tolkien cannot come to a permanent decision one way or the other. The last essay covers the Undying Lands.

The War of the Jewels (HoME 11):

1. “The Wanderings of Húrin” (pp. 251–300). A complete story of Húrin’s adventures when first released by Morgoth, mostly not told elsewhere but in agreement with what is told in the published Silmarillion and in The Children of Húrin. Mostly omitted from the published Silmarillion because Christopher Tolkien felt that its length would overweigh his presentation of the Silmarillion but that abridging this account would destroy its literary qualities.
2. “Quendi and Eldar” (pp. 357–424). Mostly a long discussion of various words meaning “elf” in various Elvish tongues and of names given to other peoples with a note on the language of the Valar. Includes an Elvish “fairytale” of the first awakening of the Elves.

The Peoples of Middle-earth (HoME 12):

1. “Of Dwarves and Men″ (pp. 295–330). A long essay, apparently unfinished, mostly about the early history and legends of Dwarves and Men.
2. “The Shibboleth of Fëanor” (pp. 331–66). Discussion of a puzzling phonetic change in Elvish history that leads into a long discussion of Elvish names and their meanings.
3. “The Problem of Ros” (pp. 367–76). A long essay on the origin of the word ros ‘foam’ in Sindarin, which ends with J. R. R. Tolkien deciding against his own new theories because they contradict published material.
4. “Last Writings” (pp. 377–94). Brief late essays on Glorfindel, the Five Wizards, and Círdan.
5. “Dangweth Pengoloð″ (pp. 395–402). Teachings on language given by Pengoloð to Ælfwine. Since the Ælfwine story apparently no longer exists in Tolkien’s later thought, the back story used here is probably invalid.
6. “Of Lembas” (pp. 403–05). An essay on the making of lembas by the Elves.
7. “The New Shadow” (pp. 409–21). The first chapter of a never-completed sequel to The Lord of the Rings set 105 years following the fall of the Dark Tower during the reign of Aragorn’s son Eldarion.
8. “Tal-Elmar” (pp. 422–38). The beginning of a story of the Númenóreans settling in Middle-earth from the point of view of a native of the lands to which they have come.

Elsewhere in HoME various fragments are perhaps to be regarded as still valid, though embedded in versions of the tales that as a whole are not valid.

[Aiwendil]

Originally Posted by TheLostPilgrim

Is there any indication that Tolkien would've, if he had had the time or longevity, brought some of the other stories and legends in The Silmarilion to a more complete state? I mean the way he worked on The Children of Hurin until that work was complete and in a novel format? More a finished story rather than a summary or brief history of one?

There's no way, of course, of knowing what would have happened if Tolkien had lived longer or if he had had more time to devote to writing. But it does seem that in his post-Lord of the Rings work on the Silmarillion material, he was moving back in the direction of longer, fuller narratives (I say 'back' in that direction because the earliest version of the Legendarium, The Book of Lost Tales, was actually a much more in-depth narrative than what is found in the 'Silmarillion' tradition).

In the revised version of the Quenta Silmarillion that he wrote in the 1950s (LQ), for example, there is a tendency toward a longer-form narrative than in the previous versions. Unfortunately, the substantive new work on LQ breaks off just after the Darkening of Valinor.

A similar thing happened in the 'Annals of Aman' and particularly the 'Grey Annals'. The predecessors of these annals, written in the 1930s, were brief chronological outlines of events (somewhat like the 'Tale of Years' in LotR), but in the new version they slide into a more narrative mode. In fact, much of what became 'The Children of Hurin' derived from the Grey Annals. But naturally, the Grey Annals aren't complete either; they taper off soon after the death of Turin.

At least at one time, Tolkien seems to have considered writing full versions of all the later Silmarillion tales - essentially from Beren & Luthien onward. In some notes that date from the 1950s, he mentions a hypothetical work called the Atanatarion, the 'Legendarium of the Fathers of Men', which would include the 'three great tales': the Narn Beren ion Barahir, the Narn i Chin Hurin, and the Narn e Dant Gondolin ar Orthad en El - that is, the 'Tale of Beren son of Barahir', the 'Tale of the Children of Hurin', and 'The Tale of the Fall of Gondolin and the Rise of the Star'. In the note, he proposed making these tales appendices to the Silmarillion. In another place he refers to a hypothetical tale called 'Sigil Elu-naeth', or 'Necklace of the Woe of Thingol'.

In fact, one can make the case that he started writing each of these - or at least, in each case, there's something that could have served as the longer form of the tale if it had been completed.

- The post-LotR revision of the 'Lay of Leithien' could have served as the 'Narn Beren ion Barahir', but it tapers off around when Beren arrives in Doriath.

- The 'Narn i Chin Hurin' was in fact almost completed, and, with minimal touching up, a complete version was published as The Children of Hurin.

- The vivid narrative called 'The Wanderings of Hurin' was apparently intended to lead into the 'Sigil Elu-naeth', but it breaks off before Hurin goes to Nargothrond.

- The text given in Unfinished Tales under the name 'Of Tuor and His Coming to Gondolin' was actually intended to be a full-length 'Of Tuor and the Fall of Gondolin', but it breaks off just as Tuor reaches the city.