[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Tar Elenion

"4 In later writing Elmo is the grandfather of Celeborn (not as here his father): cf. UT:233–4; also XI:350."
endnote 4 to the XVIII text

Thank you! But I have to disagree with Hostetter on "later". XVIII is solidly dated to 1965 (being written on calendar pages); HoME XI:350 talks about a family tree which CT dates to December 1959, and confirms that text as the source for UT as well. Therefore "Celeborn is Elmo's son if the period from sailing to Aman to the fall of Angband lasted 3100 years" is the later idea.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

Ah, but remember the footnote 5, which states that he was born in Beleriand - however, the footnote also states that the timespan between the arrival of the Eldar in Aman and the overthrow of Morgoth was more than 3,100 years, and since this is both vague and unworkable for the timeline, I assume you decided to ignore the footnote altogether?

Regardless, Celeborn as a 'descendant' (as opposed to 'son') of Elmo is definitely later, judging by the footnote 5.

The trouble is that this footnote is conditional.

Originally Posted by XVIII

"According to Elvish calculations, [sailing to Aman to the fall of Angband] was 3,100 loar. If that is correct,* then Celeborn was of unknown age when he entered Beleriand, but certainly 24 and full-grown...

*It probably was not; it was very likely longer. In that case Celeborn must have been a descendent (not son) of Elmo and born in Beleriand.

IF the First Age is an undefined amount of time longer, THEN Celeborn was not the son of Elmo. But accepting that IF means rejecting... well, the whole idea of a timeline, because we then have no idea how long the latter half of the Age should be. AAm would give us about 4067 years for the same period, so I suppose we could adopt that; but that means rejecting the 888 date for the death of the Trees, which lines up perfectly with the 3100 years figure. That's a lot to discard on the strength of "very likely".

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

Also, why do you have Olwe's birth year as 2327? In your timeline, Elwe is born in 2270, so that's 57 years before Olwe - however, Tolkien gives Elwe's birth year as 2126, and Olwe's as 2185, i.e. a difference of 59 years instead. Ditto about Indis and Ingwil (49 years in Tolkien's timeline, 47 in yours). What am I missing? EDIT: Of course, the gestation. However, I'd personally keep the birth years as they are, and adjust the marriage instead. However, I still don't understand Elwe/Olwe discrepancy, it's not like we have the marriage date for their parents.

Additionally, I don't see any obvious reason why you converted the difference in the ages of Ingwe and Ilwen into 9 years (originally 3 years)? I mean, I understand the rationale (growth-years), but I don't understand why it is applicable in this case.

Elwe:Olwe was just a maths error; corrected. Very nicely, 59 years from Olwe's corrected year puts Elmo in 2388 - exactly the earliest year he could be born! I've upgraded him to "probable".

I feel like the marriage date for Ingwe is treated as more of a decision, while Indis' birth is a calculation. Ingwil's birth is then set to a specific date, independent of others. Both of them, by the way, come very close to the 45 years I have between Findis and Fingolfin - meaning Indis had her first kids as quickly as her parents.

The Ingwe:Ilwen age gap: my read is that at the time, Tolkien was aiming at the idea that men married at 24, women at 21. The three years between them was calculated from that, so I expanded it to meet the later aging.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

Another thing is, maybe you could add an approximate date for the birth of Ilion, Ingwe's father? If the birth of Ingwe's first child is any indication, Ilion should be born sometime around c. 2107.

Hmm. I was going to say no, but actually, XVII.3(7) says that the 23rd and 24th generations should have the same age at marriage & interval between children. The Indis:Ingwil and Elwe:Olwe intervals are too different to rely on that half, but we can probably adopt the "age at first child", at least as an approximate.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

EDIT 3: Thanks for the mention!

You do the work, you get the credit.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

Another few small nitpicks:

Thanks for these! I've corrected most of them; I'm not doing the diacritics yet because I'll just mess them up again. I've also looked over the "Elvish history" dates after the arrival in Aman and fixed them; the main difference is that I've regarded the arrival of the Teleri and the making-fast of Eressea as separate events, rather than assuming the journey took 12 SY for Finwe but 92 SY for Olwe.

I've taken a glance at the Grey Annals, and straightaway I've run into a problem: Luthien's birth is fixed at 1/3 of the way through Melkor's chaining, which would put her a hundred years before the departure of Olwe. ^_^

It's worth noting at this point that the other possible date for the chaining of Melkor is 12 VY before his release (the number has to be divisible by three); that falls in 2834, 30 years after the end of the March, and gives him plenty of time to corrupt Men if we think that's more plausible. Under that scheme, Luthien would be born in 3410, which would work nicely, but I don't know how it affects the rest of the GA.

More work needed, basically.

hS