The 4th age?

Has anyone ever come across any meaty material suggesting what may have happened in the 4th age?

I have read that Elessar strove to reunite Arnor and Gondor, but little else on a similar scale.

What of the Elves? So they all sailed away to The West but what of the Moriquendi? Would they have stayed?

What of the Blue Wizards, the two Istari that were 'unaccounted' for? It is said they passed away to the East, could I hazard that they influenced the Easterlings? But in what way and would they then have been in league with Sauron?

So much that would have happened afterwards still vexes me. I would love to hear any of your theories~!

[Eol]

where have you read this theory?

I have not heard of possible fourth age...intrguing idea. The elves that left the havens would come back with Iluvatar deemed it time to be so.

as Far as I am concerned, anything is possible!

I can't quote where I read it, I am just now reading Professor Tolkiens Letters his Unfinished Tales and the Silmarillion. Its a heck of a lot of material to put to memory.

But from what I recall, the 4th age began with the departure of the ring-bearers into The West.

I just wanted to know if anyone else had similar interests in material written about the 4th age!

~ Narsil

[obloquy]

HoMe XII - The Peoples of Middle-earth contains the beginnings of a story set in the Fourth Age, but it was soon abandoned. Tolkien said he felt the story would be 'nothing more than a thriller'. The ancient nobility and majesty of Middle-earth's peoples passed with the Elves, or perhaps later with the death of Aragorn and Arwen. Middle-earth was simply not 'magical' anymore.

He obviously felt that there was not much more to say after the War of the Ring, and that's kind of how I feel.

Well with the prophecy of Dagor Dagorath I would think that the 4th, 5th and 6th ages would have some role in the final chapters of the history of Middle Earth.

Tolkien in a letter dated 1958: "I imagine the gap [between the Fall of Barad-dûr and modern times] to be about 6000 years; that is we are now at the end of the Fifth Age, if the Ages were of about the same length as S[econd] A[ge] and T[hird] A[ge]. But they have, I think, quickened; and I imagine we are actually at the end of the Sixth Age, or in the Seventh."

I would speculate that something of historical merit could have happened at the end of the 5th or 6th age, as to what I could only guess!

But it would be a fanciful thought to imagine a final battle between Manwe and Melkor heralding the unmaking of Ea.

~ Narsil

[Arvedui]

Just think if J.R.R. Tolkien diwrote fulltime the world of Middle Earth instead of having a day job as a professor at Oxford. I would have been quite interested in more lore about the Second Age!

[Meela]

That's an interesting post regarding Tolkien's view of the following ages. If there are 6000 years between the modern world and the past of Middle Earth, what do you think would have been the dividers between the ages? The world wars? The discovery of the new world, perhaps also a possible story in the later history of middle earth?

[Noxomanus]

the fall of the Roman empire maybe?

[Manwe Sulimo]

End of 4th: End of civilization as *they knew it* (civilization reformed in Egypt, China, Greece, etc., later).

End of 5th: Fall of Rome (enter Europe into "Dark Ages")

End of 6th: Industrialization? Maybe the colonization of the "New World" (the eequivalent of Aman), or Mankind leaving Arda for the first time ('50s and '60s, with manned missions to space). Of course, if we're at the "end of the 7th age", it'd have to be one of the earlier options.

As for the fourth, all that is said is that Arnor and Gondor were reunited, a lot of Elves left, and Aragorn and Éomer had a few wars in Rhûn and Haradwaith (or at least I think it did). After that, I suppose that civilization declined and disappeared. Perhaps the Dagor Dagoroth happened, and the world was rebuilt in its present form. (Yes, the Valar lost the original blueprints. Typical of them, really.)