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#1 | |||
Newly Deceased
Join Date: Dec 2023
Location: Helsinki, Finland
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"First Age of the Sun" misconception
Why are so many people mistakenly identify the beginning of the First Age with the first sunrise? For example, there're this remark of Christopher Tolkien in his foreword to The War of the Jewels:
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#2 |
Spirit of Mist
Join Date: Jul 2000
Location: Tol Eressea
Posts: 3,352
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Welcome to the Barrow-Downs, Ar-Zigûr. You raise an interesting point.
When Tolkien began writing about what would become Middle-Earth, there were no "Ages." His mythology focused upon the Valar, the Elves, and the creation of the world through what eventually became the War of Wrath. He did not conceive of Numenor and the Second Age until later, and Hobbits, Gondor and Sauron (at least by that name) did not emerge until even later. So Tolkien did not have to account for the "Three Ages" until later in the development of his stories. Early on, he conceived of the need to account for "Valinorean" time, as contrasted to Middle Earth time. He distinguished between the annals of Valinor and the annals of Beleriand. He realized that a vast amount of mythological time was needed to account for the creation of Arda, the struggles with Melkor, the arising and travels of the Elves and their dwelling in the West. Valinorean time grew with his mythos. But the early annals of Beleriand encompassed the time between the death of the Trees and rebellion of the Noldor, and the rising of the sun. The first span of time was not specifically described (and grew, in Tolkien's view, from a matter of years into tens or even hundreds of years). But after the rising of the sun, time in Middle Earth was calculated by "Sun Years." Some seem to equate the "Sun Years" portion of the annals of Beleriand (initially a bit over 250 years and later over 500 years) to the "First Age." But I am not sure that Tolkien himself ever did (and I'm not inclined to try to research this on a holiday weekend). There is no Tale of Years for the First Age. Nor, if I recall, did Tolkien ever clearly define what was encompassed by the "First Age."
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Beleriand, Beleriand, the borders of the Elven-land. |
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#3 |
Loremaster of Annúminas
Join Date: Oct 2006
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While that is technically true, there are definitely Annals (in multiple rescensions)
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#4 |
Spirit of Mist
Join Date: Jul 2000
Location: Tol Eressea
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Correct. But, unless I am forgetting something, the annals are not of the "First Age." They are the Annals of Valinor, the Annals of Beleriand, The Grey Annals (of the Sindar calculated first in Valinorian Years and later in Years of the Sun), etc.
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Beleriand, Beleriand, the borders of the Elven-land. |
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#5 |
Overshadowed Eagle
Join Date: Nov 2017
Location: The north-west of the Old World, east of the Sea
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Aside from being influenced by people who did it earlier (I wrote fanfic, which drew from other fanfic writers), I think people just like consistency. Insofar as the Beleriand years are numbered at all - and the Slim doesn't do much of that, it prefers relative dating - they're numbered from the rising of the Sun. That count is reset to 1 at the start of the Second Age, and again to 1 for the Third and Fourth. Therefore, consistency demands that the initial 1-600ish are the First Age. It's wrong, but it's easy to keep in your head.
"Years of the Sun of the First Age" runs into problems when Tolkien decided the Sun was always around. He still kept using those old Sun-years, but they're not really counting from anything - the arrival of Fingolfin in Middle-earth ends up being the start of the count. (I guess the Shire Reckoning does the same thing, so why not?) I've no idea what you'd call that. hS
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#6 |
Newly Deceased
Join Date: Dec 2023
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In the expanded edition of The Letters, there are these words in the Letter 131: "The History of the Eldar (Englished as ‘Elves’, but the pre-Shakespearian sense is intended), or Silmarillion proper. Nexus of legends, and stories in chronological order, into which some major tales are woven. Contains the ‘history’ of the First Age, from the coming of the Eldar to its end with overthrow of Morgoth-melkor, the first Dark Lord. Called The Silmarillion, because most of the history and tales are grouped about or refer to the Three Great Jewels of Fëanor (the Silmarils), their making, theft, the war for their recovery, and their final loss." I think Tolkien meant the Awakening of the Elves in VY 1050 by the phrase 'coming of the Eldar'.
Last edited by Ar-Zigûr; 12-25-2023 at 03:28 AM. |
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#7 | |
Overshadowed Eagle
Join Date: Nov 2017
Location: The north-west of the Old World, east of the Sea
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hS
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Have you burned the ships that could bear you back again? ~Finrod: The Rock Opera |
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#8 | |
Shade of Carn Dûm
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: Tol Morwen
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There's a ton of references from various sources to the First Age beginning with the Awakening of the Elves, and (I believe) only one or two references to the First Age beginning with the forming of Arda (I think? or else some other cosmically important event - I'm not sure which).
However, there isn't a single reference anywhere to the First Age being defined as starting from the first rising of the Sun (in the classical cosmology - i.e. flat world and such). P.S. Welcome Ar-Zigur! I'm IvarTheBoneless from TG, good to have you here.
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#9 |
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