The role of the different "authors" of the stories of Arda?

[Nogrod]

I have actually thought about this a few times but have never ventured asking about it from anyone... but after some discussion in the Will a "definitive" version of the Silmarillion ever be released? -thread I thought it would seem like a good opportunity to hear other opinions about it in a separate thread as the subject matter is not anymore the same.

So how much should one take in with the "facts" that The Red Book of Westmarch was written by Bilbo and Frodo (with a lot of elvish & dunédain input), that The Akallabêth was written by Elendil, that The Ainulindalë is a version of the creation myth the elves wrote down (am I correct in here?)?

Do we know the fictional authors for the stories of Beren and Lúthien, to the story of Húrin's children, to the Fall of Gondolin? The origins can be remebered by the elves and we can surely say they have been preserved to posterity by them, but if the elves have been the keepers of these stories, should we take that into account?

The Red Book of Westmarch written by a Hobbit... how much does he understand even if helped by a host of elves? (How much Tacitus understood his age as involved with it as he was - and what we, the posterity, will never understand because we didn't live it like he did?)

What were Elendil''s feelings toward the Númenorians and did they affect the way he reported the history of the island? Might he not be a "liittle-bit partial" a witness to it?

How much did the elves understand of the Great Song? Was it even possible for them to understand it (think fex. how hard it is for us to understand finiteness / infinity)? How did they "misunderstand" it, what was the way peculiar to them to grasp it? Would the dwarves have understood it differently if there were "records" of them telling the story? What would have been Melkor's account of it?


No. I hope I'm not contradicting myself with the last post I made in the thread about there being a definitive Silm ever. I'm not after the "real history of Arda", but only after how much we should pay heed to the fact that different stories are told by different persons / races inside Tolkien's legendarium itself?


PS. If this has been extensively discussed already before, guide me to the thread please... I'd love to hear views on this issue.

[Galadriel55]

Good question. Lots of room for speculation here.

The stories do seem to reflect the knowledge/experiences/personality of their authors. But only the tone of the stories - the facts would remain the same regardless of author.

But thinking about it, the ME authors only affect the books within the bounds of the legendarium. The real reason probably is that Tolkien wanted to try out different styles and themes, and created the "authors" as an excuse for the new/different style.

Are you planning on speculating about the strictly Middle-Earthian reasons, where the canon is real, or about Tolkien being the ultimate source, and he canon is, however beautiful, made up? It boils down to how you see the legendarium. I see it both ways, differently at different times, and ME-thian explanations work as well as RL facts for me. Speculation? Hmm.

[Faramir Jones]

We know something about the 'author' of the Narn i Hîn Húrin, and about the background to his composition of the work, according to this note by Christopher Tolkien:

In an introductory note, existing in different forms, it is said that though made in Elvish speech and using much Elvish lore, especially of Doriath, the Narn i Hîn Húrin was the work of a Mannish poet, Dírhavel, who lived at the Havens of Sirion in the days of Eärendil, and there gathered all the tidings that he could of the House of Hador, whether among Men or Elves, or of Doriath. In one version of this note Dírhavel is said to have come himself of the House of Hador. This lay, longest of all the lays of Belariand, was all that he ever made, but it was prized by the Eldar, for Dírhavel used the Grey-elven tongue, in which he had great skill, He used that mode of Elvish verse which was called Minlamed thent / estent, and was of old proper to the narn (a tale that is told in verse, but to be spoken and not sung). Dírhavel perished in the raid of the Sons of Fëanor upon the Havens of Sirion. (Unfinished Tales, (London: Unwin Paperbacks, 1982), p. 146, fn. 1.)

When I first read this note, I was impressed by the fact that this Man was so good at composing in an Elvish tongue that even the Elves liked his work. It was, I later realised, somewhat fitting for a story that dealt with so much interaction between Men and Elves.

[Galin]

I made a collection of some of the passages (not all of them) relating to the imagined transmission and authorship of the texts. It might (or might not) help with forming opinions to some of the questions posed, and it's a bit long-ish. Hopefully I've described the following well enough, although my opinions might find their way in now and again, as they can be sneaky. Anyway, if you can't sleep...


One problem here is Tolkien's changing mind. In the early 1950s JRRT still held to the idea that (very generally speaking here) Elfwine, a mortal man from our more recent past, somehow survived a passage to Eressea and learned much lore of the Elves there. His translations into Old English provided the mode of transmission of the tales to our time, through a person who could then translate Old English (Elfwine's tongue) into Modern English, for the modern reader of course.

In the writing systems of Middle-earth it is revealed (Title Page) that The Lord of the Rings has been translated by JRR Tolkien. But how did the texts get into his hands, and who wrote them? Elves? Men? In Myths Transformed we see Tolkien concerned with transmission and authorship, and he published something new for the Second Edition of The Lord of the Rings:

'But the chief importance of Findegil's copy is that it alone contains the whole of Bilbo's 'Translations from the Elvish'. These three volumes were found to be a work of great skill and learning in which, between 1403 and 1418, he had used all the sources available to him in Rivendell, both living and written.'

Here we get Findegil's copy of Bilbo's translations. With respect to the title, I interpret this to mean translations from the Elvish language, not necessarily from pure Elvish tradition, although Elvish traditions can be included of course. Tolkien also published this interesting bit in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil:

'...No. 14 also depends on the lore of Rivendell, Elvish and Númenorean, concerning the heroic days at the end of the First Age; it seems to contain echoes of the Númenorean tale of Túrin and Mim the Dwarf.'

Also, I tripped over this interesting change as well, to Quenta Silmarillion (the LQ2 text):

'Of their lives was made the Lay of Leithian, Release from Bondage, which is the longest save one of the songs of [the Noldor >] Númenor concerning the world of old;...'

Later still, in note 17 to The Shibboleth of Feanor (written in 1968 or later) it is stated that the Silmarillion is not an Eldarin title or work, but a compilation, probably made in Númenor:

'... which includes (in prose) the four great tales or lays of the heroes of the Atani, of which 'The Children of Hurin' was probably composed already in Beleriand in the First Age...' and concludes (concerning the compiled Silmarillion, and the four great tales in prose, and seemingly the account of Feanor and his making of the Silmarils). 'All however are 'Mannish works'.

Tolkien's parenthetical note above 'in prose' is interesting here with respect to the Lay of the Children of Húrin, for Dírhaval wrote in verse and his work was said to be rendered into prose -- by Elfwine according to the 'older' idea -- but a prose version is 'now' possibly made by an unknown Númenórean (Tolkien appears to refer to The Children of Húrin with his 'longest save one of the songs of Númenor' revision to Quenta Silmarillion, though in any case The Shibboleth note has a good chance of being later).

A typescript of Annals of Aman offers the Númenorean transmission as well. Rúmil still makes the Annals, but:

'Here begin the 'Annals of Aman'. Rúmil made them in the Elder Days, and they were held in memory by the Exiles. Those parts which we learned and remembered were thus set down in Númenor before the Shadow fell upon it.'

If the Annals were not to survive as texts (replaced by the Tale of Years?) we can at least see the notion concerned and how Elvish memory plays a part. The Elvish memory was apparently amazing:

'All peace and all strongholds were at last destroyed by Morgoth; but if any wonder how any lore and treasure was preserved from ruin, it may be answered: of the treasure little was preserved, and the loss of things of beauty great and small is incalculable; but the lore of the Eldar did not depend on perishable records, being stored in the vast houses of their minds. When the Eldar made records in written form, even those that to us would seem voluminous, they did only summarise, as it were, for the use of others whose lore was maybe in other fields of knowledge*, matters which were kept for ever undimmed in intricate detail in their minds.'

*Author's footnote

'And as some insurance against their own death. For books were made only in strong places at a time when death in battle was likely to befall any of the Eldar, but it was not yet believed that Morgoth could ever capture or destroy their fortresses.' JRRT Shibboleth of Feanor

Also, Gondor and Arnor can have a part to play. Jumping back to Myths Transformed (Morgoth's Ring) for a moment, Tolkien noted:

'What we have in the Silmarillion etc. are traditions... handed on by Men in Númenor and later in Middle-earth (Arnor and Gondor); but already far back -- from the first association of the Dúnedain and Elf-friends with the Eldar in Beleriand -- blended and confused with their own Mannish myths and cosmic ideas.'

Or Tolkien's small slip headed 'Memorandum':

'The three Great Tales must be Númenorean, and derived from matter preserved in Gondor...' where he is (according to Christopher Tolkien) 'presumably distinguishing between long and short forms of the Tales.'

There are more references, but so far the general picture (in my opinion) seems to be that while certain texts were still to be given noted Elvish authors, Bilbo wasn't necessarily working from purely Elvish texts in all cases, but from Mannish versions (in significant enough measure) that ultimately hailed from contact with Elvish minds. Númenor begins to loom large in the picture of transmission.

One text that seems Elvish is the Awakening of The Quendi, imagined as a 'surviving Elvish fairytale' or child's tale mingled with counting lore' which was also stated to have been 'preserved in almost identical form among both the Elves of Aman and the Sindar.'


I note that in the 'Mannish' Silmarillion (as it was to become, that is) that Men awake with the rising of the Sun, which is here the fruit of one of the Two Trees. In the Elvish fairytale however:

'It was still night and clouds were in the sky. But before dawn a wind came, and roused the Elf-men, and they woke and were amazed at the stars;...' or '... and they walked long by day and by twilight in the country about the lake...'

In short, in the Elvish tale the Sun existed before the first Elves awoke.


Also, published in Vinyar Tengwar 48, we find the Synopsis of Pengoloð's Eldarinwe Leperi are Notessi...

'The following account is an abbreviation of a curious document, preserved in the archives of Gondor by strange chance (or by many such chances) from the Elder Days, but in a copy apparently made in Númenor not long before its downfall: probably by or at the orders of Elendil himself, when selecting such records as he could hope to store for the journey to Middle-earth. This one no doubt owed its selection and its copying, first to Elendil's own love of the Eldarin tongues and of the works of the loremasters who wrote about their history; but also to the unusual contents of this disquisition in Quenya: Eldarinwe Leperi are Notessi: The Elvish Fingers and Numerals. It is attributed, by the copyist, to Pengoloð (or Quendingoldo) of Gondolin, and he describes the Elvish play-names of the fingers as used by and taught to children.'

According to author's note three, Pengoloð is an Exile, and is said to have preserved in a memory remarkable even among the Eldar the works (especially of etymology) of the earlier loremasters, including Feanor.

I don't think all the earlier information from Quendi And Eldar need be discarded concerning Pengoloð, with respect to surviving texts at least (in the earlier story he was an Elf of mixed Sindarin and Noldorin ancestry, and born in Nevrast). According to Quendi And Eldar, out of the destruction of Gondolin, Pengoloð: '.... rescued a few ancient writings, and some of his own copies, compilations, and commentaries. It is due to this, and to his prodigious memory, that much of the knowledge of the Elder Days was preserved.'

And: '... before the overthrow of Morgoth and the ruin of Beleriand, he collected much material among the survivors of the wars at Sirion's Mouth concerning languages and gesture-systems with which, owing to the isolation of Gondolin, he had not before had any direct acqaintance.'

Dírhaval was also said to have gathered tidings and lore at Sirion tidings, as in the last days of Beleriand both Men and Elves came there from various places.

Sorry about the length!

[mark12_30]

No apologies needed. I'm replying mostly so I will have a personal bookmark to your impressive research.

I was always an Elfwine & Pengoloð fan.