The Moon! What Moon?!

[Elmo]

Ah, its good to be back to post yet another inane topic on this forum I've grown to love...

Em where was I? Ah yes the moon. From my rough understanding of Tolkien chronology of writing the legendarium, from its earliest beginning of it Tolkien had the creation of the moon at the same time as the sun after the two trees were destroyed by that Melkor and his spider chum. Then why does Gimli sing in the mines of Moria:

no stain yet on the moon was seen

when he is singing about Durin waking up in the Ages of the Stars when Menel was sans moon. I'd have always thought that Tolkien only conceived of the moon being there at that time of his writing of 'Myths Transformed' which were written long after LOTR was finished. Perhaps this the genesis of Tolkien's strange reworking of his legendarium was seen in this song but then again it is physically impossible to have 'no stain' on the moon at the time Durin awoke.

Maybe, perhaps, that the Dwarves were unaware of the chronology of Arda but I'd always thought that they seemed to be a relatively advanced folk who might have studied such things especially being surrounded by ancient rocks. Perhaps the ancient dwarves in Nogrod and Belegost knew the truth with their dealings with Elves and as the dwarves became more isolated they lost the knowledge. Maybe the dwarven poet who wrote it was just using artistic license but then again it must have been a common license to take in Middle Earth because a similar claim is made in a poem in the Adventures of Tom Bombadil. (Don't ask me the name I've returned the book to the library ) But then that poem also mentions Gods so I'm confused