Maedhros, grandfather of Feanor

[Huinesoron]

I've largely been busy in the post-LotR period lately, but a chance find on TolkienGateway led me back... way back... to the very earliest Legendarium.

Originally Posted by Book of Lost Tales: The Theft of Melko

"Alas, O Manwe Sulimo," they cry, "evil has pierced the Mountains of Valinor and fallen upon Sirnumen of the Plain. There lies Bruithwir sire of Feanor dead and many of the Noldolo beside, and all our treasury of gems and fair things and the loving travail of our hands and hearts through many years is stolen away..."

Then said Manwe to them: "Behold O Children of the Noldoli, my heart is sad towards you... Lo! had ye not thought your gems and fabrics of better worth than the festival of the folk or the ordinances of Manwe your lord, this had not been, and Bruithwir go-Maidros and those other hapless ones still had lived, and your jewels been in no greater peril..."

Bruithwir was the original father of Feanor. He occupies much the same position in the narrative as Finwe after the founding of Formenos: he dies at Melko's hand failing to protect the Silmarils, and his death is part of Feanor's reason for going after Melko.

At this point, the lord of the Noldor is Finwe Noleme (Fingolma), whose story is largely the basis for Fingolfin's: he leads the Noldor into exile, against his own wishes but basically to keep Feanor from taking over, and ultimately dies in the cataclysmic battle that ruins Beleriand. His son Turgon takes the leadership after him, and memorialises him in the symbols of Gondolin.

The two characters swap some attributes in later versions of the story: Bruithwir gets Finwe's name and early leadership, Fingolma gets a relationship to Feanor. But what neither of them do anything with is Bruithwir's father: "go-Maidros" is Gnomish for "son of Maidros".

So... I incline to the view that anything not directly replaced or rejected remains canon in the later/latest Legendarium. Maidros obviously can't be Fingolfin's father - that's Finwe. But Finwe himself has no later named parents... does that mean that "Maidros, grandfather of Feanor" is still a valid character by the time of, for example, the Shibboleth?

Obviously Tolkien reused the name, but the Shibboleth makes it clear that the house of Finwe reused every name - how many people were father-named "Finwe"? It doesn't seem unreasonable that when Nelyafinwe Maitimo Russandol needed a Sindarin name that neither evoked his father too strongly nor challenged Fingolfin's kingship, he would have looked back to his great-grandfather, "Maidros". (Probably Maitarussa, "russet poet" in Quenya.)

It seems a bit ridiculous to use a single mention in the first half of BoLT to fill a gap in the family trees that extended down to the '70s, but... I also can't see any reason it's wrong?

hS