Bilbo´s treachery

[Ivriniel]

8. Silmarillion Materials, Numenor, SA Concepts and Analysis

While I am researching entry 7 above, I've got the conjoined research about The Silmarillion at hand.

The Lays of Beleriand provide some really good bases upon which to explore 'which part' of the Silmillian the prof had ready as early as 1917 (Lay of Leithian). The Lay of the Children of Hurin in alliterative verse and the Lay of Leithian in octosyllabie couples. The alliterative poem was composed while the prof had an appointment at the University of Leeds (1920 - 1925) and he abandoned that for the Lay of Leithian at the end of that tenure "...and never turned to it again" (p. 1 of Preface). The 2000 line poem "...is only a fragment in relation to what he once planned....". It described many of the features we are all famililar with, such as Nargothrond, for example, Beren, Luthien, etc. He worked on the Lay of Leithian

for six years.

abandoning it in turn in September of 1931. However, it was submitted in 1937, 15th of November with the following tomes:

1. Farmer Giles of Ham.
2. Long Poem.
3. Mr Bliss.
4. The Gnomes Material.
5. The Lost Road.

Further, he also sent along with the Silmarillion submission, the Ainulindale, Ambarkanta (The Shaping of the World) and The Fall of the Numenoreans (see p. 364-365, The Lays of Beleriand, George Allen and Unwin, 1985 [it's a beautiful old tome in my library, a hardback edition]).

In The Lost Road (p. 8, Unwin Hyman Limited 1987), and on the subject of Numenor, the entry reads:

"...It must therefore have been something else, already existing when the Lost Road was begun, as Humphre Carpenter assumes in his Biography (p. 170): 'Tolkien's legenof Numenor....was probably composed sometime before the writing of 'the Loast Road, perhaps in the late ninetee-twenties or early thirties.'

Chris speaks of FNI and FNII as two variations on the manuscripts about Numenor, without being prescriptive about times frames and such, with emendations and overlays more the emphasis between the two.

A read of the transcript cites all the golden oldies. Lindon, the Last Alliance, Sauron's rise in Middle Earth and Numenor's pride, yadda yadda. Sauron, Mordor, Elendil, Gil Galad. Except, Sauron is referred to as Thu as well as Sauron (as he is in the original Silarillion), and "This belongs to the pre-Lord of the Rings period" (p. 34).

So, when we juxtapose these materials (Last Alliance, Numenor, pre-1937-Hobbit) with earlier researched materials identifying the Hobbit as having a pre-1937 existence, as early as I think, 1931 (see communication between CS Lewis and co commenting on the draft), there is -- six years -- for the prof to be pondering the intimate linking of the prequel to the sequel.

So, in that 6 (six) years, I find it increasingly unlikely that the author did not -- once -- move the ring to the Ring, ahead of actual publication as, certainly, a tenable plot line.

I acknowledge that the prof himself stated that originally it was a ring. But, the timelines between authorship, submission, editing and publication of the 1937 first tome are very, WIDE. I do not find any explicit prose on this subject (about what the professor was actually thinking in the timeline between typing up and first publication) --ANYWHERE.

We seem to have forgotten, that in ye olden days, first a man wrote it down on paper with pen. Then a man typed it up on a typewriter. It's not like the modern day were we have the liberty of saying 'writing/submission/publication' with narrower timelines.

So, whilst Of the Rings of Power and the Second Age in the Silmarillion, I haven't even touched yet, thus far, even to here, there's more than enough latitude in varied context to put a lid on the monolithic assumption that 'first publication' means the same thing as 'first conceived' as a Ring.

And, I never, prior to this series of entries, ever said as much as I have here, about latitudes of timelines. If you look upstream, I conceded a great deal more. The most I ever stated about the ring becoming the Ring, prior to my research venture was that it seemed to me that by December of 1937, it had become a Ring.

Certainly, not discordant really, as was attributed (Morthoron and Galadriel, in particular) where -- apparently -- I wasn't aware that it was a rrrrr-ing originally and that it was a Ring originally and after December of 1937.

Please find where I have said so.

And certainly, in Chapter II The Shadow of the Past (when it was written), certainly, we have the LotR plot about RRRRings, although the conceived title (as I stated much, much earlier) was LotRRRRRRRRR (December 1937 cut in stone). And Ringwraiths appear in WRITING (I don't know when in HIS HEAD they appeared) but there is a letter I cite (I think) that puts Nazul-ian birth as sometime after 1937.

[Edit]'rrrr' to replace typographical 'R' - apologies for the error[/edit]
[Edit]'RRRR''s added and last sentence varied.[/edit]