The Hall of Fire :: View topic

I also seem to recall from somewhere Tolkien stating that the Elves really didn't bother writing history at the beginning; they had no need to. It was only in the latter part of the War of the Jewels, after the Bragollach, that writing down history as a sort of backup, insurance against the loss of living memory, was undertaken.

One wonders if Elrond's having a library was due to his Mannish half....

That makes sense, though I don't recall seeing it anywhere right now. If you happen to remember a source, let me know.

Hmm, that's interesting Solicitr. All I can think of right now is note 24 to The Shibboleth with its: '... insurance against their own death' (and etc).

I was also wondering if people think it's going too far to consider Tolkien's later note (on the envelope) as a sort of 'ratification' of DA as a post-Lord of the Rings text.

In other words, Akallabeth may seem to be the ultimate version of Numenor's fall, but perhaps Tolkien was later thinking of publishing alternate versions of this tale, as part of a diverse legendarium, and DA could serve that purpose well enough, even as it stood (although likely with some revision before a 'final' account was reached). And basically the text fit in with the post-Elfwine theory of transmission (if Elfwine was wholly out that is).

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And since I'm here I'll add the note I referred to above:

'... but the lore of the Eldar did not depend on perishable records, being stored in the vast houses of their minds (*23). 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, (*24) matters which were kept forever undimmed in intricate detail in their minds.'

Note 24: '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, The Shibboleth of Feanor

Yes, that's the note I was thinking about
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What about DA/ Akallabeth being a parallel to the Jahwist/Elohist versions of the Pentateuch, a North Kingdom/South Kingdom thing? Elendil writing in the North in direct contact with Lindon and Rivendell, and his descendants remaining an actively Elf-Friendly culture (its Crown Princes were traditionally fostered by Elrond); versus DA written in Gondor, which rapidly distanced itself from the Eldar, and was much more a mirror of Imperial Numenor with its power and its funerary cult.