374 – Holding Back the Years

Summary

Episode Summary: The Prancing Pony Podcast – Episode 374: "Holding Back the Years"

Release Date: June 1, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode 374 of The Prancing Pony Podcast, hosts Alan Sisto and James Tauber delve deep into the intricate chronologies of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth, specifically focusing on the "Tale of Years" found in the appendices of The Lord of the Rings. This episode, titled "Holding Back the Years," explores the evolution of Tolkien's timelines across different manuscripts and the implications of these changes on the overarching narrative and character legitimacy.

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Exploring the Tale of Years: Second Age

Appendix B Summary

Alan initiates the discussion by summarizing Appendix B: The Tale of Years from The Lord of the Rings. He outlines the conclusion of the First, Second, and Third Ages, noting the onset of the Fourth Age with the departure of Elrond and the rise of human dominion in Middle-earth.

Alan Sisto [04:47]: "The Third Age came to its end in the War of the Ring, but the Fourth Age was not held to have begun until Master Elrond departed and the time was come for the dominion of men and the decline of all other speaking peoples in Middle Earth."

Changes from Original Manuscripts

James introduces the complexity of the Second Age chronologies, referencing Christopher Tolkien's Peoples of Middle Earth. He highlights how early drafts (referred to as T1 and T2) differed significantly from the published version, particularly in their portrayal of Númenor's decline and the overarching influence of Sauron.

James Tauber [19:19]: "So the judgment of Fionwe, that's an early name for eonwe, took place 10 years after the great Battle. That's the same year Númenor was established."

Biases in Published Tale of Years

A critical point of discussion revolves around the biases present in the final published "Tale of Years." Alan and James dissect how negative aspects of Númenor's fall—such as their quest for immortality, environmental exploitation, and internal dissent—were minimized or omitted to maintain a more neutral or pro-Númenorean stance.

James Tauber [33:32]: "So it really is something... that you would have no idea that the Númenoreans were exploiting Middle-earth, that they were seeking longevity. None of that's there at all."

Alan Sisto [51:46]: "We don't want to say the Númenoreans were seeking after eternal life. We don't want to say they were destroying the environment and, you know, running rampant over the peoples along the coastlines of Middle Earth as some sort of... violent imperial force."

This selective portrayal serves to legitimize figures like Elendil, portraying Númenor's downfall as primarily Sauron's machinations rather than a complex interplay of Númenor's internal failings.

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Exploring the Tale of Years: Third Age

Manuscript Versions T2, T3, T4

Transitioning to the Third Age, the hosts examine how the corresponding "Tale of Years" has evolved. Initial drafts (T2 and T3) provided a foundational timeline but lacked comprehensive detail. The T4 manuscript introduced extensive entries, offering deeper insights into the histories of Arnor and Gondor, the migrations of the Perianath (later known as Hobbits), and pivotal battles that shaped the fate of Middle-earth.

James Tauber [33:32]: "This version is the submitted text to the publisher... it was too long... considerable reduction be made in the accounts of events already told in the Lord of the Rings."

Christopher Tolkien acknowledged the necessity to condense these rich histories to fit the narrative scope of The Lord of the Rings, inevitably leading to the exclusion of certain events and details that were present in earlier drafts.

Omitted and Added Information

Key omissions include the environmental exploitation by Númenor, the detailed political maneuvers leading to the downfall of Númenor, and the internal struggles within Gondor and Arnor. Conversely, certain entries were added to emphasize the legitimacy of Gondor's stewardship and Aragorn's lineage, ensuring his rightful place as the heir to Isildur.

James Tauber [45:08]: "But we get a mention of the Perianath for the first time, again around circa 1000. But it's a really long entry."

These modifications reflect a deliberate attempt to streamline the lore presented in the appendices, focusing on elements that directly support the main narrative and character arcs within The Lord of the Rings.

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Digital Tolkien Project

Towards the episode's conclusion, James introduces the Digital Tolkien Project, an initiative aimed at creating a comprehensive digital chronology of Middle-earth's history. This project seeks to accommodate multiple manuscript versions, allow for detailed filtering based on characters or regions, and provide dynamic date reframing relative to different events or individuals.

James Tauber [112:28]: "We actually are [planning a digital chronology]. And partly inspired by the research I did a couple of years ago that led to the things I was talking about, the Second Age summaries..."

This project promises to be an invaluable resource for fans and scholars alike, offering an interactive platform to explore the multifaceted timelines of Tolkien's expansive legendarium.

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Notable Entries and Personal Insights

The hosts share their favorite entries from the manuscripts, highlighting the emotional and narrative depth added in drafts like T4. Moments such as Samwise's marriage to Rosie, the birth of Eleanor, and the poignant departure of key characters resonate deeply with the audience.

Alan Sisto [106:19]: "And there's so a moment of sorrow for him, just as it was for Elrond. But he at least has the boys and he gets to go spend some time with them."

These personal reflections underscore the rich tapestry of relationships and events that the "Tale of Years" weaves, offering fans a more nuanced understanding of Middle-earth's history beyond the main narrative.

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Conclusion

Episode 374 of The Prancing Pony Podcast provides a thorough exploration of Tolkien's "Tale of Years," shedding light on the evolution of Middle-earth's chronology through various drafts and the editorial choices that shaped the final appendices. By examining these changes, Alan and James offer listeners a deeper appreciation for the complexities of Tolkien's world-building and the delicate balance between narrative focus and expansive lore. Additionally, the introduction of the Digital Tolkien Project hints at exciting developments for future explorations of Middle-earth's rich history.

James Tauber [116:17]: "Please consider supporting the show by joining the Fellowship of the Podcast."

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Thank you for reading this summary. For an in-depth exploration of Middle-earth's timelines and more engaging discussions, tune into The Prancing Pony Podcast.

Transcript

[Alan Sisto]

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[James Tauber]

Well, the records are few and brief, folks. Pull up a bench in the common room and join us. I'm James Tauber, the Sage of the south, and I'm here with the man for the west, whose dates are often uncertain, Alan Sisto.

[Alan Sisto]

I'm assuming, or I'm going to assume that you're talking about numbers on a calendar, only James, and not the fruit or anything else. All right, I'm just going to leave that right there and we're going to move on, folks. Join us as we not only change guest co hosts here on the ppp, but we change perspectives from looking at individual stories in the appendices to looking at the entirety of two ages in the Tale of Years.

[James Tauber]

No, sir, we have not tried to take on too much. Not at all. Nope.

[Alan Sisto]

Nope. Not at all. Nope.

[James Tauber]

Folks, no matter how you arrived, you're all welcome Here in the common room at the Prancing Pony Podcast. We're reading and talking our way through Middle Earth with plenty of speculation and bad jokes along the way.

[Alan Sisto]

Definitely those. We do love our deep dives into the lore, discussing our favorite themes and a whole lot more, but we try.

[James Tauber]

To keep it light and fun, like a couple of friends chatting at the pub. And we're glad you've joined us, and.

[Alan Sisto]

I'm sure you'll be glad you joined as well. And tonight we have a lot to get through, so we're going to go straight to the discussion. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Do not spend time on an intro. Go straight to the Tale of Years.

[James Tauber]

Okay, Alan, do you want to start us off?

[Alan Sisto]

I will indeed. I'm going to start with Appendix B. The Tale of Chronology of the Westlands. The First Age ended with the great battle in which the host of Valinor broke Thangorodrim and overthrew Morgoth. Then most of the Noldor returned into the Far west and dwelt in Eressea within sight of Valinor, and many of the Sindar went over sea. Also, the Second Age ended with the first overthrow of Sauron, servant of Morgoth, and the taking of the One Ring. The Third Age came to its end in the War of the Ring, but the Fourth Age was not held to have begun until Master Elrond departed and the time was come for the dominion of men and the decline of all other speaking peoples in Middle Earth. In the Fourth Age. The earlier Ages were often called the Elder Days, but that name was properly given only to the days before the casting out of Morgoth. The histories of that time are not recorded here.

[James Tauber]

I wonder where they are recorded in Tolkien's mind.

[Alan Sisto]

He's like, well, if my publisher would have let me. Exactly, it would have been a whole other book attached to this.

[James Tauber]

The anticipation that people must have had. I also. So this is. This is a wonderful like brief summary.

[Alan Sisto]

Very brief.

[James Tauber]

One sentence per age. Right. Explanation of the four Ages. But I have to point out I love the fact that the Fourth Age was not held to have begun until Master Elrond departed. I love that. That's the marker.

[Alan Sisto]

It really interesting. It's not, you know, the, the others ended the way you'd expect. The one ends, the next begins exactly as that ends. Yeah. I mean, the Second Age began right after the Great Battle. The Third Age began right after the overthrow of Sauron.

[James Tauber]

I, I have a theory.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, what is that?

[James Tauber]

I think this comes back to the centrality of Earendel to all of this in the sense that Elrond leaving represents effectively the end of the Earendel.

[Alan Sisto]

It really does. I mean, even if Arwen's sort of, you know, hanging around for a little while, she's already doomed. So that line is over.

[James Tauber]

Earendor marks the end of the First Age. And so it's, I think, appropriate that the wrapping up of the Third Age has to do with Orion.

[Alan Sisto]

That's interesting also because the Second Age, yes, it's the overthrow of Sauron and the taking of the One Ring, but look at who had to die in order for that to happen. Elendil. So if you've got Earendil kind of marking the end of the First Age, Elendil marking the end of the second.

[James Tauber]

Yep.

[Alan Sisto]

But the Fourth Age doesn't begin until Elrond's gone.

[James Tauber]

Yep.

[Alan Sisto]

That's interesting. And it fits with what you're going to be talking about when we get to some of the Second Age stuff. Really good.

[James Tauber]

Yes.

[Alan Sisto]

Well, looking at these very short paragraphs, like you said, basically one sentence each on the three Ages, it becomes clear that we're going to have to do something different. As we move into the Tale of Years here on the ppp, we're leaving the more narrative based sections of the appendices behind, moving really into uncharted territory here on the show. So we thought we would start by letting you know how we're going to walk through the Tale of Years today.

[James Tauber]

And we're going to start by looking at something Christopher Tolkien said in the Peoples of Middle Earth, but not in either of the chapters on the Tale of Years. We're actually going to read from a section on the history of the Akalabeth. Christopher explains that, and I quote, the development of Appendix B. The Tale of Years was, was naturally associated with and dependent on that of Appendix A, which as published bears the title Annals of the Kings and Rulers.

[Alan Sisto]

That certainly explains why we use the Tale of Years so extensively back when Don and I went through Appendix A on Numenor, Eriador, Arnor, Gondor and all of that.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. And why you and Matt referenced it so often during your time in appendix A2 on the house of Ale.

[Alan Sisto]

And then Sara and I just finished using it almost every episode during our time, covering not only Aragorn and ARWEN in appendix A1 5, I think it is, but also our time at Appendix A3 on Durin's Folk.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. It's a helpful tool when going through the narrative portions of the appendices, because it's the anchor for those events, putting them in context. And that reminds me also of why Tolkien was writing Annals alongside the Quintus Silmarillion. So we get like, the Annals of Valinor, the Annals of Balerion.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

Tolkien wanting to actually get a. To pin down the exact dates that things were happening that weren't necessarily as obvious in the narrative text.

[Alan Sisto]

Another thing is that for him, the detail and the accuracy. Right. I mean, I come back to the line he talks about in the introduction, I think, to the second edition of the Lord of the Rings, when he talks about, you know, everybody knows, the part about how he doesn't like allegory, but then he talks about how he much prefers history, feigned or otherwise. And here he's got a feigned history, and he sets it up in such a precise detail.

[James Tauber]

Yep.

[Alan Sisto]

But now, of course, we're going the other way around. We're focusing on the Tale of Years without the context of the narrative. So that's changed how we're going to look at it a bit. And that brings us back to the rest of what Christopher Tolkien said in the History of the Accountabeth that James just started reading. Christopher writes in the presentation of the early forms of these appendices. I have found, after trial and error, that the best course is to divide the Tale of Years into two parts, the Second and the Third Ages, and to treat them separately.

[James Tauber]

And that's where he then goes into the history behind the Akalabeth, which is itself beyond the scope of this episode, but it's so intricately tied to the Second Age that we're likely to reference.

[Alan Sisto]

It as well a lot, I imagine, actually.

[James Tauber]

Definitely.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. So we too are going to divide our conversation about the Tale of Years into two parts, one on the Second Age and one on the Third Age. But before we do that, we're going to move from the back end of the book to the very front to the Prologue. I want to give us a bit on the frame narrative of the Tale of Years and how it came to be in universe. Even though most of today's episode is going to be spent talking about how it came to be in terms of.

[James Tauber]

Manuscripts so near the end of the prologue, in the Note on the Shire Records we read a few things that are relevant here. At the end of the Third Age, the part played by the Hobbits in the great events that led to the inclusion of the Shire in the reunited kingdom awakened among them a more widespread interest in their own history. And many of their traditions up to that time, still mainly oral, were collected and written down. The Greater Families were also concerned with events in the kingdom at large and many of their members studied its ancient histories and legends. By the end of the first century of the Fourth Age, there were already to be found in the Shire several libraries that contained many historical books and records.

[Alan Sisto]

I love what a radical change that is for the Hobbits. What do we read in the prologue? Basically, they didn't really care about history. They had their. Their genealogies and that's about it. But this reminds me of a line that Sarah and I looked at an episode or two ago when it came to Gandalf. One of the things we read about in the Quest of Erebor drafts was that Gandalf wanted to educate the Hobbits and he chose Bilbo as sort of like, well, I can't educate all of them at once. So I picked Bilbo and. And look at what's happened now. The Shire is awake again. They've got libraries, they actually got historians. They got people writing these things down.

[James Tauber]

Well, it's funny, that reference to Bilbo also reminds me of Gandalf's line to the Hobbits about, you know, this is what you were trained for. Basically. Their role is actually in changing the Shire afterwards as much as what the actual role they had in the War of the Ring. And I think this is part of it, right? This realization that you can't be isolationist, that you are part of a. I mean, I'm thinking now the Jackson films and Pippin talking to Treebeard as well. But, you know, this sort of. And Mary, I think. I can't remember if it's Mary or Pippin but this whole idea of, you know, you're part of the world, right? And it gets Mary that says that line. But yeah, so it's interesting that we're getting. We're seeing the fruits of that in this.

[Alan Sisto]

That's so interesting. I don't think I'd really put two and two together in reading the Prologue before in that regard. That there is a big difference between the way Hobbits look at history pre War of the Ring versus post War of the Ring. And so the fact that they, the text says, were awakened. Right. Or that a widespread interest in their own history was awakened. So now they took time to write their traditions down and then the greater families were also concerned with worldwide history. Just fantastic to see that. And it's sort of an antidote to the parochialism we've always talked about. Yes, the Hobbits as having that sort of inward looking, that myopic sort of sense. It makes you wonder whether a generation or two from now they'll stop thinking about hobbits from 20 miles away as being weird or strange or queer. You know, like. Like maybe it will make them a little more cosmopolitan. I don't know. Still, not surprisingly, the biggest libraries. And this is just the way things were, folks. They're going to be at the most well off places. Great Smiles, the ancestral home of the Tukes as well as Brandy hall, the ancestral home of the Brandy Bucks.

[James Tauber]

Though it's also mentioned that the Under Towers held another of the large libraries. That's where Eleanor Gardiner was. And it's where the Red Book of Westmarch, of course.

[Alan Sisto]

The Fairbairns of Westmarch.

[James Tauber]

Yes, exactly. And at Brandy hall, given Merry's connection with Rohan we learned that there were many works dealing with Eriador and the history of rohan. So appendix A1 3 and appendix A2 at the very least.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh certainly. But it's the fool of a Toque that's most relevant for what we're looking at today. In the Prologue we read at Great Smiles the books were of less interest to Shire folk, though more important for larger history. None of them was written by Peregrine. Bracketed comment for me. Of course he didn't write anything. This is Pippin we're talking about. Anyway, sorry, text continues. But he and his successors collected many manuscripts written by scribes of Gondor, mainly copies or summaries of histories or legends relating to Elendil and his heirs. And we're going to come back to that, I think.

[James Tauber]

Yes.

[Alan Sisto]

And so certainly that's the rest of appendix A1 right there in the Great Smiles. Then we get this line, super important. Only here in the Shire were to be found extensive materials for the history of Numenor and the arising of Sauron. So that's going to Give us Second age. Right. Appendix A1, 1 and 2. That's the line of Kings as well as the Akalabeth. Then it was probably at great smiles that the Tale of Years was put together with the assistance of material collected by Meriadoc. Though the dates given are often conjectural, especially for the Second Age, they deserve attention. It is probable that Meriadoc obtained assistance and information from Rivendell, which he visited more than once.

[James Tauber]

Interestingly that the Tale of Years mentioned here in the Prologue is different from what we get in the back of the book. A note here says, represented in much reduced form in Appendix B, as far as the end of the Third Age. So it's an important point. And this is true whenever documents get discussed within the legendarium. And this is true even of the Red Book of Westmarch. Right. We don't have the full documents.

[Alan Sisto]

No.

[James Tauber]

And so the Tale of Years that we read in Appendix B is not the full Tale of Years.

[Alan Sisto]

Of course it's not. Right. And that's the thing. I mean, it's the same thing with all the other chronicles, I think, of Kyrion and Eoral, or the stories that we get from. From other bits of unfinished tales. We don't ever have the complete full story. It's always a chronicle written by a historian who had that limited perspective, you know, and that's what we have. We don't have it from other angles.

[James Tauber]

Even. Even the Aragon and Arwen tale is an abbreviation, abbreviated version.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, I mean, I think the appendix says here follows a part of the Tale of Narwin. Exactly. Tolkien would have had that take up three times the space if he could have and put it in the main narrative.

[James Tauber]

So. So one of the things I want to talk about when we get to it is given that, particularly in the Second Age, it is quite a short version of the story. Yes, it is interesting. Looking at the question of, well, did they cut anything out? What did they choose to include?

[Alan Sisto]

Right.

[James Tauber]

Whenever you. Whenever you're including some things, not including others, there's this interesting question of is there a bias creeping in there? What you do choose and. And don't choose. We'll definitely come to that.

[Alan Sisto]

I was going to say, I have a feeling I'd be disappointed if we didn't come to that. But we are going to be talking about the Second Age portion of the Tale of Years as a standalone segment, and we're going to start, James, with you reading a little bit from. Obviously not from the Tale of Years itself, but from the text of the introduction.

[James Tauber]

Absolutely. The Second Age. These were the dark years for men of Middle Earth, but the years of the glory of Numenor of events in Middle Earth. The records are few and brief and their dates are often uncertain. In the beginning of this Age, many of the High Elves still remained. Most of these dwelt in Lindon, west of the Ered Luin. But before the building of the Barad Dur, many of the Sindar passed eastward and some established realms in the forests far away where their people were mostly silvern Elves. Thranduil, King in the north of Greenwood the Great was was one of these. In Lindon, north of the Lune Dwelt, Gil Galad, last heir of the kings of the Noldor. In exile he was acknowledged as High King of the Elves of the West. In Lindon, south of the Lune Dwelt for a time Celeborn, kinsman of Thingol. His wife was Galadriel, greatest of Elven women. She was sister of Finrod Felagund, friend of men, once king of Nargothrond, who gave his life to save Beren, son of Barahir. Later, some of the Noldor went to Eregion upon the west of the Misty Mountains and near to the West Gate of Moria. This they did because they learned that mithril had been discovered in Moria. The Noldor were great craftsmen and less unfriendly to the Dwarves than the Sindar. But the friendship that grew up between the people of Durin and the Elven smiths of Eregion was the closest that there has ever been between the two races. Celebrimbor was lord of Eregion and the greatest of their craftsmen. He was descended from Feanor.

[Alan Sisto]

You know, if I'm Celebrimbor's publicist, I'm moving to strike that last line altogether. Make me the greatest of their craftsman. Please don't mention my grandfather. He was a jerk. I really don't want that. So, going back though, to the beginning of the reading, we begin with the contrast between the the men of Middle Earth and the Edain, the men of Numenor. And I'm sure that we're going to come back to that, but it's this next bit that I want to do a bit of a sidebar on. The records are few and brief and their dates are often uncertain. And for this we're going to go to the peoples of Middle Earth. Part one, Chapter Six, the Tale of Years of the Second Age. And let me just tell you folks, if you've got this book handy. Bookmark this section. We're coming back to this chapter a lot. James.

[James Tauber]

Sir Christopher explains that the chronology of the Second Age can be traced back to its origin in two small half sheets of paper. That these are not only the first written record of such a chronology, but represent the actual moment of its establishment seems certain from the obviously experimental nature of the calculations. I will refer to the various texts of the Tale of Years by the letter T and call the first of these pages given below Ta to indicate its primary nature. He then explains that some of the writing is hard to make out.

[Alan Sisto]

Big surprise, right? Yeah.

[James Tauber]

He believes this to be a substantially correct representation of the text as it was first written. And he'll discuss changes afterwards, of course. So in this first text, Ta, the ages are said to last about three millennia. In fact, Tolkien took pains to make it clear that this was approximate. He italicized about.

[Alan Sisto]

Yes. Now, this is clearly him working out the timeline literally as he's writing it down, because he sort of does the math backwards. He starts out with the gap 3500 years during the black years, that is the time between Morgoth's defeat at Angband and the defeat of Sauron in the Last Alliance. Now, hint, it is really just about that. It isn't that exactly. But then he does the math.

[James Tauber]

So the judgment of Fionwe, that's an early name for eonwe, took place 10 years after the great Battle. That's the same year Numenor was established. Their first king, Elros, reigns for 410 years. That's the same length as in the final version. That doesn't change.

[Alan Sisto]

Right.

[James Tauber]

Then we get an interesting line. 11 other kings averaging 240 each for 2640 total years.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. So he doesn't go into detail about how long. He just says they average 240, which is funny, because later he talks about how the average Numenorean king would live about 300 years. So he's sort of almost in a way, calculating in the fall and the decline of their lifespan towards the end, because he's averaging. He shortened the average. But that's the only mention of these kings. He just says 11 of the kings, 240 each the last 13th king for 220 years. And he gives us the running subtotal of 3280 so far. That's when we're told that Elendil, very long lived, was 200 years old at Fall of Numenor and Isildur 100. The new realms lasted 100 years before Sauron opened war. That gives us another hundred years before the gathering of the Last alliance, which is itself three years, followed by the seven year siege. Then we get the total 3,390 years.

[James Tauber]

But in the Tale of Years in Lord of the Rings, that time changes a bit. And Christopher explains how first, Tolkien changed the amount of time that the realms in exile were around before Sauron attacked from 100 years to 110 years. That got him to exactly 3400 years at that point, despite the about 3500 giving him an excuse, he changed it to about 3400 and left it alone.

[Alan Sisto]

Which is kind of funny because he then changed the founding of numenor from 10 years into 50 years in which resulted in a new total of 3440. Like you had it, man. You had it.

[James Tauber]

Well, he wanted to make it about. He couldn't.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, that's right. That's right, exactly.

[James Tauber]

So there are, there are a couple of Third Age tidbits in TA that are worth mentioning before we dive back into the Second Age fund.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

So Tolkien originally had Sauron remaining quiet in the third age for 500 years. He moved that to 1100 years.

[Alan Sisto]

Right.

[James Tauber]

To coincide perhaps with the finding of the Ring that got moved from 600 years after Isildur's death to. To 1100 years after shortening Smeagol's time with his precious from 2400 years to 1900 years.

[Alan Sisto]

Poor guy. Also, this fun note about Aragorn in character. Aragorn was a hardened man of, say, 45. He was actually 90 and would live at least another 50, probably 70 years. Aragorn was a Numenorean of pure blood, but the span had dwindled to double life. And I just thought that was really interesting that he's already kind of figured out how some of these elements are going to work, how they're going to play with each other and how they're going to change that timeline. And you'll see, of course, that some of these things change dramatically. Again, certainly the amount of time that Smeagol had with the Ring is a big one. The finding of the Ring is a big change. But it's interesting how much of this really stayed the same and how much of this he already had set in place. Just small tweaks here and there.

[James Tauber]

It's interesting as well that it was a very top down approach. We saw that he sort of sketched out he knew how long the ages were. He had a rough idea of how many kings he wanted he had a rough idea of what the span of each king was, therefore, and then kind of filled it in from that and as you said, started to develop this idea that maybe with the decline, the ages reduced and so on and, and then made various tweaks to move things forward 10 years back 10 years or in some cases 600 years or yeah, hundreds of years or 1100 years.

[Alan Sisto]

What else I really like about this is how Tolkien again, it's like he does with the languages, right? He works this to be ultra realistic, like a real history. And it just comes back to the whole idea of an inconsistency of reality, creating a world that is three dimensional, that has a life that it's lived before the story we're experiencing. It's fantastically done. Now, lately I've had a chance to tell you all about Mando, the whole body deodorant. I still use it, I still like it and I especially like that my 13 year old son uses it. Now Mando is clinically proven to block odors all day long and to control them for up to 72 hours even. And one of the things I really like about Mando's stuff is that it's whole bodied deodorant. You don't just throw some on your armpits, you really can use it any place on your body that could use a bit of odor control. And yeah, it includes there too. Mando products come in solids, creams and sprays and some really fresh scents too like Pro Sport, Clover woods and Bourbon Leather. Mando's starter pack is perfect for new customers. It comes with a solid stick deodorant Cream tube Deodorant. Two free products of your choice like a mini body wash or deodorant wipes, which are perfect for travel and free shipping. As a special offer for our listeners, new customers get $5 off a starter pack with our exclusive code that equates to over 40% off your starter pack when you use code [e-mail] that's s h o p m a n-d o.com Please support our show and tell them we sent you Smell fresher, stay drier and boost your confidence from head to toe with Mando. Eczema isn't always obvious, but it's real. And so is the relief from Ebglis. After an initial dosing phase of 16 weeks, about 4 in 10 people taking EBGLIS achieved itch relief and clear or almost clear skin. And most of those people maintain skin that's still more clear at one year with monthly dosing. EBGLIS Lebricizumab LBKZ a 250ml a milligram per 2ml injection is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema, also called atopic dermatitis, that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or topicals, or who cannot use topical therapies. EBGLIS can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you're allergic to Ebglis. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with Ebgliss before starting Epglis, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection searching for real relief? Ask your doctor about epglis and visit epgliss.lily.com or call 1-800-lilyrx or 1-800-545-5979 now soon we'll get back to the history of, well, all of Middle Earth history. But before we do, we want to remind you there's a lot more talk going on at the Prancing Pony Podcast than just us.

[James Tauber]

The PPP has an amazing listener community. They're always coming up with great questions and discussions across all our media spaces. Check out our Common Room on Facebook, our dedicated subreddit, Twitter and more now.

[Alan Sisto]

On Facebook, just look for the Prancing Pony Podcast. Follow the page to get the news, but you're going to want to join the group to get involved in some.

[James Tauber]

Great discussions on Twitter, Instagram, BlueSky, Twitch, TikTok and YouTube. We're PrancingPonyPod or if you prefer, Reddit. Find us there at R prancingponypod.

[Alan Sisto]

And if you want daily Tolkien content, check out today's Tolkien Times on the PPP YouTube channel and on all your favorite podcast apps. That's my short format daily show with everything from Middle Earth Map Monday to Silmarillion Saturday. And there's my new twice weekly streaming of all fun things Middle Earth on the PPP plays. Be sure to check both of them out on the YouTube channel for all of PPP productions at YouTube.com rancingponypod okay.

[James Tauber]

Alan, do you want to take us back to the peoples of Middle Earth?

[Alan Sisto]

I do. I do indeed. We're going to change our readings now from Appendix B in Lord of the Rings to the Tale of Years of the Second Age. In Peoples of Middle Earth, Christopher explains the second of these two primary pages, unquestionably written at the same time as the first, as is shown by the paper used, is headed the Second Age and the Black Years, and gives dates from year zero, the end of the Great Battle, to the loss of the One Ring, and the end of the Second Age, the date of which 3440 in TA now becomes 3441, which was never changed. This page being the earliest version of an actual Tale of Years I will call T.I. in its earlier part, T.I. was so much corrected and reworked as my father proceeded that that it is scarcely possible to analyze the successive stages of its endlessly changed chronology. But in a subsequent text, he followed the final form of T1 so closely that it can be given in its place. He then goes on to point out a few of the significant mentions or changes. Foundation of Tarkilion gets changed immediately to foundation of Artheden, Dunhirion, and Gondor. Now the term Dunhidion shows up in a very late version of the Council of Elrond. It becomes a numinous. Tarkilion, on the other hand, is found only in the very first manuscript of of the Rings of Power in the Third Age, where it is also corrected to Annumanus. Arthedan is simply the earliest appearance of Arthedain, just spelled a little differently. And then, Christopher continues. The page T1 in its final form was followed so closely by the next text that it seems probable that no long interval had elapsed. This is a clearly written manuscript on two sides of a single sheet. I will refer to it as T2. A few changes were made to it in red ink, but they were made after the subsequent version had been written, since the same changes were made to that also in red ink, and I do not notice them here. Thank you, Christopher. I guess we don't have to recognize them either. But this is where I'm going to defer to my resident Second Age expert here, Tolkien Society Award winner, James Tauber.

[James Tauber]

Okay, so one of the things I want to point out about the story that's told about the Second Age here is that this is not the first time that Tolkien had written about the Second Age. And it's worth briefly kind of summarizing the various Second Age stories that existed outside of the Lord of the Rings. So we have corresponding roughly to the time period that the Lost Road was written in 1936. So before Lord of the Rings had started Tolkien wrote the Lost Road with a famous time travel story that he never, never finished.

[Alan Sisto]

The sci fi. The attempt at a science fiction story.

[James Tauber]

Exactly. But it was Numenor focused and as part of that he wrote a document called the Fall of Numenor. Now this is not the Brian Sibley book of the same name. This is a text by Tolkien written around 1936 called the Fall of Numenor, where he basically sketched out what happened in Numenor from a particularly Elvish perspective. And it's quite critical of what went on in Numenor as one might expect, as one might when he came back in the mid-1940s. So when he was taking a break from Lord of the Rings, he was close to finishing Lord of the Rings but hadn't quite got there. He took a break and wrote that started on the Notion Club papers, which was again another attempt at this sci fi time travel story involving Numenor. He wrote another version of another account of what happened called the Drowning of Anadune, which was telling the Numenorean story from much more of a Mannish tradition, as he described it.

[Alan Sisto]

Right.

[James Tauber]

Of course, we don't know anything as readers of Lord of the Rings. We don't know any of this other stuff about what went on in the Second Age beyond the snippets we're going to get to from. From Faramir and then obviously what's. What's told in the appendices. So none of this stuff was. Was known to. To. To the readers. But he had all this material that laid out exactly what went on in Numenor. And then later on in the 60s, after he'd published Lord of the Rings, he wrote the Akalabeth, which of course Christopher ended up including in the Silmarillion. And that a Calabeth writing was sort of a mixture of the two perspectives, the Elvish perspective and the Mannish perspective. But I want to come back to this idea of what can we tell from what's included and not included in the Tale of Years? What does that say about certain biases? Are we getting the sort of Elvish perspective? Are we getting the human perspective? I'll start off with maybe a little bit about what's in the table T1 and T2 manuscript. We can talk a little bit later about what gets added later, although a lot of the stuff that gets added later was then cut back. So what we get in the final published Lord of the Rings is actually largely what's in T2 with a couple of extra things. But I Want to point out a few things. If you go and look at T2 in Peoples of Middle Earth, it really says very little about the sort of decline of Numenor. There's no mention of the sort of colonialism, the exploitation of the environment. There's no description of the Numenoreans seeking long life. There's no mention of them wanting to go against the Ban of the Valar. None of that stuff is in there.

[Alan Sisto]

So no criticism. Just they're great explorers and they do these things and.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, exactly. And we'll come back to some more details of that in the final published Lord of the Rings, because it's really interesting that it does take this tack again. But the first version of the Tale of Years, the Second Age Tale of Years, doesn't really say much at all about what caused the decline in Numenor. It talks a bit about the Rings of Power. It doesn't actually mention the One Ring either, which I think is interesting. I wonder if Tolkien went back in later revisions to say more about how the One Ring fit into all of this. It talks about the Rings of Power being made in Eregion. Another fun difference about this first version is that Imladris is actually established at the same time as Eregion.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, interesting.

[James Tauber]

So rather than Imladris being a refuge as a result of Eregion being attacked, they actually get established at the same time. So it's a really. It's a really interesting sort of initial draft. I want to point out as well, you mentioned that the Tarkalion was the name that was used originally for Arthur.

[Alan Sisto]

Dayne or for Annuminus, I thought.

[James Tauber]

Right, yes, yes. That ends up becoming. Being the name of the final king.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, Tarkalion rather than Tarkilion. But, yeah, you're right.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. Just with that one vowel change, ends up being the name. And I wonder if he changed it because of the similarity or he decided he wanted something similar in the name of the last king.

[Alan Sisto]

Like maybe he really liked the aesthetics of that sound, but knew that that wasn't going to be the right name for the the place. Where else can I give that name?

[James Tauber]

Exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

Let's throw it in here.

[James Tauber]

Exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

Interesting.

[James Tauber]

But, yeah. So we'll come to the changes that were made in later versions of the Tale of Years that we get in the people to Middle Earth a little later on, as well as I want to talk about the final published version of Lord of the Rings and the biases that are there, because, yeah, it gets really interesting.

[Alan Sisto]

It really does. I did want to mention one other quote from peoples that fits here, I think, more than T4 and T5. And it's Christopher sort of coming to grips with all of this and. And not so much the biases, but just the. The challenge of these various texts. And he says every explanation of this extraordinary textual puzzle seems to founder. It is not in itself perhaps a matter of great significance, though one certainly gets the impression that there is more to the date 3319 and possibly also to 3441 than the evidence remains reveals. It is clear, at any rate, that all these texts, the original manuscript of the Akaldabeth and its associated scheme, the computations in the texts TA and TB and the initial version of the Tale of Years, arose at the same time before the narrative of the Lord of the Rings was in final form. While the evidence suggests that it was these computations of the Numenorean Kings, formulaic as they were, were, that provided the chronological vehicle of the Second Age established at that time. So, like, that's what he did first, was like, all right, let's look at the kings and their reigns and we'll build the rest of the history off of that backbone.

[James Tauber]

Exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

And it's really interesting to see that level of detail and to see Christopher sort of being able to decipher that and puzzle that out as he's looking at TA, TB, T1, T2, T3, T4, T5. I mean, you know, Tolkien's just going off with the number of drafts, and finally we're at a point where Christopher's able to say it looks like his calculations about the kings were the core build or the central column on which he would hang every other element of the Second Age.

[James Tauber]

Yep, yep.

[Alan Sisto]

All right. Well, you mentioned the significant changes that we're going to see in T4 and T5. Why don't you start by reading a little bit from peoples of Middle Earth on those two?

[James Tauber]

Absolutely. At that time, as things stood, the Lord of the Rings would be published without any account, however brief, of the story of Numenor in the manuscript T4, my father had written what I've called a condensed history rather than a list of dates. For it is to be remembered that in the narrative of the Lord of the Rings, despite all the many mentions of the names Numenor and Westerness, he had told nothing of its history and of the downfall, no more than Faramir's words in Minas Tirith when he told Eowyn that he was thinking of the land of Westerness that founded and of the Great Dark wave climbing over the green lands and above the hills. He must now attempt to contract even what he'd written in T4, which we'll get to. And as a comparison of the last entries in the present text I've just given with those in T4 shows he was not succeeding. The reduction into a mere chronological scheme of a large history that could not be understood by a recital of events was a task profoundly uncongenial to him. He despaired of it and broke off in mid sentence.

[Alan Sisto]

I could only imagine how hard that must have been, how frustrating that must have been.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

You know, I love the way Christopher puts it. So understated. Profoundly uncongenial to him.

[James Tauber]

Because as I said, he had this story written out. The Fall of Numenor, the drowning of Anadune. Yeah, he had a detailed story about Numenor and it had barely crept into the text of the Lord of the Rings. Just that tiny Faramir mention of the wave.

[Alan Sisto]

I mean, that's it. Is it?

[James Tauber]

Yeah, exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

Profoundly uncongenial. This was a task that sucked, let's be honest. That's really what he's saying here. He really didn't like this. This was unfriendly. He did not want to have to reduce this entire history into just a scheme. And no wonder he despaired of it. I get it. I'm trying to tell a story here.

[James Tauber]

Exactly. And it's funny because a lot of the Rings of Power part of the story we do get in chapter two of both book one and book two. Right. So Shadow of the Past and Council of Elrond, we get plenty of information about the Forging of the Rings and all of that, that aspect of it, and we find out about the Last alliance and all that kind of thing. But none of this stuff of what was going on in. In Numenor. No, none of. None of that at all. I want to read some bits that got added between T2 and T4. They don't want to go back to the published Lord of the Rings and we'll see that a lot of the stuff gets cut out, but it gets cut out in a way that I think was very deliberate. Tolkien was really trying to give an in world justification for why certain things were excluded and so on. But let me first of all start off by. Because T4, the version of the Tale of Years that Christopher refers to as manuscript T4, is sort of the largest version of it. It's bigger than what we get in the published Lord of the Rings, and it's pretty Comprehensive. But I want to point out some things that got added from T2 to T4. Some of it's just adding a little bit of extra detail. So T2 just says foundation of the Havens and the kingdom of Lindon. T4 says foundations of the Grey Havens and the Kingdom of Lindon. This was ruled by Gil Galad, son of Felagun, chief of all the Noldor, who did not yet depart to Avalon.

[Alan Sisto]

Okay.

[James Tauber]

So most details, adding that detail, flushing it out. The other thing that gets added is all of a sudden, I think this is motivated by what was going on in Lord of the Rings information about the Dwarves. Because the original version did not have anything about what was going on with the Dwarves. And so you get things like in the year 50, T2 just says foundation of Numenor.

[Alan Sisto]

Right.

[James Tauber]

T4 says foundation of Numenor. About the same time the works of Moria were begun by Durin the Dwarf and his folks from the ruin of the ancient dwarf cities in the Blue Mountains. That was actually struck out and then replaced with about this time, many Dwarves fleeing from the ruins of the dwarf cities in the Blue Mountains and came to Moria. And its power and splendor of its works were greatly increased. So he's adding extra bits to the timeline that are relevant to people that have just read Lord of the Rings. Yeah, right. And are wanting to know, how do the Dwarves fit into this, what was going on with the Dwarves?

[Alan Sisto]

Which makes sense if he wants this to be an appendix to the Lord of the Rings.

[James Tauber]

Right, exactly. So we still, in T4 get Imladris being founded at the same time as Eregion.

[Alan Sisto]

That's interesting.

[James Tauber]

But we get all of this extra detail about remnants of the Telerian elves of Doriath in ancient Balerion, establishing realms in the woodlands far eastward. So we get mention of Thranduil and the Greenwood the Great and all that sort of stuff. Actually in the Tale of Years, that's.

[Alan Sisto]

All in T4, but not in T2.

[James Tauber]

And not ultimately in the published version.

[Alan Sisto]

Right.

[James Tauber]

More Dwarf mentions. But here's a really interesting insertion that we get. So again, T2 says in 900 onwards, Sauron begins in secret to build the fortress of Baradur in Mordor and makes the forges of Orodruin. And the next entry in T2 is the rings of Power, made in Eregion. So nothing at all about the relationship between Sauron and eregan. But in T4 we get Sauron in secret begins the building of the fortress Baradua in Mordor. And makes there the forges of Oroduin, the Mountains of Fire. But he professes great friendship with the Eldar and especially with those of Eregion who were great in Smithcraft. So we start getting more details about the Rings of Power. We get our first mention of the one ring called here the ruling Ring, which as I mentioned is not mentioned at all in T2. T2 just says the Rings of Power are made in Eregion. T4 says the rings of Power are forged in Eregion, but the ruling Ring is forged by Sauron in Orodruin. Okay, so we're starting to get this. We also get more information about the Dwarves region is laid waste. The Naugrim or Dwarves close the gates of Moria. Many of the remaining Noldor depart west over the sea. So that's all new information. T2 just says in 1900 Baradur is complete. T4 says Baradur is completed with the power of the ruling ring.

[Alan Sisto]

Ah, that's important. So tying in the ring, which like you said, hadn't even been mentioned in T2. So in T4 we include it and we include it as the the basis of power for Baradur.

[James Tauber]

And then this is where it gets really interesting. And this is going to tie into the bias discussion that we have about the published Lord of the Rings. There is a brand new entry in T4 that did not exist in T2 and I'll read it to you in full because this is all new information that was not in T2 but is in T4. The shadow falls on Numenor. The Numenoreans begin to murmur against the Valar who will not permit them to sail west from their land. And they become jealous of the immortality of the Eldar. A division appears among the Numenoreans between the elf friends, the smaller party and the King's folk. The latter become slowly estranged from the Valar and the Eldar and abandon the use of Elven tongues. The kings take names of Numenorean form. The elf friends dwelling most in the east of Numenor remain loyal to the kings except in the matter of rebellion against the decrees of the Vala. So this is an aspect of the story that's very familiar to us having read the Akalabeth. But this is not something that was in the T2 version. And I note it's not talked about in the published tale of years in the Lord of the Rings either. And we'll come back to that because I think that's super significant. And we get more examples in the next entry. We were previously told in T2 that the Numenoreans have fortresses and outposts. But now in T4 we're told they make permanent dwellings on the shores of Middle Earth, seeking wealth and dominion.

[Alan Sisto]

Imperial Numenor.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, again, none of that. None of that's mentioned in T2, nor is it mentioned in the final version of Lord of the Rings.

[Alan Sisto]

That's what's so interesting here is as you're pointing these additions out, there are things that he would add and then later remove.

[James Tauber]

Exactly. And we'll sum up what those bias seem to be in a moment. There's a couple of other additions that I want to mention. So in T2 we're just told that Tarkalion, that's half Arizon Tarkalion, set sail to Middle Earth, Sauron is obliged to yield and is taken to Numenor. And then we're just told 200 years later, downfall of Numenor. We're not told at all what happens in that intervening time period. In T4 we're told the might and splendor of the Numenoreans fills the servants of Sauron with fear. Ar Pharazon lands at Umbar, and in pursuance of his own secret design, Sauron humbles himself and submits. Sauron is taken as a hostage to Numenor. Then the next entry. Sauron slowly gains the confidence of our Farazon until he dominates his councils. He urges Farazon to make war on the Lords of the west to gain everlasting life. Next entry. Most of the Numenoreans fall under the sway of Sauron, and they persecute the elf friends and they become tyrants over men in Middle Earth.

[Alan Sisto]

Wow. And then that gets all dropped from the final version.

[James Tauber]

All of that gets dropped even from the published Lord of the Rings. We only know about it from the account.

[Alan Sisto]

That's right. From what Christopher Tolkien would later publish in the Silmarillion.

[James Tauber]

In the Silmarillion, exactly. Next entry. Ar Pharazon, feeling the approach of death at last takes the council of Sauron and prepares a vast fleet for an assault upon Avalon and Valinor. Valandil changed to Amandil. The faithful breaks the ban of the Valar and sails west, hoping to repeat the embassy of Earendel and obtain the help of the Lords of the West. He's never heard from again. His son Elendil, as his father had bidden, makes ready ships on the east coast of Numenor, preparing for flight with all the faithful that he can Gather huge part of the numenorean story not at all mentioned in either the earlier version or in the published Lord of the Rings.

[Alan Sisto]

And that's the thing. It's one thing to say, like, okay, as I'm moving forward, I'm going to add more detail, so I'm going to include these things. Like, okay, maybe not. Not including it in T2 made sense. Like.

[James Tauber]

Right.

[Alan Sisto]

It was. This is just a rough draft. I'm going to flesh things out as I go. But to then remove it from the published version is, like you said, intriguing because what he removes is very specific, isn't it?

[James Tauber]

Yeah. So I'll come back to that. So there's. Let's move on now to the published Lord of the Rings Second Age Tale of Years, because it's interesting in two respects. What is not mentioned and also a couple of extra things that are put in that were not in any of the drafts.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, interesting.

[James Tauber]

So the main thing that's left out is any mention of the longevity motivation, the environmental exploitation. None of that's there. Right? You would. If you just read the Tale of Years in the published Lord of the Rings, you would have no idea that the Numenoreans were exploiting Middle Earth, that they were seeking longevity. None of that's there at all.

[Alan Sisto]

Wow.

[James Tauber]

You would almost go as far as saying that the Numenoreans did nothing wrong if all you read was the Lord of the Rings.

[Alan Sisto]

Well, I'm just wondering how those folks and the Feanor did nothing wrong. Folks would go on.

[James Tauber]

So the other thing is that we're told that a shadow. We're told in the published Lord of the Rings that a shadow fell on Numenor.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

But we're never told what that was. It's never tied to longevity.

[Alan Sisto]

If anything, it's not tied to the rebellion. It's.

[James Tauber]

It seems to be tied to Sauron. It's almost like, oh, it was Sauron's fault.

[Alan Sisto]

Sauron cast a shadow. Yeah.

[James Tauber]

Even though we know that it had nothing to do with Sauron.

[Alan Sisto]

The shadow came long before Sauron.

[James Tauber]

Sauron just then went on to exploit that.

[Alan Sisto]

Yes, he did.

[James Tauber]

But all of that, all of that's skipped over in the published Tale of Years.

[Alan Sisto]

Interesting.

[James Tauber]

And then the final thing that does get added, which. Which I think is the. Sums up exactly why the bias is what it is, the thing that gets added. I'm just going to read you a couple of entries that are in the published Tale of Years that weren't in any drafts, and I want you to think about why they got inserted.

[Alan Sisto]

These were not in any drafts. So not in T2, T, A, T, B, T, 1, 2, 3 or 4.

[James Tauber]

No birth in Numenor of Silmarion. We've not been told about any other births or deaths at all. All of a sudden we're told that Silmarian was born. All of a sudden she gets mentioned.

[Alan Sisto]

Right.

[James Tauber]

Then the next odd insertion is Ta Ankalime becomes the first ruling queen of Numenor. We've not been told about any other kings or anything like that. Right. No, we've been told about Elros.

[Alan Sisto]

Right.

[James Tauber]

And then all of a sudden we get told Silmarien is born Taa and Calamare becomes the first ruling queen of Numenor. Then we get another odd entry. Now, a death, not a. Not a birthday death of Tar Atanamir Tar Achalamon takes the scepter. And then we get Adunokor takes the scepter. Farazon the golden seizes the scepter. So what this seems to be adding, particularly the first two. The birth of Silmarian.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, the birth of Taran Kalame. Yeah.

[James Tauber]

It's setting up a contrast in the succession plans. Right. Well, first of all, it's establishing Sulmarian. Sulmarion was never queen.

[Alan Sisto]

No, no, she would have been had they followed the same rules that they would later follow. Exactly. Daryon and Arendus daughter. But she was.

[James Tauber]

Exactly, exactly. And I think that's the whole point.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

They're establishing Elendil's claim to the throne and the illegitimacy of the people that just seized the scepter.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. They didn't inherit the scepter, they seized the scepter.

[James Tauber]

Exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

They took the scepter. And that's significant language. And the fact that he took pains to identify Silmarien not a royal, not Tar Silmarian or anything like that, because she was never a ruling queen. But then we get to Taran Kalami saying, look, later on we had a queen.

[James Tauber]

Yep.

[Alan Sisto]

But the real line would have been the line that ran through Somarian, hence Elendil.

[James Tauber]

So the great thing is, if anyone says, what's Elendil's claim to the throne? You can just go, we'll look at the Tale of Years. He's descended from Sulmarian.

[Alan Sisto]

Right.

[James Tauber]

So what Tolkien has done in this.

[Alan Sisto]

Version of the Tale of Years, the final published version.

[James Tauber]

The final published version in Lord of the Rings, which, mind you, is all that we knew about second age until 1977. Exactly. We don't know anything that the Numenoreans did wrong.

[Alan Sisto]

No, all of that's brushed under the rug, isn't it?

[James Tauber]

That's all brushed under the rug. It's all Sauron's fault. And we've established Elendil's claim to the throne. So this is a highly pro Elendil, but also pro Numenorean version of the story.

[Alan Sisto]

We don't want to say anything bad.

[James Tauber]

Exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

We don't want to say the Numenoreans were seeking after eternal life. We don't want to say they were destroying the environment and, you know, running rampant over the peoples along the coastlines of Middle Earth as some sort of, you know, violent imperial force.

[James Tauber]

Exactly. So I think it's really fun to sort of consider it in light of that, that this is not just a set of facts that Tolkien has included at the end. This is still a story from a particular perspective. And I think it's fascinating to realize that you're right.

[Alan Sisto]

He's telling a story through a mirror chronology.

[James Tauber]

Exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

That's master stuff right there.

[James Tauber]

But we wouldn't even know that if it not for the Call of Beth. Right. That's the other.

[Alan Sisto]

We wouldn't know about those changes without history, Middle Earth. So you're right. I mean, the Akalabeth fills in the blanks for us. It goes. Oh, okay, I see there was a little more to that picture than what we read in the Tale of Years. All these other things also happened.

[James Tauber]

Yep.

[Alan Sisto]

But now we see the progression of what got added to and what got removed from the Tale of Years in its various forms, so that we can see that the final version was intentionally very pro Elendil and very neutral on Numenor. I'm not going to go so far as to maybe say pro Numenor, but.

[James Tauber]

Like, I think, yeah, neutral's right. We'll just. Yeah, we'll. Yeah, we'll forget to mention a few things. Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

You know, I mean, it's a chronology. We're not listing everything that happens. So. Yeah, we're kind of skipping the whole part about immortals and, you know, griping against the ban and all of that.

[James Tauber]

Stuff, which is kind of a big thing to miss out.

[Alan Sisto]

You'd think it's a really big thing to miss out. And in some ways, you almost like, I'm thinking if I'm writing that story, I want to use those elements to point out the illegitimacy of that line, almost to reinforce the idea that Silmarion should have been the ruling queen, because then we would have had a king, Elendil and we never would have had this fall. But I know Don and I talked about that. Like, what would have happened had Silmarion been a ruling queen? Would. Would things have been different? Or was it eventually going to happen at some point? Because maybe it would not have been Elendil. But who knows what Elenda would have been like if it was his great, great, great grandfather who first started to rebel against the band, as it was for our Farazan. You know, this is interesting stuff to discover this only as we look through the drafts, as we go through what Christopher's provided in History of Middle Earth, as we see what the Akadabeth provides. It's really interesting. I wonder what Tolkien's thought process was other than, well, I've got to give Valindil some legitimacy because it does sound like he shrank other things, but wow, you're right. Why he shrank just those. He could have cut other things, but he cut those things in particular. And I wonder, like you said. Well, actually, like Christopher said, Tolkien had told nothing of the history of Numenor, nothing more about the downfall than Faramir's words when he told Ea when he was thinking of the land of Western as it foundered. Maybe just like, there's too much there. Let me explain. No, there's none of the time. Let me sum up. Oh, no, there's not even a time for that. I'm cutting this all together, but I am at least giving you legitimacy to Elendil. That is fascinating, fascinating stuff. I really like that. That was fascinating. James, thank you for kind of taking us down that road and helping us see really the very unique spin that Tolkien was applying to the. The chronology here in the second Age in order to give us more focus on Elendil and like you said, a more positive focus on him. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime.

[James Tauber]

From streaming to shopping, prime helps you get more out of your passions. So whether you're a fan of true.

[Alan Sisto]

Crime or prefer a nail biting novel from time to time, with services like Prime Video, Amazon Music, and fast free.

[James Tauber]

Delivery, prime makes it easy to get.

[Alan Sisto]

More out of whatever you're into or getting in. Visit Amazon.comprime to learn more. All right, here we go. New Phineas and Ferb is here.

[James Tauber]

We're back, baby.

[Alan Sisto]

For 104 more days. I know what we're gonna do today. A summer vacation. I am ready for summer shenanigans.

[James Tauber]

Let's do it. Oh, yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

We're gonna bust Phineas and Ferv once and for all. Are we gonna do this again? New Inventions, sh Shenanigans, Inators, Adventures and Songs. New Phineas and Ferb. Starts June 5th on Disney Channel and next day on Disney plus on disneyplus.disney.com Folks, if you're enjoying the PPP, please consider supporting the show by joining the Fellowship of the Podcast. That is what gives me the time and resources to work on making the show the best that it can be. When you join, you become part of an amazing discord community that includes live episode recordings, one's happening right now as I speak, and hangouts every month. You also get episode postscripts, ad free episodes, free merch, and more.

[James Tauber]

You can also become part of our Questions After Nightfall episodes or even join us as a guest in the North Wing. So Please go to Patreon.com to show your support and join the Fellowship of the Podcast.

[Alan Sisto]

Indeed. And you can always help us out as well by giving us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and a rating on Spotify. And please recommend us to your friends.

[James Tauber]

Okay, Alan, shall we get back to the tale of years and in particular move on to the Third Age?

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, I loved our discussion of the Second Age. I thought that was really fascinating. And now I can't help but wonder, are we going to see things that, in the Third Age, changes that will make us sort of go.

[James Tauber]

Well, that's the interesting thing. Now we should always be asking, is this story being told from a particular.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. What perspective are we seeing here? And it's interesting because, like we talked about, in the frame narrative, this text is found in. It's found in the Shire. This is found in. In Pippin's library. But that is, you know, as we're already told in the prologue, Pippin didn't write it. He's collecting the texts from scribes of Gondor. So scribes of Gondor are like, we need to make sure Elendil is highlighted as being a legitimate king. And we really don't need to talk so much about our Pharazon.

[James Tauber]

Right.

[Alan Sisto]

We don't talk about Farazan.

[James Tauber]

No, because I was going to say, it's important to note, Aragorn's claim to the throne rests on.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, it. Absolutely.

[James Tauber]

Silmarion as well.

[Alan Sisto]

It rests on Silmarion. And it also rests on the whole. Whole mess at the end of the North Kingdom and the claim that he had both as the son of Isildur and as the husband of Firiel, the daughter of Ondaher. And that whole mess which we'll get to as we talk about the Third Age. All right. These were the fading years of the Eldar. For long they were at peace, wielding the Three rings while Sauron slept and the One Ring was lost. But they attempted nothing new. Living in memory of the past. The dwarves hid themselves in deep places, guarding their hordes. But when evil began to stir again and dragons reappeared, one by one their ancient treasures were plundered and they became a wandering people. Moria for long remained secure, but its numbers dwindled until many of its vast mansions became dark and empty. The wisdom and the lifespan of the Numenoreans also waned as they became mingled with lesser men. When maybe a thousand years had passed and the First Shadow had fallen on Greenwood the Great, the Istari, or wizards, appeared in Middle Earth. It was afterwards said that they came out of the Far west and were messengers sent to contest the power of Sauron and to unite all those who had the will to resist him. But they were forbidden to match his power with power or to seek to dominate elves or men by force and fear. They came therefore in the shape of men, though they were never young and aged only slowly, and they had many powers of mind and hand. They revealed their true names to few, but used such names as were given to them. The two highest of this order, of whom it is said there were five, were called by the Eldar, Kurunir, the Man of Skill, and Mithrandir, the Grey Pilgrim. But by men in the North, Saruman and Gandalf. Kuronir journeyed often into the east, but dwelt at last in Isengard. Mithrandir was closest in friendship with the Eldar, and wandered mostly in the west, and never made for himself any lasting abode. Throughout the Third Age, the guardianship of the three Rings was known only to those who possessed them. But at the end it became known that they had been held at first by the three greatest of the Gil Galad, Galadriel and Cirdan. Gil Galad, before he died, gave his ring to Elrond. Cirdan later surrendered his to Mithrandir, for Cirdan saw further and deeper than any other in Middle Earth. And he welcomed Mithrandir at the Grey Havens, knowing whence he came and whither he would return. Take this ring, Master, he said, for your labors will be heavy, but it will support you in the weariness that you have taken upon yourself. For this is the Ring of Fire, and with it you may rekindle hearts in a world that grows chill. But as for me, my Heart is with the sea, and I will dwell by the grey shores. And until the last ship sails, I will await you.

[James Tauber]

Mvp, right there.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, thank you, sir. Very kind.

[James Tauber]

I meant Kirdan, not you.

[Alan Sisto]

Well played. Well played, folks that you don't know is. I tried, like, five different versions of Kieran there. And so. Yeah, I kind of just assumed that was wonderfully embarrassing. I'm perfectly happy to be humiliated on that particular moment because Kieran is the mvp.

[James Tauber]

He is the mvp. Absolutely. So, anyway, in. In what Alan read, we get a single paragraph at the start that briefly describes what's going on with the elves, the dwarves and the men during the Third Age. So the elves are fading.

[Alan Sisto]

Yep.

[James Tauber]

They're not doing anything new. They're simply keeping the past as the present. This is the embalming that. That Tolkien criticizes in his life.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. There are at least two or three moments or examples of that in his letters where he's like, look, the elves are doing this thing and it's not good.

[James Tauber]

Yep. The dwarves retreat and hide to protect their wealth, but of course, to no avail in the face of the dragons.

[Alan Sisto]

The dragons, plural. I thought that was interesting.

[James Tauber]

Yes. Yeah. Makes. Makes me want to learn more since Snark was just one of many, obviously. Yeah, yeah. And then men's wisdom and lifespans were both shrinking.

[Alan Sisto]

Exactly. And the next two paragraphs, which interestingly give us more text than on the elves, dwarves and men combined, is spent on the wizards, even still just telling us only about the two primary ones in Lord of the Rings. And then finally, we get clarity on who had the three rings before wrapping with Ciridan, the unsung hero, underrated, overlooked, might be the best of them all. Mvp, elf, all.

[James Tauber]

Before we get to the actual timeline, which of course, we're not going to cover in detail.

[Alan Sisto]

No.

[James Tauber]

What we will cover, though, are the changes in the timeline from the manuscript stage for forward to what's published here.

[Alan Sisto]

That's right. Now, moving forward in Peoples of Middle Earth, a couple of chapters from where we just were in the last segment to the Tale of Years of the Third Age, Christopher opens there by telling us that the earliest text of the Tale of Years of the Third Age is a brief manuscript apparently closely associated with the very early form of that of the second age, which I have called T2. So that goes back to what we were just talking about before the break, Christopher continues. And although they are separate texts and not continuous, it is convenient to refer to this likewise as T2. So we'll do the same.

[James Tauber]

He then provides this early text, which is very thin.

[Alan Sisto]

Very thin.

[James Tauber]

Really not much at all. Enough that we'll cover it here.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, the whole thing. This is literally all of T2 on the third Age.

[James Tauber]

So Sauron is said to wake around third age 1000 establishing a stronghold at Dol Guldor compared to 1100 in the published text.

[Alan Sisto]

Pretty close, yeah.

[James Tauber]

And then in third age 1100, Deagle finds the Ring and is killed by Smeagol, who then goes into the Misty Mountains five years later compared to 2463 in the published version, more than 1300 years later.

[Alan Sisto]

That's the element that really got changed a lot, really, was the finding of the One ring back in T2 in the third age 1300. That's when the River People from which Smeagol descended, that's when they grew in number. They ended up crossing the mountains and becoming the Hobbits. So it's less that he was a descendant of Stoors that had crossed over back over the Misty Mountains, and more that he was a descendant of a group of people that became the Hobbits. So a little different there. They settle in Bree in third age 1500. And then in 1600, Marco and Cavallo, not Marco and Blanco, are given the Shire by the king at Northworthy, which is, of course, what we now know as Fornost. And that's fairly close because the land grant in the final version was in 1601. We just have different names for the brothers.

[James Tauber]

That line of Kings ends around 1900 with the Rangers beginning their wandering years while the heirs of the kings are said to live in Rivendell. It ended in 1974 in the final version. So not far off.

[Alan Sisto]

Not far off at all.

[James Tauber]

Then in 2000, the line of kings of Gondor fails and the rule of the Stewards begins again, very close to the final timeline of 2050 for the loss of Earnur and the switch to the ruling Stewards.

[Alan Sisto]

That's right. Now, in this line, interestingly, the other big element that changed a lot in 2500, Elrond marries Calabrian. That's much later than the final version in which they wed in third age 109. They just shaved 2,400 years off their marriage, which is interesting. I'm sure Elrond has something to say about that. He got to be a bachelor for a lot longer. In the draft, the names are mostly the same. Elrond, Calabrian, Galadriel, Eladan and Elrohir. But not Arwen. Here in the T2 version of the text, she's called Finduilas. At this point, she's still very clearly much the same person she's going to be. We read that she is the one in whom the likeness of Luthien reappeared.

[James Tauber]

So here Celebrian is actually killed by Orcs as she's heading over the mountains to Visit Galadriel in 2600 versus 2509 for the attack and poison wound and 2510 for her departure over the sea.

[Alan Sisto]

That's a good thing since they just got married in 2500. Yeah, to have all three kids in nine years and then get killed would have been a problem. So at least they got to be married for 100 years. And then also in T2, we get an interesting mention. You know, all these are big sort of highfalutin names and, you know, important histories. Twenty years later, the Tuk family is established, and then the entire T2 third age timeline ends with a short whirlwind of dates. In 2890, Bilbo is born. That's the same. 2910 Aragorn is born, is actually 2931 in the final version. 2940 For Bilbo's adventures, that got bumped a year. 2950 Sauron reenters Mordor. That's also bumped a year because, of course, Those are connected. 3001 for Bilbo's farewell party, which is the same. And 3018 Frodo sets out, which is also the same. And, folks, that's literally all that Tolkien initially laid out for the Third Age.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. Now, Christopher acknowledges that it is striking that there are no entries referring to the history of Arnor and Gondor, except those to the last king in the north and to the last king in the South. That's Arnor, with the beginning of the line of stewards.

[Alan Sisto]

Okay, that is interesting because we just talked about the second age timeline that highlights Elendil. Now, granted, that's T4 and then the change in the published version. But going back to T2, it's clear that T2 is also written without that being in mind. He's not highlighting Elendil and the kingdoms in exile in any way, is he?

[James Tauber]

No. And I wonder.

[Alan Sisto]

It's not a single mention why?

[James Tauber]

That would be like, who does that benefit? Whose narrative does that benefit?

[Alan Sisto]

Not mentioning it really is interesting. It's such a short timeline in T2, the third age. It doesn't really. I mean, I'm trying to think who it benefits, who it sort of puts in a good light.

[James Tauber]

I mean, does it improve Aragorn's claim.

[Alan Sisto]

That's what I'm trying to say.

[James Tauber]

I mean, it avoids some complications.

[Alan Sisto]

It does mention the heirs of the kings living in Rivendell, so that's at least supports his claim. It says a lot more about the Hobbits than I would have expected. Talking about their settlement in Bree, sort of the migration of the River People and how they become the Hobbits, the. The settling in Bree and then the establishment of the Shire. All of those set very early in the timeline.

[James Tauber]

The other thing to consider is when this might have been written relative to the writing of Lord of the Rings.

[Alan Sisto]

That is true. And I don't know that I have that information to hand.

[James Tauber]

I don't know that Christopher tries to establish that with any clarity. But if this is an earlier version, yeah, it's T2. So it's possible that a lot of the Gondorian stuff hadn't over the Third Age earlier. Third Age stuff hadn't been established. It's interesting that it's, you know, it's very. I mean, it gives Aragorn's birth, I guess. So we do, yeah. Aragorn's at least been established.

[Alan Sisto]

That is true.

[James Tauber]

But it does focus a lot on Bilbo and Frodo.

[Alan Sisto]

And the mention of the Took family is interesting, but that, I think, comes back to the idea that it's going to be the Tuke family that has possession of these documents. Right. The Tale of Years is found in. In his library. So he's already thinking frame narrative at this point.

[James Tauber]

Well, you can. You can imagine Pippin going, make sure you put more about the Tooks in there to have more.

[Alan Sisto]

That's right. At least establish our family. But the next version is more full. Christopher explains that while the difference between T2 and T3 in the second Age was minimal, he said little more than copy with a number of entries expanded. He makes it clear this is not at all the case, however, with the Third Age. It was here that my father introduced a comprehensive and coherent chronology of the Age. Ooh, I love that alliteration. Christopher. Comprehensive coherent chronology. And set his course in this work that he called the Tale of Years in a direction remarkably unlike its ultimate appearance in Appendix B to the Lord of the Rings.

[James Tauber]

So it's interesting because this is similar to what happened with the Second Age, where there is a version that gets a lot longer and then it gets cut back again. So Christopher says that it was very tightly connected with the heirs of Elendil.

[Alan Sisto]

Ooh, and that rings bells. Based on what you talked about.

[James Tauber]

Yes.

[Alan Sisto]

In Second Age, again establishing Elendil's.

[James Tauber]

Exactly, yes. Aragorn's continuing on.

[Alan Sisto]

Right, Exactly.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. Then it got covered with changes, additions. Of course it did. And became a draft for the T4 version that Christopher believes soon followed after.

[Alan Sisto]

Right.

[James Tauber]

Because as I've talked about many times before in teaching history, Middle Earth, what would happen is Tolkien would start a new draft and then would make changes to that and then have to basically type that up again, but then make changes to the typed version and then have to retype that up again, layer upon layer of changes.

[Alan Sisto]

I still. I remember talking this through with Don Marshall when we were doing one of the earlier episodes this season, one of our. I don't remember now if it was a question in the mailbag or something we talked about in first the P5, but we wondered, like, what would it have been like if Tolkien were alive today and writing this on Google Docs so that we can see all the changes all the time, all with date and time stamps and how fantastic that would be and how much easier Christopher's job would have been. Yes, it's all type. Thank goodness for type. Anyway, it's this T4 version that Christopher says was the version quote, that my father thought approach and was indeed proposed to the publishers in 1954. This is the version sent to Allen and Unwin. So Christopher, because of that, actually passes over T3 and goes straight to T4 in its entirety.

[James Tauber]

And Christopher adds, this is a very clear manuscript with a notable lack of hesitation or second thoughts. That it was intended to be a final and publishable text is shown also by the fact that when my father came to the conclusion that the establishment of the White council was placed 400 years too early, he rejected two pages and wrote two new ones in such a way that they fitted precisely into the original text.

[Alan Sisto]

So he didn't just make the change on the one entry, he made the changes to publishable pages.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

As he would have done, for example, in the first edition of the second edition of the Hobbit, when he changed rewrote entire pages to fit the same sort of word count so that they.

[James Tauber]

Only had to reprint so you don't have to repaginate. Yes, exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, not so much reprint retypeset because these, you know. Wow, that is fascinating. And that certainly is evidence, like Christopher says, that this was intended to be a final text. The intro is very similar to the one that we read earlier, except it skips the wizards and Kiridan entirely while expanding on the elves, dwarves and men. And it's very interesting in that expansion. It starts with this. These were the fading years of this age and its beginnings. Little is now known save for the traditions of the realm of Gondor. For a thousand years and more, the Eldar and Middle Earth, protected by the three Rings were content and at peace while Sauron slept. But they attempted no great deeds and made no new things of wonder, living mostly in memory of the past. In all this time, the things of old were slowly fading and new things were stirring, though few observed the signs. Now, clearly it's the same tone about that Elves embalming that sticks around. But it does add the bit about the fact that the only history we have of this period is that which is connected to the traditions of the realm of Gondor. Which once again brings us back to some of the things you talked about.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, yeah. So for the Dwarves, the changes are so minimal we're going to Skip reading the T4 version and go straight to the Men. And we read the might and lore. And the lifespan of the Numenoreans, or Dunedain, as they were called by the elves also waned as the years passed and their blood became mingled with that of lesser men. More swift was the waning in the North Kingdom, for the lands of Eriador, as that region was now called, became colder and less friendly to men in that time. There, the Dunedain became ever less. After the days of Earendur of Arnor, the North Kingdom became divided into petty realms and the heirs of Isildur of the direct line ruled only over Arthedain in the far northwest. In Gondor, the power of the kings of Anarion's line endured longer and their sway extended over many lands of Men. But there was little coming and going between the realms, except in times of need. Extra details here, especially concerning the differences between Arnor and Gondor.

[Alan Sisto]

Interesting. And sort of the disconnect really between those two kingdoms. The timeline itself, of course, is a lot larger than T2. That's not a very high bar, as we talked about earlier. So we can't go through the entire thing. But I do want us to discuss or to mention and then discuss a few of the interesting entries. And I. I want to start with a much fuller mention of the disaster of the Gladden Fields. It's really just named in the published version. That's it. But here in T4 we get Okhtar. Isildur's Esquire escapes with two other men only from the slaughter of the Gladden Fields. He brings the shards of Elendil's sword, Narsil, which Isildur had saved, and delivers it to Valandil, Isildur's son. In Imladris, Valandil was a child, fourth son of Isildur. His brothers perished with their father. So much more than what we get in the published version.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. And similarly, there's more detail in the entry for 861, which mentions only the death of Erendur and the division of Arnor. Here we get more.

[Alan Sisto]

A lot more. Yeah.

[James Tauber]

The death of Earendur, last and tenth king of Arnor. The North Kingdom becomes divided among Erendor's sons. The direct line of the eldest son, the Amlaith of Fornost, rules the realm of Arthedain. Annuminas is deserted. The other realms were Cadalan, where later was Bree, and the Barrow Downs, and Rhudar, north of the River Baraduin. From this time, the official names of the kings at Fornost were no longer given in High Elven form, but in Noldorin, Amlaith and his descendants maintained friendship with the Eldar, especially with Cirdan at the Havens.

[Alan Sisto]

I love that. I love getting more information on the split of the North Kingdom, because that's an area that I've always been interested in.

[James Tauber]

Shout out to Lotro for. I think doing such a fantastic job of bringing that to the fore. I don't think I appreciate. Until I started playing back in 2007, I don't think I fully appreciated the dynamics of that split. The split. Yeah, yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

And it got even better recently with the starting region in Swan Fleet and Cardaland, where you actually get to play through a storyline that leads you to the moment where, you know, in the Barrow Downs, Mary has that essentially waking dream and he says, ah, the spear in my heart. You know, we were worsted by the men of Carn Doom. We actually get to experience that in game. Meeting that character. It is fascinating. I don't want to give any spoilers for folks. I haven't played that particular line.

[James Tauber]

I haven't. So I appreciate it.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, yeah. Great stuff. Definitely do a. Do a new character just so you can have them start in the Swan Fleet card line region.

[James Tauber]

Okay.

[Alan Sisto]

There is a very long entry for the year 1000, actually, for circa 1000. Not only going into detail on the arrival of the Astari, I thought that was interesting because here the arrival of the Astari is part of the timeline, but in the published version, they move it from the timeline into the narrative. And I thought that was. I don't know. I Liked having more information on Men, Elves and dwarves and maybe just would have left this part of his timeline, but. Okay, whatever. But we also get a mention of the Perianath for the first time, again around circa 1000. But it's a really long entry.

[James Tauber]

There's also mention of the zenith of Gondor's power circa 1200. Under Etanitar, the glorious Gondor reaches the height of its power. And its sway extends from the Grey Flood in the west to the Sea of Runar in the east and from the southeast of Mirkwood in the north to the land of the Haradrim in the south. The Haradrim acknowledged the overlordship of Gondor for many years.

[Alan Sisto]

Not happily, one might add.

[James Tauber]

But I was going to say, do they really? Is this another bit of bias creeping in?

[Alan Sisto]

I know they acknowledge it. They just aren't very keen. Of course, this is Atanatar ii. Alkaran, I believe is the other name that he's known as. This is the guy. It's famously. We read that, you know, what is it? Precious stones are. Are like pebbles to play with for the kids of Gondor.

[James Tauber]

Yes, yes.

[Alan Sisto]

I mean, Gondor is rich, powerful and at its max. And of course, that leads to its eventual descent and downfall because you can't stay there forever when one of your guys is an absolute buffoon of a king. As a ton of tar is. Yeah. Anyway, it's like this throughout, right? This version of the timeline is so much fuller. It expands on moments, particularly in Gondorian and Arnorian history. Looking at 1409 in the published version. Here in the. In the Lord of the Rings, we just get the Witch King of Angmar invades Arnor along with the death of Arvellig I and the destruction of the Tower of Aman Sul. That's it. But here in T4, we get a full story. The Witch King of Angmar taking advantage of the civil war. War among the Dunedain. That's important. Certainly doesn't cast the Dunedain in a great light. There comes out of the north and overwhelms the petty realms of Cardalan and Rhudaur and destroys the remnants of the Numenoreans that dwelt there. Cardalan is forsaken. The deserted mounds of Cardalan become filled with deadly spirits. But in Rhudaur for long there dwelt an evil people out of the north much given to sorcery. The Men of Bree and the Perianath of the same region maintain their independence. In this year 1409, King Arveleg I of Fornost was slain in battle by the Witch King. But the heirs of Isildur still hold out at Fornost. With aid from Lindon, Arveleg is succeeded by Araphor in this war. The Palantir of Aman Sul was destroyed. Help did not come from the South Kingdom, for their peace also was troubled by dissensions. King Valacar took to wife the daughter of an alien king of the Northmen of Anduin, with whom Gondor had sought alliance and aid in their war with the Easterlings. No king or heir to the throne of Gondor had before done such a thing. Wow. What an entry that is.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Sets up so much.

[James Tauber]

Exactly. Yeah. More detail on the lead up to the Kinstrife, for one. In more detail when it hits in 1432. But we'll move on. Yes, because it's also the Hobbits that get more attention here in T4. The published version for 1601 says only that many Perianath migrate from Bree and are granted land beyond Baronduin by Argelab ii. But we get another fuller tale here. A host of Perianath migrates from Bree westward and crosses the river Baranduin. That's the brandy one. The land beyond between the Baranduin and Iminberid had been a domain of the kings of Arnor, where they had both chases and rich farms. But they were now untended and falling into wilderness. The king, Argeleb ii, therefore allowed the Perianath to settle there, for they were good husbandmen. They became his subjects in name but were virtually independent and ruled by their own chieftains. Their numbers were swelled by stores that came up from southern Eriador and entered the land from the south and dwelt mostly near to the Baranduin. This land, the Perianath, or Halflings, called the Shire. Shire reckoning begins with the crossing of the Baronduin in this year.

[Alan Sisto]

I love how much more detail that gives us. Not just about the establishment, but about what the shire used to be. That it wasn't just, oh, you know, the king's land and stuff. They had chases, rich farms. They were falling apart. Right. We can't maintain this land. There's nobody here. Oh, you guys are good husbandmen, so you can take it over. Similarly, there's more detail about the claim of Arvedui on the crown after the death of Ondohere and his sons in 1944. The end of the North Kingdom in 1974, the move of Aronarth to Rivendell, and a whole lot more. It's just really worth reading the entire T4 version of the Third Age timeline. But there's also this from the entry for 1976. The Periana sent Arch archers to the Battle of Fornost. But after the end of the kingdom, they claim the Shire as their own. They elect a Thane to take the place of the king. All right, fine. Who am I to deny them a bit of that history? Now? I've always been a little skeptical of them sending the archers like, oh, you say you did, but there's no records of it, so I think you're just full of it. But here we get. No, this isn't the Hobbits say they sent archers to the battle. This is the Perianath sent archers to the battle of Fornost. All right, fine. They did.

[James Tauber]

In this version anyway.

[Alan Sisto]

That's right. I like that.

[James Tauber]

So one more detailed entry we want to look at is in 2050, where the published version says the challenge is renewed. Earnur rides to Minas Mogul and is lost. Mardil becomes the first ruling steward.

[Alan Sisto]

I mean, I guess that tells you all you need to know, but it doesn't tell you much, does it?

[James Tauber]

No, again, Cilotro.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, Exactly.

[James Tauber]

Here in T4, we get this full version. Against the Council of Mardel, his steward, King Eanur, accepts the renewed challenge of the Lord of Morgul to single combat. He rides to the gates of Minas Morgul. But he was betrayed and taken and never again seen by mortal men. Earnor left no children. No male descendants of clear titles or near plural blood of Anarion could be discovered. Mardil, the good steward, governed the realm nominally until the king's return, or put differently, until the return of the king.

[Alan Sisto]

There you go.

[James Tauber]

For a long time previously, the stewardship had usually been held by a member of the same family, one of the nearly pure Numenorean descent, but now became hereditary in that family, like a kingship. But each steward took office with the formula to hold the rule and rod until the king's return. They did not take official names of Quenya or High Elven form. Their names were mostly of Noldorin kind, that tongue still being used by those descended from the elf friends of Numenor. After the disappearance of Eanur and the ending of the kings, the White Tree seldom again bore fruit. And each year its blossom grew less as it slowly aged.

[Alan Sisto]

I love that entry. There's so much there about what the stewards would do and how they would rule and the fact that they didn't even take Quenya or High Elven names like the Kings of Gondor had. You know, that explains why you have names like Cirion and Denethor, as opposed to names like you had of Earnur and Earnil. And it's just like, I would have loved to have seen that in the final version. But again, it's hard because we are now so familiar with like all of the legendarium as a whole, right? Lord of the Rings, the Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, history, Middle Earth, that for us, well, of course, this blah, blah, blah, blah, lore, lore, lore. More detail. But for people reading the Lord of the Rings, they wouldn't have understood that necessarily. They wouldn't have known why. And this is the kind of thing that they would have seen and said, oh, this is the good explanation. But again, it didn't get included. But a reminder that unlike the changes that Tolkien made that James talked about extensively about the Second Age, where Tolkien made changes very particularly in order to sort of cast Elendil in a good light, these were the entries that he wanted for the Third Age. This was the submitted text to the publisher. We'll get to that in a bit. Anyway, still here in T4, L Ron stays a bachelor for a very long time, not marrying Calabrian until 2300. Now, that's 200 years earlier than in the last one in T2, but still a couple of millennia too late for us. Arwen Undomiel is given her proper name here in T4 as well. But we get this really cool added clarity regarding the fate of Elrond's children. These children were three parts of Elven race, but the doom spoken at their birth was that they should live even as the Elves so long as their father remained in Middle Earth. But if he departed, they should have then the choice either to pass over the sea with him or to become mortal if they remained behind. Now, that's interesting. I mean, we know Arwen's choice, that's fine. We don't know. Elena and Elro here were never told. I see no reason why they would have become mortal, because it's not like they were in love with mortal women that we know of, you know, there's no reason for them to stay, you know, but they didn't leave with Elrond. So how technical is this here, right? If he departed, and he did at the very beginning of the Fourth Age, they should then have the choice either to pass over the sea with him, right?

[James Tauber]

Like this is your last chance if you're not on the same boat.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. Is it technical in that sense or to just. I've made the choice. I'm going to pass over the sea with my dad, but I'm going to go on a different timetable. I've still got things to do. Because we know that. I believe after. I'm trying to remember the timeline now. When Celeborn goes to Rivendell and spends time with his grandsons there. It's after the departure of Elrond. So they're still there. Does that mean they got stuck because they didn't get on the boat? I don't. I don't think so. But I can certainly see the argument from a very tight linguistic choice here.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, this is purely speculative, but I can imagine you said, you know, that there weren't any mortal women for them to stay behind for. I wonder if they would have stayed behind for Aragorn, though.

[Alan Sisto]

That's possible. I can imagine that there is one other thing we're going to look at here in T4 about their involvement and fighting with the Orcs. That makes me think. No, but hold on, let's come back to that. It's an interesting point.

[James Tauber]

All right, so for the year 2510, we get more detail on the arrival of the Eithed to the field of Celebrant and the establishment of Rohan. But there's one other detail here in T4, that. Which is what you're alluding to. Eladan and Elrohir rode also in that battle. From that time forth, the Brethren never cease from war with the orcs because of Celebrian.

[Alan Sisto]

That's the thing. So in this version, in T4, we do get Calabrian's not death. We get her capture poisoning and then departure west. Whereas in. In the previous version, she was actually slain by the orcs. Yeah, so we get that. Slightly different timeline, but Eladon and Elro here are so focused on vengeance for their mom. I wonder if they would ever be willing to say, I'll forego ever seeing her again. That's a tough one. I mean.

[James Tauber]

Oh, see, I think I thought you were going to go the other way. I thought you were gonna.

[Alan Sisto]

That they would stay for vengeance.

[James Tauber]

That as long as there are Orcs, we must stay. We must stay.

[Alan Sisto]

And there is part of me that initially thought that, oh, they never cease from war. They're sticking around just so they can fight Orcs until they die. But then I'm realizing the whole reason is because of Celebrian. Do they willingly forego any chance of ever seeing her again in order to just get vengeance in her name? I don't know. I don't know. I don't think so. That's not my initial land.

[James Tauber]

No, they're not Feanorian enough for that kind of vengeance. Above all else.

[Alan Sisto]

Elrond's their dad. He's a lot wiser than Feanor. Elrond didn't bequeath him a bunch of vengeance quests. Yes, he knew, looking at the Thangorodrim, the certainty of death, that they could never succeed. But he still commanded them, you idiot. Oh, man. It's an interesting one, though. Like, their hatred of Orcs certainly led them. And this is the only time, I think, we ever see a mention of Eladon and Elro here showing up with the riders of the Eotheon to save Cirion at the Battle of Celebrant. I love that idea. Yeah, I can see it happening for sure. But the idea that they don't stop fighting the Orcs ever.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

But I feel like, because it's that last line, that they never cease from war with the Orcs because of Celebrian. I feel like that tells me they're going to go back to see her.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Plus they knew that Arwen chose the other direction. And I'm sure there's a part of them. It's like, if we don't go back and see mom, she's going to be tense.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

We got to do this, man. I don't know who knows. Nobody knows. Tolkie never told us. But finally, in this T4, there are simply very long entries for the years 3018 and 19. This is actually a change where I really do like the published version much more, because the published version takes those entries for those two years, the great years, and instead fills them out as much more detail. Like, we get the 30,000 foot overview of year one to 3017 and then we get the month by month, day by day, entries for. For 3018 and 3019. That's a really nice change.

[James Tauber]

We also get a narrative version of the chief days from the fall of Barad Dur to the end of the Third Age, focusing on Aragorn's reign, the work of Legolas and Gimli, and even that Legolas took Gimli with him when he sailed over the sea. The marriages of Eowyn and Faramir, as well as Eamyr and Lothiriel, the daughter of Prince Amrahil and Even the death of Aragorn and Arwen barring materials that would clearly make their way to Appendix A1 5.

[Alan Sisto]

And then in this T4, we get a really poignant conclusion. And it's different from anything in the published story of Eldarion, son of Elessar. It was foretold that he should rule a great realm and that it should endure for a hundred generations of men after him. That is, until a new age brought in again new things. And from him should come the kings of many realms in long days after. But if this foretelling spoke truly, none now can say for Gondor and Arnor are no more. And even the Chronicles of the House of Elessar and all their deeds and glory are lost. That's really interesting.

[James Tauber]

What intrigues me about this is whose point of view is this being written from? It can't be part of the tale of years.

[Alan Sisto]

No, it can't be. This is clearly something. Well, after saying, like Tolkien himself. Yeah. It's like the narrator injecting himself here and it almost feels like. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, James but this idea that from him should come the kings of many realms ties back to the idea that Tolkien has once said about, you know, a mythology for England. And the idea that is, is he trying to say that all good kings of all these realms that now exist in our modern world you know, are descended from Eldarion and that that was what was prophesied or foretold about him? And that all of these good monarchs. Because, you know, Tolkien definitely had a very positive view of monarchy. You wonder, is this maybe a little bit of that leaking in? Yeah, it's interesting, but you're right. Whose perspective is this being written from? Because even the Chronicles of the House of Elessar and all their deeds and glory are lost. Who's writing that?

[James Tauber]

Right.

[Alan Sisto]

Because it's written in the very distant future if all those things are now lost. Definitely a narrator. Very intriguing.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. I can't help but think just to make a Babylon 5 reference in the deconstruction of falling stars is that the last, the one they put instead of the end of four?

[Alan Sisto]

I think so, yes.

[James Tauber]

Where they project how people will view the events in the future. And they have that whole thing where people no longer believe that Sheridan and Delenn did the things that they were claimed. And this always reminds me of Aragorn and Arwen, that sort of. There's so many similarities there.

[Alan Sisto]

You're right. I don't think that ever struck me at the time that I was watching.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. And so this sort of thing about the chronicles of the House of Elazar and all their deeds and Gloria lost just made me think of that. This kind of people in the far future denying that Aragorn.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

Did what he did. And so.

[Alan Sisto]

Which would then explain why it's so important that the time that the tale of years really establishes legitimacy even more so for future.

[James Tauber]

Oh, that is.

[Alan Sisto]

I had not caught that at all watching Bab 5, which is funny because I caught all the other. And there are many. You know, I definitely need a rewatch of that. All right, man. Good stuff, though.

[James Tauber]

Okay. So Christopher adds, after all of this, that this long tale of years, ample in expression, seems to me to show that he wished his father, of course, having at long last brought the story to its end, to provide for the reader a clear and accessible still, in the manner of the story conspectus of all the diverse threads and histories that came together in the War of the Ring of the Hobbits, the Wizards, the Dunedain of the north, the rulers of Gondor, the Rohirrim, the Ringwraiths, the Dark Lord, the High Elves of Rivendell and Lindon, and also the dwarves of Erebor and Moria. And further back, the Lost world of Numenor.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, it does seem like that's exactly what he wanted to do. Christopher adds that this account, a chronology, but with a narrative view and tone, was to be read at the end of the book. A Tale of Years, in which the story of the Fellowship and the quest of the Ring bearer could be seen when all was over, as the culmination of a great and many rooted historical process for which chronology was a prime necessity. And so also at the end of this Tale of Years, he moved outside the frame of the story and looked further on to the later lives of Gimli and Legolas, of Faramir and Eowyn and Eomer, the reign and deaths of Elessar and Arwen and the realm of their son Eldarion in the Afterworld. And I don't. He doesn't mean the death the world after this history. Yes, exactly.

[James Tauber]

Christopher tells us that an Amanuensis typescript, that's a professionally done typescript, typed for not by talking, was made from T4 and that was sent to the publisher for inclusion in the Lord of the Rings. Unfortunately, as Christopher points out, it was all too much. Surprise. Surprise. In A later dated October 22, 1954, Rainer Unwin wrote the Tale of Years, which I Am returning here with was interesting, but as you, I think, agree, probably too long for the appendices as it stands, I suggest that considerable reduction be made in the accounts of events already told in the Lord of the Rings and a somewhat more staccato style be adopted. Make less of a narrative of the events in the Third Age.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, Rainer. But please. You know, the minute he reads the Tale of Years, which I am returning here with, was interesting. I know where he's going with this. Oh, man, that's hard. Christopher adds, if my interpretation of my father's intention for the Tale of Years is at all near the truth, it may be supposed that he carried out this work of shortening with reluctance. Certainly in the results, the amount lost from the original text was not proportionately very great. The long concluding passage was not touched, and the rounded narrative manner was a little diminished. So sort of protesting by way of not really making a lot of changes. But he did cut quite a bit clearly. Yeah, we just cited. And there are still many more, but we. We just cited several examples of. Wow, this is a fuller version. Yeah, I do like the longer version, but I get it. And it was too long. I think we all know it would have been too much. But there is a section kind of the end of the Third Age that I want us to cover. James, would you read that? That short little bit there? Well, actually, it's not that short, now that I think about it.

[James Tauber]

Sure, I'd be happy to. Long or short. I'm happy to read it. After the fall of the Dark Tower and the passing of Sauron, the Shadow was lifted from the hearts of all who opposed him. But fear and despair fell upon his servants and allies. Three times Lorien had been assailed from Dol Guldur. But besides the valor of the Elven people of that land, the power that dwelt there was too great for any to overcome unless Sauron had come there himself. Though grievous harm was done to the fair woods on the borders, the assaults were driven back. And when the Shadow passed, Celeborn came forth and led the host of Lorien over Anduin in many boats. They took Dol Guldur, and Galadriel, threw down its walls and laid bare its pits. And the forest was cleansed. In the north also there had been war and evil. The realm of Thranduil was invaded. And there was long battle under the trees and great ruin of fire. But in the end, Thranduil had the victory. And on the day of the New Year of the Elves, Celeborn and Thranduil met in in the midst of the forest and they renamed Mirkwood Erunlasgarlan, the Wood of Greenleaves. Thranduil took all the northern region as far as the mountains that rise in the forest for his realm. And Celeborn took all the Southern Wood below the narrows and named it East Lorien. All the wide forest between was given to the Beornings and the Woodmen. But after the passing of Galadriel in a few years Celeborn grew weary of his realm and went to Imladris to dwell with the sons of Elrond in the Greenwood. The Silvan Elves remained untroubled. But in Lorien there lingered, sadly, only a few of its former people and there was no longer light or song in Karas Skullavan. At the same time as the great armies besieged Minas Tirith a host of the allies of Sauron that had long threatened the borders of King Brand crossed the River Carnan. And Brand was driven back to Dale. There he had the aid of the Dwarves of Erebor. And there was a great battle at the mountain's feet. It lasted three days. But in the end, both King Brand and King Dain Ironfoot were slain and the Easterlings had the victory. But they could not take the gate and many both Dwarves and men took refuge in Erebor and there withstood a siege. When news came of the great victories in the south then Sauron's northern army was filled with dismay and the besieged came forth and routed them. And the remnant fled into the east and troubled Dale no more. Then Bard ii, Bran's son became king in Dale. And Thorin iii Stonehelm, Dain's son, became King under the Mountain. They sent their ambassadors to the crowning of King Elessar and their realms remained ever after as long as they lasted in friendship with Gondor and they were under the crown and protection of the King of the West.

[Alan Sisto]

I love that. And you know, we've looked at that set of readings quite a bit over the, over the last several episodes. I think back to. Oh, I'm trying to think of some of the moments but you know the end of Lorien. Oh, I remember it was the talking of the Aragorn and Arwen episode. And you know, when Arwen made her way back there, you know, it was already empty. And it's because of course there was no longer light or song in Karas Caladhan reminding me that the name of the land used to be the veil of the land of the Singers. I mean, that's what it, that's what it literally translated as. And now there's no more singing there. It's really heartbreaking. We get the mention of, of Elrond's sons. I do find it, I've always found it interesting that, you know, it's, oh, he goes back and goes to him lodges to dwell with the sons of Elrond, his grandchildren. I mean, these are not just the sons of Elrond, two guys that he wants to hang out with. These are his grandsons, you know, and he's, he's lost his granddaughter. I think you and I talked about this a little bit in the episode, one of the episodes on Many Partings, I think when we talked about celebrity words to Aragorn about may you keep your treasure, basically, I've lost mine and may you keep yours. And we talked about sort of the different meanings of that and how one of the meanings could be interpreted as the loss of Arwen and he has lost her. And it's, I'm sure, a moment of sorrow for him, just as it was for Elrond. But he at least has the boys and he gets to go spend some time with them. It's just a really great summary of all of these events. And of course in the text, this is after the great years and before the chief days from the fall of Barad Dur. So we've already at this point looked at the close up view of 3017, or I'm sorry, 3018 and 3019. But this is really just. I like the way this is published as it is. Looking at the drafts, I think this was a really clean way wrapping this up. We don't include that bit about his son and the future realms and all of that. We sort of clean that up. But we do talk about all the different races, which is something that Christopher made it clear that's what his dad wanted to do is create this thing that covered all of the peoples involved in the story. I think this just again shows Tolkien didn't want to shorten any of this. I mean, he added this narrative that wasn't there, which is like we said. Yeah, sure, he cut some things from the actual Tale of Years, the numbered lists.

[James Tauber]

Right.

[Alan Sisto]

But then he added narratives. So the overall word count can't have been a whole lot less. No, it's just he didn't want to cut it. Well, I know we don't have a lot of time left and we didn't really put a lot of notes on this, but is There anything in the chief days from the Fall of Barra, do it to the end of the Third Age. Anything in there that you maybe like. What are your favorite? Let's say two favorite entries. You know, I mean, there's a lot of stuff there. I mean it's, you know, 3019, 20, 21. But then we get later events concerning the members of the Fellowship of the Ring. Maybe we should pick one each. You get to pick one entry from the. The 3019-30. 21.

[James Tauber]

You're putting me on the spot.

[Alan Sisto]

Of course I am. That's my job.

[James Tauber]

I do like the little bits about Sam and what ends up happening with Sam and Rosie. The marriage, the kids. So I have to mention that. Right, so 30-5-1, 20, Samwise marries Rose.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, that is a.

[James Tauber]

And then March 25th of all days, right, the New Year's Day in 3021. The birth of Eleanor, the fair daughter of Samwise. Also the day that the Fourth Age began in the Reckoning of Gondor. So I love that. I love the fact it's the beginning of the Fourth Age in Gondor. But the other entry that's mentioned is the Birth of Elenor Affair.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, that would have actually been my favorite because of course my daughter's named Eleanor.

[James Tauber]

Sorry for taking us.

[Alan Sisto]

No, no, it's so good. I'm glad it did. I do love how, you know, we get these big historical moments but we also get these really tight close up personal moments. Everything from, you know, the big moments, the wedding of Elessar and Arwen or the departure of Celeborn and Galadriel. But then we get Frodo is again ill and we're reminded of the burden that he carried. I think then it's seeing the great year of plenty, 3020, which was Shire reckoning 1420. Everything from the Mallorn flowers in the party field to the restoration of Will Whitfoot as Mayor Bilbo's birthday and the marriage, of course, of Samwise and Rose. And it's just a reminder of that moment in the story where It's a proper 1420. That is. I mean, it was a great year. Everything was great and everybody was happy except the people that had to mow the lawns. I just, It's. It reminds you of that. And so I think for me that's why those moments are my favorite. But let's look at the later events concerning the members of the Fellowship of the Ring. Sort of the. This always reminds me of like the epilogue in Those movies?

[James Tauber]

Yes.

[Alan Sisto]

Like.

[James Tauber]

Yes.

[Alan Sisto]

Like, I'm thinking of, Remember the Titans. And at the end, you're shown, like, you know what this guy's doing now? And you know what this person's doing now? Because that's what's happening here. These are not real characters, but I love that we get to learn more about them. I think, for me, the moment that. That jumps out at me is 1482, and it ties into what you just said, actually, what we both just said. Death of Mistress Rose, wife of Master Samwise, on Mid Year's Day, on September 22nd. And again, that day is also significant, too. Master Samwise rides out from Bag End. He comes to the Tower Hills and is last seen by Eleanor, to whom he gives the red book. Afterwards, kept by the Fairbairns among them, the tradition is handed down from Eleanor.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, I know.

[Alan Sisto]

Can't even.

[James Tauber]

I know. I can't either.

[Alan Sisto]

Can't even finish it. It's just so, you know, Samwise passes the towers, went to the Gray Havens and passed over sea. Last of the ring bearers. It just gets me every time, literally. I mean, here I am, how many times I've read this, and I'm still, you know, sobbing.

[James Tauber]

It's the moment I knew you were reading that bit. I'm like, oh, no, neither of us.

[Alan Sisto]

We can't do that.

[James Tauber]

Neither of us are gonna.

[Alan Sisto]

I'm not ready for that. But, you know, it's the same thing. When you see the idea in. In maybe I'll let you go, because I haven't. I don't want to give a second one until you've had a chance. What's. Well, what's the moment for you?

[James Tauber]

It's not a moment. It's. It's the. The sheer number of moments of Master Samurais. Exactly, exactly, exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

Master Samwise's political machine is mighty.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Seeing the end of all of these people, you know, that Mary got to Etteras and was with Amer before he died in that autumn. And then he and. And Pippin went to Gondor and how they were laid in Rathden among the great of gondor until in 1541, when Aragorn passed, that the beds of Mary and Pippin were then laid beside his bed.

[James Tauber]

Yep.

[Alan Sisto]

It's good stuff. Good stuff. I just. I still am always wondering what is it that Tolkien really intended for us to have in the published book? Knowing that he wanted T4, which we went through at length, knowing that he wanted that in there, but also knowing things like the fact that he wanted Aragorn and Arwen to be part of the main narrative. He knew he couldn't do it, right? And he goes, yeah, it would have wrecked the whole Hobbit centric focus of the story. So I put it in the appendix because there are other things he talked about, like the epilogue, which he later says, yeah, thank goodness I was talked out of writing. That wouldn't have been a good thing. So it's just like I wanted. I almost want to see the Lord of the Rings director's cut. You know, what if Tolkien wasn't limited by what Alan and Unwin said they could do, what would we have in our hands today out of the Tale of Years, what might have made it into the main narrative? Would we still see the Elendil focused Second Age? That was so fascinating, man, that. Such an insight about the intent and purpose of that Second Age timeline. Yeah, man. I mean, we'll never really know. I guess the closest we can get is speculating based off what Christopher Tolkien has told us in History of Middle Earth. And thank goodness we have that. I mean, what a resource that we're able to lean on to say, look, these are the steps that Tolkien took to get from here to here, what we see in the published text. And look at how much we've missed out on how much of that was by Tolkien's choice, how much of that was by Ellen and Unwin's choice. But at least we get to know good stuff. Then Barloman built a gray ship in Bree and sailed down Barranduan and so oversea and with him, it is said, went Bob and Nob. And when that ship passed, an end was come in Middle Earth of the mailbag. James, what does Barlow have for us tonight?

[James Tauber]

Jenny from Vancouver asks, seeing as you have James co hosting, can you ask him if the Digital Tolkien Project has any plans for chronologies like the Tale of Years?

[Alan Sisto]

James, does the Digital Tolkien Project have any plans for chronology like the Tale of Years?

[James Tauber]

I'm glad you asked. We actually are. And so partly inspired by the research I did a couple of years ago that led to the things I was talking about, the Second Age Saliviers, I, for a long time wanted to put together a digital chronology of all of the events in. In the Legendarium that goes beyond just what's possible in print form for in. In two. Two major ways. Well, three, I'm gonna say three ways. One is handling of multiple versions. Right. We, as we've discussed a lot of this time, it's a lot of this. This episode. Right. If you want to be able to compare, this is not something that's easy to do in, in, in. In print or, or even, even in a lot of the online timelines.

[Alan Sisto]

There's.

[James Tauber]

There's sort of a lot of the stuff that you would find on a. On something like Tolkien Gateway or whatever is. Is very determined to show sort of this is the canonical order, but not what was it like in these different versions, what got added, what got subtracted. So that's. That's one thing that would be possible in a more sort of interactive web application focused on timelines. The other thing is the ability to filter based on various things. If you just want to see what was going on with a particular character or what was going on in a particular region or particular types of events. Again, one of the issues you often find with these print things, all the stuff that we've been reading, right, it's talking about all sorts of things going on. We're getting births, we're getting battles, we're getting foundings of settlements and so on. But if you just want to say, oh, tell me what was going on with Sauron, tell me all the births and deaths, tell me anything relating to Rivendell, right?

[Alan Sisto]

Isolate.

[James Tauber]

Being able to isolate and say, give me a timeline of that. And then the third thing that I'm envisaging will be possible is also reframing the dates and times in different ways. So at the moment when you have a. A timeline, you normally give it according to some reckoning, like it's this year of the Third Age or whatever, or, you know, shy reckoning or whatever. But it'll be really fascinating to be able to say, no, I want to see how old Aragon was at each of these points, or how old was. How many years after this were these events happening. And so what we're just starting to build, and we're just starting to have conversations about this now is basically a database of events that will enable all of these kinds of things. This kind of alternative versions, filtering based on particular properties of the event, characteristics of the event, and also the ability to show it relative to different base points. And the other thing I'll just mention, in finishing up answering this question, is also tying the sources. How do we know that the thing happened on this date? And this ties in with another big thing we've been working on for quite a while at Digital Tolkien Project, which is not just the stuff that's explicitly in these chronologies, like Tale of Years or the Annals of Beleriand. Or the Annals of Valinor and that kind of stuff, but the stuff that's in the narrative itself. In a lot of cases, we know something happened on a particular day because of the narrative, although that gets a little more nuanced because sometimes it's like, we know that this was two weeks after that, we know that this happened the following.

[Alan Sisto]

You can only know it because you know this dependency.

[James Tauber]

Exactly. And so putting all that together, so we don't just have a comprehensive timeline of, for example, Lord of the Rings, which has been done before, but so often not tied to the exact text. Where's the exact phrase in that paragraph that tells us that this happened two weeks after this or whatever. So it'll hopefully be super helpful for Meanwhile Elsewhere and a bunch of other.

[Alan Sisto]

That would be wonderful for Meanwhile Elsewhere.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, a bunch of regions. So. And this is something that people. We're just starting. So if people are interested in being involved in the development of this, please feel free to reach out. So thank you, Jenny.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, good question. And James, thank you for telling us some more about that. I know that next week I'm looking forward to doing a short little interview with you before the episode starts to talk about more about the digital project.

[James Tauber]

Lots more other things going on. It's not just time.

[Alan Sisto]

So many things happening. Exactly. And especially because for those of you who don't know, I referred to you earlier as Tolkien Society Award winner. That's because you won the 2025 Tolkien Society Award for Best Online Content after far too many nominations without winning.

[James Tauber]

Well, the digital Tolkien Project did, not me. So this, this, this goes out to everyone who contributes to the project.

[Alan Sisto]

You know, that's a good point, because when the Prancing Pony podcast won in 2022, I don't think of it as me. I think it's it as the show. I think it is the team. Heck, I think of it as the community. So I definitely get what you mean.

[James Tauber]

But thank you.

[Alan Sisto]

Congratulations on that and on your hard work, and I'm looking forward to learning more about that next week. In the meantime, though, folks, that does wrap it up for another episode of the Prancing Pony podcast. Join us next week, though, as the Sage of the south walks us through the works of the Sage of the Noldor, Pengaloth himself. James, you're going to be taking the reins on this one, aren't? Yeah.

[James Tauber]

And maybe Pengaloth can tell us if Rumal really was a drunk.

[Alan Sisto]

Wow, that's a Wonderfully Deep Season 2 Rings of Power reference. Well played.

[James Tauber]

Sir Alan and I want to thank the members of Team PPP Editor Jordan Renels Barleyman, Becca Davis, Social Media Manager Casey Hilsey, Event and Patreon community coordinator Katie McKenna, graphic artist Megan Collins, and website guru Phil Dane.

[Alan Sisto]

And please take a minute to check out theprancingponypodcast.com that's where you'll find find show notes, outtakes, Prancing Pony ponderings, and our online storefront where you can get PPP merch featuring all the great episode artwork that Megan's been doing for the PPP since the start of Season seven.

[James Tauber]

You'll also want to visit our library page. The Prancing Pony Podcast is, after all, a podcast about the books. So if you're interested in a book that we've mentioned on the show, you'll find a link for it in our library. We do get a small amount of compensation when you make a purchase, and we thank you for that.

[Alan Sisto]

Indeed we do. We also want to thank our patrons at the Kirdan's contribution tier. I'll start with Demay in Alaska, Chad in Texas, Lance in New Jersey, Joseph in Michigan, Kathy from North Carolina, Carlos in California, Brian in the uk, Jerry from Washington, Joe in Washington, Irwin from the Netherlands, Ben in Minnesota, Anthony in Texas, Zaksu in Illinois, Sarah in New Jersey, Joshua in Massachusetts, Lucy in Texas, Keith in Alabama, Erica in Texas and Vivian in California.

[James Tauber]

There's also James in Massachusetts, Ann in Kentucky, Sean in New Jersey, Mason in California, Maureen from Massachusetts, Olivia in London, Robert in Arizona, Nick in Wisconsin, Lewis in South Carolina, Thomas in Germany, Craig in California, Bailey in Texas, Kevin in Massachusetts, Julie in Washington, Roots in California, Joe in Maryland, Nathan in Arizona, and Kevin in Pennsylvania. Thank you all so very much for your support indeed.

[Alan Sisto]

Thank you.

[James Tauber]

Now make sure you don't miss any episodes of the Prancing Pony Podcast. Subscribe now through Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or your favorite podcast app.

[Alan Sisto]

And one last thing. As always, don't forget to send your thoughts, comments and most of all, what you think is missing from the Tale of Years to barliman [e-mail] and if.

[James Tauber]

You want your voice literally heard, well, just send us an audio of your question. Visit podinbox.com prancingponypod and record your question for us. Please be sure to still email the question to Barleyman though.

[Alan Sisto]

Now, even though Barliman's been a lot more reliable lately, there is still a lot of mail to sort through. We'll try to get to you just as soon as we're able. As always, though, this has been far too short a time to spend amongst our such excellent and admirable listeners.

[James Tauber]

But until next time, may you rekindle hearts in a world that grows chill.