Well, but not in the Quenta Silmarillion proper itself, as that tradition is supposed to include the short prose version. Tolkien noted to himself (in question form) if the
Narn e’Dant Gondolin ar Orthad en’’l should not be given in appendices to the Silmarillion, with Christopher Tolkien noting the question
'was presumably distinguishing between long and short forms of the tales.'
Problem is, no such updated long form exists (beyond the point in the early fifties version when Tuor comes to Gondolin), and the editorial manipulation required to update the very early version was not something Christopher Tolkien was going to engage in (nor ever will, it seems).
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I don't consider that Eriol thing to be part of the canon.
Grondmaster replied: I agree, The Lost Tales are some of JRR Tolkien's oldest writings that he had not yet updated into his more current vision of his world. They only got resurrected and published by his son as a means to earn even more royalties. That's my current humble opinion. Am I wrong here?
Elfwine the mariner appears in texts as late as 1958-60, though his role in any ultimate sense is hazy and
appears (at least) to have been ultimately dropped in any case. I must disagree with respect to Christopher Tolkien's main motivation however, considering that, had more royalties been the principle issue, I think that there were arguably easier paths to greater heaps of gold (agreeing with the end of Mr. Hicklin's statement below).
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William Cloud Hicklin wrote (in early 2008): 'Rayner Unwin originally committed to just four volumes, which CT envisioned (at first) as the Lost Tales, the Lays, and a sort of UT-style miscellany. Unwin expected to break even at best, even though no advance or pre-profit royalties were paid (similar to the LR thirty years before). CT's motivation was as much as anything to respond to many readers (like me) who had been asking about the Lost Tales etc and wanted to know if they would ever see the light of day. (The foreword to UT contains an oblique reference to the possibility).
However, the Lost Tales sold much better than expected, selling out the initial print run and I believe cracking the lower end of the bestseller list, and the project was expanded, piecemeal. The Lord of the Rings was never part of the original plan, and even when he finished The Lost Road CT still thought the LR would take only two volumes! It was also as I understand it a rather late decision to include the complete texts of the Annals of Aman and Grey Annals together with the post-LR Quenta Silmarillion, making two volumes where one had been envisioned; and Vol XII didn't become a history of the Appendices until CT was already in the middle of it.
Vols 1, 2, and 6-9 made a profit in their initial hardcover release. 4 and 12 lost money. The rest just about broke even. Of course, their continued availability in paperback has improved the numbers slightly: but CT has not nor ever intended to make any significant amount of money on what was simply a labor of devotion and scholarly interest. If he really wanted to coin his father into gold there were much, much, easier, sleazier and more lucrative things he could have done!' WC Hicklin
The History of Middle-Earth is really an amazing feat when you really consider the complexity involved.
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Morambar wrote: '... I prefer to accept anything in HoME provided it doesn't conflict with established canon. So we might argue about whether it's Eriol or Aelfwine, but there's little to argue about SOMEONE making it to Eressea unless we 1) think the Red Book, in a readible language, stuck around a LONG time or 2) pin it all on the Notion Club Papers.'
I'm very interested in the issue of transmission myself, and I have a soft spot for the Elfwine framework too, but that said, I don't think it's necessarily needed that someone sail to Eressea. And the implication (at least), from Tolkien-published sources, appears to be that some copy did survive.
It is a long time yes, but all the more intriguing for it, perhaps.
Charles Noad wrote a very interesting piece, in which he ultimately looks at ideas in
The Notion Club Papers that might make it possible for the framing device of Elfwine and Pengolodh to be preserved (with Bilbo's translations). I won't go into detail here but his thoughts basically revolve around the myths of the Two Trees and the once Flat World being a 'true description of reality' -- within the context of a true mythical past visited via the more spiritual means suggested by Ramer in The Notion Club Papers.
In this context Noad writes:
'Since the Hobbits would seem to occupy the same place that the 'faded' Elves did in the earliest formulations of the mythology, we could understand why Elfwine made his voyage in the first place. He would have known of the Hobbits as they survived in tenth-century Britain, and, learning from them about the Red Book and its contents (the single volume of Bilbo's and Frodo's memoirs), have been inspired by its hints about the histories of the Elves to seek the Straight Road to the West, there to learn the lore of the Elves and recover it for the race of Men.' Charles Noad,
On the Construction of the Silmarillion, published in Tolkien's Legendarium.
In this we (seemingly) have Elfwine interacting with tenth century Hobbits (Sam's descendants?), and he could then arguably not only translate the single volume mentioned, but recover much other lore in Eressea, and translate that into his tongue. Here we arrive at translation into Old English that has to survive to Tolkien's day, possibly now handed down by the descendants of Elfwine himself.
Interesting to me anyway!
