[BittenBuggy]

I came across the reckoning of Valian years recently in one of the HoME volumes but I can't remember which one. Does anyone have a Valian time-line, like from the start of the recording of actual time until the first age? Its quite important because I am getting hopelessly lost reading all these dates that contradict one another

Any help is appriciated!

[BittenBuggy]

Ah ha, well I did a mite more research and found a timeline that is quite helpful. Also, MR has it nicely laid out (found the HoME volume after all!)

But, now I have another question. When is the reasonable time for Feanor's marriage? I would assume it to be before his half-brothers are full grown. Would he be married before or after he improved the Tengwar script of Rumil?

It says (somewhere) that Feanor married while still in the spring of youth, which I take to mean after his 50th begetting day (since children didn't marry) and before his 100th. Is that reasonable? So it would be between 1229-VY and 1279-VY?

We also need to take into account that all his sons (including his youngest twins) were grown by the time he was banished in 1490-VY and they went with him to Formenos. I say this because Nerdanel didn't go with them, instead choosing to stay with Indis, and children were not seperated from both their parents (unless by force) until they were full grown.

So....

*Pokes Anna* I need you!

[sindohte]

Wow, BB is getting all scholarly. I would love to help you out but I am relatively clueless (but studying hard to fix this ) about the First Age. So I will sit back and soak in the knowledge. And where is this timeline that you located? It would be helpful for me to see I am sure.

[Andreth]

I'm sorry, BB, I've been slaving in the yard the last few days and haven't gotten to come poke around the forums much. So I just saw this. I'll drag out my books tomorrow and see what I can find for you.

Still haven't forgotten about scanning that stuff for you either. Well, I did forget - but I remember now!

I'll see what I can figure out for you, m'dear.

Anna

[BittenBuggy]

Yay! Oh, and I just bought the damn book, so I dont need stuff scanned anymore Thank you though!

[Andreth]

Answering a question about this for Sindohte reminded me that I had forgotten all about this one. But at least now I know what it was about your question that was nagging at me, that didn't sound quite right.

The thing with the timeline you're using from Morgoth's Ring is that it's in Valian Years, not Years of the Sun. Elves matured in 50-100 Years of the Sun, but each Valian Year equaled about 9.5-10 Years of the Sun. So the 50-100 years it took for Elves to mature in Middle-earth would only equal about 4.5-5 Valian Years. With Feanor being born in Valian Year 1179, then he could have married four or five Valian Years after that.

To make it even more fun, in the earliest story of Miriel and Finwe (pg 205 in my Morgoth's Ring) it says that Tolkien moved Feanor's birth back to 1169, then had Miriel die in 1170, and Finwe wed Indis in 1185. I'm assuming these are all still in Valian Years. Then on pg 207 it says "The wedding of the father was not pleasing to Feanor, and though the love between them was not lessened, Feanor had no great love for Indis or her children, and as soon as he might he lived apart from them, being busy from early childhood upon the lore and craft in wihch he delighted..."

In the Silm it says that in his "youth, bettering the work of Rumil, he devised those letters which bear his name..." then it says while in his "early youth he wedded Nerdanel" so based on that I would say that he married Nerdanel before he worked on the Elvish alphabet.

From the sound of it I would think that as soon as he was 50 Years of the Sun he got married and shagged ass out of his father's house as quickly as he could. If you go by what it says in LACE, then he and Nerdanel would have started having kids right after they got married. Depending on which birthdate you want to use, it would either be Valian Year 1174 or 1184 as a good guestimate for his marriage date.

Man, I hope that actually helped you and didn't just confuse you more. I think I confused myself before I was even part way through this damn message.


Anna

[BittenBuggy]

Ok... I understood that.

Now I'm afraid.

Somebody save me from my own geekdom!

(Thanks Anna )

[BittenBuggy]

BB is helpless again!

Anna, I looked at the numbers again and I couldn't get that number out of it. 1184? Thats so early!

1179 - Feanor is born

1784 - Finwe marries Indis

1190 - Fingolfin is born

1230 - Finafrin is born

1250 - Feanor betters the work of Rumil

1280 - Finarfin marries Earwen

1449 - Feanor begins the marking of the Silmarils

1450 - Feanor finishes the Silmarils

1490 - Feanor is banished to Formenos

1492 - Melkor comes to Formenos to beg the Silmarils

1495 - The Trees are killed

Ok, I have drawn some conclusions based on the timeline given. The problem is - I STILL can't figure out when Feanor and Nerdanel would have wedded. Sorry for being anal about this You get the impression from the Silm that Feanor was still 'young' or living at home when he married Nerdanel. But that would have been AT LEAST 510 years of the Sun. He would be WAY past his maturity. And it says he wedded in his youth! I asked Anna if she thought LACE referred to Valian Years or Years of the Sun and she said YotS. However, if the Noldor in Tiron did count it in Valin years, Feanor would have only been 51, which sounds more likely. So which is more likely? Feanor wedding at 510 or LACE referring to VY?

[BittenBuggy]

Oh... wait, I think I'm being a dufus. I was assuming that Finarfin had been born by the time Feanor high-tailed it out. I don't know why thats stuck in my head, thats not canon is it?

Heck, I'm so hopelessly stupid

[Saralitazie]

They had different years...? Need to get my hands on HoMe, dammit...

[Andreth]

I would say you have reason to be confused, because I wasn't paying enough attention to the timelines when I suggested 1184 and now that I've gone back over them, I'm confused.

Let's see what we've got so far - first on pg 205 of my version of Morgoth's Ring (in the first few paragraphs of the section called 'The Earliest Version of the Story of Finwe and Miriel, just in case your edition is different from mine) it says that Tolkien changed the original birthdate for Feanor from 1179 to 1169. From what I can gather, he did this to fit into his timeline with the Valar's decision because Mandos said that there would have to be a 12 year wait between the death of a spouse and the living spouse's remarriage. Then Finwe married Indis three years after that - so according to this later corrected version, Feanor was born in 1169, Miriel lay down and left her body in 1170, then Finwe and Indis were married in 1185.

The birth of Fingolfin stays the same, but we're forgetting that if we're using the HoMe version, it says that they also had three daughters and their daughter, Findis, was the eldest. But it doesn't say when she was born - would have to be some time between 1185 and 1190.

On pg 262 it's talking about when Finwe went to Tuna and met Indis again, it says that Finwe went to Tuna to visit Ingwe 'one day when Feanor was far abroad walking in the mountains in the strength of his youth'. That was one year before Finwe married Indis, so that's 1184 and Feanor would have been 14 Valian Years old, or 140 Years of the Sun.

I called my brother, geek that he is, to ask about this and he said this is one of the things that don't gel about LACE. So we're of the opinion that you should chuck the 50-100 Years of the Sun for Elvish maturity idea here because it doesn't fit. Maybe it's because the Years of the Sun haven't started yet, it's still counted by the time of the Trees, so it's different. There's a story in Book of Lost Tales 1 about Aluin and his three helpers coming and helping bind the sun and the moon to the base of Taniquietil with the ropes of Time, and after that things changed as far as how Time passed. So maybe that has something to do with it.

Or maybe time passes differently for the Elves in Aman than it does for them in the Mortal Lands. Somewhere else in Morgoth's Ring it says that Valian Years suited the way time passed for the Elves more than the Years of the Sun did - that the time passage marked by the Years of the Sun seemed brief and fleeting to them.

So I would do away with the 50-100 Years of the Sun = Elven maturity idea and just figure out an appropriate time for their marriage based on the events given in the timeline. Which I'm going to guess would be before he worked on the Tengwar script, just because of a statement in the Silm that says he bettered the work of Rumil in his youth, and then after that says he married Nerdanel in his *early* youth. But that's just the way it looks to me.

Okay, sorry. Long post on a confusing subject. But hopefully we're getting closer to figuring it out. Let me know if something still doesn't sound right and we'll just have go over it again.

[BittenBuggy]

Hmm, I think I should have married Anna

So, would it be inappropriote canon-wise for Elves to mature in 5 Valian years? Completely selfish question of course, because it makes my job easier and fits the story better

[Andreth]