The Peoples of Middle-earth (30 page)

Of the Tale of Years

in the latter ages.

The 'First Age' (1) ended with the Great Battle and the departure of the Elves and Fathers of Men, and the foundation of Numenor.

The 'Second Age' ended with the overthrow of Sauron, and the Loss of the One Ring.

The 'Third Age' is drawing to its end in the tales of the Shire and of the Hobbits.

Each 'Age' last[ed] somewhat more or less than 3000 years; so that the Loss of the Ring was about 3000 years before Frodo's time. Deagol finds it about 1100 years after Isildur's death. 'Gollum' therefore had the Ring for about 1900 years.

The Second Age or the Black Years

reckoned from the overthrow of Morgoth

End of the Great Battle.

10. Foundation of the Havens, and the kingdom of Lindon.

50. Foundation of Numenor.

460. Death of Elros, Earendel's son, first king of Numenor.

500. Reawakening (2) of Sauron in Middle-earth.

700. First ships of the Numenoreans return to Middle-earth.

Others come at times, but seldom, and they do not stay.

750. Foundation of Imladrist (3) (Rivendell) and Eregion (Hollin).

900. - Sauron begins in secret to build the fortress of Baraddur in Mordor, and makes the forges of Orodruin.

1200-1500. The Rings of Power are made in Eregion.

1550. War of the Elves and Sauron. The 'Days of Flight' begin, or the Black Years properly so called.

1600. Gil-galad defends Lindon; and Imladris is besieged but holds out. Eregion is laid waste.

1700. The great voyages of the Numenoreans begin. They come in many ships to Lindon, and they aid Gil-galad and Elrond.

1900. Barad-dur is completed.

2000-3000. Sauron's dominion slowly extends over all Middle-earth, but it is withheld from the North-West, and all along the West-shores, even far southwards, the Numenoreans have fortresses and outposts.

3118. Tar-kalion the young king, the thirteenth of his line, ascends the throne of Numenor. He resolves to challenge Sauron the Great, and begins an armament (3120).

3125. Tar-kalion sets sail to Middle-earth. Sauron is obliged to yield and is taken to Numenor.

3319. Downfall of Numenor. Elendil, Anarion and Isildur fly to Middle-earth. Foundation of Arthedain (with the city Annuminas) in the North; and of Gondor (with the city Osgiliath) in the South.

3320. Sauron returns to Mordor.

3430-3. Sauron at last being ready makes war in Gondor. The Last Alliance is formed.

3433 [> 3434]. Battle of Dagorlad. Siege of Barad-dur begun.

3441. Sauron overthrown. Ring taken and lost. End of the Second Age.

The following are the only differences in the chronology of T 2 from its forerunner. In T 1 Sauron's departure to Numenor is given a separate entry under the year 3128; and (while T 1 already has the final date 3319 for the Downfall, where T(a) had 3320) the flight of Elendil and his sons is placed, most strangely, a year later, in 3320.

It will be seen that the dates of events in the Second Age are for the most part at variance with those in Appendix B, in many cases very widely so (thus Imladris was founded at the same time as Eregion, in 750, but in Appendix B not until 1697, in the War of the Elves and Sauron, when Eregion was laid waste). The most extreme of these differences refers in fact to the Third Age, in the headnote to the text, where the statement in T(a) that Deagol found the Ring in about Third Age 1100 and therefore Gollum possessed it for some 1900 years (p. 167) is repeated: in Appendix B Deagol finds the Ring in T.A.2463, by which reckoning Gollum had it for 478 years, until Bilbo found it in 2941.

There are a number of points of agreement between T 2 (under which I include here the closely similar T 1) and the 'Scheme' of the Numenorean kings accompanying the original manuscript A of the Akallabeth, given on pp. 150-1. In both, the death of Elros is placed in the year 460 (not as later in 442); in T 2 the coming of the Numenoreans to the aid of Gil-galad in Lindon is dated 1700, while in the 'Scheme' this is said to have occurred in the days of the unnamed sixth king (after Elros), who died in 1790; in T 2 the accession of Tarkalion is placed in 3118, and in the 'Scheme' his father, the unnamed twelfth king (after Elros) died in that year; and in both the date of Tarkalion's landing in Middle-earth is 3125. A further point of agreement between both, and also with the manuscript A of the Akallabeth, concerns the completion of Barad-dur: in T 2 this is dated 1900; in Akallabeth A (see p. 153, $29) it is said to have occurred in the days of Atanamir; and in the 'Scheme' Atanamir is said to have died in 2061, his father having died in 1790.

Two other points in this earliest version (or strictly versions) of the Tale of Years of the Second Age remain to be mentioned. The loss of the One Ring is expressly placed in the last year of the Second Age, 3441; whereas in Appendix B the headnote states that that Age 'ended with the first overthrow of Sauron ... and the taking of the One Ring'

(cf. also the last words of section I (i) of Appendix A, RK p. 318), while the planting of the White Tree in Minas Anor, the handing over of the South Kingdom to Meneldil, and the death of Isildur are placed in the year 2 of the Third Age. Secondly, in the entry for 3319 Anarion is placed before Isildur, and it will be seen shortly that this does indeed mean that Anarion was the elder of Elendil's sons (cf. the text FN III in IX.335: 'his sons Anarion and Isildur'). In Akallabeth A and subsequently Isildur had four ships and Anarion two (p. 157, $80), from which it seems clear that the reversal of this had already taken place.

On the other hand, in an early version of the chapter The Council of Elrond Isildur was expressly stated to be the elder (VII.126).

Found with T 2 and to all appearance belonging to the same time is another page in which my father restated in the same or closely similar terms a part of his notes on Numenor and the aftermath of the Downfall in T(a), pp. 166-7. This page I will call T(b). Corrections to it were made at the same time as those to T 2, and are not noticed here.

Average life of a Numenorean before the fall was about 210

years (3 x 70). Average life of the royal house of the line of Earendel' was about 350 years (5 X 70). A king of Numenor usually came to the throne when about 120 years old and reigned 200 years or more.

50 Numenor founded

410 years Elros reigned

2640 11 other kings (averaging 240 each)

220 Last king (Tarkalion)

----

3320

Elendil was very long-lived (being of Earendel's line). He was about 200 years old at the time of the Fall of Numenor and Anarion 110, Isildur 100. The new realms of Arnor and Gondor lasted about 110 years before Sauron made his first attacks on them. The gathering of the Last Alliance, the march, battle and siege, lasted about 11 years. (121)

3320 + 121, 3441.

The remainder of this page and its verso are taken up with the earliest version of the Tale of Years of the Third Age, obviously written continuously from T(b) just given; for this see p. 225.

These initial computations of the chronology of the Second Age are remarkable in themselves and perplexing in the detail of their interrelations.

The text T(a), self-evidently the starting-point, made 3320 the date of the Downfall. After a lapse of 110 years Sauron opened war on the new kingdoms (3430), and a further ten passed before his overthrow in 3440, the last year of the Second Age.

In T 1, written at the same time as, but after, T(a), the Downfall is placed in 3319 (no reason for the change being evident), but the flight of Elendil and his sons is incomprehensibly placed in the following year, 3320 (p. 169). Again after 110 years Sauron attacked Gondor (3430), but now eleven years passed before his overthrow in 3441.

In T 2, which is little more than a fair copy of T 1, the founding of the kingdoms in Middle-earth is placed in the year of the Downfall, which is now 111 years before Sauron's attack in 3430; as in T 1, eleven years passed before the overthrow of Sauron in 3441.

Finally, the extremely puzzling text T(b) goes back to T(a) in placing the Downfall in 3320, and 110 years passed before the war began in 3430; but the total of 3441 is reached as in T 1 and T 2 by the lapse of eleven years before the overthrow. T(b) is apparently a companion page to T 2, and must be later than the other texts, since the Northern Kingdom is here called Arnor, not Arthedain, and this change only entered after a further text of the Tale of Years had been written.

If we now turn to the Akallabeth 'Scheme' (pp. 150-1) it will be seen that the date 3319 of the Downfall is reached by an entirely different route. In the 'Scheme' the intervals between the death-dates of the kings are in every case either 221 or 222 years, except for those between the unnamed sixth king and Atanamir, the seventh, which was 50 years longer (271 years), and between Atanamir and his son Kiryatan which was 50 years shorter (172 years). If all these intervals are added together they reach a total of 2658 years; and if to this is added the year of the death of Elros (460) and the length of the reign of Tar-kalion (201 years) we reach 3319, the date of the Downfall.(4) In the 'Scheme' Tar-kalion is numbered '13', but he is expressly the thirteenth king excluding Elros, as he is also in Akallabeth A and The Drowning of Anadune as revised (see p. 154 and note 10), so that there were fourteen kings of Numenor in all.

In the texts T(a) and T(b), on the other hand, 'eleven other kings'

ruled between Elros and Tar-kalion, making thirteen in all; and the average length of their reigns being here 240 years, the total is 2640.

When to this is added 460 and Tar-kalion's reign of 220 years the total is 3320.

A final element is the fact that in T 1, the companion page to T(a), Tar-kalion ascended the throne in 3118 and reigned for 201 years, just as in the 'Scheme'.

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 reveals. It is clear, at any rate, that all these texts, the original manuscript of the Akallabeth and its associated 'Scheme', the computations in the texts T(a) and T(b), 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, that provided the chronological

'vehicle' of the Second Age, established at that time. It can be seen from the text T 1 that the Numenorean history provided the fixed element, while the dating of events in Middle-earth before the Downfall were at first of an extreme fluidity (the making of the Rings of Power, for instance, was moved from 1000-1200 to 1200-1500, and the War of the Elves and Sauron from 1200 to 1550).

The third text of the Tale of Years, which I will call T 3, is (so far as the Second Age is concerned) little more than a copy of T 2, with a number of entries somewhat expanded, and one sole additional entry:

'3440 Anarion is slain'; no dates were altered. Anarion and Isildur still appear in that order, and the North Kingdom is still named Arthedain, though both were subsequently corrected. The statement in the opening passage of T 2 concerning the length of the Ages and the finding of the Ring by Deagol was omitted, and in its place the following was introduced:

The Fourth Age ushered in the Dominion of Men and the decline of all the other 'speaking-folk' of the Westlands.

Following the usual pattern, a number of additions, some of them substantial, were made to the manuscript T 3, but virtually all of them were taken up into the following version, the greatly expanded T 4, whose entries for the Second Age are given here. This is a good clear manuscript with few subsequent alterations in this part of the text; those which were made before the following text was taken from it are noticed if significant.

The Tale of Years

in the

Latter Ages.

The First Age was the longest. It ended with the Great Battle in which Fionwe and the sons of the Valar broke Thangorodrim and overthrew Morgoth.(5) Then most of the exiled Elves returned into the West and dwelt in Eressea that was afterwards named Avallon, being within sight of Valinor.(6) The Atani or Edain, Fathers of Men, sailed also over Sea and founded the realm of Numenor or Westernesse, on a great isle, westmost of all mortal lands.

The Second Age ended with the first overthrow of Sauron and the loss of the One Ring.

The Third Age came to its end in the War of the Ring, and the destruction of the Dark Tower of Sauron, who was finally defeated.

The Fourth Age ushered in the Dominion of Men and the decline of all other 'speaking folk' of the Westlands.

[Added: The first three ages are now by some called The Elder Days, but of old and ere the Third Age was ended that name was given only to the First Age and the world before the casting forth of Morgoth.](7)

The Second Age.

These were the Dark Years of Middle-earth, but the high tide of Numenor. Of events in Middle-earth scant record is preserved even among the Elves, and their dates here given are only approximate.

10. Foundation of the Grey Havens, and the Kingdom of Lindon. This was ruled by Gil-galad son of Felagund,(8) chief of all the Noldor who did not yet depart to