A Poll to Humor Your Statistically Inclined Hostess ...

[dawn_felagund]

I am working on a post for The Heretic Loremaster and am really curious about how people see the attack on Sirion and its aftermath as it relates to Maedhros and Maglor, and Elrond and Elros. I would appreciate the input of anyone who wishes to take the following poll

Comments

[dawn_felagund]

Here is what I found concerning the waterfall part of the Elrond-Elros story, in Letter 211 to Rhona Beare (1958):

Elrond and Elros, children of Eärendil (sea-lover) and Elwing (Elf-foam), were so called, because they were carried off by the sons of Fëanor, in the last act of the feud between the high-elven houses of the Noldorin princes concerning the Silmarils .... The infants were not slain, but left like 'babes in the wood', in a cave with a fall of water over the entrance. There they were found: Elrond within the cave, and Elros dabbling in the water.

I thought that the passage occurred elsewhere in the texts, but I did a search of "waterfall" in all of my ebooks and "water" in HoMe IV, V, X, XI, and XII and came up with nothing relevant.

Personally, I'm not sure how canonical I consider that. In fact, I'm having trouble deciding how to interpret it at all. It could be read two ways: The boys were taken away by the Feanorians and left by the waterfall to be found ... by whom? This also leaves no room for the idea of Maglor fostering the boys, which was present in the texts by the time JRRT had written Ms. Beare. Or the boys were found by the waterfall by the Noldor after having been deserted ... by whom? They were not necessarily deserted by the Feanorians, in this instance; I could see them being kept in a secret, safe place by a nursemaid, for example, with intentions that she would return for them. All wildly speculative, of course. :)

JRRT seems to have deserted work on the story of Maedhros and Maglor's involvement with Elrond and Elros pretty early on (pre-LotR), but he did debate until almost the end of his life about the meaning of Elros's name in The Problem of 'Ros' (HoMe XII), which CT dates as having been written 1968 or later, well after the correspondence cited above. The waterfall story doesn't appear there, which leads me to believe that what he wrote to Ms. Beare was perhaps a passing fancy or something he chose not to include (or simply forgot about), as it surely would have been relevant to Ros.

All 100% opinion and speculation, of course. :) And I'm open to sources of information that I'm missing.

Thanks for your replies on the poll too! :)