All the King's Horses and All the King's Men... - Page 4
© Michael Martinez
Some of the comments in the appendices to The Lord of the Rings are quoted, which is Tolkien's way of suggesting that he is citing directly from the Red Book. For example:
'Our King, we call him; and when he comes north to his house in Annuminas restored and stays for a while by Lake Evendim, then everyone in the Shire is glad. But he does not enter this land and binds himself by the law that he has made, that none of the Big People shall pass its borders. But he rides often with many fair people to the Great Bridge, and there he welcomes his friends, and any others who wish to see him; and some ride away with him and stay in his house as long as they have a mind. Thain Peregrin has been there many times; and so has Master Samwise the Mayor. His daughter Elanor the Fair is one of the maids of Queen Evenstar.'
This passage would have been written between the years FA 15 and 30, the years in which Elanor became a maid to the queen and when she married Fastred of Greenholm. The language is nothing like the commentaries from "Osanwe-kenta" and other works concerning the Elder Days. But it cannot be Bilbo's commentary because he was not in the Shire during those years. Bilbo's "Translations from the Elvish" thus represents a blank canvas which Tolkien had to fill as the years went by. "Quendi and Eldar", "Osanwe-kenta", and "Orcs" (not to mention The Silmarillion itself) are thus all part of the more ancient works Bilbo translated and preserved.
Bilbo was thus a master linguist, and his hand must be perceived in every story which is derived from the Red Book. He knew both Quenya and Sindarin, and must have learned a great deal from the Elves of Rivendell, some of whom undoubtedly knew Pengolodh. In fact, it may be that Elrond's folk, being mostly Noldor, were more familiar with Pengolodh than with other Elvish loremasters, of whom very few are ever named. The total collapse of the Eldarin civilization in the First Age, and the loss of many Elves at the end of the Second Age, would have diminished the pool of resources Elrond had available to him, and hence Bilbo's own sources were limited.
