Et Tu, Faramir? - Page 3
© Michael Martinez
Tolkien's fiction isn't about forgotten stories so much as it is pretending to be forgotten stories. He is acting not so much as a translator as a revivalist, resurrecting the old campfire tradition Aragorn practices when he tells Frodo and the boys a story about Beren and Luthien. The stories in Middle-earth's history were told and retold, seldom written down, and the Red Book of Westmarch preserves those stories in a state which conveys and artificiality. That is, we are led to believe (or to assume) that the stories must have been told only a certain way.
In fact, the trail of translation and retelling is quite lengthy. The Red Book which Tolkien claims to have possessed is not the original book which Bilbo and Frodo wrote. It is a copy, "written in Gondor, probably at the request of the great-grandson of Peregrin, and completed in S.R. 1592 (F.A. 172). Its southern scribe appended this note: Findegil, King's Writer, finished this work in IV 172. It is an exact copy in all details of the Thain's Book in Minas Tirith. That book was a copy, made at the request of King Elessar, of the Red Book of the Perriannath, and was brought to him by the Thain Peregrin when he retired to Gondor in IV 64."
So, Tolkien's Red Book was a copy of a copy. The original book was actually four volumes: the diary of Bilbo and Frodo, completed by Sam, and Bilbo's three volumes titled Translations from the Elvish. The Translations are presumably the sources for the Silmarillion material. And who wrote those stories? Elrond was born only 58 years before the end of the First Age. Most of the exciting stuff had already occurred. So even if he himself had written all of Bilbo's source material, it would have included many second-hand stories.
In fact, in The War of the Jewels, we are told that "Narn i Chin Hurin" was written by Dirhavel, an Adan who interviewed survivors in Arvenien and composed his Narn. Dirhavel's account must have been memorized or written down before the Feanorians destroyed Arvernien. Elrond might have been given a copy of it by Maglor, or it may be that he would have had to wait until he joined Gil-galad's kingdom in the Second Age to learn about the Narn. If it was until that time only preserved orally, then whomever wrote it down for Bilbo's research was providing him with a third-hand account.
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