Posted: April 27, 2000 at 15:24:34: by Voronwe
Hello everyone. I've been skulking in the background reading the posts and I've been absolutely fascinated by some of the stuff people have come up with on this board. Anyway, I was wondering if anybody had any ideas on something which has been bugging me recently.
Tolkien always presented himself as being a translator of books such as the Red Book of Wesmarch and whatever Bilbo (was it him?) called the Silmarillion when he translated it into Westron. How was Tolkien supposed to have got hold of these copies in the first place? Did he ever 'justify' this? Also, how was he able to translate from Westron, Quenya or Sindarin into English? Did he ever explain in one of his Letters? I don't think there were that many Sindarin-English dictionaries kicking around in the thirties (although there are probably quite a few now!) I know he tried to rationalise this with Aelfwine going to Tol Eressea in the BoLT but I thought that he'd rejected all that stuff by the time LotR came along. Or did he possibly 'find' a copy in some forgotten corner of the Bodliean Library? Any ideas anybody?
Cheers
Voronwe
|
