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In connection with my father's statement that the legends of The
Silmarillion were traditions handed on by Men in Numenor and later
in the Numenorean kingdoms in Middle-earth, this is a convenient
place to give an entirely isolated note carefully typed (but not on his
later typewriter) on a small slip and headed 'Memorandum'.

The three Great Tales must be Numenorean, and derived
from matter preserved in Gondor. They were part of the
Atanatarion (or the Legendarium of the Fathers of Men).
?Sindarin Nern in Edenedair (or In Adanath).
They are (1) Narn Beren ion Barahir also called Narn
e-Dinuviel (Tale of the Nightingale)
(2) Narn e-mbar Hador containing (a) Narn
i Chin Hurin (or Narn e-'Rach Morgoth Tale of the Curse of
Morgoth); and (b) Narn en El (or Narn e-Dant Gondolin ar
Orthad en El)
Should not these be given as Appendices to the Silmarillion?

In the question with which this ends my father was presumably
distinguishing between long and short forms of the tales. - Two
further notes on this slip, typed at the same time as the above, refer to
'the Tale of Turin' and suggest that he was working on it at that time.(2)
I do not know of any precise evidence to date the great development of
the 'Turin Saga', but it certainly belongs to an earlier period than the
writings given in the latter part of this book.
The idea that the legends of the Elder Days derived from Numenor-
ean tradition appears also in the abandoned typescript (AAm') of the
Annals of Aman that my father made himself (p. 64).(3) In this text the
preamble states:

Here begin the 'Annals of Aman'. Rumil made them in the Elder
Days, and they were held in memory by the Exiles. Those parts



which we learned and remembered were thus set down in Numenor
before the Shadow fell upon it.

NOTES.

1. Very similar remarks are made in Note 2 to the Commentary on
the Athrabeth (p. 337):
Physically Arda was what we should call the Solar System.
Presumably the Eldar could have had as much and as accurate
information concerning this, its structure, origin, and its relation
to the rest of Ea as they could comprehend.
A little further on in this same Note it is said:
The traditions here referred to have come down from the Eldar
of the First Age, through Elves who never were directly ac-
quainted with the Valar, and through Men who received 'lore'