Often readers of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings wonder just how large the Red Book of Westmarch must have been. Did Ronald, as translator of the ancient stories, embellish the original stories in any way, or was the Red Book as long as The Lord of the Rings? It was, in fact, much larger, but the primary stories were not equivalent to the books derived from it. Derivative works are by their very nature extrapolative and compressing at the same time. Ronald retold the stories in his own words and way.

The genealogies were most faithfully reproduced from the Red Book, but there is much information mostly of a linguistic nature which was not included in them. The professor provided his own commentary on the languages we used in the Eldarin and Numenorean lands. And there were many commentaries from the Red Book which were not included in either The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings.

Most frustrating for a modern historian is the absence of an authoritative source of history, but such works did exist and the commentators who added material to the Red Book most assuredly had access to these ancient writings. The greater part of them were scrolls and simple books preserved in the halls of lore in Minas Tirith which had become the last bastion of Numenorean wisdom in the northwestern world. Every other major city of Gondor which existed prior to or was founded with Gondor had been seized by enemies -- sometimes more than once -- and looted or destroyed in the course of the centuries. Much that we had once know was forgotten.

Arnor, too, had begun with great learning and store of wisdom. The Numenoreans had for long dwelt in the northlands, and there they had intermingled with lesser Men, but they also held converse with the Elves and Dwarves and benefitted from such exchanges in many ways. The halls of lore in Annuminas were in fact proportionately greater than those of Gondor, for Elendil had gathered in the north all the lore and wisdom he could contrive to salvage from the ruin of Numenor and the dissolution of its once great empire. To be sure much was lost in the foundering of Numenor itself, and many ancient songs and tales were never heard again which had for thousands of years graced the ears of the Numenoreans.

But just as the House of Elendil strove to retain as much of what they had learned, so too did those ancient mariners of the south, the Kings Men, seek to preserve somewhat of their history and lore. They had no love for the Eldar and Edain, and soon lost or forgot all knowledge of their ancient friendship with the High Elves in Beleriand and Aman. But they preserved tales and legends of great wars in which Numenoreans were the victors and recipients of great wealth. Such stories were often accompanied by darker wisdom in the ways of war and the subjugation of other peoples.

The fate of Annuminas' great library was uncertain by the Fourth Age. The misfortunates of war and other devastations had long since brought ruin to the ancient loremasters and their hoards. Some of the lore was brought by King Amlaith to Fornost Erain, and his brethren took such wisdom as seemed fit to them to preserve in their own realms. Maps, genealogies, annals, great accounts of ancient wars, and simple scrolls and treatises on matters such as healing, herb-lore, and other mundane areas of learning were thus distributed throughout Eriador, and the ensuing wars saw the loss of much which had been preserved for posterity. The final loss came in the war of 1974, when the evil realm of Angmar destroyed Arnor and took all its remaining cities and towns.

In Gondor there was less concern for the ancient wisdom of the Kings of Men. Our folk raised themselves to new glories, and they eschewed the tales of kings who had fallen into darkness. But in Gondor, too, Men seldom avoided making foolish choices. In the wars of the kin-strife much ancient lore was destroyed or lost, and many of those who were schooled in the ancient lays and languages perished in the battles which bathed Gondor's fields in a rich and terrible flood.

One of the most important works to survive (besides the remarkable Red Book itself) was the Book of the Kings. This work, begun in Gondor's early years and preserved with great reverence through the centuries of the rule of the Stewards, recorded all the great decrees and acts of the early Kings of Gondor, from Isildur and Anarion through Earnur.

In many matters the Stewards deemed it necessary to establish their own traditions and prerogatives, rather than to encroach upon those of the rightful Kings of Gondor. So it was with the annals. The Book of the Kings was closed and the Book of the Stewards begun after it became clear that King Earnur would not return to his people, and Mardil Voronwe would have to rule them in his stead. It is suggested by some that the Book of the Stewards was first begun in the days of Eradan, son of Mardil, who took up governance of the realm with the Council's consent. Mardil had stood in the king's place thirty years, and some hoped that Earnur might yet return (for the kings of Anarion's line were longer lived than even the noblest families of Gondor). Others hold that Mardil himself ordained the creation of the book in his last years, having the foresight to perceive that Gondor's days had changed.

The only Steward thus to have any full entry in the Book of the Kings was Pelendur, grandfather of Mardil, who governed the realm for a year before Earnil II was selected to be king. It was also Eradan who first assumed a ruling name in the language of the Sindar rather than of the Noldor, as all who have governed the realm before, King or Steward, had done. The choice of Sindarin was regarded by some as ominous, for it reflected a diminishment of the nobility and power of Gondor, but it was a practical decision. Few of the people knew the ancient language anyway, and Gondor was in truth diminished in both nobility and power.

Arnor had never been ruled by stewards, but there was a Roll of the Kings which had been transmitted to the southern realm, and which was preserevd there when all other records were lost. The Roll of the Kings was continued in each realm of the north: Arthedain, Cardolan, and Rhudaur, but the younger realms only recorded the names of their own kings, and these rolls were lost in the wars before the Great Plague. It is wrongly said by some that due to jealousies between the three kingly houses the lords of Arthedain did not record the names of the kings in Rhudaur and Cardolan, but that is not so. There were treaties and decrees, and correspondence between the three dynasties, but all these ancient records were lost when Fornost was taken.

The Princes of Belfalas, from whom came the Lords of Dol Amroth, maintained their own records, but for reasons unknown to me only the Roll of Dol Amroth survives. It was begun in the days of Galador, first Lord of Dol Amroth, who took up that title after the ending of the Kings. Some historians in Gondor extended the use of the title to his forebears (such as Adrahil, Prince of Belfalas, who served King Ondoher in the war against the Wainriders and was Galador's grandsire). Although such usage was deemed inappropriate in Belfalas, its convenience was recognized and tolerated. The more ancient scrolls of the princes were lost, perhaps in a coastal raid by the Corsairs, although the fortress on the hill now called Dol Amroth was raised long before that ill-fated Elven king perished in the sea nearby and so gave his name to the high promontory overlooking the place of his death.

Other great lords also possessed ancient books propounding the names and deeds of their ancestors. Indeed, Gondor became so consumed with the glory of its past under the Ruling Stewards that men often laid down in scrolls and books such traditions as their families cherished. Some of these were preserved in the days of King Elessar, but they were paid little heed by the researchers who compiled the Red Book of Westmarch or by the commentators (including me) who subsequently revised and enlarged the Thain's Copy.

Other works preserved in Minas Tirith included The Book of Aldarion, rendered into Aldarion and Erendis by Ronald Tolkien but in the original form it contained much information concerning the deeds of the Numenoreans both before and after Aldarion's time. This was one of the few works to be preserved out of Numenor, and was revered by the Kings as a great heirloom. Elendil himself composed Akallabeth, the brief and tragic history of Numenor and its Downfall. Much that occurred beyond his experience he is said to have learned from Cirdan and Gil-galad, or Elrond, but he also went at times to the high tower upon Emyn Beraid which Gil-galad had built for him, and there looked over Sea and into the past through the power of the Palantir set there, which the Eldar of Tol Eressea had given to his family to comfort them for the loss of their ancient friends.

Another ancient work said to have been brought from the ruin of Numenor was The Line of Elros, a brief annalistic account of the reigns of the kings which was accompanied by a few genealogies. Both Elendil and his sons preserved copies of the Line of Elros, but only the southern tradition survived. It has been noted there were discrepancies between the Gondorian record and other ancient accounts of the Second Age, and some have suggested that The Line of Elros was composed in the last days of Numenor, derived from memories which could not be checked against the lore of the kings in Armenelos (or even in Romenna, where the last of the Faithful had been confined).

Isildur set down many traditions when he was in Gondor, both before and after the War of the Last Alliance. Much of what he had written was lost during the war for it existed only in Minas Ithil, his city in the mountains, but a few scrolls were copied and carried to Osgiliath. There for long centuries they were held safe, but slowly forgotten. When the city was finally abandoned its records were moved to Minas Tirith (formerly Minas Anor) by the Stewards. Such wisdom as Isildur left to posterity was thus saved from a worse fate but it languished amid the hoard of scrolls and books to which the Stewards paid little heed. Their needs and concerns were of the moment, rather than the past, and few have been the loremasters who studied the ancient the books kept in the Citadel before King Elessar opened his halls of lore to friends and allies from afar.

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The Lord of the Rings was written by J.R.R. Tolkien and is Copyright © 1954, 1965 J.R.R. Tolkien. 1954 edition copyright © renewed 1982 by Christopher R. Tolkien, Michael H.R. Tolkien, John F.R. Tolkien, and Priscilla M.A.R. Tolkien.

1965 copyright © renewed 1993 by Christopher R. Tolkien, John F.R. Tolkien, and Priscilla M.A.R. Tolkien.

This is an unauthorized work of fan fiction and is not represented to be a product of J.R.R. Tolkien or any of his heirs. No infringements are intended. Findegil's sources of information about Middle-earth are The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, The Road Goes Ever On, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, Unfinished Tales, and The History of Middle-earth series of books edited and published by Christopher Tolkien.

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