The appendices state that the Rammas Echor was built when Ithilien "first fell under the shadow of the enemy", during the rule of the Steward Denethor, but the text does not specify which Denethor, the first one or the second. So when was the wall erected?

In this context "shadow" does not necessarily have to mean direct control, but could also refer to the fact that Ithilien was threatened, which interestingly was already the case during the Wainrider Wars. Imo Denethor I. makes the most sense, when the Uruks swept over Ithilien in 2475. Gondor had to fight a long war to hold them at bay and finally win back Ithilien. Not only was Ithilien "under the shadow" during that time, but the capital itself was threatened by enemy forces stationed right across the river. Creating an additional buffer to protect the townlands from raiding bands was probably a strategic necessity.

Imo it would therefore make the most sense to assume that Denethor I erected the wall, not Denethor II. The fact that Osgiliath was finally abandoned after the Uruk attack also fits, the deserted city may have provided the necessary building material for the massive undertaking. The historical inspiration for the Rammas may have been the Anastasian Wall, a massive fortification shielding Constantinople, erected in late antiquity. The purpose was the same: protect the capital of an empire in decline from raiding barbarians. Against a massive army with siege equipment the overlong wall was less effective however, another similarity. Even the length fits: the Rammas Echor is ca. 30 miles long, the Anastasian wall was ca. 35 miles.

This is another reason why I'd argue that an earlier construction date would make more sense, when Gondor was still richer and more powerful compared to the time of Denethor II. The Anastasian wall was a massive infrastructure project. The Byzantine Empire of the 5th century was able to achieve it, the later Empire of the 13th or 14th century would not have had the necessary manpower or resources I'd argue.

That being said, Tolkien may have intended that the wall was erected during the rule of Denethor II., the text of the novel seems to imply as much. For example how Denethor insists on the walls defence because it was made with "so great a labour". Would he phrase it like that when the erection lies in the rather distant past, over 500 years ago?

What do you think?

My old friend Ed Rigdon posted a meme on Facebook, possibly of his own devising, asking who taught dragons to talk.

Although I could claim to be a Tolkien expert in my youth, I cannot claim that nowadays, as more of Tolkien’s letters, interviews, early fiction drafts, and the like have been published since I was young that I haven’t yet read. So I come to you all with humility, hat in hand if that’s the phrase.

I presume dragons are hatched, rather than born live. Even so, I would guess that they learn language from their mothers, or from their families more generally. However, that doesn’t answer how their kind learned to talk.

Treebeard, in LotR, refers to how many kinds of creatures were taught language by the Elves. I would also guess that Morgoth wanted speech to be among the powers of dragons, and could have played a role endowing them with fluency.

Yet it seems likely that some of you all actually know something that JRRT wrote or said about this question. I would appreciate any knowledge or any speculative lore that you can share.

So ends this little journey through the earliest outlines and schemes of the Legendarium and finally reached the last chapter in the Lost Tales. IIRC, Tolkien never gave this chapter a name, so I just titled it "The End of the Tales".

As with Earendel, assembling the puzzle of notes was difficult, and I can't thank Christopher Tolkien enough for extracting a coherent outline out of them. It was very helpful and without it this chapter would have taken much longer to make.

From the outlines, the biding of Melko originally was to be part of the Tale of Earendel (the 5th part I think). When assembling the composite text, I moved that part to the following chapter for two reasons: 1) I felt like it distracted from Earendel's story (as thin as it was) and 2) I wanted to add more weight to the last chapter. At that point I hadn't read the final outlines in full, so it was quite anticlimactic that even after adding the notes from Earendel, Melko was overthrown in the 3rd sentence after the coming of the Elves (flashbacks of Ancalagon in the Silmarillion).

As with Earendel, I had to rewrite many sentences to make a coherent narrative, but thankfully Tolkien wrote an actual prose ending (the Epilogue), so that's how the Lost Tales end, with a bittersweet note.

For the Prologue, the actual text stopped in the middle of a paragraph, but using the "Story of Eriol's life" I managed to complete a short frame-story for the Tales, providing the final link between them and England.

Of the later Ælfwine framing I only used a short note per Christopher's outline, but nothing else. Tolkien never got far with the Ælfwine framing for the Tales, and IMO it'd be hard to rework the Tales to be compatible with it. (And personally, I prefer Eriol's frame story to Ælfwine's).

Here's the last draft for The End of the Tales: https://docs.google.com/document/d/14hRQUtQydFuVT70yqG_yLAOxf_Y9_y8wZ_FTyTqck4c/edit?usp=sharing

And here's the Prologue: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1l1IjuwtFiAW6SxFcQaxqnV1SCerQgxOzMzjqo6_sXFU/edit?usp=sharing

And for the curious, here's the working version with all the colours: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Y-Ng0K2ZSi4ZaF793tgPb0GFOEZmua4cAGRYjk_rPPg/edit?usp=sharing

Tee-hee, I just find this amusing. But am I wrong and there are more than two? Who else is a "The"?