(no subject)

[fanged-geranium.livejournal.com]

Hi folks, I'm not sure if this is exactly the right place to query the Silm itself, but I thought if anyone's likely to know the answer, they'll probably be here.

I was re-reading 'The Shaping of Middle-earth' this morning and I was reminded of something that I had noticed before and wondered about. In the 'History of Middle Earth' series - the whole of it, as far as I can tell - Curufin is Feanor's fourth son and Caranthir his fifth, but in the Silm they reverse birth order. However, this is only in the family tree given (which has errors) and in one listing of the Sons of Feanor (on the other three occasions the order is Celegorm, Curufin, Caranthir).

Does anyone know why, or what the sigificance of this is (if any!)?

ETA: I made jedda think about it yesterday evening, and she was kind (or evil) enough to point out that it's almost certainly an(other) editing mistake by Christopher Tolkien. Occam's razor, I guess, which is better than another 'Gil-galad's father' issue.

Now that would be an interesting challenge. I might even have to post it - Write a fic in which all Tolkien's changing opinions on G-g's parentage are correct!