Henneth Annûn Story Archive

I asked this question over on the Quill & Ink list, & Nilmandra answered me , but the issue has popped up again as I plot out a Merry/Estella wedding fic set in SR 1423.

Why do some people insist that Pippin was married before Merry? I can find nothing in LOTR (either text or appendixes) that justifies this claim. Where's the backing for this alleged piece of canon?

If there isn't any actual information, then am I correct to guess that Merry, being the elder, would have married first?

Regina

 

Regina, unfortuately I don't have the one book that may clarify this, The Complete Guide to Middle-earth by Robert Foster.

In Peoples of Middle-earth I found:
...he [JRRT] had told a correspondent in 1965 that 'I believe he married a sister of Fredegar Bolger of the Bolgers of Budgeford'. These corrections, for a reason unknown to me, were not incorporated in the Allen and Unwin Second Edition, but they did occur in a later impression of the Ballantine edition of 1966, and hence Estella Bolger and her marriage to Merry Brandybuck are entered in The Complete Guide to Middle-earth by Robert Foster. These additions to the family trees were made at the instance of Douglas A. Anderson in the Houghton Mifflin edition of 1987, to which he contributed a note on the history of the text. Estella Bolger and her marriage to Meriadoc have finally entered the British 'tradition' in the re-set edition published by HarperCollins in 1994 (see Douglas Anderson's 'Note on the Text' in this edition, p. xii).

Does anyone have this to look it up?

Lyllyn

 

But the question still is, when did the marriage occur? I don't want eggs thrown at me (as they have been with another fic) over a phantom canon fact no one can prove in black & white. Does Foster actually provide a date with text cite?

Regina

 

Does Foster actually provide a date with text cite?

We'll need a someone with access to that book to know that answer.

Anyone out there?

Lyllyn

 

Does Foster actually provide a date with text cite?

I'm sitting here with my Foster's... propped open in front of me. So far I see nothing that cites a date for either marriage. Under the entry for Estella it simply says that "[she] married Merry Brandybuck sometime after the WR."

Under the entry for Merry it simply says "Merry married Estella Bolger, the sister of his friend Fredegar." No date is given.

The entry for Pippin doesn't even mention his marriage.

So that's not much help, is it? But at least you know what is and, unfortunately, isn't there.

~Nessime

 

Which brings you right back to the critic - if they are finding evidence the rest of us cannot - ask them to cite the source and enlighten us all! Sometimes people find obscure little things in out of the way places, and perhaps this is one of them.

And if they do not answer, then you will know they were speculating and you can site in your text that Tolkien never gave a date for Merry and Estella's wedding and you have chosen xxxx for purposes of the story.

I commend you for checking it out!
Nilmandra

 

I'm sitting here with my Foster's... propped open in front of me. So far I see nothing that cites a date for either marriage. Under the entry for Estella it simply says that "[she] married Merry Brandybuck sometime after the WR."

Under the entry for Merry it simply says "Merry married Estella Bolger, the sister of his friend Fredegar." No date is given.

The entry for Pippin doesn't even mention his marriage.

So that's not much help, is it?

~Nessime

No, I'm afraid not. *sigh*

"The Tale of Years" does specifically state Pippin & Diamond marry in SR 1427. The only date before that one is an entry about the mayorship in SR 1422. So I'm reasoning Merry wed Estella in the gap between 1422 & 1427.

Any reason this won't fly?

Regina

 

I'm reasoning Merry wed Estella in the gap between 1422 & 1427.
...Any reason this won't fly?

I agree with Nilmandra on this one. You've done everything you reasonably can to check the dates, and finding no citation of the date when Estella and Merry wed, you've postulated one based on their relative ages. Merry is older than Pippin, and in checking the genealogical charts in the Appendicies of LotR I find that Estella is older than Diamond by a good ten years.

If they have evidence to the contrary, we all benefit by gaining the new information. But if they cannot cite sources, the question remains open.

And my opinion is that if you state your reasons for choosing a particular date, and cite the sources you have used to reach that decision, you will have done all that is possible.

Good luck with this! And I will keep my eyes open for anything that might be more concrete than what I've given you so far.

~Nessime

 

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