Bret Devereaux

...that keeping the exact history of the northern kingdom straight just wasn't the top priority. And by the time you realize the information chain is broken, it's too late to repair. In Unfinished Tales, even Saruman and Sauron struggle to get good information on Gladden.

I find that I am fully in concurrence with your point in general terms (there would be a great deal of ignorance of the history on either side, not withstanding mission of Earnur et al), while still struggling to believe in reference to Isildur specifically.

The only thing that really surprises me is that, in the absence of hard information, Gondor hasn't made up a bunch of just-so-stories, the way the Romans did with their pre-documentary-legendary-probably-didn't-exist kings.

Yes, this makes sense to me; Faramir should have *some* story about what happened to Isildur, even if it's not the right one.

But if you want a sense of how bad the information environment can be - read the first few chapters of Bede's Ecclesiastical History (http://www.heroofcamelot.com/docs/Bede-Ecclesiastical-History.pdf …). He gets some things about Roman Britain mostly OK (Caesar, Claudius), but some of the rest...

...is pure invention, confused or just plain wrong. Events happen in the wrong reigns of emperors, crucial events are just skipped because Bede doesn't know they happened, and so on. Faramir, of course, is not Bede - but a Bede-like figure was probably his teacher.

So he may well have learned from a history wherein 'Isildur became king, but then went north and returned not. Then Meneldil became king and he did XYZ thing" The lacuna might not even be noted as such. Bede sure doesn't.

Much appreciation. Related question (and it may be that you've engaged with this in other settings); while Tolkien offers tremendous sense of the age of the Middle Earth, we don't necessarily get a sense of whether there were "ancients" in the way we think of them now.