Quote Originally Posted by factotum View Post
He always had the ME legendarium as a background for all his works, I think--note that the swords Glamdring, Orcrist and Sting were explicitly stated as having come from Gondolin before its fall when Elrond examines them in The Hobbit (although it's never clearly explained how those swords managed to end up in a troll cave hundreds of miles from where Beleriand used to be, or why goblins still fear them so much several thousand years after Gondolin's fall).
Early drafts of The Hobbit placed its timeframe much closer to the events of The Silmarillion than did Tolkien's published version of the timeline. The deeds of Beren and Luthien in particular were mentioned as if they only took place a short time ago.