I’m going to need a source for this, because I think common consensus is that this (along with the trees (Ents) literally “marching to war”) was a critical response to Shakespeare’s Macbeth, where Tolkien considered Macduff being born by C-section a cop-out solution to the prophecy “cannot be killed by a man born of woman”.
Playing with ambiguous language in ways like this, especially with regards to prophecy, is a trope thousands of years old in myth (Croesus and the Oracle at Delphi probably being the paradebeispiel), and so I see no reason to think that a scholar of myth like Tolkien would not do the same in his own take on the genre.
I know where the prophecy is from - I just see no reason to interpret this as fake when high elves like Glorfindel are already canonically known to have the gift of sight and the prophecy was fulfilled. Given the Macbeth connection, without evidence from Tolkien there really isn’t any good reason to assume the prophecy was fake.
I’m going to need a source for this, because I think common consensus is that this (along with the trees (Ents) literally “marching to war”) was a critical response to Shakespeare’s Macbeth, where Tolkien considered Macduff being born by C-section a cop-out solution to the prophecy “cannot be killed by a man born of woman”.
Playing with ambiguous language in ways like this, especially with regards to prophecy, is a trope thousands of years old in myth (Croesus and the Oracle at Delphi probably being the paradebeispiel), and so I see no reason to think that a scholar of myth like Tolkien would not do the same in his own take on the genre.
It was a prophecy from Glorfindel, He will not return to this land. Far off yet is his doom, and not by the hand of man will he fall. , which isn’t much but the nazgul were aware of it. https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/59204/in-the-lord-of-the-rings-was-the-witch-king-aware-of-the-prophecy-about-his-dea
That can be viewed as a real prophecy or a fake self fulfilling prophecy.
I know where the prophecy is from - I just see no reason to interpret this as fake when high elves like Glorfindel are already canonically known to have the gift of sight and the prophecy was fulfilled. Given the Macbeth connection, without evidence from Tolkien there really isn’t any good reason to assume the prophecy was fake.