[Anders]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

This gets at what I meant about 'mythic time.'
I think that Middle –Earth is a secondary world, a sub-creation. In some sense it is very much a real place, because it connects to our myths. It has real ties to the world we live in, and in some sense 'is' the Old World of a mythic past age. But we can't reach it except in our imaginations. A time machine, if something like that were possible, wouldn’t get there in linear time. Middle Earth exists in the same 'a long time ago' that fairy tales exist in, not in the Pleistocene or whatever. That it has an internal chronology does not necessarily mean that such a chronology can be –or need be—reconciled with what scientists think or guess about our world’s “real” past.
But YMMV.
Tolkien’s own ‘mileage’ seemed to vary over time, judging by what I have read.

Whereas R.E. Howard's short stories are explicitly said to be in this world, only a long, long time ago. They are two different approach.