In The Lord of the Rings were narrated the great events at the end of the Third Age; but the tales of The Silmarillion are legends deriving from a much deeper past, when Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, dwelt in Middle-earth
From Tyler Klan: I believe that "bought the farm" has to do with the amount of time to pay off a farm mortgage. It takes so long to buy a farm, that rarely does one acheive the task in a lifetime. Since it is nearly impossible to buy a farm in a normal life span, the last payment will come due after the poor farmer has died.
