Читать книгу The Shaping of Middle-earth - Christopher Tolkien - Страница 8
Оглавление(The ‘Sketch of the Mythology’)
I have earlier (III. 3) given an account of this text, but I repeat the essentials of it here. On the envelope containing the manuscript my father wrote at some later time:
Original ‘Silmarillion’. Form orig[inally] composed c. 1926–30 for R. W. Reynolds to explain background of ‘alliterative version’ of Túrin & the Dragon: then in progress (unfinished) (begun c. 1918).
The ‘Sketch’ represents a new starting-point in the history of ‘The Silmarillion’; for while it is a quite brief synopsis, the further written development of the prose form proceeded from it in a direct line. It is clear from details that need not be repeated here that it was originally written in 1926 (after the Lay of the Children of Húrin had been abandoned, III. 3); but it was afterwards revised, in places very heavily, and this makes it a difficult text to present in a way that is both accurate and readily comprehensible. The method I have adopted is to give the text exactly as it was first written (apart from a very few slight alterations of expression in no way affecting the narrative, which are adopted silently into the text), but to break it up into short sections, following each with notes giving the later changes made in that section. I must emphasize that there is no manuscript warrant for the 19 divisions so made: it is purely a matter of convenience of presentation. This method has certain advantages: the later changes can be readily compared with the original text immediately preceding; and since the following version of ‘The Silmarillion’, the Quenta, has been treated in the same way and divided into corresponding numbered sections, passages of the one can be easily related to those in the other.
The later changes are referenced by numbers that begin with 1 in each section. The commentary follows at the end of the complete text, and is related to the numbered sections.
Sketch of the mythology with especial reference to the ‘Children of Húrin’
After the despatch of the Nine Valar for the governance of the world Morgoth (Demon of Dark) rebels against the overlordship of Manwë, overthrows the lamps set up to illumine the world, and floods the isle where the Valar (or Gods) dwelt. He fortifies a palace of dungeons in the North. The Valar remove to the uttermost West, bordered by the Outer Seas and the final Wall, and eastward by the towering Mountains of Valinor which the Gods built. In Valinor they gather all light and beautiful things, and build their mansions, gardens, and city, but Manwë and his wife Bridhil have halls upon the highest mountain (Timbrenting or Tindbrenting in English, Tengwethil in Gnomish, Taníquetil in Elfin) whence they can see across the world to the dark East. Ifan Belaurin1 plants the Two Trees in the middle of the plain of Valinor outside the gates of the city of Valmar. They grow under her songs, and one has dark green leaves with shining silver beneath, and white blossoms like the cherry from which a dew of silver light falls; the other has golden-edged leaves of young green like the beech and yellow blossom like the hanging blossoms of laburnum which give out heat and blazing light. Each tree waxes for seven2 hours to full glory and then wanes for seven; twice a day therefore comes a time of softer light when each tree is faint and their light is mingled.
1 Yavanna Palúrien added in the margin.
2 At both occurrences of seven in this sentence my father first wrote six, but changed it in the act of writing the manuscript.
The Outer Lands are in darkness. The growth of things was checked when Morgoth quenched the lamps. There are forests of darkness, of yew and fir and ivy. There Oromë sometimes hunts, but in the North Morgoth and his demonic broods (Balrogs) and the Orcs (Goblins, also called Glamhoth or people of hate) hold sway. Bridhil looks on the darkness and is moved, and taking all the hoarded light of Silpion (the white tree) she makes and strews the stars.
At the making of the stars the children of Earth awake – the Eldar (or Elves). They are found by Oromë dwelling by the star-lit pool (Cuiviénen, water of awakening) in the East. He rides home to Valinor filled with their beauty and tells the Valar, who are reminded of their duty to the Earth, since they came thither knowing that their office was to govern it for the two races of Earth who should after come each in appointed time. There follows an expedition to the fortress of the North (Angband, Iron-hell), but this is now too strong for them to destroy. Morgoth is nonetheless taken captive, and consigned to the halls of Mandos who dwelt in the North of Valinor.
The Eldalië (people of the Elves) are invited to Valinor for fear of the evil things of Morgoth that still wandered in the dark. A great march is made by the Eldar from the East led by Oromë on his white horse. The Eldar are divided into three hosts, one under Ingwë (Ing) after called the Quendi (or Elves proper, or Light-elves), one under Finwë (Finn) after called the Noldoli (Gnomes or Deep-elves), one under Elwë (Elu) after called the Teleri (Sea-elves, or Solosimpi, the Shoreland Pipers or Foam-riders). Many of them are lost upon the march and wander in the woods of the world, becoming after the various hosts of Ilkorindi (Elves who never dwelt in Côr in Valinor). The chief of these was Thingol, who heard Melian and her nightingales singing and was enchanted and fell asleep for an age. Melian was one of the divine maidens of the Vala Lórien who sometimes wandered into the outer world. Melian and Thingol became Queen and King of woodland Elves in Doriath, living in a hall called the Thousand Caves.
The other Elves came to the ultimate shores of the West. In the North these in those days sloped westward in the North until only a narrow sea divided them from the land of the Gods, and this narrow sea was filled with grinding ice. But at the point to which the Elf-hosts came a wide dark sea stretched west.
There were two Valar of the Sea. Ulmo (Ylmir), the mightiest of all Valar next to Manwë, was lord of all waters, but dwelt often in Valinor, or in the ‘Outer Seas’. Ossë and the lady Óin,1 whose tresses lay through all the sea, loved rather the seas of the world that washed the shores beneath the Mountains of Valinor. Ylmir uprooted the half-sunk island where the Valar had first dwelt, and embarking on it the Noldoli and Qendi, who arrived first, bore them to Valinor. The Teleri dwelt some time by the shores of the sea awaiting him, and hence their love of it. While they were being also transported by Ylmir, Ossë in jealousy and out of love for their singing chained the island to the sea-bottom far out in the Bay of Faërie whence the Mountains of Valinor could dimly be seen. No other land was near it, and it was called the Lonely Isle. There the Teleri dwelt a long age becoming different in tongue, and learning strange music of Ossë, who made the sea-birds for their delight.
The Gods gave a home in Valinor to the other Eldar. Because they longed even among the Tree-lit gardens of Valinor for a glimpse of the stars, a gap was made in the encircling mountains, and there in a deep valley a green hill, Côr, was built. This was lit from the West by the Trees, to the East it looked out onto the Bay of Faërie and the Lonely Isle, and beyond to the Shadowy Seas. Thus some of the blessed light of Valinor filtered into the Outer Lands, and falling on the Lonely Isle caused its western shores to grow green and fair.
On the top of Côr the city of the Elves was built and called Tûn. The Qendi became most beloved by Manwë and Bridhil, the Noldoli by Aulë (the Smith) and Mandos the wise. The Noldoli invented gems and made them in countless numbers, filling all Tûn with them, and all the halls of the Gods.2
The greatest in skill and magic of the Noldoli was Finn’s second son Fëanor. (His elder son Fingolfin3 whose son was Finnweg comes into the tale later.) He contrived three jewels (Silmarils) wherein a living fire combined in the light of the Two Trees was set, they shone of their own light, impure hands were burned by them.
The Teleri seeing afar the light of Valinor were torn between desire to rejoin their kindred and to dwell by the sea. Ylmir taught them craft of boat-building. Ossë yielding gave them swans, and harnessing many swans to their boats they sailed to Valinor, and dwelt there on the shores where they could see the light of the Trees, and go to Valmar if they wished, but could sail and dance in the waters touched to light by the radiance that came out past Côr. The other Eldar gave them many gems, especially opals and diamonds and other pale crystals which were strewn upon the beaches of the Bay of Faërie. They themselves invented pearls. Their chief town was Swanhaven upon the shores northward of the pass of Côr.
1 Uinen pencilled against Óin.
2 The following passage was afterwards added here:
Since the Gnomes or Noldoli afterwards came back into the Great Lands, and these tales deal mostly with them, it may here be said that Lord or King of the Noldoli was Finn. His sons were Fëanor, Fingolfin, and Finrod. Of whom Fëanor was the most skilful, the deepest in lore, Fingolfin the mightiest and most valiant, Finrod the fairest, and the most wisehearted and gentle. The seven sons of Fëanor were Maidros the tall; Maglor a musician and mighty singer whose voice carried far over hill and sea; Curufin the crafty who inherited most of his father’s skill; Celegorm the fair; Cranthir the dark; and Damrod and Díriel who after were great hunters. The sons of Fingolfin were Finweg who was after the king of the Noldoli in the North of the world, and Turgon of Gondolin; and his daughter was Isfin the white. The sons of Finrod were Orodreth, Felagoth, Anrod, and Egnor.
In the last sentence Felagoth > Felagund, and Orodreth moved to stand after Felagund.
3 Finn’s second son Fëanor and His elder son Fingolfin > Finn’s elder son Fëanor and His second son Fingolfin (an early change, quite possibly made at the time of the writing of the manuscript).
The Gods were now beguiled by Morgoth, who having passed seven ages in the prisons of Mandos in gradually lightened pain came before the conclave of the Gods in due course. He looks with greed and malice upon the Eldar, who also sit there about the knees of the Gods, and lusts especially after the jewels. He dissembles his hatred and desire for revenge. He is allowed a humble dwelling in Valinor, and after a while goes freely about Valinor, only Ylmir foreboding ill, while Tulcas the strong who first captured him watches him. Morgoth helps the Eldar in many deeds, but slowly poisons their peace with lies.
He suggests that the Gods brought them to Valinor out of jealousy, for fear their marvellous skill, and magic, and beauty, should grow too strong for them outside in the world. The Qendi and Teleri are little moved, but the Noldoli, the wisest of the Elves, become affected. They begin at whiles to murmur against the Gods and their kindred; they are filled with vanity of their skill.1
Most of all does Morgoth fan the flames of the heart of Fëanor, but all the while he lusts for the immortal Silmarils, although Fëanor has cursed for ever anyone, God or Elf or mortal that shall come hereafter, who touches them. Morgoth lying tells Fëanor that Fingolfin and his son Finnweg are plotting to usurp the leadership of the Gnomes from Fëanor and his sons, and to gain the Silmarils. A quarrel breaks out between the sons of Finn. Fëanor is summoned before the Gods, and the lies of Morgoth laid bare. Fëanor is banished from Tûn, and with him goes Finn who loves Fëanor best of his sons, and many of the Gnomes. They build a treasury Northward in Valinor in the hills near Mandos’ halls. Fingolfin rules the Gnomes that are left in Tûn. Thus Morgoth’s words seem justified and the bitterness he sowed goes on after his words are disproved.
Tulcas is sent to put Morgoth in chains once more, but he escapes through the pass of Côr into the dark region beneath the feet of Timbrenting called Arvalin, where the shadow is thickest in all the world. There he finds Ungoliant, Gloomweaver, who dwells in a cleft of the mountains, and sucks up light or shining things to spin them out again in webs of black and choking darkness, fog, and gloom. With her he plots revenge. Only a terrible reward will bring her to dare the dangers of Valinor or the sight of the Gods. She weaves a dense gloom about her to protect her and swings on cords from pinnacle to pinnacle till she has scaled the highest peak of the mountains in the south of Valinor (little guarded because of their height and their distance from the old fortress of Morgoth). She makes a ladder that Morgoth can scale. They creep into Valinor. Morgoth stabs the Trees and Ungoliant sucks up their juices, belching forth clouds of blackness. The Trees succumb slowly to the poisoned sword, and to the venomous lips of Ungoliant.
The Gods are dismayed by a twilight at midday, and vapours of black float in about the ways of the city. They are too late. The Trees die while they wail about them. But Tulcas and Oromë and many others hunt on horseback in the gathering gloom for Morgoth. Wherever Morgoth goes there the confusing darkness is greatest owing to the webs of Ungoliant. Gnomes from the treasury of Finn come in and report that Morgoth is assisted by a spider of darkness. They had seen them making for the North. Morgoth had stayed his flight at the Treasury, slain Finn and many of his men, and carried off the Silmarils and a vast hoard of the most splendid jewels of the Elves.
In the meanwhile Morgoth escapes by Ungoliant’s aid northward and crosses the Grinding Ice. When he has regained the northern regions of the world Ungoliant summons him to pay the other half of her reward. The first half was the sap of the Trees of Light. Now she claims one half of the jewels. Morgoth yields them up and she devours them. She is now become monstrous, but he will not give her any share in the Silmarils. She enmeshes him in a black web, but he is rescued by the Balrogs with whips of flame, and the hosts of the Orcs; and Ungoliant goes away into the uttermost South.
Morgoth returns to Angband, and his power and the numbers of his demons and Orcs becomes countless. He forges an iron crown and sets therein the Silmarils, though his hands are burned black by them, and he is never again free from the pain of the burning. The crown he never leaves off for a moment, and he never leaves the deep dungeons of his fortress, governing his vast armies from his deep throne.
1 Added here:
which Morgoth flatters. The Gods knew also of the coming of mortals or Men that was to be. They had not yet told the Elves, for the time was not near, nor explained what was to be the realm of each race, and their relations. Morgoth tells of Men, and suggests that the Gods are keeping the Elves captive, so that weaker Men shall be controlled more easily by the Gods, and the Elves defrauded of their kingdoms.
This was an early addition, probably not materially later than the writing of the manuscript.
When it became clear that Morgoth had escaped the Gods assemble about the dead Trees and sit in the darkness stricken and dumb for a long while, caring about nothing. The day which Morgoth chose for his attack was a day of festival throughout Valinor. Upon this day it was the custom of the chief Valar and many of the Elves, especially the people of Ing (the Quendi), to climb the long winding paths in endless procession to Manwë’s halls upon Timbrenting. All the Quendi and some of the Noldoli (who under Fingolfin dwelt still in Tûn) had gone to Timbrenting, and were singing upon its topmost height when the watchers from afar descried the fading of the Trees. Most of the Noldoli were in the plain, and the Teleri upon the shore. The fogs and darkness drift in now off the seas through the pass of Côr as the Trees die. Fëanor summons the Gnomes to Tûn (rebelling against his banishment).1
There is a vast concourse on the square on the summit of Côr about the tower of Ing, lit by torches. Fëanor makes a violent speech, and though his wrath is for Morgoth his words are in part the fruit of Morgoth’s lies.2 He bids the Gnomes fly in the darkness while the Gods are wrapped in mourning, to seek freedom in the world and to seek out Morgoth, now Valinor is no more blissful than the earth outside.3 Fingolfin and Finweg speak against him.4 The assembled Gnomes vote for flight, and Fingolfin and Finweg yield; they will not desert their people, but they retain command over a half of the people of the Noldoli.5
The flight begins.6 The Teleri will not join. The Gnomes cannot escape without boats, and do not dare to cross the Grinding Ice. They attempt to seize the swan-ships in Swanhaven, and a fight ensues (the first between the races of the Earth) in which many Teleri are slain, and their ships carried off. A curse is pronounced upon the Gnomes, that they shall after suffer often from treachery and the fear of treachery among their own kindred in punishment for the blood spilled at Swanhaven.7 They sail North along the coast of Valinor. Mandos sends an emissary, who speaking from a high cliff hails them as they sail by, and warns them to return, and when they will not speaks the ‘Prophecy of Mandos’ concerning the fate of after days.8
The Gnomes come to the narrowing of the seas, and prepare to sail. While they are encamped upon the shore Fëanor and his sons and people sail off taking with them all the boats, and leave Fingolfin on the far shore treacherously, thus beginning the Curse of Swanhaven. They burn the boats as soon as they land in the East of the world, and Fingolfin’s people see the light in the sky. The same light also tells the Orcs of the landing.
Fingolfin’s people wander miserably. Some under Fingolfin return to Valinor9 to seek the Gods’ pardon. Finweg leads the main host North, and over the Grinding Ice. Many are lost.
1 As originally written, this sentence began Finn and Fëanor summon &c. This was a mere slip, since Finn’s death has already been mentioned in the text as first written (§4), and my father later struck out Finn and. He left the plural verb summon and their banishment; this I have changed to his banishment, since it is not said of the Gnomes who accompanied Fëanor that they left Tûn under banishment (though this is not said of Finn either). The Quenta has his banishment in this passage (p. 94).
2 Added here hastily in pencil:
He claims the lordship as eldest son now Finn is dead, in spite of the Gods’ decree.
[Except for the later pencilled alteration given in note 5, all the changes noted below, mostly concerned to introduce the part of Finrod in the events, were made at the same time, in red ink. Finrod, the third son of Finn/Finwë, appears in the interpolated passage given in §3 note 2.]
3 Added here:
Fëanor and his sons take the unbreakable oath by Timbrenting and the names of Manwë and Briðil to pursue anyone, Elf, Mortal, or Orc, who holds the Silmarils.
4 Added here:
Finrod tries to calm their conflicting anger, but his sons Orodreth, Anrod, and Egnor side with the sons of Fëanor.
5 a half of the people of the Noldoli > a half of the Noldoli of Tûn (later pencilled change).
6 Added here but then struck out (see note 7):
Finrod does not go, but bids Felagoth (and his other sons) go and cherish the Gnomes of his [?house].
7 Added here:
Finrod is slain at Swanhaven in trying to stay the violence.
This was also struck out (see note 6) and a third version of Finrod’s part entered:
Finrod and his sons were not at Swanhaven. They leave Tûn reluctantly, and more than the others carry away memories of it, and even many fair things made there by hands.
8 Added here:
and the curse of war against one another because of Swanhaven.
9 This passage, from Fingolfin’s people wander, changed to read:
Finrod and his people arrive. The people of Finrod and Fingolfin wander miserably. Some under Finrod return to Valinor, &c.
In the meanwhile Manwë summons Ifan Belaurin to the council. Her magic will not avail to cure the Trees. But Silpion under her spells bears one last great silver bloom, and Laurelin one great golden fruit. The Gods fashion the Moon and Sun from these and set them to sail appointed courses from West to East, but afterwards they find it safer to send them in Ylmir’s care through the caverns and grottoes beneath the Earth, to rise in the East and come home again high in the air over the mountains of the West, to sink after each journey into the waters of the Outer Seas.
The light of Valinor is henceforth not much greater than that now scattered over the Earth, save that here the ships of Sun and Moon come nearer to Earth, and rest for a while close to Valinor. The Gods and Elves look forward to a future time when the ‘magic sun and moon’ of the Trees may be rekindled and the old beauty and bliss renewed. Ylmir foretells1 that it will only be achieved with the aid of the second race of earth. But the Gods, even Manwë, pay little heed to him. They are wroth and bitter because of the slaying at Swanhaven2 and they fortify all Valinor making the mountains impenetrable, save at Côr which the remaining Elves are commanded to guard, ceaselessly and for ever, and let no bird or beast or Elf or Man land on the shores of Faëry. The magic isles, filled with enchantment, are strung across the confines of the Shadowy Seas, before the Lonely Isle is reached sailing West, to entrap any mariners and wind them in everlasting sleep and enchantment.3 The Gods sit now behind the mountains and feast, and dismiss the rebel and fugitive Noldoli from their hearts. Ylmir alone remembers them, and gathers news of the outer world through all the lakes and rivers.
At the rising of the first Sun the younger children of earth awoke in the far East. No god came to guide them, but the messages of Ylmir little understood came at whiles to them. They meet Ilkorindi and learn speech and other things of them, and become great friends of the Eldalië. They spread through the earth, wandering West and North.
1 Ylmir foretells changed at the time of writing from Bridhil foretells
2 Added here (hastily in pencil):
and the flight and ingratitude of the Gnomes
3 Added here:
Thus the many emissaries of the Gnomes in after days never reach Valinor.
Now begins the time of the great wars of the powers of the North (Morgoth and his hosts against Men, Ilkorins, and the Gnomes from Valinor). Morgoth’s cunning and lies, and the curse of Swanhaven (as well as the oaths of the sons of Fëanor who swore the unbreakable oath by Timbrenting to treat all as foes who had the Silmarils in keeping) in these wars do the greatest injury to Men and Elves.
These stories only tell a part of the deeds of those days, especially such as relate to the Gnomes and the Silmarils, and the mortals who became entangled in their fates. In the early days Eldar and Men were of nearly equal stature and power of body, but the Eldar were blessed with greater wit, skill, and beauty; and those (the Gnomes) who had dwelt in Côr (Koreldar) as much surpassed the Ilkorins as they surpassed mortals. Only in the realm of Doriath, whose queen was of divine race, did the Ilkorins equal the Koreldar. The Elves were immortal, and free from all sickness.1 But they might be slain with weapons in those days,2 and then their spirits went back to the halls of Mandos and awaited a thousand years, or the pleasure of the Gods, before they were recalled to free life.3 Men from the first though slightly bigger were more frail, more easily slain, subject to ills, and grew old and died, if not slain. What happened to their spirits was not known to the Eldalië. They did not go to the halls of Mandos, and many thought their fate was not in the hands of the Valar after death. Though many, associating with Eldar, believed that their spirits went to the western land, this was not true. Men were not born again.4
In after days when owing to the triumph of Morgoth Men and Elves became estranged the Eldalië living in the world faded, and Men usurped the sunlight. The Eldar wandered, such as remained in the Outer Lands, took to the moonlight and starlight, the woods and caves.
1 free from all sickness > free from death by sickness (early change, made at the same time as that given in note 4).
2 Added (rough pencilled insertion): or waste away of sorrow,
3 Added at the same time as the insertion given in note 2: and they were reborn in their children, so that the number grows not.
4 This passage, from They did not go to the halls of Mandos, was struck out and replaced by the following:
They went to the halls of Mandos, but not the same as the halls of awaiting where the Elves were sent. There they too waited, but it was said that only Mandos knew whither they went after the time in his halls – they were never reborn on Earth, and none ever came back from Mandos, save only Beren son of Barahir, who thereafter spoke not to mortal Men. Their fate after death was perchance not in the hands of the Valar.
But in these days they were kindred and allies. Before the rising of the Sun and Moon Fëanor and his sons marched into the North and sought for Morgoth. A host of Orcs aroused by the burning ships resisted them and was defeated in the First Battle with such loss that Morgoth pretended to treat with them. Fëanor refused, but he was wounded in the fight by a Balrog chief (Gothmog), and died. Maidros the tall, the elder son, induced the Gnomes to meet Morgoth (with as little intent of faith on his side as on Morgoth’s). Morgoth took Maidros captive and tortured him, and hung him from a rock by his right hand. The six remaining sons of Fëanor (Maglor, Celegorm, Curufin, Damrod, Díriel, and Cranthir) are encamped about the lake Mithrim in Hisilómë (Hithlum, or Dorlómin, the land of shadows in the North-west), when they hear of the march of Finweg and his men1 who have crossed the Grinding Ice. The Sun rises as they march, their blue and silver banners are unfurled, flowers spring beneath the feet of their armies. The Orcs dismayed at the light retreat to Angband. But there is little love between the two hosts of Gnomes encamped now on opposite shores of Mithrim. Vast smokes and vapours are made and sent forth from Angband, and the smoking top of Thangorodrim (the highest of the Iron Mountains around Morgoth’s fortress) can be seen from far away. The North shakes with the thunder under the earth. Morgoth is forging armouries. Finweg resolves to heal the feud. Alone he goes in search of Maidros. Aided by the vapours, which are now floating down and filling Hithlum, and by the withdrawal of Orcs and Balrogs to Angband, he finds him, but cannot release him.
Manwë, to whom birds bring news upon Timbrenting of all things which his farsighted eyes do not see upon earth, fashions the race of eagles, and sends them under their king Thorndor to dwell in the crags of the North and watch Morgoth. The eagles dwell out of reach of Orc and Balrog, and are great foes of Morgoth and his people. Finweg meets Thorndor who bears him to Maidros. There is no releasing the enchanted bond upon his wrist. In his agony he begs to be slain, but Finweg cuts off his hand, and they are both borne away by Thorndor, and come to Mithrim. The feud is healed by the deed of Finweg (except for the oath of the Silmarils).
1 the march of Finweg and his men > the march of Fingolfin and his sons and his men and Felagoth and the sons of Finrod (This change belongs with those made in red ink in §5 and concerns the shift from Fingolfin to Finrod as the Gnomish lord who returned to Valinor, see §5 note 9.)
The Gnomes march forward and beleaguer Angband. They meet Ilkorins and Men. At that time Men already dwelt in the woods of the North, and Ilkorins also. They long warred with Morgoth.1 Of Ilkorin race was Barahir and his son Beren. Of mortal race was Húrin son of Gumlin, whose wife was Morwen;2 they lived in the woods upon the borders of Hithlum. These come after into the tales.
Morgoth sends out his armies and breaks the leaguer of Angband, and from that time the fortunes of his enemies decline.3 Gnomes and Ilkorins and Men are scattered, and Morgoth’s emissaries go among them with lying promises and false suggestions of the greed and treachery of each to each. Because of the curse of Swanhaven these often are believed by the Gnomes.
Celegorm and Curufin found the realm of Nargothrond on the banks of the Narog in the south of the Northern lands.4 Many Gnomes take service with Thingol and Melian of the Thousand Caves in Doriath. Because of the divine magic of Melian Doriath is the safest from the raids of the Orcs, and it is prophesied that only treachery from within will cause the realm to fall.
[This section was substantially interpolated and altered (all in red ink, see §5, except for the change given in note 2).]
1 Added here:
This is the time of Morgoth’s retreat, and the growth and prosperity of Men, a time of growth and birth and flowering known as the ‘Siege of Angband’.
2 This passage, from Of Ilkorin race, was emended to read:
In later times of mortal race was Barahir and his son Beren. Of mortal race also were Húrin and Huor sons of Gumlin. Húrin’s wife was Morwen, &c.
3 Here was added The men of Barahir rescue Celegorm, but this was struck out and the following insertion made:
In the Leaguer of Angband Fingolfin’s host guards the North-west on borders of Hithlum; Felagoth [> Felagund] and the sons of Finrod the South and the [?plains] of Sirion (or Broseliand); the sons of Fëanor the East. Fingolfin is slain when Morgoth breaks the leaguer. Felagoth [> Felagund] is saved by Barahir the Bold a mortal and escapes south to found Nargothrond, swearing a vow of friendship to the race of Barahir. The sons of Fëanor live a wild and nomad life in the East, warring with Dwarves and Orcs and Men. Fingolfin’s sons Finweg and Turgon still hold out in the North.
4 This sentence was changed to read:
Felagoth [> Felagund] and his brothers found the realm of Nargothrond on the banks of Narog in the south of the Northern lands. They are aided by Celegorm and Curufin who long while dwelt in Nargothrond.
The power of Morgoth begins to spread once more. One by one he overthrows Men and Elves in the North. Of these a famous chieftain of Ilkorindi1 was Barahir, who had been a friend of Celegorm of Nargothrond. Barahir is driven into hiding, his hiding betrayed, and Barahir slain; his son Beren after a life outlawed flees south, crosses the Shadowy Mountains, and after grievous hardships comes to Doriath. Of this and his other adventures are told in the Lay of Leithian. He gains the love of Tinúviel ‘the nightingale’ – his own name for Lúthien – the daughter of Thingol. To win her Thingol, in mockery, requires a Silmaril from the crown of Morgoth. Beren sets out to achieve this, is captured, and set in dungeon in Angband, but conceals his real identity and is given as a slave to Thû the hunter.2 Lúthien is imprisoned by Thingol, but escapes and goes in search of Beren. With the aid of Huan lord of dogs she rescues Beren, and gains entrance to Angband where Morgoth is enchanted and finally wrapped in slumber by her dancing. They get a Silmaril and escape, but are barred at gates of Angband by Carcaras the Wolfward. He bites off Beren’s hand which holds the Silmaril, and goes mad with the anguish of its burning within him.
They escape and after many wanderings get back to Doriath. Carcaras ravening through the woods bursts into Doriath. There follows the Wolf-hunt of Doriath, in which Carcaras is slain, and Huan is killed in defence of Beren. Beren is however mortally wounded and dies in Lúthien’s arms. Some songs say that Lúthien went even over the Grinding Ice, aided by the power of her divine mother, Melian, to Mandos’ halls and won him back; others that Mandos hearing his tale released him. Certain it is that he alone of mortals came back from Mandos and dwelt with Lúthien and never spoke to Men again, living in the woods of Doriath and in the Hunters’ Wold, west of Nargothrond.3
In the days of his outlawry Beren had been befriended by Húrin of Hithlum, son of Gumlin. In the woods of Hithlum Húrin still remains unbowed to the yoke of Morgoth.
1 a famous chieftain of Ilkorindi > a famous chieftain of Men (cf. §9 note 2).
2 This sentence, following Beren sets out to achieve this, was struck through and replaced by the following (in red ink):
(Beren sets out to achieve this,) and seeks the aid of Felagoth in Nargothrond. Felagoth warns him of the oath of the sons of Fëanor, and that even if he gets the Silmaril they will not, if they can prevent it, allow him to take it to Thingol. But faithful to his own oath he gives him aid. The kingdom is given to Orodreth, and Felagoth and Beren march North. They are overcome in battle. Felagoth and Beren and a small band escape, and creeping back despoil the dead. Disguising themselves as Orcs they get as far as the house of the Lord of Wolves. There they are discovered, and placed in prison – and devoured one by one.
Celegorm discovered what was the secret mission of Felagoth and Beren. He gathers his dogs and hunters and goes a-hunting. He finds the traces of battle. Then he finds Lúthien in the woods. She flies but is overtaken by Huan the chief of Celegorm’s dogs, who is sleepless, and she cannot enchant him. He bears her off. Celegorm offers redress.
From the second sentence Felagoth warns him of the oath … this entire passage was then struck through and See tale of Lúthien written across it; Felagoth in the surviving sentence at the beginning was changed to Felagund; and They fall in the power of the Lord of Wolves (Thû) was added.
3 Here was added, perhaps at the time of the writing of the manuscript:
(But Mandos in payment exacted that Lúthien should become mortal as Beren.)
Maidros forms now a league against Morgoth seeing that he will destroy them all, one by one, if they do not unite. The scattered Ilkorins and Men are gathered together. Curufin and Celegorm despatch a host (but not all they could gather, thus breaking their word) from Nargothrond. The Gnomes of Nargothrond refuse to be led by Finweg, and go in search of the hosts of Maidros and Maglor. Men march up from South and East and West and North. Thingol will not send from Doriath.1 Some say out of selfish policy, others because of the wisdom of Melian and of fate which decreed that Doriath should become the only refuge of the Eldar from Morgoth afterwards. Part was certainly due to the Silmaril, which Thingol now possessed, and which Maidros had demanded with haughty words. The Gnomes of Doriath are allowed2 nonetheless to join the league.
Finweg advances into the Plain of Thirst (Dor-na-Fauglith) before the Iron Mountains and defeats an Orc-army, which falls back. Pursuing he is overwhelmed by countless hordes suddenly loosed on him from the deeps of Angband, and there is fought the field of Unnumbered Tears, of which no elfin songs tell except in lamentation.
The mortal armies, whose leaders had mostly been corrupted or bribed by Morgoth, desert or flee away: all except Húrin’s kin. From that day Men and Elves have been estranged, save the descendants of Húrin. Finweg falls, his blue and silver banner is destroyed. The Gnomes attempt to fall back towards the hills and Taur-na-Fuin (forest of night). Húrin holds the rearguard, and all his men are slain, so that not a single man escapes to bring news to Hithlum. By Morgoth’s orders Húrin, whose axe had slain a thousand Orcs, is taken alive. By Húrin alone was Turgon (Finweg’s brother) son of Fingolfin enabled to cut his way back into the hills with a part of his people. The remainder of the Gnomes and Ilkorins would have been all slain or taken, but for the arrival of Maidros, Curufin and Celegorm – too late for the main battle.
They are beaten back and driven into the South-east, where they long time dwelt, and did not go back to Nargothrond. There Orodreth ruled over the remnant.3 Morgoth is utterly triumphant. His armies range all the North, and press upon the borders of Doriath and Nargothrond. The slain of his enemies are piled into a great hill upon Dor-na-Fauglith, but there the grass comes and grows green where all else is desert, and no Orc dare tread upon that hill where the Gnomish swords rust.
Húrin is taken to Angband and defies Morgoth. He is chained in torment. Afterward Morgoth offers him a high captaincy in his forces, a wealth of jewels, and freedom, if he will lead an army against Turgon. None knew whither Turgon had departed save Húrin. Húrin refused and Morgoth devised a torture. He set him upon the highest peak of Thangorodrim and cursed him with never-sleeping sight like the Gods, and he cursed his seed with a fate of ill-hap, and bade Húrin watch the working of it.
1 This passage, from Curufin and Celegorm despatch a host, was altered by hastily made changes and additions:
Curufin and Celegorm come from their wandering; but Orodreth because of Felagund his brother will not come: Thingol also sends but few of his folk. The Gnomes of Fëanor’s sons refuse to be led by Finweg, and the battle is divided into two hosts, one under Maidros and Maglor, and one under Finweg and Turgon. Men march up from South and East and West and North. Thingol sends but few from Doriath.
2 Added here: by Thingol
3 This passage was changed to read:
They are beaten back and driven into the South-east, where they long time dwelt. In Nargothrond Orodreth ruled still.
Morwen wife of Húrin was left alone in the woods. Her son Túrin was a young boy of seven, and she was with child. Only two old men Halog and Mailgond remained faithful to her. The men of Hithlum were slain, and Morgoth breaking his words had driven all men, who had not escaped (as few did) away South, into Hithlum. Now most of these were faithless men who had deserted the Eldar in the battle of Unnumbered Tears. Yet he penned them behind the Shadowy Mountains, nonetheless, and slew such as wandered forth, desiring to keep them from fellowship with Elves. But little love all the same did they show to Húrin’s wife. Wherefore it came into her heart to send Túrin to Thingol, because of Beren Húrin’s friend who had wedded Lúthien. The ‘Children of Húrin’ tells of his fate, and how Morgoth’s curse pursued him, so that all he did turned out unhappily against his will.
He grew up in Thingol’s court, but after a while as Morgoth’s power grew no news from Hithlum came and he heard no more of Morwen or of his sister Nienor whom he had not seen. Taunted by Orgof, of the kin of King Thingol, he unwitting of his growing strength killed him at the king’s table with a drinking horn. He fled the court thinking himself an outlaw, and took to war against all, Elves, Men, and Orcs, upon the borders of Doriath, gathering a wild band of hunted Men and Elves about him.
One day in his absence his men captured Beleg the bowman, who had befriended Túrin of old. Túrin released him, and is told how Thingol had forgiven his deed long ago. Beleg brings him to abandon his war against Elves, and to assuage his wrath upon the Orcs. The fame of the deeds upon the marches and the prowess of Beleg the Gnome and Túrin son of Húrin against the Orcs is brought to Thingol and to Morgoth. One only of Túrin’s band, Blodrin Ban’s son, hates the new life with little plunder and harder fighting. He betrays the secret place of Túrin to the Orcs. Their camp is surprised, Túrin is taken and dragged to Angband (for Morgoth has begun to fear he will escape his curse through his valour and the protection of Melian); Beleg is left for dead under a heap of slain. He is found by Thingol’s men come to summon them to a feast at the Thousand Caves. Melian heals him, and he sets out to track the Orcs. Beleg is the most skilled in tracking of all who have lived, but the mazes of Taur-na-Fuin bewilder him. There in despair he sees the lamp of Flinding son of Fuilin, a Gnome of Nargothrond who was captured by Orcs and had long been a thrall in the mines of Morgoth, but escaped.
Of Flinding he learns news of the Orc-band that captured Túrin. They hide and watch the host go by laden with spoil along the Orc-road through the heart of the forest, which the Orcs use when in need of haste. They dread the forest beyond the road as much as Elf or Man. Túrin is seen dragged along and whipped. The Orcs leave the forest and descend the slopes toward Dor-na-Fauglith, and encamp in a dale in sight of Thangorodrim. Beleg shoots the wolf-sentinels and steals with Flinding into the camp. With the greatest difficulty and direst peril they carry the senseless Túrin away and lay him in a dell of thick thorn-trees. In striking off his bonds Beleg pricks Túrin’s foot; he is roused, and demented thinks the Orcs are tormenting him, he leaps on Beleg and kills him with his own sword. The covering of Flinding’s lamp falls off and seeing Beleg’s face he is turned to stone. The Orcs roused by his cries as he leaped upon Beleg discover his escape but are driven far and wide by a dreadful storm of thunder and deluge. In the morning Flinding sees them marching over the steaming waste of Dor-na-Fauglith. Beleg is buried with his bow in the dell.
Flinding leads the dazed unwitting Túrin towards safety. His wits return by Ivrin’s lake where are the sources of Narog, and he weeps a great while, and makes a song for Beleg, the ‘Bowman’s Friendship’, which afterwards became a battle-song of the enemies of Morgoth.
Flinding leads Túrin to Nargothrond. There Túrin gains the love and loves against his will Finduilas daughter of Orodreth, who had been betrothed before his captivity to Flinding. He fights against his love out of loyalty to Flinding, but Flinding seeing that Finduilas loves Túrin becomes embittered.
Túrin leads the Gnomes of Nargothrond to forsake their secrecy and hidden warfare, and fights the Orcs more openly.1 He has Beleg’s sword forged anew, into a black blade with shining edges, and he is from this given the name of ‘Mormakil’ or black-sword. The fame of Mormakil reaches even to Thingol. Túrin adopts the name instead of ‘Túrin’. For a long while Túrin and the Gnomes of Narog are victorious and their realm reaches to the sources of Narog, and from the western sea to the confines of Doriath. There is a stay in the might of Morgoth.
Morwen and Nienor are able to journey to Thingol leaving their goods in the care of Brodda who had wedded a kinswoman of Morwen. They learn at Thingol’s court of the loss of Túrin. News comes to them of the fall of Nargothrond. Morgoth had suddenly loosed a great army on them, and with them one of the first and mightiest2 of those Dragons that bred in his deep places and for a long while troubled the Northern lands of Men and Elves.3
The host of Narog is overwhelmed. Flinding wounded refuses Túrin’s succour and dies reproaching him. Túrin hastes back to Nargothrond but the Dragon and Orcs come thither before he can put it in defence, and all the fair halls beneath the earth are plundered, and all the women and maidens of Narog herded as slaves in captivity. Túrin seeks to slay the Dragon, but is held immovable by the spell of his eyes, while the Dragon Glórung4 taunts him. Glórung then offers him freedom either to follow seeking to rescue his ‘stolen love’ Finduilas, or to do his duty and go to the rescue of his mother and sister who are living (as he lying says) in great misery in Hithlum. Túrin forsakes Finduilas against his heart (which if he had obeyed his uttermost fate would not have befallen him) and believing the serpent goes to seek Hithlum. Glórung lies in the caves of Narog and gathers beneath him all the gold and silver and gems there hoarded.
Túrin after long wandering goes to Hithlum. But Morwen and Nienor are in Thingol’s court, when survivors tell of the fall of Nargothrond, and of Túrin, and some say Túrin escaped alive, and some say he was turned to stone by the eyes of the serpent and lived still in bondage in Nargothrond. Morwen and Nienor at last get Thingol to give them men to go against Glórung, or to spy out his lair at least.
Túrin slays Brodda in his hall, in his anger when he finds Morwen’s hall and lands empty and despoiled. Repenting his deed he flies from Hithlum again, and seeks no more after his kin. Desiring to forget his past he takes the name of Turambar (Turmarth) ‘Conqueror of Fate’, and gathers a new people, ‘Men of the Woods’, east of Narog, whom he rules, and lives in peace.
The expedition of Thingol, with whom ride Morwen and Nienor, views Narog from a hill-top. The Elves ride down towards the lair,5 but Glórung coming out lies into the stream and a huge hissing and great vapour goes up, so that their horses turn and fly. Morwen’s horse and Nienor’s are also panic-stricken and gallop wildly in the mist. When the mist clears Nienor finds herself face to face with the Dragon, whose eye holds her, and a spell of darkness and utter forgetfulness comes upon her. She wanders witless in the woods. At last her senses return but she remembers little.6 Orcs see her and chase her, but are driven off by a band of ‘Woodmen’ under Turambar, who lead her to their pleasant homes.
As they pass the falls of Silver Bowl a shivering touches her. She lives amid the woodfolk and is loved by Tamar the Lame, but at last weds Turambar, who calls her Níniel ‘the Tearful’ since he first found her weeping.
Glórung begins to raid across Narog, and Orcs gather to him. The woodmen slay many of them, and Glórung hearing of their dwelling comes crawling and filled with fire over Narog and through the woods against them. He leaves a blasted track behind him. Turambar ponders how the horror can be warded from his land. He marches with his men, and Níniel foreboding evil rides with him,7 till they can see the burning track of Glórung, and the smoking place where he lies. Between them runs a stream in a deep-cloven ravine after falling over the high falls of Silver Bowl. Turambar asks for volunteers and obtains six only to lie in the ravine over which the Dragon must pass. The seven depart. They climb the far side of the ravine at evening and cling near its edge in the trees. The next morning all have slunk away and Turambar is alone.
Glórung creeps over. Turambar transfixes him with Gurtholfin8 ‘Wand of Death’, his black sword. Glórung coils back in anguish and lies dying. Turambar comes forth to retrieve his sword, and places his foot upon Glórung and exults. But the venom of Glórung gushes out as he tugs out his sword, and he falls in a swoon. The watchers see that Glórung is slain, but Túrin does not return. Níniel goes in search of him and finds him lying beside Glórung. As she is tending him, Glórung opens his eyes and speaks, and tells her who Turambar is, and lifts his spell from off her. Then she knows who she is, and knows his tale true from things Turambar has told her. Filled with horror and anguish she flies and casts herself over Silver Bowl and none ever found her body again. Tamar followed her and heard her lament.
Túrin comes back in triumph. He asks for Níniel, but none dare tell him. Then Tamar comes and tells him. Túrin slays him, and taking Gurtholfin bids it slay him. The sword answers that his blood is sweet as any other’s, and pierces him to the heart. Túrin is buried beside Silver Bowl, and his name carved in characters of Nargothrond upon a rock. Beneath is written Níniel.
Some say Morwen released from spell by Glórung’s death came that way and read the stone.
1 Added here: At his advice Narog is bridged (cf. note 5).
2 one of the first and mightiest > that first and mightiest
3 Added here: even Glómund, who was at the Battle of Tears (see note 4).
4 Glórung > Glómund here and subsequently, except at the last occurrence.
5 towards the lair > towards the bridge leading to the lair (cf. note 1).
6 she remembers little > she remembers not even her name.
7 Added here: though she is with child,
8 Gurtholfin > Gurtholfir at both occurrences.
Húrin was released by Morgoth after the end of Túrin and Nienor, for Morgoth thought still to use him. He accused Thingol’s faint heart and ungentleness of Túrin’s unhappiness, and Húrin wandering bowed with grief pondered his words and was embittered by them.
Húrin and outlaws come to Nargothrond, whom none dare plunder for dread of the spirit of Glórung1 or even of his memory. They slay Mîm the Dwarf who had taken possession and enchanted all the gold. Húrin casts the gold at Thingol’s feet with reproaches. Thingol will not have it, and bears with Húrin, until goaded too far he bids him begone. Húrin wanders away and seeks Morwen, and many for ages after related that they met them together in the woods lamenting their children.
The enchanted gold lays its spell on Thingol. He summons the Dwarves of Nogrod and Belegost to come and fashion it into beautiful things, and to make a necklace of great wonder whereon the Silmaril shall hang. The Dwarves plot treachery, and Thingol bitter with the curse of the gold denies them their reward. After their smithying they are driven away without payment. The Dwarves come back; aided by treachery of some Gnomes who also were bitten by the lust of the gold, they surprise Thingol on a hunt, slay him, and surprise the Thousand Caves and plunder them. Melian they cannot touch. She goes away to seek Beren and Lúthien.
The Dwarves are ambushed at a ford by Beren and the brown and green Elves of the wood, and their king slain, from whose neck Beren takes the ‘Nauglafring’2 or necklace of the Dwarves, with its Silmaril. It is said that Lúthien wearing that jewel is the most beautiful thing that eyes have ever seen outside Valinor. But Melian warned Beren of the curse of the gold and of the Silmaril. The rest of the gold is drowned in the river.
But the ‘Nauglafring’3 remains hoarded secretly in Beren’s keeping. When Mandos let Beren return with Lúthien, it was only at the price that Lúthien should become as shortlived as Beren the mortal. Lúthien now fades, even as the Elves in later days faded as Men grew strong and took the goodness of earth (for the Elves needed the light of the Trees). At last she vanished, and Beren was lost, looking in vain for her, and his son Dior ruled after him. Dior re-established Doriath and grew proud, and wore the ‘Nauglafring’, and the fame of the Silmaril went abroad. After vain bargaining the sons of Fëanor made war on him (the second slaying of Elf by Elf) and destroyed him, and took the ‘Nauglafring’. They quarrelled over it, owing to the curse of the gold, until only Maglor was left. But Elwing daughter of Dior was saved and carried away to the mouth of the river Sirion.4
1 The name Glórung is not here emended, as in §13, to Glómund, but a d is written over the g, sc. Glórund (the earliest form of the name of the Dragon).
2 At the first occurrence only of Nauglafring, th is pencilled above, i.e. Nauglathring or Nauglathfring.
3 Above Nauglafring here my father wrote Dweorgmene [Old English, ‘Dwarf-necklace’]; this was struck out, and Glingna Nauglir substituted.
4 The conclusion of this section was changed very soon after it was written, since in §17 already as first written the Nauglafring is with Elwing at the mouth of Sirion:
After vain bargaining the sons of Fëanor made war on him (the second slaying of Elf by Elf) and destroyed him. But Elwing daughter of Dior, Beren’s son, escaped, and was carried away by faithful servants to the mouth of the river Sirion. With her went the Nauglafring.
The great river Sirion flowed through the lands South-west; at its mouth was a great delta, and its lower course ran through wide green and fertile lands, little peopled save by birds and beasts because of the Orc-raids; but they were not inhabited by Orcs, who preferred the northern woods, and feared the power of Ylmir – for Sirion’s mouth was in the Western Seas.
Turgon Fingolfin’s son had a sister Isfin. She was lost in Taur-na-Fuin after the Battle of Unnumbered Tears. There she was trapped by the Dark Elf Eöl. Their son was Meglin. The people of Turgon escaping aided by the prowess of Húrin were lost from the knowledge of Morgoth, and indeed of all in the world save Ylmir. In a secret place in the hills their scouts climbing to the tops discovered a broad valley entirely encircled by the hills in rings ever lower as they came towards the centre. Amid this ring was a wide land without hills, except for one rocky hill that stuck up from the plain, not right at the centre, but nearest to that part of the outer wall which marched close to the edge of Sirion.1
Ylmir’s messages come up Sirion bidding them take refuge in this valley, and teaching them spells of enchantment to place upon all the hills about, to keep off foes and spies. He foretells that their fortress shall stand longest of all the refuges of the Elves against Morgoth, and like Doriath never be overthrown – save by treachery from within. The spells are strongest near to Sirion, although here the encircling mountains are lowest. Here the Gnomes dig a mighty winding tunnel under the roots of the mountains, that issues at last in the Guarded Plain. Its outer entrance is guarded by the spells of Ylmir; its inner is watched unceasingly by the Gnomes. It is set there in case those within ever need to escape, and as a way of more rapid exit from the valley for scouts, wanderers, and messages, and also as an entrance for fugitives escaping from Morgoth.
Thorndor King of Eagles removes his eyries to the Northern heights of the encircling mountains and guards them against Orc-spies.2 On the rocky hill, Amon Gwareth, the hill of watching, whose sides they polish to the smoothness of glass, and whose top they level, the great city of Gondolin with gates of steel is built. The plain all about is levelled as flat and smooth as a lawn of clipped grass to the feet of the hills, so that nothing can creep over it unawares. The people of Gondolin grows mighty, and their armouries are filled with weapons. But Turgon does not march to the aid of Nargothrond, or Doriath, and after the slaying of Dior he has no more to do with the son of Fëanor (Maglor).3 Finally he closes the vale to all fugitives, and forbids the folk of Gondolin to leave the valley. Gondolin is the only stronghold of the Elves left. Morgoth has not forgotten Turgon, but his search is in vain. Nargothrond is destroyed; Doriath desolate; Húrin’s children dead; and only scattered and fugitive Elves, Gnomes and Ilkorins, left, except such as work in the smithies and mines in great numbers. His triumph is nearly complete.
1 Added here roughly in pencil: The hill nearest to Angband was guarded by Fingolfin’s cairn (cf. note 2).
2 Added here at the same time as the addition given in note 1: sitting upon Fingolfin’s cairn.
3 the son of Fëanor (Maglor) > the sons of Fëanor (this goes with the change at the end of §14, note 4).
Meglin son of Eöl and Isfin sister of Turgon was sent by his mother to Gondolin, and there received,1 although half of Ilkorin blood, and treated as a prince.
Húrin of Hithlum had a brother Huor. The son of Huor was Tuor, younger than Túrin2 son of Húrin. Rían, Huor’s wife, sought her husband’s body among the slain on the field of Unnumbered Tears, and died there. Her son remaining in Hithlum fell into the hands of the faithless men whom Morgoth drove into Hithlum after that battle, and he was made a thrall. Growing wild and rough he fled into the woods, and became an outlaw, and a solitary, living alone and communing with none save rarely with wandering and hidden Elves. On a time Ylmir contrived that he should be led to a subterranean river-course leading out of Mithrim into a chasmed river that flowed at last into the Western Sea. In this way his going was unmarked by Man, Orc, or spy, and unknown of Morgoth. After long wanderings down the western shores he came to the mouths of Sirion, and there fell in with the Gnome Bronweg, who had once been in Gondolin. They journey secretly up Sirion together. Tuor lingers long in the sweet land Nan Tathrin ‘Valley of Willows’; but there Ylmir himself comes up the river to visit him, and tells him of his mission. He is to bid Turgon prepare for battle against Morgoth; for Ylmir will turn the hearts of the Valar to forgive the Gnomes and send them succour. If Turgon will do this, the battle will be terrible, but the race of Orcs will perish and will not in after ages trouble Elves and Men. If not, the people of Gondolin are to prepare for flight to Sirion’s mouth, where Ylmir will aid them to build a fleet and guide them back to Valinor. If Turgon does Ylmir’s will Tuor is to abide a while in Gondolin and then go back to Hithlum with a force of Gnomes and draw Men once more into alliance with the Elves, for ‘without Men the Elves shall not prevail against the Orcs and Balrogs’. This Ylmir does because he knows that ere seven3 full years are passed the doom of Gondolin will come through Meglin.4
Tuor and Bronweg reach the secret way,5 and come out upon the guarded plain. Taken captive by the watch they are led before Turgon. Turgon is grown old6 and very mighty and proud, and Gondolin so fair and beautiful, and its people so proud of it and confident in its secret and impregnable strength, that the king and most of the people do not wish to trouble about the Gnomes and Elves without, or care for Men, nor do they long any more for Valinor. Meglin approving, the king rejects Tuor’s message in spite of the words of Idril the far-sighted (also called Idril Silver-foot, because she loved to walk barefoot) his daughter, and the wiser of his counsellors. Tuor lives on in Gondolin, and becomes a great chieftain. After three years he weds Idril – Tuor and Beren alone of all mortals ever wedded Elves, and since Elwing daughter of Dior Beren’s son wedded Eärendel son of Tuor and Idril of them alone has come the strain of Elfinesse into mortal blood.
Not long after this Meglin going far afield over the mountains is taken by Orcs, and purchases his life when taken to Angband by revealing Gondolin and its secrets. Morgoth promises him the lordship of Gondolin, and possession of Idril. Lust for Idril led him the easier to his treachery, and added to his hatred of Tuor.
Morgoth sends him back to Gondolin. Eärendel is born, having the beauty and light and wisdom of Elfinesse, the hardihood and strength of Men, and the longing for the sea which captured Tuor and held him for ever when Ylmir spoke to him in the Land of Willows.
At last Morgoth is ready, and the attack is made on Gondolin with dragons, Balrogs, and Orcs. After a dreadful fight about the walls the city is stormed, and Turgon perishes with many of the most noble in the last fight in the great square. Tuor rescues Idril and Eärendel from Meglin, and hurls him from the battlements. He then leads the remnant of the people of Gondolin down a secret tunnel previously made by Idril’s advice which comes out far in the North of the plain. Those who would not come with him but fled to the old way of escape are caught by the dragon sent by Morgoth to watch that exit.
In the fume of the burning Tuor leads his company into the mountains into the cold pass of Cristhorn (Eagles’ Cleft). There they are ambushed, but saved by the valour of Glorfindel (chief of the house of the Golden Flower of Gondolin, who dies in a duel with a Balrog upon a pinnacle) and the intervention of Thorndor. The remnant reaches Sirion and journeys to the land at its mouth – the Waters of Sirion. Morgoth’s triumph is now complete.
[All the changes in this section except that given in note 3 were late alterations made roughly and hastily.]
1 Added against this sentence: last of the fugitives from without
2 younger than Túrin > cousin of Túrin
3 seven early changed to twelve
4 Added here: if they sit still in their halls.
5 Added here: which they find by the grace of Ylmir
6 The word old circled for removal.
To Sirion’s mouth Elwing daughter of Dior comes, and is received by the survivors of Gondolin.1 These become a seafaring folk, building many boats and living far out on the delta, whither the Orcs dare not come.
Ylmir reproaches the Valar, and bids them rescue the remnants of the Noldoli and the Silmarils in which alone now lives the light of the old days of bliss when the Trees were shining.
The sons of the Valar led by Fionwë Tulcas’ son lead forth a host, in which all the Qendi march, but remembering Swanhaven few of the Teleri go with them. Côr is deserted.
Tuor growing old2 cannot forbear the call of the sea, and builds Eärámë and sails West with Idril and is heard of no more. Eärendel weds Elwing. The call of the sea is born also in him. He builds Wingelot and wishes to sail in search of his father. Ylmir bids him to sail to Valinor.3 Here follow the marvellous adventures of Wingelot in the seas and isles, and of how Eärendel slew Ungoliant in the South. He returned home and found the Waters of Sirion desolate. The sons of Fëanor learning of the dwelling of Elwing and the Nauglafring had come down on the people of Gondolin. In a battle all the sons of Fëanor save Maidros4 were slain, but the last folk of Gondolin destroyed or forced to go away and join the people of Maidros.5 Elwing cast the Nauglafring into the sea and leapt after it,6 but was changed into a white sea-bird by Ylmir, and flew to seek Eärendel, seeking about all the shores of the world.
Their son (Elrond) who is half-mortal and half-elfin,7 a child, was saved however by Maidros. When later the Elves return to the West, bound by his mortal half he elects to stay on earth. Through him the blood of Húrin8 (his great-uncle) and of the Elves is yet among Men, and is seen yet in valour and in beauty and in poetry.
Eärendel learning of these things from Bronweg, who dwelt in a hut, a solitary, at the mouth of Sirion, is overcome with sorrow. With Bronweg he sets sail in Wingelot once more in search of Elwing and of Valinor.
He comes to the magic isles, and to the Lonely Isle, and at last to the Bay of Faërie. He climbs the hill of Côr, and walks in the deserted ways of Tûn, and his raiment becomes encrusted with the dust of diamonds and of jewels. He dares not go further into Valinor. He builds a tower on an isle in the northern seas, to which all the seabirds of the world repair. He sails by the aid of their wings even over the airs in search of Elwing, but is scorched by the Sun, and hunted from the sky by the Moon, and for a long while he wanders the sky as a fugitive star.9
[In this section again most of the changes (not those in notes 2 and 4) were hastily made in pencil.]
1 This sentence was changed to read:
At Sirion’s mouth Elwing daughter of Dior dwelt, and received the survivors of Gondolin.
2 growing old struck out.
3 Ylmir bids him to sail to Valinor struck out.
4 Maidros > Maidros and Maglor
5 Written in the margin: Maglor sat and sang by the sea in repentance.
6 My father first wrote Elwing cast herself into the sea with the Nauglafring, but changed it to Elwing cast the Nauglafring into the sea and leapt after it in the act of writing.
7 This sentence was changed to read:
Their son (Elrond) who is part mortal and part elfin and part of the race of Valar,
8 Húrin struck out, and Huor and of Beren written above, together with some illegible words. One might expect Through him the blood of Huor and of Beren his great-grandfathers, but the illegible words do not seem to be these. (Húrin was in fact Elrond’s great-great-uncle.)
9 The last sentence (He sails by the aid of their wings …) is an addition, but I think an addition made at the time of writing.
The march of Fionwë into the North is then told, and of the Terrible or Last Battle. The Balrogs are all destroyed, and the Orcs destroyed or scattered. Morgoth himself makes a last sally with all his dragons; but they are destroyed, all save two which escape, by the sons of the Valar, and Morgoth is overthrown and bound1 and his iron crown is made into a collar for his neck. The two Silmarils are rescued. The Northern and Western parts of the world are rent and broken in the struggle.2
The Gods and Elves release Men from Hithlum, and march through the lands summoning the remnants of the Gnomes and Ilkorins to join them. All do so except the people of Maidros. Maidros aided by many men3 prepares to perform his oath, though now at last weighed down by sorrow because of it. He sends to Fionwë reminding him of the oath and begging for the Silmarils. Fionwë replies that he has lost his right to them because of the evil deeds of Fëanor, and of the slaying of Dior, and of the plundering of Sirion. He must submit, and come back to Valinor; in Valinor only and at the judgement of the Gods shall they be handed over.
Maidros and Maglor4 submit. The Elves set sail from Lúthien (Britain or England) for Valinor.5 Thence they ever still from time [to time] set sail leaving the world ere they fade.
On the last march Maglor says to Maidros that there are two sons of Fëanor now left, and two Silmarils; one is his. He steals it, and flies, but it burns him so that he knows he no longer has a right to it. He wanders in pain over the earth, and casts himself into a pit.6 One Silmaril is now in the sea, and one in the earth.7
The Gnomes and many of the Ilkorins and Teleri and Qendi repeople the Lonely Isle. Some go back to live upon the shores of Faëry and in Valinor, but Côr and Tûn remain desolate.
1 Added here: by the chain Angainor
2 Added here: and the fashion of their lands altered (late pencilled addition).
3 aided by many men struck out.
4 and Maglor circled in pencil.
5 This sentence was changed to read:
The Elves march to the Western shore, and begin to set sail from Leithien (Britain or England) for Valinor.
6 casts himself into a pit > casts it into a fiery pit.
7 Added here: Maglor sings now ever in sorrow by the sea.
The judgement of the Gods takes place. The earth is to be for Men, and the Elves who do not set sail for the Lonely Isle or Valinor shall slowly fade and fail. For a while the last dragons and Orcs shall grieve the earth, but in the end all shall perish by the valour of Men.
Morgoth is thrust through the Door of Night into the outer dark beyond the Walls of the World, and a guard set for ever on that Door. The lies that he sowed in the hearts of Men and Elves do not die and cannot all be slain by the Gods, but live on and bring much evil even to this day. Some say also that secretly Morgoth or his black shadow and spirit in spite of the Valar creeps back over the Walls of the World in the North and East and visits the world, others that this is Thû his great chief who escaped the Last Battle and dwells still in dark places, and perverts Men to his dreadful worship. When the world is much older, and the Gods weary, Morgoth will come back through the Door, and the last battle of all will be fought. Fionwë will fight Morgoth on the plain of Valinor, and the spirit of Túrin shall be beside him; it shall be Túrin who with his black sword will slay Morgoth, and thus the children of Húrin shall be avenged.
In those days the Silmarils shall be recovered from sea and earth and air, and Maidros shall break them and Belaurin1 with their fire rekindle the Two Trees, and the great light shall come forth again, and the Mountains of Valinor shall be levelled so that it goes out over the world, and Gods and Elves and Men2 shall grow young again, and all their dead awake.3
And thus it was that the last Silmaril came into the air. The Gods adjudged the last Silmaril to Eärendel – ‘until many things shall come to pass’ – because of the deeds of the sons of Fëanor. Maidros is sent to Eärendel and with the aid of the Silmaril Elwing is found and restored. Eärendel’s boat is drawn over Valinor to the Outer Seas, and Eärendel launches it into the outer darkness high above Sun and Moon. There he sails with the Silmaril upon his brow and Elwing at his side, the brightest of all stars, keeping watch upon Morgoth.4 So he shall sail until he sees the last battle gathering upon the plains of Valinor. Then he will descend.
And this is the last end of the tales of the days before the days, in the Northern regions of the Western World. These tales are some of those remembered and sung by the fading Elves, and most by the vanished Elves of the Lonely Isle. They have been told by Elves to Men of the race of Eärendel, and most to Eriol who alone of mortals of later days sailed to the Lonely Isle, and yet came back to Lúthien,5 and remembered things he had heard in Cortirion, the town of the Elves in Tol Eressëa.
1 Against Belaurin was written Palúrien (cf. §1 note 1).
2 and Men struck out.
3 Added here:
But of Men in that last Day the prophecy speaks not, save of Túrin only.
4 Added here: and the Door of Night (late pencilled addition).
5 Lúthien > Leithien (cf. §18 note 5).
Commentary on the ‘Sketch of the Mythology’
While the ‘Sketch’ is a good and clear manuscript, as it had to be (since it was to be read by R. W. Reynolds), it will be apparent that my father composed it extremely rapidly: I think it quite possible and even probable that he wrote it without consulting the earlier prose tales.
Very great advances have been made towards the form of the story as it appears in the published work; but there is no trace of a prose narrative even in fragmentary or note form that bridges the gap between the Lost Tales and this synopsis in the ‘Valinórean’ part of the mythology (i.e. to the flight of the Noldoli and the making of the Sun and Moon). This is not to say, of course, that none such ever existed, though the fact that my father did undoubtedly preserve a very high proportion of all that he ever wrote leads me to doubt it. I think it far more likely that while working on other things (during his time at Leeds) he had developed his ideas, especially on the ‘Valinórean’ part, without setting them to paper; and since the prose Tales had been set aside a good many years before, it may be that certain narrative shifts found in the ‘Sketch’ were less fully intended, less conscious, than such shifts in the later development of ‘The Silmarillion’, where he always worked on the basis of existing writings.
It is in any case often extremely difficult, or impossible, to judge whether features in the Tales that are not present in the ‘Sketch’ were omitted simply for the sake of compression, or whether they had been definitively abandoned. Thus while Eriol – not Ælfwine, see II. 300 – is mentioned at the end, and his coming to Kortirion in Tol Eressëa, there is no trace of the Cottage of Lost Play: the entire narrative framework of the Lost Tales has disappeared. But this does not by any means demonstrate that my father had actually rejected it at this time.
The Commentary that follows is divided according to the 19 sections into which I have divided the narrative.
The ‘Sketch of the Mythology’ is referred to throughout the rest of this book by the abbreviation ‘S’.
S (the ‘Sketch’), which makes no reference to the Creation and the Music of the Ainur, begins with the coming of the Nine Valar ‘for the governance of the world’: the Nine Valar have been referred to in the alliterative poem The Flight of the Noldoli (see III. 133, 137). There now appears the isle (later called Almaren) on which the Gods dwelt after the making of the Lamps, the origin of which is probably to be seen in the tale of The Coming of the Valar I. 69–70, where it is said that when the Lamps fell the Valar were gathered on the Twilit Isles, and that ‘that island whereon stood the Valar’ was dragged westward by Ossë. It might seem that the story of Melko’s making the pillars of the Lamps out of ice that melted had been abandoned, but it reappears again later, in the Ambarkanta (p. 238).
The use of the word ‘plant’ of the Two Trees is curious, and might be dismissed simply as a hasty expression if it did not appear in the following version of ‘The Silmarillion’, the Quenta (p. 80). In the old tale, as in the published work, the Trees rose from the ground under the chanted spells of Yavanna. The silver undersides of the leaves of the White Tree now appear, and its flowers are likened to those of a cherry: Silpion is translated ‘Cherry-moon’ in the Name-list to The Fall of Gondolin (II. 215). The mention of the White Tree first may imply that it had now become the Elder Tree, as it is explicitly in the Quenta.
As S was first written the Trees had periods of twelve hours, as in the Lost Tales (see I. 88 and footnote), but with emendation from ‘six’ to ‘seven’ (allowing for the time of ‘mingled light’) the period becomes fourteen hours. This was a movement towards the formulation in The Silmarillion (p. 38), where each Tree ‘waxed to full and waned again to naught’ in seven hours; but in The Silmarillion ‘each day of the Valar in Aman contained twelve hours’, whereas in S each day was double that length.
The Gnomish name of Varda, Bridhil, occurs in the alliterative Flight of the Noldoli (changed to Bredhil), the Lay of Leithian, and the early Gnomish dictionary (I. 273, entry Varda). On Timbrenting, Tindbrenting see III. 127, 139; Tengwethil (varying with Taingwethil) is found in the Lay of the Children of Húrin. For Ifan Belaurin see I. 273, entry Yavanna; in the Gnomish dictionary the Gnomish form is Ifon, Ivon.
The description in S of the ‘Outer Lands’ (now used of the Great Lands, see III. 224), where growth was checked at the downfall of the Lamps, but where there are forests of dark trees in which Oromë goes hunting at times, moves the narrative at this point in one step to its structure in The Silmarillion; of the very different account in the Lost Tales I noticed in my commentary on The Chaining of Melko (I. 111): ‘In this earliest narrative there is no mention of the beginning of growth during the time when the Lamps shone, and the first trees and low plants appeared under Yavanna’s spells in the twilight after their overthrow.’
Whereas in the Lost Tales the star-making of Varda took place after the awakening of the Elves (I. 113), here they awake ‘at the making of the stars’.
In commenting on the Lost Tales I noticed (I. 111, 131) that the Gods sought out Melko on account of his renewed cosmic violence, before the awakening of the Elves and without respect to them in any way; and that the release of Melko from Mandos took place before the coming of the Eldar to Valinor, so that he played a part in the debate concerning their summons. In S the later story (that the discovery of the Elves led directly to the assault of the Valar on the fortress of Morgoth) is already present, and moreover a motive is ascribed to the intervention of the Valar that is not found in The Silmarillion: they are ‘reminded of their duty to the Earth, since they came thither knowing that their office was to govern it for the two races of Earth who should after come each in appointed time’. It seems clear also that the old story of the coming of the Elves being known to Manwë independently of their discovery by Oromë (see I. 131) had been abandoned.
In the Lost Tales Melko’s first fortress was Utumna, and though it was not wholly destroyed to its foundations (I. 104) after his escape back into the Great Lands he was ‘busy making himself new dwellings’, as Sorontur told Manwë, for ‘never more will Utumna open unto him’ (I. 176). This second fortress was Angband (Angamandi). In S, on the other hand, the first fortress is Angband, and after his escape Morgoth is able to return to it (§4), for it was too strong for the Gods to destroy (§2). The name Utumna (Utumno) has thus disappeared.
In the passage describing the three hosts of the Elves on the great march from Cuiviénen (which occurs, by emendation, in the Lay of the Children of Húrin, III. 18, 23) there appears the later use of Teleri for the third kindred (who however still retain the old name Solosimpi, the Shoreland Pipers), while the first kindred (the Teleri of the Lost Tales) now acquire the name Quendi (subsequently spelt in S both Quendi and Qendi). Thus:
| Lost Tales | ‘Sketch’ | The Silmarillion |
| Teleri | Q(u)endi | Vanyar |
| Noldoli | Noldoli | Noldor |
| Solosimpi | Teleri, Solosimpi | Teleri |
The formulation at the time of the Lost Tales (see I. 235) was that Qendi was the original name of all the Elves, and Eldar the name given by the Gods and adopted by the Elves of Valinor; those who remained in the Great Lands (Ilkorins) preserved the old name, Qendi. There also appear now the terms ‘Light-elves’, ‘Deep-elves’, and ‘Sea-elves’ (as in The Hobbit, chapter 8); the meaning of ‘the Elves proper’, applied to the first kindred, is clear from the Quenta (p. 85): ‘the Quendi … who sometimes are alone called Elves.’
Inwë of the Lost Tales now becomes Ingwë, with the Gnomish equivalent Ing which appears in the alliterative poems, as does Gnomish Finn (in The Flight of the Noldoli). Elwë (Elu) is in the rôle of the later Olwë, leader of the third kindred after the loss of Thingol. In the Tale of Tinúviel Tinwelint (Thingol) was indeed originally called Tinto Ellu or Ellu, but in the tales of The Coming of the Elves and The Theft of Melko, by later changes, Ellu becomes the name of the second lord of the Solosimpi chosen in Tinwelint’s place; see II. 50.
Notably absent from the account in S are the initial coming of the three Elvish ambassadors to Valinor, and the Elves who did not leave the Waters of Awakening, referred to in Gilfanon’s Tale (I. 231): the Ilkorins are here defined as those who were lost on the great march into the West. On these omissions see the commentary on §2 in the Quenta, p. 168.
Other omissions in S are the two starmakings of Varda (see p. 168) and the chain Angainor with which Morgoth was bound (see S §18 note 1).
In the tale of The Coming of the Elves the island on which the Gods were drawn to the western lands at the time of the fall of the Lamps was the island on which the Elves were afterwards ferried, becoming Tol Eressëa (see I. 118, 134); now, the isle on which the Gods dwelt (see the commentary on §1) is again the isle of the Elves’ ferrying. But in The Silmarillion there is no connection between the Isle of Almaren and Tol Eressëa.
In the story of the ferrying features of the final narrative emerge in S: the first two kindreds to arrive at the shores of the sea are ferried together on this island, not separately as in the tale; and the love of the sea among the Teleri (Solosimpi) began during their waiting for Ulmo’s return. On the other hand the old story of Ossë’s rebellious anchoring of Tol Eressëa still survives (see I. 134); but the position of the island after its anchoring has now shifted westwards, to the Bay of Faërie, ‘whence the Mountains of Valinor could dimly be seen’: contrast the account in the tale, where Ulmo had traversed ‘less than half the distance’ across the Great Sea when Ossë waylaid it, and where ‘no land may be seen for many leagues’ sail from its cliffs’ (see I. 120–1, and my discussion of this change, 1. 134). In the tale, Ossë seized and anchored Tol Eressëa before its journey was done because he ‘deemed himself slighted that his aid was not sought in the ferrying of the Elves, but his own island taken unasked’ (I. 119); in S his jealousy is indeed mentioned, but also his love of the singing of the Teleri, which was afterwards a prominent motive. Ossë’s making of the seabirds for the Teleri (Solosimpi) was retained, though afterwards lost.
In the tale the gap in the Mountains of Valinor was not made by the Valar for the sake of the Elves, nor was the hill of Kôr raised for them: they had existed since distant days, when ‘in the trouble of the ancient seas a shadowy arm of water had groped in toward Valinor’ (I. 122). In the passage in S can be seen the origin of that in The Silmarillion (p. 59). Here in S Côr is the hill and Tûn is the city built upon it (though in §2 there is a reference to Elves dwelling ‘in Côr’); see III. 93.
On the ‘invention’ of gems by the Noldoli see I. 138. The especial love of Mandos ‘the wise’ for the Noldoli is found neither in the Lost Tales nor in The Silmarillion, and may seem an improbable attribute of that Vala: cf. The Coming of the Elves, I. 117: ‘Mandos and Fui were cold to the Eldar as to all else.’
The passage concerning the Noldorin princes, added to the text of S (though probably after no great interval), is the origin of the passage in The Silmarillion (p. 60) which begins in the same way: ‘The Noldor afterwards came back to Middle-earth, and this tale tells mostly of their deeds …’ For the details of names and relations in this passage see the Note at the end of this section of the commentary.
The story of the coming of the Teleri (Solosimpi) to Valinor from Tol Eressëa comes in S, in essentials, almost to the form in The Silmarillion (p. 61); for the very different account in the tale see I. 124–6. In S, however, it was Ylmir (Ulmo) not Ossë who taught them the craft of shipbuilding, and this of course reflects the difference still underlying: for here Ylmir was still, as in the tale, eager for the coming of the Third Kindred to Valinor, whereas in The Silmarillion he had himself bidden Ossë make fast the island to the sea-bottom, and afterwards only ‘submitted to the will of the Valar’. – The name Ylmir – almost certainly the Gnomish form – appears in the Lay of the Children of Húrin, see III. 93; but the form Óin for Uinen is not found elsewhere.
Note on the Noldorin princes
Fingolfin as the son of Finwë (Finn) and father of Turgon emerges first in the Lay of the Fall of Gondolin (III. 146–7), and is present in the second version of the Lay of the Children of Húrin (only by emendation in the first) (III. 137). That Fëanor was Fingolfin’s brother is deducible from the alliterative Flight of the Noldoli (ibid.), but from S, as originally written in this section, it is seen that Fëanor was at first the second, not the elder son. Here in S Finwë’s third son Finrod first emerges: the mention of him, and his sons, in a note to the Lay of the Children of Húrin (III. 80) is certainly later, as is his first appearance in the Lay of Leithian (III. 191, 195).
The seven sons of Fëanor with the same name-forms as here in S have appeared in the Lay of the Children of Húrin (III. 65, 86); the naming of Damrod and Díriel together in S suggests that they were already twin brothers.
Of the sons of Fingolfin Turgon of course goes back to the Lost Tales, where he was the son, not the grandson, of Finwë; the other son Finweg appears in the Lay of the Children of Húrin, where the emendation to Fingon (see III. 5, 80) is later than S – and the Quenta, where he was still Finweg in the text as first written.
The sons of Finrod first emerge here, and as the inserted passage in S was first written Orodreth was apparently the eldest son; Angrod was Anrod; and Felagund was Felagoth. Felagoth occurs as an intervening stage between Celegorm and Felagund in the A-text of the Lay of Leithian (III. 169, 195).
In this section again S moves at a step close to the essential structure of the narrative in The Silmarillion, though there are important features not yet present. I have discussed previously (I. 156–8) the radical differences between the tale of The Theft of Melko and the story in The Silmarillion, and it will be seen that it was with S that almost all these differences entered: there is thus no need to repeat the comparison again here. But various more minor matters may be noticed.
The quarrel of the Noldorin princes has as yet none of the complexity and subtlety that entered into it afterwards with the history of Míriel, the first wife of Finwë and mother of Fëanor; the quarrel is in any case treated with great brevity.
It is said here that ‘Fëanor has cursed for ever anyone, God or Elf or mortal that shall come hereafter, who touches [the Silmarils]’. In §5, by a later interpolation, the oath is taken by Fëanor and his sons at the time of the torchlit concourse in Tûn, but the statement in §4 my father allowed to stand, clearly because he overlooked it. In the alliterative fragment The Flight of the Noldoli, however, which on general grounds I assume to belong to the earlier part of 1925 (III. 131), the oath is sworn by Fëanor and his sons as in the interpolation in S §5, ‘in the mighty square upon the crown of Côr’ (see III. 136). I incline to think that the statement here in §4 was a slip of memory.
The events immediately following the council of the Gods in which Morgoth’s lies were disclosed and Fëanor banished from Tûn (in S the banishment is not said to be limited to a term of years) are not yet given the form they have in The Silmarillion. The entire story of Morgoth’s going to Formenos (not yet so named) and his speech with Fëanor before the doors (The Silmarillion pp. 71–2) has yet to appear. Morgoth’s northward movement up the coast in feint is also absent; rather he comes at once to Arvalin ‘where the shadow is thickest in all the world’, as is said in The Silmarillion (p. 73) of Avathar.
In the story of Morgoth’s encounter with Ungoliant and the destruction of the Trees details of the final version appear, as Ungoliant’s ascent of the great mountain (later named Hyarmentir) ‘from pinnacle to pinnacle’, and the ladder made for Morgoth to climb. There is no mention of the great festival, but it appears in §5: it looks as if my father omitted to include it earlier and brought it in a bit further on as an afterthought.
In the tale of The Theft of Melko Ungoliant fled south at once after the destruction of the Trees (I. 154), and of Melko’s subsequent movements after his crossing of the Ice it is only told (by Sorontur to Manwë, I. 176) that he was busy building himself a new dwelling-place in the region of the Iron Mountains. But in S the story of ‘the Thieves’ Quarrel’ and Morgoth’s rescue by the Balrogs emerges suddenly fully-formed.
From the account of the great festival (see commentary on §4) is absent both the original occasion for holding it (commemoration of the coming of the Eldar to Valinor, I. 143) and that given in The Silmarillion (the autumn feast: pp. 74–5). The later feature that the Teleri were not present appears (see I. 157); but there is no suggestion of the important elements of Fëanor coming alone to the festival from Formenos, the formal reconciliation with Fingolfin, and Fëanor’s refusal to surrender the Silmarils before he heard the news of his father’s death and the theft of the jewels (The Silmarillion pp. 75, 78–9).
In the later emendations to the text of S we see the growth of the story of the divided counsels of the Gnomes, with the introduction of the attempt of Finrod (later Finarfin) to calm the conflicting factions – though this element was present in the tale of The Flight of the Noldoli, where Finwë Nólemë plays the part of the appeaser (I. 162). After a good deal of further shifting in this passage in later texts, and the introduction of Galadriel, the alignment, and the motives, of the princes as they appear in The Silmarillion are more complex (pp. 83–4); but the element is already present that only one of Finrod’s sons sided with him (here Felagund, in The Silmarillion Orodreth).
The emendation making Fingolfin and Finweg (Fingon) rule over ‘a half of the Noldoli of Tûn’ must be incorrect; my father probably intended the revised text to read ‘over the Noldoli of Tûn’.
The rapid shifting in the part of Finrod (Finarfin) in these events can be observed in the successive interpolations made in S. It seems that in the original text he did not appear at all (the first mention of him is in the interpolated passage in §3, p. 15). He is said not to have left Tûn; then he is said to have been slain at Swanhaven; and finally it is told that he and his sons were not at Swanhaven, but left Tûn reluctantly, carrying with them many things of their making. Finrod was then introduced as only arriving with his people in the far North after the burning of the ships by the Fëanorians on the other side of the strait. As S was originally written Fingolfin, deserted and shipless, returned to Valinor, and it was his son Finweg (Fingon) who led the main host over the Grinding Ice; but with the introduction of Finrod he becomes the one who returned. (Finweg as the leader of the host was not then changed to Fingolfin, but this was obviously an oversight.)
In the account of the northward journey of the Noldoli after the battle of Swanhaven it seems that all the host was embarked in the ships of the Teleri, since Mandos’ emissary hails them from a high cliff ‘as they sail by’; but this may be merely due to compression, since in the Tale (I. 166) some marched along the shore while ‘the fleet coasted beside them not far out to sea’, and the same is told in The Silmarillion (‘some by ship and some by land’, p. 87). The storm raised by Uinen is not mentioned.
It is curious that the curse upon the Gnomes, that they should suffer from treachery and the fear of treachery among their own kindred, is separated from the Prophecy of Mandos; but it is not said by whom this curse was pronounced. Nothing is told in S as originally written of the content of the Prophecy of Mandos, save that it concerned ‘the fate of after days’, but my father subsequently added that it told of ‘the curse of war against one another because of Swanhaven’, thus bringing the ‘curse’ into the content of the ‘Prophecy’, as in The Silmarillion. There is no trace of the old prophecies concerning Turgon and Gondolin (I. 167, 172), but nor is there any suggestion of the nature of the doom of the Noldor as it is stated in The Silmarillion.
For the original story of the crossing of the Grinding Ice by the Gnomes, where there is no element of treachery (though the blaming of Fëanor was already present), see I. 167–9.
The making of the Sun and Moon is here compressed into a couple of phrases. Virtually all of the extremely elaborate account in the old Tale of the Sun and Moon has disappeared: the tears of Vána leading to the last fruit of Laurelin, the breaking of the ‘Fruit of Noon’, the Bath of the Setting Sun where the Sun-maiden and her ship were drawn on coming out of the East, the song of Lórien leading to the last flower of Silpion, the fall of the ‘Rose of Silpion’ which caused the markings on the Moon, the refusal to allow Silmo to steer the ship of the Moon and the task given instead to Ilinsor, a spirit of the Súruli, Lake Irtinsa where the ship of the Moon was refreshed, and much else. But while it is impossible to say how much of all this my father had ‘privately’ rejected at this time (see my remarks, I. 200), some elements at least were suppressed for the purposes of this ‘Sketch’, which is after all only an outline, for they will reappear.
The change in the celestial plan now takes place because the Gods ‘find it safer to send [the Sun and Moon] in Ylmir’s care through the caverns and grottoes beneath the Earth’. This is wholly different from the old story (I. 215), in which the original plan of the Gods was that the Sun and Moon should be drawn beneath the earth; this plan was changed when they found that the Sun-ship ‘might not safely come beneath the world’ – the very reverse of what is said in S. Though the Moon continued to pass beneath the earth, the Gods now made the Door of Night in the West and the Gates of Morn in the East, through which the Sun passed thenceforward, going into and returning from the Outer Dark (I. 216). The astronomical aspect of the mythology has thus undergone a profound shift, an entire re-making.
The reference to the rekindling of the ‘Magic Sun’ (here with extension to the Moon, not found in the earliest writings) is a noteworthy survival; and the meaning is explicitly the rebirth of the Trees (see II. 286). Very remarkable is Ulmo’s foretelling to the Valar that the rekindling of the Two Trees and the return of ‘the bliss and glory of old’ would only come to pass by the aid of Men. It is possible that this is a reference to his own deep designs laid through Turgon, Tuor, and Eärendel; but it is nowhere suggested that these designs issued or were intended to issue in such a way. Perhaps we should see here rather the continued existence in some form of the old prophecy given in II. 285:
The Elves’ prophecy is that one day they will fare forth from Tol Eressëa and on arriving in the world will gather all their fading kindred who still live in the world and march towards Valinor … This they will only do with the help of Men. If Men aid them, the fairies will take Men to Valinor – those that wish to go – fight a great battle with Melko in Erumáni and open Valinor. Laurelin and Silpion will be rekindled, and the mountain wall being destroyed then soft radiance will spread over all the world, and the Sun and Moon will be recalled.
In the account of the Hiding of Valinor we move in S from the Lost Tales to The Silmarillion: I have observed (I. 223) the total absence in the latter of the bitter divisions among the Valar, of Manwë’s disgusted withdrawal, of Ulmo’s vain pleading for pity on the Noldor – and of my father’s explicit view in the tale of The Hiding of Valinor that the actions of the Valar at this time, and their failure to make war upon Morgoth, were a profound error arising from indolence and fear. The fear of Morgoth does indeed remain, and is the only motive offered in The Silmarillion for the Hiding of Valinor; but the author makes no comment on it. In S however the element of divine anger against the Noldoli is still present (though neither here nor later is there any reference to the peculiar anger of Aulë against them (see I. 176), save that in the Annals of Valinor (p. 267) when Finrod and others returned to Valinor after hearing the Doom of Mandos ‘Aulë their ancient friend smiled on them no more’).
There are differences and omissions in the later versions of the story of the Hiding of Valinor in relation to that in the tale which have been sufficiently discussed already (I. 223–4); but it may be noticed that in S no reason is given for keeping open the pass of Kôr, neither that in the tale nor that in The Silmarillion.
It is very clear that with the ‘Sketch’ the structure of the Valinórean part of the mythology, though not of course the detail, had quite largely reached the stage of development of the published version; and it can be understood why my father wrote on the envelope containing S the words Original ‘Silmarillion’. It is here that ‘The Silmarillion’ begins.
It will be seen that in this passage S has already the structure and some even of the phrases of the last three paragraphs of chapter 12 (‘Of Men’) in The Silmarillion.
The Fëanorian oath (ascribed here to the sons only) is embodied in the text as written, which probably shows that the interpolated passage, introducing the oath, in §5 (p. 19) was inserted while S was still in process of composition.
The words of S, ‘in the early days Eldar and Men were of nearly equal stature and power of body’, are echoed in The Silmarillion: ‘Elves and Men were of like stature and strength of body’; for statements on this matter in earlier writings see II. 326.
The ‘higher culture’ that my father came to ascribe to the Elves of Doriath (or more widely to the Grey-elves of Beleriand) is now established (‘Only in the realm of Doriath … did the Ilkorins equal the Koreldar’); contrast the description of the Ilkorins of Tinwelint’s following in the old Tale of Tinúviel (‘eerie they were and strange beings, knowing little of light or loveliness or of musics …’), concerning which I noted that Tinwelint’s people are there described in terms applicable rather to the wild Avari of The Silmarillion (see II. 9, 64). It is however said in this passage of the tale that ‘Different indeed did they become when the Sun arose.’
The ideas expressed here concerning the nature of the immortality of the Elves go back largely to the Lost Tales; cf. the description of the hall of Mandos in The Coming of the Valar (I. 76):
Thither in after days fared the Elves of all the clans who were by illhap slain with weapons or did die of grief for those that were slain – and only so might the Eldar die, and then it was only for a while. There Mandos spake their doom, and there they waited in the darkness, dreaming of their past deeds, until such time as he appointed when they might again be born into their children, and go forth to laugh and sing again.
Similarly in The Music of the Ainur (I. 59) it is said that ‘the Eldar dwell till the Great End unless they be slain or waste in grief (for to both of these deaths are they subject)’, and ‘dying they are reborn in their children, so that their number minishes not, nor grows’. But in the early texts death by sickness is not mentioned, and this appears for the first time in S: where by emendation there is a modification of the idea, from freedom from all sickness to freedom from death by sickness. Moreover in the early texts rebirth in their own children seems to be represented as the universal fate of the Eldar who die; whereas in S they are said to return from Mandos ‘to free life’. Rebirth is mentioned in S very briefly and only in a later interpolation.
In S my father’s conception of the fate of Men after death is seen evolving (for the extremely puzzling account in the Lost Tales see I. 77, 90–3). As he first wrote S, there was an explicit assertion that Men did not go to Mandos, did not pass to the western land: this was an idea derived from contact with the Eldar. But he changed this, and wrote instead that Men do indeed go to their own halls in Mandos, for a time; none know whither they go after, save Mandos himself.
On the ‘fading’ of the Elves who remained ‘in the world’ see II. 326.
Neither the brief outlines for what was to have been Gilfanon’s tale of The Travail of the Noldoli (I. 237–41) nor the subsequent abandoned narrative given on pp. 6–8 bear much relation to what came after. Enduring features were the camp by Asgon-Mithrim, the death of Fëanor, the first affray with the Orcs, the capture and maiming of Maidros; but these elements had different motivations and concomitants in the earliest writing, already discussed (I. 242–3). With the ‘Sketch’, however, most of the essentials of the later story appear fully-formed, and the distance travelled from the Lost Tales is here even more striking than hitherto.
The first battle of the Gnomes with the forces of Morgoth is not clearly placed in S (cf. Gilfanon’s Tale, I. 238, 240, where the battle was fought ‘in the foothills of the Iron Mountains’ or in ‘the pass of the Bitter Hills’) – but the idea is already present that the Orcs were aroused by the burning of the ships (cf. §5: ‘The same light also tells the Orcs of the landing’.)
There now emerge the death of Fëanor at the hand of Gothmog the Balrog, the parley with the enemy and the faithless intentions on both sides, the arrival of the second host, unfurling their blue and silver banners (see p. 9) under the first Sunrise, and the dismay of the Orcs at the new light, the hostile armies of the Gnomes encamped on opposite sides of Lake Mithrim, the ‘vast smokes and vapours’ rising from Angband. The only important structural element in the narrative that has yet to appear is that of Fingolfin’s march to Angband immediately on arrival in Middle-earth and his beating on the doors.
The earlier existence of the story of the rescue of Maidros by Finweg (Fingon) is implied by a reference in the Lay of the Children of Húrin (see III. 65, 86) – that in the Lay of Leithian is some two years later than S (III. 222). A curious point arises in the account in S: it seems that it was only at this juncture that Manwë brought into being the race of Eagles. In the tale of The Theft of Melko Sorontur (the ‘Elvish’ form of Gnomish Thorndor) had already played a part in the story before the departure of the Noldoli from Valinor: he was the emissary of the Valar to Melko before the destruction of the Trees, and because Melko tried to slay the Eagle
between that evil one and Sorontur has there ever since been hate and war, and that was most bitter when Sorontur and his folk fared to the Iron Mountains and there abode, watching all that Melko did (I. 149).
It may be noted that Lake Mithrim is placed in Hisilómë/Hithlum/Dorlómin; see III. 103.
For this section of the narrative the earliest materials are so scanty that we may almost say that the ‘Sketch’ is the starting-point. In an outline for Gilfanon’s Tale (I. 238) there is mention of a meeting between Gnomes and Ilkorins, and it was with the guidance of these Ilkorins that Maidros led an army to Angamandi, whence they were driven back with slaughter leaving Maidros a captive; and this was followed by Melko’s southward advance and the Battle of Unnumbered Tears. As I have noted (I. 242):
The entire later history of the long years of the Siege of Angband, ending with the Battle of Sudden Flame (Dagor Bragollach), of the passage of Men over the Mountains into Beleriand and their taking service with the Noldorin Kings, had yet to emerge; indeed these outlines give the effect of only a brief time elapsing between the coming of the Noldoli from Kôr and their great defeat.
In another outline (I. 240) there is a slight suggestion of a longer period, in the reference to the Noldoli ‘practising many arts’. In this outline the meeting of Gnomes and Ilkorins takes place at ‘the Feast of Reunion’ (where Men were also present). But beyond this there is really nothing of the later story to be found in these projections. Nor indeed had S (as originally written) made any very remarkable advances. Men ‘already dwelt in the woods of the North’, which is sufficiently strange, since according to S Men awoke at the first rising of the Sun (§6), when also Fingolfin marched into Middle-earth (§8), and far too little time had elapsed, one would think, for Men to have journeyed out of ‘the far East’ (§6) and become established in ‘the woods of the North’. Moreover there is no suggestion (even allowing for the brief and concentrated nature of the ‘Sketch’) that the Leaguer of Angband lasted any great length of time, nor is the breaking of the Leaguer particularly characterised: Morgoth ‘sends out his armies’, and ‘Gnomes and Ilkorins and Men are scattered’; that is all. But the breaking of the Leaguer was already seen as a turning-point in the history of the Elves of Beleriand. It is perfectly possible that much of the new material that appears at this place in the Quenta (see pp. 104 ff.) was already in my father’s mind when he wrote S (i.e., S was a précis, but a précis of an unwritten story); for instance, the blasting of the great grassy northern plain in the battle that ended the siege (not even mentioned in S) was already present when the Lay of the Children of Húrin was written (III. 55).
With the later interpolations in S enters the idea of the Siege of Angband as an epoch, ‘a time of growth and birth and flowering’; and also the disposition of the Gnomish princes, with the essentials of the later history already present – Fingolfin in Hithlum, the Fëanorians in the East (where they afterwards warred with Dwarves, Orcs, and Men), and Felagund guarding the entry into the lands of Sirion. (The reference to Broseliand in this passage is noteworthy: the form of the name spelt with -s- first appears in the A-text of Canto IV of the Lay of Leithian – probably early 1928; III. 195, 197). ‘Fingolfin is slain when Morgoth breaks the leaguer’ may or may not imply the story of his duel with Morgoth before Angband.
Gumlin father of Húrin has appeared in the second version of the Lay of the Children of Húrin (III. 115, 126); but Huor, named as Húrin’s brother in the rewriting of S, here makes his first appearance in the legends.
The complexities of the history of Barahir and Beren and the founding of Nargothrond are best discussed together with what is said in §10; see the commentary on the next section.
In §9 as first written Barahir already appears as the father of Beren, replacing Egnor; and they are here Ilkorin Elves, not Men, though this was changed when the passage was revised. In the first version of the Lay of the Children of Húrin Beren was still an Elf, while in the second version my father shifted back and forth between Man and Elf (III. 124–5); the opening cantos of the A-text of the Lay of Leithian (in being by the autumn of 1925) Egnor and his son were Men (III. 171); now here in S (early 1926) they are again Elves, though Egnor has become Barahir. Perplexingly, in §10 as first written, while Barahir is ‘a famous chieftain of Ilkorindi’, on the same page of the manuscript and quite certainly written at the same time Beren ‘alone of mortals came back from Mandos’. It may well be that the statements in S that Barahir and Beren were Ilkorins were an inadvertent return to the former idea, after the decision that they were Men (seen in the A-text of the Lay of Leithian) had been made. (Later in the original text of S, §14, Beren is a mortal.)
The reference in §9 to the founding of Nargothrond by Celegorm and Curufin and in §10 to Barahir having been ‘a friend of Celegorm of Nargothrond’ belong to the phase of the swiftly-evolving legend represented by alterations to the text of the Lay of the Children of Húrin (see III. 83–5), when it was Celegorm and Curufin who founded Nargothrond after the breaking of the Leaguer of Angband and Felagund had not yet emerged; similarly in the A-text of the Lay of Leithian (III. 171).
The alterations to S in these sections move the story on to the form found in the B-text of the Lay of Leithian, with Felagund as the one saved by Barahir and the founder of Nargothrond – though here it is said specifically that Felagund and his brothers founded the realm, with the aid of Celegorm and Curufin; it seems therefore that the deaths of Angrod and Egnor in the battle that ended the Leaguer had not yet arisen (see III. 221, 247).
The very early form of the story of Beren (the first stage of development from the Tale of Tinúviel) in S §10 as first written has been discussed in III. 219–20, 244. There remains an interesting point to mention in the end of this version: the sentence ‘Some songs say that Lúthien went even over the Grinding Ice, aided by the power of her divine mother, Melian, to Mandos’ halls and won him back.’ There is no suggestion here that Lúthien herself died at the time of Beren’s death; and the same idea seems likely to underlie the lines of the second version of the Lay of the Children of Húrin (III. 107):
ere he winged afar
to the long awaiting; thence Lúthien won him,
the Elf-maiden, and the arts of Melian …
In the Tale of Tinúviel, on the other hand, it is said (II. 40) that
Tinúviel crushed with sorrow and finding no comfort or light in all the world followed him swiftly down those dark ways that all must tread alone
– and this seems quite clear in its meaning.
Beren and Lúthien are here said to have lived, after Beren’s return, ‘in the woods of Doriath and in the Hunters’ Wold, west of Nargothrond’. The Land of the Dead that Live was placed in the Hunters’ Wold (Hills of the Hunters) in the Lay of the Children of Húrin; see III. 89, where the previous history of its placing is given.
That Beren and Húrin were friends and fellows-in-arms is stated in the Lay of the Children of Húrin, and earlier (see III. 25), but it has not been said before that this relationship arose during the time of Beren’s outlawry.
For the use of ‘Shadowy Mountains’ to mean the Mountains of Terror see III. 170–1.
In the rewritten passage (pp. 25–6) the story is seen at an earlier stage than that in the ‘Synopsis II’ for Cantos VI and VII of the Lay of Leithian (1928), the text of which is given in III. 221, 233. Celegorm has been displaced by Felagoth (not yet Felagund); but Celegorm ‘discovered what was the secret mission of Felagoth and Beren’ after their departure from Nargothrond, and thus the element of the intervention of Celegorm and Curufin, turning the Elves of Nargothrond against their king, was not yet present. Moreover in the northward journey of Beren and his companions from Nargothrond there is a battle with Orcs, from which only a small band of the Elves escapes, afterwards returning to the battlefield to despoil the dead and disguise themselves as Orcs. These two elements are clearly interconnected: Celegorm (and Curufin) do not know why Beren and Felagoth are setting out, and thus there is no reason why the king should not set out with a strong force. When my father wrote ‘Synopsis II’ he had brought in the element of the intervention of the Fëanorian brothers against Felagund and Beren, and with it the small band that was all they had as companions from their first departure from Nargothrond.
The sequence is thus clearly: S – Synopsis I – interpolation in S – Synopsis II; and in the revision of S here we have an interesting stage in which Felagund (Felagoth) has emerged as the lord of Nargothrond, but the ‘Fëanorian intervention’ has not, and Celegorm still ‘offers redress’ to Lúthien, as he did in Synopsis I (III. 244) – for his dog Huan had hurt her.
The earliest form of this part of the story (apart from that which relates to Húrin) is extant only in the compressed outlines for Gilfanon’s Tale. In my comparison of those early outlines with the narrative of The Silmarillion I noted (I. 242) as essential features of the story that were to survive:
– A mighty battle called the Battle of Unnumbered Tears is fought between Elves and Men and the hosts of Melko;
– Treachery of Men, corrupted by Melko, at that battle;
– But the people of Úrin (Húrin) are faithful, and do not survive it;
– The leader of the Gnomes is isolated and slain;
– Turgon and his host cut their way out, and go to Gondolin;
– Melko is wrathful because he cannot discover where Turgon has gone;
– The Fëanorians come late to the battle;
– A great cairn is piled.
There is no evidence for any narrative of the Battle of Unnumbered Tears in its own right between the outlines for Gilfanon’s Tale and the ‘Sketch’; thus §11 in S shows at a step a very great advance. This is not however to be regarded as a direct evolution from the outlines, for many elements – such as the stories of Beren and Tinúviel, and of Nargothrond – had been developed ‘collaterally’ in the meantime. As S was originally written in §11, the old ‘pre-Felagund’ story was present (‘Curufin and Celegorm despatch a host from Nargothrond’, see commentary on §10), and although the failure of the Union of Maidros to gather together all the Elves of Beleriand into a united force already appears, the alignments were for this reason quite different: the Gnomes of Nargothrond (ruled by Celegorm and Curufin) will not serve under Finweg (Fingon). But with the rewriting of S, made after the emergence of the Felagund-story, an essential element of the later narrative comes into being: Orodreth will not join the league on account of Felagund his brother (cf. The Silmarillion p. 188: ‘Orodreth would not march forth at the word of any son of Fëanor, because of the deeds of Celegorm and Curufin.’) That Thingol sent few (emended from none) out of Doriath is a very old element, appearing already in the Tale of Turambar (II. 73), where Tinwelint said to Mavwin, in words echoed in the present passage of S:
not for love nor for fear of Melko but of the wisdom of my heart and the fate of the Valar did I not go with my folk to the Battle of Unnumbered Tears, who am now become a safety and a refuge …
A new factor in Thingol’s policy now appears, however, in that he resented the ‘haughty words’ addressed to him by Maidros, demanding the return of the Silmaril – those ‘haughty words’ and their effect on the Union of Maidros survived into The Silmarillion (p. 189). That Thingol here allows ‘the Gnomes of Doriath’ to join the league is to be related to the statement in S §9: ‘Many Gnomes take service with Thingol and Melian’ (after the breaking of the Siege of Angband). (In the Tale of Tinúviel there were Noldoli in Tinwelint’s service: it was they indeed who built the bridge before his doors. II. 9, 43.)
As S was rewritten, the division of the opponents of Morgoth into two hosts was due to the refusal of the Fëanorians to be led by Finweg (Fingon), whereas in The Silmarillion account there was good agreement between Himring and Eithel Sirion, and the assault from East and West of the Fëanorians and the Noldor of Hithlum a matter of strategy (‘they thought to take the might of Morgoth as between anvil and hammer, and break it to pieces’).
The Battle of Unnumbered Tears is still in S in a simple form, but the advance of the Elves of Hithlum into Dor-na-Fauglith in pursuit of a defeated Orc-army, so that they fall prey to much greater hosts loosed from Angband, moves towards the plan of the later narrative; the late arrival of the Fëanorians goes back to an outline for Gilfanon’s Tale (see above). No detail is given in S concerning the treachery of Men at the battle, nor is any reason suggested for the late coming of the Eastern Noldor.
Finweg (Fingon) had taken the place of Finwë (Nólemë) as the Gnomish king slain in the battle already in the Lay of the Children of Húrin (III. 86), and so the story of the Scarlet Heart, emblem of Turgon (I. 241, II. 172), had disappeared; in the second version of the Lay there is mention of his white banners … in blood beaten (III. 96). In S Turgon is a leader, with his brother Finweg (Fingon), of the Western Noldor from the outset, and was clearly conceived to be dwelling at this time in Hithlum (cf. the interpolation in §9: ‘Fingolfin’s sons Finweg and Turgon still hold out in the North’, i.e. after the ending of the Siege of Angband); and the discovery of the secret valley and the founding of Gondolin follows from the retreat from the disaster of the Battle of Unnumbered Tears. The ‘sacrifice of Mablon the Ilkorin’ (I. 239, 241) has disappeared.
The great mound of the slain on Dor-na-Fauglith, the first trace of which appears in an outline for Gilfanon’s Tale (I. 241, 243), had been described in the Lay of the Children of Húrin (III. 58–9), where Flinding said to Túrin as they passed by it in the moonlight:
A! green that hill with grass fadeless
where sleep the swords of seven kindreds …
neath moon nor sun is it mounted ever
by Man nor Elf; not Morgoth’s host
ever dare for dread to delve therein.
The story of Húrin at the Battle of Unnumbered Tears – his holding of the rearguard with his men while Turgon escaped southwards, his capture, defiance of Morgoth, and torture – had already been told in the Tale of Turambar (II. 70–1) and in the Lay of the Children of Húrin (see III. 23–4, 102). In all these sources Morgoth’s concern with Húrin, his attempts to seduce him, and his great rage when defied, arise from his desire to find Turgon; but the element is still of course lacking in S that Húrin had previously visited Gondolin, which at this stage in the development of the legend did not exist as a Noldorin fastness until after the Battle. As the story evolved, this fact, known to Morgoth, gave still more ugency to his wish to take Húrin alive, and to use him against Turgon.
It is immediately obvious that S was based on the second version of the Lay of the Children of Húrin, so far as it goes – which in relation to the whole narrative is not far: no further than the feast at which Túrin slew Orgof. This is already evident from the preceding portion of S, describing Morgoth’s treatment of Húrin in Angband; while in the present section the guardians of Túrin on the journey to Doriath bear the later names Halog and Mailgond (emended in the Lay to Mailrond, III. 119), not Halog and Gumlin.
It is not to be expected that the synopsis of the story in S should show any substantial alteration of that in the first version of the Lay; there is some development nonetheless. It is now explicit that the Men who in the Lay dwelt in Dorlómin and dealt unkindly with Húrin’s wife, and of whom I noted (III. 24) that ‘there is still no indication of who these men were or where they came from’, are now explicitly ‘faithless men who had deserted the Eldar in the Battle of Unnumbered Tears’, penned in Hithlum because Morgoth ‘desired to keep them from fellowship with Elves’. The question of whether Nienor was born before Túrin left Hithlum is now resolved: he had never seen her. For the uncertainty on this point in the Tale of Turambar see II. 131; in the Lay she was born before Túrin left (III. 9).
Whereas in the Lay Beleg, who was not searching for Túrin when he was captured by the outlaw band, knew nothing of what had happened in the Thousand Caves (see III. 50), in S ‘Túrin released Beleg, and is told how Thingol had forgiven his deed long ago’. Blodrin is now again the son of Ban, not of Bor (see III. 52).
There is an interesting note in S that Túrin was taken alive to Angband ‘for Morgoth has begun to fear that he will escape his curse through his valour and the protection of Melian’. This idea is seen in the words of the Lay (III. 33) they haled unhappy Hurin’s offspring / lest he flee his fate, and goes back to the Tale of Turambar (II. 76):
Túrin was overborne and bound, for such was the will of Melko that he be brought to him alive; for behold, dwelling in the halls of Linwë [i.e. Tinwelint] about which had that fay Gwedheling the Queen woven much magic and mystery … Túrin had been lost out of his sight, and he feared lest he cheat the doom that was devised for him.
There is little else to note in this section beyond the new detail that the Orcs feared Taur-na-Fuin no less than Elves or Men, and only went that way when in haste, and the ancestor of the phrase ‘Gwindor saw them marching away over the steaming sands of Anfauglith’ (The Silmarillion p. 208) in ‘Flinding sees them marching over the steaming waste of Dor-na-Fauglith’ (cf. the Lay, III. 48: The dusty dunes of Dor-na-Fauglith / hissed and spouted). A very great deal is of course omitted in the synopsis.
With the second paragraph of this section, ‘Túrin leads the Gnomes of Nargothrond to forsake their secrecy and hidden warfare’, S reaches the point where the Lay of the Children of Húrin stops, and certain advances made on the Tale of Turambar (II. 83 ff.) can be observed. The re-forging of Beleg’s sword for Túrin in Nargothrond now appears. In the Lay Flinding put the sword in the hollow of a tree after Beleg’s death (III. 56); as I noted (III. 86): ‘if the poem had gone further Túrin would have received his black sword in Nargothrond in gift from Orodreth, as happens in the Tale’. S thus shows a development from the plot implicit in the Lay. The bridging of Narog by Túrin’s counsel enters the story only as a pencilled marginal note. The extent of the victories and reconquest of territory by the Gnomes of Nargothrond at this time is made explicit, and the realm is much as described in The Silmarillion (p. 211):
The servants of Angband were driven out of all the land between Narog and Sirion eastward, and westward to the Nenning and the desolate Falas
(where however its northern border along the southern feet of the Shadowy Mountains is not mentioned; in S ‘their realm reaches to the sources of Narog’).
The later addition to the text of S, ‘even Glómund, who was at the Battle of Tears’, is to be related to the absence of any mention of the Dragon in S’s account of the battle (§11). As S was first written, the Dragon was named Glórung, a change from Glórund of the Lost Tales; the series was thus Glórund > Glórung > Glómund > Glaurung. In the Lay of Leithian Glómund replaces Glórund (III. 208–9).
The sentence ‘Flinding wounded refuses Túrin’s succour and dies reproaching him’ shows the later form of the story, as in The Silmarillion pp. 212–13; for discussion of the substantial change from the Tale see II. 124. It is said in S that Túrin forsook Finduilas ‘against his heart (which if he had obeyed his uttermost fate would not have befallen him)’, and this is no doubt to be related to the passage in the Tale (II. 87):
And truly is it said: ‘Forsake not for anything thy friends – nor believe those who counsel thee to do so’ – for of his abandoning of Failivrin in danger that he himself could see came the very direst evil upon him and all he loved.
For discussion of this see II. 125.
Of Túrin’s return to Hithlum there is little to note, for the synopsis is here very compressed; and I have earlier discussed fully the relationship between the Tale and the later story (II. 126–7). The Woodmen with whom Túrin lives after his flight from Hithlum are now given a more definite location ‘east of Narog’ (see II. 140–1). In S it is made clear that Túrin did not join himself to a people already existing, but ‘gathered a new people’. This is in contradiction, strangely enough, both to the Tale (II. 91, 102), where they had a leader (Bethos) when Túrin joined them, and to the later story. Túrin now takes the name Turambar at this point in the narrative, not as in the Tale before the Dragon outside the caves of the Rodothlim (II. 86, 125).
Turning now to the expedition from Doriath to Nargothrond, the only important structural difference from the Tale that emerges in the brief account in S is that Morwen (Mavwin) was evidently no longer present at the conversation between Nienor and the Dragon (II. 98–9, 129); on the other hand, it is said at the end of this section that ‘Some say Morwen released from spell by Glórung’s death came that way and read the stone.’
When Nienor-Níniel came to the falls of the Silver Bowl a fit of shivering came on her, as in the later narrative, whereas in the Tale it is only said that she was filled with dread (II. 101, 130). Very notably, the statement that Níniel was with child by Turambar was added to S later, just as it was in the Tale (see II. 117 note 25, 135).
In the foregoing I have only picked out points that seem to show quite clearly a different conception of the events in S from that in the Tale. I have not mentioned the many slight differences (including the very many omissions) that are probably or certainly due to compression.
Of this section of the narrative there exists in earlier writing only the conclusion of the Tale of Turambar (II. 112–16) and the Tale of the Nauglafring (II. 221 ff.) in which the story is continued. The opening passage of S follows the end of the Tale of Turambar in Melko’s accusation against Thingol of faintheartedness, Húrin’s embitterment from the pondering of Melko’s words, the gathering to him of a band of outlaws, the fear of the spirit of the dead Dragon that prevented any from plundering Nargothrond, the presence there of Mîm, Húrin’s reproaches and the casting of the gold at Thingol’s feet, and Húrin’s departure. The words of S concerning the fate of Húrin derive from the Tale, where however he died in Hithlum and it was his ‘shade’ that ‘fared into the woods seeking Mavwin, and long those twain haunted the woods about the fall of Silver Bowl bewailing their children’.
From this point the source for S (or perhaps more accurately, the previous written form of the narrative) is the Tale of the Nauglafring. It is here impossible to say for certain how much of the complex story in the Tale had by this time been abandoned.
It is not made clear whether Mîm’s presence in Nargothrond goes back to the time of the Dragon (see II. 137), nor whether the outlaws of Húrin’s band were Men or Elves (in the Tale the text was emended to convert them from Men to Elves); and there is no indication of how the gold was brought to Doriath. The outlaws disappear in S after the slaying of Mîm, and there is no suggestion of the fighting in the Thousand Caves that in the Tale led to the mound made over the slain, Cûm an-Idrisaith, the Mound of Avarice.
The next part of the Tale (Ufedhin the renegade Gnome and the complex dealings of Thingol with him and with the Dwarves of Nogrod, II. 223–9) is reduced to a few lines in S, which could possibly stand as an extremely abbreviated account of the old story, even though Ufedhin is here not even mentioned. The making of the Necklace was not in the Tale, as it is in S, part of the king’s request: the idea of it was indeed hatched by Ufedhin during his captivity as a lure ‘for the greater ensnaring of the king’ (II. 226); but this also could be set down to compression. I think it is more probable, however, that my father had in fact decided to reduce and simplify the narrative, and that Ufedhin had been abandoned.
The problem of the entry of the Dwarvish army into Doriath, defended by the Girdle of Melian, is still solved by the device – the too simple device, see II. 250 – of ‘some treacherous Gnomes’ (in the Tale there was only one traitor); the slaying of Thingol while hunting remains, and as in the Tale Melian, inviolable, left the Thousand Caves seeking Beren and Lúthien. Though it is not so stated, it seems likely that in this version it was Melian who brought the news and the warning to Beren (this is the story in the Quenta, p. 134). In the Tale it was Huan who brought word to Beren and Lúthien of the assault on Artanor and the death of Tinwelint, and it was Ufedhin, fleeing from the Dwarf-host (after his abortive attempt to slay Naugladur and steal the Nauglafring, and his killing of Bodruith lord of Belegost), who revealed the course that the Dwarves were taking and made possible the ambush at the Stony Ford; but Huan has in S been slain in the Wolf-hunt (§10), and Ufedhin has (as I think) been eliminated.
The ambush at the ford is made by ‘Beren and the brown and green Elves of the wood’, which goes back to ‘the brown Elves and the green’, the ‘elfin folk all clad in green and brown’ ruled by Beren and afterwards by Dior in Hithlum, in the Tale of the Nauglafring. But of the vigorous account of the battle at the ford in the Tale – the laughter of the Elves at the misshapen Dwarves running with their long white beards torn by the wind, the duel of Beren and Naugladur, whose forge-hammer blows would have overcome Beren had not Naugladur stumbled and Beren swung him off his feet by catching hold of the Nauglafring – there is nothing in S: though equally, nothing to contradict the old story. There is however no mention of the two Dwarf-lords, Naugladur of Nogrod and Bodruith of Belegost, and though both Dwarf-cities are named the Dwarves are treated as an undivided force, with, as it seems, one king (slain at the ford): Thingol summoned those of Belegost as well as those of Nogrod to Doriath for the fashioning of the gold, whereas in the Tale (II. 230) the former only enter the story after the humiliating expulsion of the Dwarves of Nogrod, in order to aid them in their revenge. Of the old story of the death of Bodruith and the feud and slaughter among the two kindreds (brought about by Ufedhin) there is no trace.
The drowning of the treasure in the river goes back to the Tale; but there however the suggestion is not that the treasure was deliberately sunk: rather it fell into the river with the bodies of the Dwarves who bore it:
those that waded in the ford cast their golden burdens in the waters and sought affrighted to either bank, but many were stricken with those pitiless darts and fell with their gold into the currents (II. 237).
It is not said in the Tale that any of the gold was drowned by the Elves. There, Gwendelin came to Beren and Tinúviel after the battle of the Stony Ford, and found Tinúviel already wearing the Nauglafring; there is mention of the greatness of her beauty when she wore it. Gwendelin’s warning is only against the Silmaril (the rest of the treasure being drowned), and indeed her horror at seeing the Necklace of the Dwarves on Tinúviel was so great that Tinúviel put it off. This was to Beren’s displeasure, and he kept it (II. 239–40). In S the drowning seems to be carried out in response to Melian’s warning of the curse upon it, and the story seems to be thus: Melian comes to Beren and Lúthien and warns them of the approach of the Dwarf-host returning out of Doriath; after the battle Lúthien wears the Nauglafring and becomes immeasurably beautiful; but Melian warns them of the curse on the gold and on the Silmaril and they drown the treasure, though Beren keeps the Necklace secretly.
The fading of Lúthien follows immediately on the statement that the Necklace was kept, but no connection is made. In the Tale such a connection is explicit: the doom of mortality that Mandos had spoken ‘fell swiftly’–
and in this perhaps did the curse of Mîm have [?potency] in that it came more soon upon them (II. 240).
Moreover in a synopsis for a projected revision of the Lost Tales it is said that the Nauglafring ‘brought sickness to Tinúviel’ (II. 246).
The reference to the fading of Lúthien in S retains the words of the Tale: Tinúviel slowly faded ‘even as the Elves of later days have done’; and, again as in the Tale, Lúthien ‘vanished’. In the Tale Beren was an Elf, and it is said of him that after searching all Hithlum and Artanor for Tinúviel in terrible loneliness ‘he too faded from life’. In my discussion of this I said (II. 250):
Since this fading is here quite explicitly the mode in which ‘that doom of mortality that Mandos had spoken’ came upon them, it is very notable that it is likened to, and even it seems identified with, the fading of ‘the Elves of later days throughout the world’ – as though in the original idea Elvish fading was a form of mortality.
The passage in S, retaining this idea in respect of Lúthien, but now with the later conception that Beren was a mortal Man, not an Elf, is changed in that Beren is no longer said to have faded: he ‘was lost’, looking in vain for Lúthien. It is also said here that the price of Beren’s return from Mandos was ‘that Lúthien should become as shortlived as Beren the mortal’; and in §10, where the story of Beren and Lúthien is briefly told, it is not in fact said that Lúthien died when Beren died in Doriath (see the commentary on that section, p. 55). There is also a sentence added to the MS in §10: ‘But Mandos in payment exacted that Lúthien should become mortal as Beren.’
It is possible to conclude from this that, in the conception as it was when S was written, Beren died, as a mortal dies; Lúthien went to Valinor as a living being; and Mandos allowed Beren to return to a second mortal span, but Lúthien now became subject to the same shortness of span as he. In this sense she became ‘mortal’; but being an Elf she ‘faded’ – this was the manner of her death: as it was also the manner of the death of the fading Elves of later ages. Part of the difficulty in all this undoubtedly lies in the ambiguous nature of the words ‘mortal’ and ‘immortal’ applied to the Elves: they are ‘immortal’, both in the sense that they need not die, it is not in their essential nature to die, ‘in the world’, and also in the sense that, if they did, they did not ‘leave the world’, did not go to ‘a fate beyond the world’; and they are ‘mortal’ in that they might nonetheless die ‘in the world’ (by wounds or by grief, but not from sickness or age). Lúthien became ‘mortal’ in that, although an Elf, she must die – she must fade.
It may be noted that the words ‘as Men grew strong and took the goodness of earth’ derive from the Lay of the Children of Húrin (III. 44, 54):
for in days long gone
… Men were of mould less mighty builded
ere the earth’s goodness from the Elves they drew.
Cf. The Silmarillion, p. 105: ‘In after days, when because of the triumph of Morgoth Elves and Men became estranged, as he most wished, those of the Elven-race that lived still in Middle-earth waned and faded, and Men usurped the sunlight.’
Lastly, in the story of Dior and the ruin of Doriath as told in S, there are various developments. The son of Dior, Auredhir (II. 240) has disappeared. The ‘vain bargaining’ between Dior and the Sons of Fëanor perhaps refers to the passage in the Tale (II. 241) where Dior asserts that to return the Silmaril the Nauglafring must be broken, and Curufin (the messenger of the Fëanorians) retorts that in that case the Nauglafring must be given to them unbroken. In the Tale Maglor, Díriel, Celegorm, and Cranthir (or the earlier equivalents of their names) were killed in the battle (which there took place in Hithlum, where Dior ruled after his father); but in S, as first written, the story takes a very strange turn, in that the Fëanorians did get their hands on the Nauglafring, but then so quarrelled over it that in the end ‘only Maglor was left’. How the story would have gone in this case is impossible to discern.
The two sections describing Gondolin and its fall are discussed together in the following commentary.
At the beginning of §15 the brief reference to the story of Isfin and Eöl shows development from what was said in the Lay of the Fall of Gondolin (III. 146): for in the poem Isfin was seeking, together with her mother, for her father Fingolfin when she was entrapped by Eöl in the dark forest. The larger history has evolved since then, and now Isfin ‘was lost in Taur-na-Fuin after the Battle of Unnumbered Tears’. We can only surmise how she came to be there. Either she left Gondolin soon after its settlement bent on some purpose unrecorded, or else she was lost in the retreat from the battle. (It is, incidentally, a curious aspect of the earlier conception of Gondolin’s foundation that there were women and children to people it as well as warriors; for one would suppose that Turgon had left the old men, the women, and the children of his people in Hithlum – why should he do otherwise? But in the outlines for Gilfanon’s Tale there are references to Turgon’s having ‘rescued a part of the women and children’, and having ‘gathered women and children from the camps’ as he fled south down Sirion (I. 239, 241).) Meglin is still, as in the poem, ‘sent by his mother to Gondolin’, while she remained with her captor.
In the account of Gondolin and its history S is fairly close to the tale of The Fall of Gondolin, but there are some developments, if mostly of a minor kind. There is first a notable statement that ‘Ylmir’s messages come up Sirion bidding them [i.e. the host of Turgon retreating from the battle] take refuge in this valley’; this is unlike the Tale, where Tuor speaking the words of Ulmo in Gondolin says: ‘There have come to the ears of Ulmo whispers of your dwelling and your hill of vigilance against the evil of Melko, and he is glad’ (II. 161, 208). Here in S we have the first appearance of the idea that the foundation of Gondolin was a part of Ulmo’s design. But Tuor’s journey is as in the old story, and the visitation of Ulmo is in Nan Tathrin, not at Vinyamar. The bidding of Ulmo offers Turgon similar choices, to prepare for war, or, if he will not, then to send people of Gondolin down Sirion to the sea, to seek for Valinor. Here, however, there are differences. In the Tale, Ulmo offers scarcely more than a slender hope that such sailors from Gondolin would reach Valinor, and if they did, that they would persuade the Valar to act:
[The Gods] hide their land and weave about it inaccessible magic that no evil come to its shores. Yet still might thy messengers win there and turn their hearts that they rise in wrath and smite Melko … (II. 161–2).
In S, on the other hand, the people of Gondolin, if they will not go to war against Morgoth, are to desert their city (‘the people of Gondolin are to prepare for flight’) – cf. The Silmarillion p. 240: ‘[Ulmo] bade him depart, and abandon the fair and mighty city that he had built, and go down Sirion to the sea’ – and at the mouths of Sirion Ylmir will not only aid them in the building of a fleet but will himself guide them over the ocean. But if Turgon will accept Ylmir’s counsel, and prepare for war, then Tuor is to go to Hithlum with Gnomes from Gondolin and ‘draw Men once more into alliance with the Elves, for “without Men the Elves shall not prevail against the Orcs and Balrogs”.’ Of this strange bidding there is no trace in the Tale; nor is it said there that Ulmo knew of Meglin, and knew that this treachery would bring about the end of Gondolin at no distant time. These features are absent also from The Silmarillion; Ulmo does indeed foresee the ruin of the city, but his foreseeing is not represented as being so precise: ‘Thus it may come to pass that the curse of the Noldor shall find thee too ere the end, and treason awake within thy walls. Then they shall be in peril of fire’ (p. 126).
The description of the Vale of Gondolin in S is essentially as in the Tale, with a few added details. As in the Tale, the rocky height of Amon Gwareth was not in the centre of the plain but nearest to Sirion – that is, nearest to the Way of Escape (II. 158, 177). In S, the level top of the hill is said to have been achieved by the people of Gondolin themselves, who also ‘polished its sides to the smoothness of glass’. The Way of Escape is still, as in the Tale (II. 163), a tunnel made by the Gnomes – the Dry River and the Orfalch Echor have not yet been conceived; and the meaning of the name ‘Way of Escape’ is made very clear: both a way of escape from Gondolin, if the need should ever arise, and a way of escape from the outer world and from Morgoth. In the Tale (ibid.) it is said only that there had been divided counsels concerning its delving, ‘yet pity for the enthralled Noldoli had prevailed in the end to its making’. The ‘Guarded Plain’ into which the Way of Escape issued is the Vale of Gondolin. An additional detail in S is that the hills were lower in the region of the Way of Escape, and the spells of Ylmir there strongest (because nearest to Sirion).
The cairn of Fingolfin, added in pencil in S, is an element that entered the legends in the Quenta (p. 107) and the Lay of Leithian (III. 286–7); the duel of Fingolfin with Morgoth does not appear in S (p. 54). – Here in S it is said that Thorndor ‘removed his eyries to the Northern heights of the encircling mountains’. In the Tale the eyries in Cristhorn, the Eagles’ Cleft, were in the mountains south of Gondolin, but in S Cristhorn is in the northern heights: this is already the case in the Fragment of an alliterative Lay of Eärendel (III. 143). Thorndor had come there from Thangorodrim (stated in the Quenta, p. 137); cf. the ‘later Tuor’ in Unfinished Tales (p. 43 and note 25): ‘the folk of Thorondor, who dwelt once even on Thangorodrim ere Morgoth grew so mighty, and dwell now in the Mountains of Turgon since the fall of Fingolfin.’ This goes back to the tale of The Theft of Melko, where there is a reference (I. 149) to the time ‘when Sorontur and his folk fared to the Iron Mountains and there abode, watching all that Melko did’.
Some other points concerning the story of Gondolin may be noticed. The escort of Noldoli, promised to Tuor by Ulmo in the Land of Willows, of whom Voronwë (in S given the Gnomish form of the name, Bronweg) was the only one who did not desert him (II. 155–6), has disappeared; and ‘Bronweg had once been in Gondolin’, which is not the case in the Tale (II. 156–7). – In the Tale Tuor wedded Idril when he ‘had dwelt among the Gondothlim many years’ (II. 164); in S this took place three years after his coming to the hidden city, in The Silmarillion seven years after (p. 241). – In the Tale there is no mention of Meglin’s support of Turgon’s rejection of Ulmo’s bidding (cf. The Silmarillion p. 240: ‘Maeglin spoke ever against Tuor in the councils of the King’), nor of the opposition of Idril to her father (this is not in The Silmarillion). – The closing of Gondolin to all fugitives and the forbidding of the people to leave the valley is mentioned in S but not explained.
The sentence ‘Meglin … purchases his life when taken to Angband by revealing Gondolin and its secrets’ shows almost certainly, I think, that an important structural change in the story of the fall of the city had now entered. In the Tale Melko had discovered Gondolin before Meglin was captured, and his treachery lay in his giving an exact account of the structure of the city and the preparations made for its defence (see II. 210–11); but the words ‘by revealing Gondolin’ strongly suggest the later story, in which Morgoth did not know where it lay.
Lastly, there is a development in the early history of Tuor: that he became a slave of ‘the faithless men’ in Hithlum after the Battle of Unnumbered Tears. Moreover Tuor’s parentage is now finally established. Huor has been mentioned in a rewritten passage of S (§9), but not named as father of Tuor; and this is the first occurrence of his mother Rían, and so of the story that she died seeking Huor’s body on the battlefield. It cannot be said whether the story of Tuor’s birth in the wild and his fostering by Elves had yet arisen.
In commenting on the conclusion of the mythology in S, here comprised in the three sections 17–19, I point to features that derive from or contradict those outlines and notes from an earlier period that are collected in Vol. II chapter V and the earlier part of Chapter VI. S is here an extremely abbreviated outline, composed very rapidly – my father was indeed changing his conceptions as he wrote.
For the narrative of §17 the primary extant early sources are the ‘schemes’ or plot-outlines which I have called ‘B’ and ‘C’, in the passages given in II. 253 and 254–5 respectively.
At the beginning of this section, before emendation, the survivors of Gondolin were already at the Mouths of Sirion when Elwing came there; and this goes back to B and C (‘Elwing … flees to them [i.e. Tuor and Idril] with the Nauglafring’, II. 254). But earlier in S (§15) the destruction of Dior took place before the fall of Gondolin; hence the revision here, to make Elwing ‘receive the survivors of Gondolin’. (In the Tale of the Nauglafring, II. 242, the fall of Gondolin and the attack on Dior took place on the same day.)
Following this, there is a major development in S. In the early outlines there is the story, only glimpsed, of the March of the Elves of Valinor into the Great Lands; and in B (only) there is a reference to ‘the sorrow and wrath of the Gods’, of which I said in my discussion of these outlines (II. 257): ‘the meaning can surely only be that the March of the Elves from Valinor was undertaken in direct opposition to the will of the Valar, that the Valar were bitterly opposed to the intervention of the Elves of Valinor in the affairs of the Great Lands.’ On the other hand, the bare hints of what happened when the assault on Melko took place show that greater powers than the Eldar alone were present: Noldorin (the Vala Salmar, who entered the world with Ulmo, and loved the Noldoli), and Tulkas himself, who overthrew Melko in the Battle of the Silent Pools (outline C, II. 278). The only hint in the outlines of Ulmo’s intervention is his saving of Eärendel from shipwreck, bidding him sail to Kôr with the words ‘for this hast thou been brought out of the Wrack of Gondolin’ (B, similarly in C). The March of the Eldar from Valinor was brought about by the coming of the birds from Gondolin.
In S, on the other hand, it is Ulmo (Ylmir) who directly brings about the intervention from the West by his reproaches to the Valar, bidding them rescue the remnants of the Noldoli and the Silmarils; and the host is led by ‘the sons of the Valar’, commanded by Fionwë – who is here the son of Tulkas! Fionwë is frequently named in the Lost Tales as the son of Manwë, while the son of Tulkas was Telimektar (who became the constellation Orion). The naming Fionwë son of Tulkas may have been a simple slip, though the same is said in the Quenta as first written (p. 149); subsequently Fionwë again becomes the son of Manwë (p. 154).
‘Remembering Swanhaven few of the Teleri go with them’: in the outline B the presence of the Solosimpi on the March is referred to without comment, while in C they only agreed to accompany the expedition on condition that they remained by the sea (see II. 258), and this was in some way associated with their remembrance of the Kinslaying.
The desertion of Kôr at this time is referred to in the outlines, but only in connection with Eärendel’s coming there and finding it empty; I noted (II. 257) that ‘it seems at least strongly implied that Kôr was empty because the Elves of Valinor had departed into the Great Lands’, and this is now seen to be certain.
The narrative in S now turns to Tuor. The statement that he grew old at Sirion’s mouths – a statement that was struck out – goes back to the old schemes. His ship is now Eärámë, untranslated; previously it was Alqarámë ‘Swanwing’, while Eärámë was Eärendel’s earlier ship, translated ‘Eaglepinion’, which foundered. In The Silmarillion Tuor’s ship is Eärrámë, as in S, with the meaning ‘Sea-Wing’.
In S, Idril departs in company with Tuor. This is different from the original schemes, where Tuor leaves alone, and Idril ‘sees him too late’, ‘laments’, and afterwards ‘vanishes’. But in the outline C it seems that she found him, for ‘Tuor and Idril some say sail now in Swanwing and may be seen going swift down the wind at dawn and dusk’.
In S, the earlier history of Eärendel’s ship-building and shipwrecks in the Fiord of the Mermaid and at Falasquil has, apparently, been abandoned entirely, and Wingelot is his first and only ship; but there remains the motive that Eärendel wishes to seek for his father, whereas Ylmir bids him sail to Valinor (this last being afterwards struck out). His adventures in Wingelot are referred to in S but not otherwise indicated, save for the slaying of Ungoliant ‘in the South’; there is no mention of the Sleeper in the Tower of Pearl. In C the long voyage of Eärendel, accompanied by Voronwë, that finally took them to Kôr, included an encounter with Ungweliantë, though this was after his southern voyage: ‘Driven west. Ungweliantë. Magic Isles. Twilit Isle. Littleheart’s gong awakes the Sleeper in the Tower of Pearl.’ In another outline Eärendel encounters Wirilómë (Gloomweaver) in the South (II. 260). In the account in S he does not on this great voyage come to Kôr, though from it, as in B and C, he returns to ‘the Waters of Sirion’ (the delta) and finds the dwellings there desolate. Now however enters the motive of the last desperate attempt of the Fëanorians to regain the Silmaril of Beren and Lúthien, their descent on the Havens of Sirion, and their destruction. Thus the raid on the Havens has remained, but it is no longer the work of Melko (see II. 258) and is brought into the story of the Oath of Fëanor. As S was first written only Maidros survived; but Maglor was added. (In §14, as written, all the Sons of Fëanor save Maglor were slain at the time of the attack on Dior, though this passage was afterwards struck out. In The Silmarillion Celegorm, Curufin, and Caranthir were slain at that time, and Amrod and Amras (later names of Damrod and Díriel) were slain in the attack on the Havens of Sirion, so that only Maidros and Maglor were left.)
In the old outlines Elwing was taken captive (as is to be deduced, by Melko); there is no mention of her release from captivity, and she next appears in references to the sinking of her ship (on the way to Tol Eressëa) and the loss of the Nauglafring; after which she becomes a seabird to seek Eärendel. Eärendel returning from his long voyage and finding the dwellings at Sirion’s mouth sacked, goes with Voronwë to the ruins of Gondolin, and in an isolated note (II. 264, xv) he ‘goes even to the empty Halls of Iron seeking Elwing’.
All this has disappeared in S, with the new story of Elwing casting herself and the Nauglafring into the sea, except that she still becomes a seabird (thus changed by Ulmo) and flies to seek Eärendel about all the shores of the world. The early outlines are then at variance: in C it is said that Eärendel dwelt on the Isle of Seabirds and hoped that Elwing would come to him, ‘but she is seeking him wailing along all the shores’ – yet ‘he will find Elwing at the Faring Forth’, while in the short outline E (II. 260) she came to him as a seamew on the Isle of Seabirds. But in S Elwing is further mentioned only as being sought by Eärendel when he sets sail again, until she reappears at the end (§19) and is restored to Eärendel.
The introduction of Elrond in S is of great interest. He has no brother as yet; and he is saved by Maidros (in The Silmarillion, p. 247, Elrond and Elros were saved by Maglor). When the Elves return into the West he elects to stay ‘on earth’, being ‘bound by his mortal half’. It is most remarkable that although the idea of a choice of fate for the Half-elven is already present, it takes a curiously different form from that which it was to take afterwards, and which became of great importance in The Lord of the Rings; for afterwards, Elrond, unlike his brother Elros Tar-Minyatur, elected to remain an Elf – yet his later choice derives in part from the earlier conception, for he elected also not to go into the West. In S, to choose his ‘elfin half’ seems to have meant to choose the West; afterwards, it meant to choose Elvish immortality.
Eärendel learnt what had happened at the Mouths of Sirion from Bronweg (earlier it was Littleheart son of Bronweg who survived the sack of the havens, II. 276 note 5), and with Bronweg he sails again in Wingelot and comes to Kôr, which he finds deserted, and his raiment becomes encrusted with the dust of diamonds; not daring to go further into Valinor he builds a tower on an isle in the northern seas, ‘to which all the sea-birds of the world repair’. Bronweg is not further mentioned. Almost all of this, other than the statement that Eärendel did not dare venture further into Valinor, goes back to the outline C. The tower on the Isle of Seabirds, which survives in The Silmarillion (p. 250), is mentioned in an isolated note on the Eärendel story (II. 264, xvii).
In the early outlines Eärendel now set out on his last voyage. In B, which is here very brief, his sailing to the Isle of Seabirds is followed by ‘his voyage to the firmament’. In C he sails with Voronwë to the halls of Mandos seeking for tidings of Tuor, Idril, and Elwing; he ‘reaches the bar at the margin of the world and sets sail on the oceans of the firmament in order to gaze over the Earth. The Moon mariner chases him for his brightness and he dives through the Door of Night.’ In the outline E (II. 260) ‘Elwing as a seamew comes to him. He sets sail over the margent of the world.’ In the early note associated with the poem ‘The Bidding of the Minstrel’ (II. 261) he ‘sails west again to the lip of the world, just as the Sun is diving into the sea’, and ‘sets sail upon the sky’; and in the preface to ‘The Shores of Faëry’ (II. 262) he
sat long while in his old age upon the Isle of Seabirds in the Northern Waters ere he set forth upon a last voyage. He passed Taniquetil and even Valinor, and drew his bark over the bar at the margin of the world, and launched it on the Oceans of the Firmament. Of his ventures there no man has told, save that hunted by the orbed Moon he fled back to Valinor, and mounting the towers of Kôr upon the rocks of Eglamar he gazed back upon the Oceans of the World.
The passage in S is different from all of these, in that here Eärendel’s voyage into the sky is achieved with the aid of the wings of seabirds, and it introduces the idea of his being scorched by the Sun as well as hunted by the Moon. I suggested (II. 259) that Eärendel originally sailed into the sky in continuing search for Elwing, and this is now corroborated.
The story in S now leaves Eärendel, wandering the sky ‘as a fugitive star’, and comes to the march of Fionwë and the Last Battle (a term that is used in S both of the Last Battle in the mythological record, in which the hosts of Valinor overthrew Morgoth, and of the Last Battle of the world, declared in prophecy, when Morgoth will come back through the Door and Fionwë will fight him on the plains of Valinor). Almost all of this now enters the mythology for the first time; and almost all of what very little survives from the earliest period on the subject of the March of the Elves of Valinor (II. 278–80) has disappeared. There is no mention of Tulkas, of his battle with Melko, of Noldorin, of the hostility of Men; virtually the only point in common is that after the overthrow of Morgoth Elves depart into the West. In the old story the Silmarils play no part at the end (cf. the jotting ‘What became of the Silmarils after the capture of Melko?’ II. 259); but now in S there appear the lineaments of a story concerning their fate. Now also we have the first mention anywhere of the breaking of the Northwestern world in the struggle to overthrow Morgoth; and (in an addition to the text) the chain Angainor appears from the Lost Tales. (Angainor is not named in the earlier passage in S (§2) concerning the binding of Morgoth. It appears (later) in the Lay of Leithian, in a puzzling reference to ‘the chain Angainor that ere Doom/for Morgoth shall by Gods be wrought’; see III. 205, 209–10.)
In the story of the fate of the Silmarils, Maglor says to Maidros that there are two sons of Fëanor now left, and two Silmarils. Does this imply that the Silmaril of Beren was lost when Elwing cast herself into the sea with the Nauglafring (unlike the later story)? The answer is certainly yes; the story in S is not comprehensible otherwise. Thus when Maglor casts himself (changed to casts the jewel) into the fiery pit, having stolen one of the Silmarils of the Iron Crown from Fionwë, ‘one Silmaril is now in the sea, and one in the earth’. The third was the Silmaril that remained in Fionwë’s keeping; and it was that one that was bound to Eärendel’s brow. We thus have a remarkable stage of transition, in which the Silmarils have at last achieved primary importance, but where the fate of each has not arrived at the final form; and the conclusion, seen to be inevitable once reached, that it was the Silmaril regained by Beren and Lúthien that became the Evening Star, has not been achieved. In S, Eärendel becomes a star before receiving the Silmaril; but originally, as I have said (II. 265), ‘there is no suggestion that the Valar hallowed his ship and set him in the sky, nor that his light was that of the Silmaril’. In this respect also S is transitional, for at the end the later story appears.
The Elves of the Outer Lands (Great Lands), after the conquest of Morgoth, set sail from Lúthien (later emended to Leithien), explained as ‘Britain or England’. For the forms Luthany, Lúthien, Leithian, Leithien and the texts in which they occur see III. 154. It is remarkable that as S was originally written Lúthien is both the name of Thingol’s daughter and the name of England.
It is further said in S that the Elves ‘ever still from time to time set sail [from Lúthien] leaving the world ere they fade’. ‘The Gnomes and many of the Ilkorins and Teleri and Qendi repeople the Lonely Isle. Some go back to live upon the shores of Faëry and in Valinor, but Côr and Tûn remain desolate.’ Some of this can be brought into relation with the old outlines (see II. 308–9), but how much more was retained in mind, beyond ‘The Elves retreated to Luthany’ and ‘Many of the Elves of Luthany sought back west over the sea and settled in Tol Eressëa’, cannot be determined. That even this much was retained is however very instructive. The peculiar relation of the Elves to England keeps a foothold, as it were, in the actual articulation of the narrative; as also the idea that if they remained in ‘the world’ they would fade (see II. 326).
It is not made clear why ‘Côr and Tûn’ remained desolate, since some of the Elves ‘go back to live upon the shores of Faëry and in Valinor’. In the original conception (as I have argued its nature, II. 280) the Eldar of Valinor, when they returned from the Great Lands where they had gone against the will of the Valar, were forbidden to re-enter Valinor and therefore settled in Tol Eressëa, as ‘the Exiles of Kôr’ (although some did return in the end to Valinor, since Ingil son of Inwë, according to Meril-i-Turinqi (I. 129), ‘went back long ago to Valinor and is with Manwë’). But in the story as told in S the idea that the March of the Eldar was against the will of the Valar, and aroused them to wrath, has been abandoned, and ‘the sons of the Valar’ now lead the hosts out of the West; why then should the Elves of Tûn not return there? And we have the statement in S that Tol Eressëa was repeopled not only by Gnomes (and nothing at all is said of their pardon) and Ilkorins, but also by Qendi ( = the later Vanyar) and Teleri, Elves who came from Valinor for the assault on Morgoth. I cannot explain this; and must conclude that my father was only noting down the chief points of his developing conceptions, leaving much unwritten.
There now appears the idea that the Gods thrust Morgoth through the Door of Night ‘into the outer dark beyond the Walls of the World’;* and there is the first reference to the escape of Thû (Sauron) in the Last Battle. There is also a prophecy concerning the ultimate battle, when the world is old and the Gods weary, and Morgoth will come back through the Door of Night; then Fionwë with Túrin beside him shall fight Morgoth on the plain of Valinor, and Túrin shall slay him with his black sword. The Silmarils shall be recovered, and their light released, the Trees rekindled, the Mountains of Valinor levelled so that the light goes out over all the world, and Gods and Elves shall grow young again. Into this final resolution of the evil in the world it would prove unprofitable, I think, to enquire too closely. References to it have appeared in print in Unfinished Tales, pp. 395–6, in the remarks on Gandalf: ‘Manwë will not descend from the Mountain until the Dagor Dagorath, and the coming of the End, when Melkor returns’, and in the alliterative poem accompanying this, ‘until Dagor Dagorath and the Doom cometh’. The earliest references are probably in the outline C (II. 282), where (when the Pine of Belaurin is cut down) ‘Melko is thus now out of the world – but one day he will find a way back, and the last great uproars will begin before the Great End’. In the Lost Tales there are many references to the Great End, most of which do not concern us here; but at the end of the tale of The Hiding of Valinor is told (I. 219) of ‘that great foreboding that was spoken among the Gods when first the Door of Night was opened’:
For ’tis said that ere the Great End come Melko shall in some wise contrive a quarrel between Moon and Sun, and Ilinsor shall seek to follow Urwendi through the Gates, and when they are gone the Gates of both East and West will be destroyed, and Urwendi and Ilinsor shall be lost. So shall it be that Fionwë Úrion, son of Manwë, of love for Urwendi shall in the end be Melko’s bane, and shall destroy the world to destroy his foe, and so shall all things then be rolled away.
(Cf. the outline C, II. 281: ‘Fionwë’s rage and grief [at the death of Urwendi]. In the end he will slay Melko.’) Whether any of this prophecy underlies the idea of the ultimate return of Morgoth through the Door of Night I cannot say. At the end of the Tale of Turambar, after the account of the ‘deification’ of Túrin and Nienor, there is a prophecy (II. 116) that
Turambar indeed shall stand beside Fionwë in the Great Wrack, and Melko and his drakes shall curse the sword of Mormakil.
But there is no indication in S of how ‘the spirit of Túrin’ will survive to slay Morgoth in the ultimate battle on the plain of Valinor.
That the Mountains of Valinor shall be levelled, so that the light of the rekindled Trees goes out over all the world, is also found in the earliest texts; cf. the isolated passage in C (II. 285) where is told the Elves’ prophecy of the (second) Faring Forth:
Laurelin and Silpion will be rekindled, and the mountain wall being destroyed then soft radiance will be spread over all the world, and the Sun and Moon will be recalled.
But this prophecy is associated with other conceptions that had clearly been abandoned.
At the end, with the aid of the Silmaril Elwing is found and restored, but there is no indication of how the Silmaril was used to this purpose. Elwing in this account sails with Eärendel, who bears the third Silmaril, and so he shall sail until he sees ‘the last battle gathering upon the plains of Valinor’.
On the reappearance of the name Eriol at the very end of S see II. 300.
I do not intend here to relate this version to that in the published work, but will conclude this long discussion of the concluding sections 17–19 with a brief summary. As I have said, S is here extremely condensed, and it is here even harder than elsewhere to know or guess what of the old material my father had suppressed and what was still ‘potentially’ present. But in any case nothing of the old layer that is not present in S was ever to reappear.
In the present version, Eärendel has still not come to his supreme function as the Messenger who spoke before the Powers on behalf of the Two Kindreds, though the birds of Gondolin have been abandoned as the bringers of tidings to Valinor, and Ulmo becomes the sole agent of the final assault on Morgoth out of the West. The voyages of Eärendel have been simplified: he now has the one great voyage–without Voronwë – in Wingelot, in which he slew Ungoliant, and the second voyage, with Voronwë, which takes him to Kôr – and the desertion of Kôr (Tûn) still depends on the March of the Eldar, which has already taken place when he comes there. His voyage into the sky is now achieved by the wings of birds; and the Silmaril still plays no part in his becoming a star, for the Silmaril of Beren and Lúthien was drowned with the Nauglafring at the Mouths of Sirion. But the Silmarils at last become central to the final acts of the mythological drama, and – unlike the later story – only one of the two Silmarils that remained in the Iron Crown is made away with by a son of Fëanor (Maglor); the second is given to Eärendel by the Gods, and the later story is visible at the end of S, where his boat ‘is drawn over Valinor to the Outer Seas’ and launched into the Outer Dark, where he sails with the Silmaril on his brow, keeping watch on Morgoth.
The destruction of the people of Sirion’s Mouths now becomes the final evil of the Oath of Fëanor. Elrond appears, with a remarkable reference to the choice given to him as half-elven. The coming of the hosts of the West to the overthrow of Morgoth is now an act of the Valar, and the hosts are led by the Sons of the Valar. England, as Lúthien (Leithien), remains as the land from which the Elves of the Great Lands set sail at the end for Tol Eressëa; but I suspect that virtually all the highly complex narrative which I attempted to reconstruct (II. 308–9) had gone – Eärendel and Ing(wë) and the hostility of Ossë, the Ingwaiwar, the seven invasions of Luthany.
The original ideas of the conclusion of the Elder Days (Melko’s climbing of the Pine of Belaurin, the cutting down of the Pine, the warding of the sky by Telimektar and Ingil (Orion and Sirius), II. 281–2) have disappeared; in S, Morgoth is thrust through the Door of Night, and Eärendel becomes its guardian and guarantee against Morgoth’s return, until the End. And lastly, and most pregnant for the future, Thû escapes the Last Battle when Morgoth was overcome, ‘and dwells still in dark places’.
