Читать книгу The Lost Road and Other Writings - Christopher Tolkien - Страница 9
ОглавлениеThe text of the original ‘scheme’ of the legend, referred to in the previous chapter, was written at such speed that here and there words cannot be certainly interpreted. Near the beginning it is interrupted by a very rough and hasty sketch, which shows a central globe, marked Ambar, with two circles around it; the inner area thus described is marked Ilmen and the outer Vaiya. Across the top of Ambar and cutting through the zones of Ilmen and Vaiya is a straight line extending to the outer circle in both directions. This must be the forerunner of the diagram of the World Made Round accompanying the Ambarkanta, IV.247. The first sentence of the text, concerning Agaldor (on whom see pp. 78–9), is written separately from the rest, as if it were a false start, or the beginning of a distinct outline.
Agaldor chieftain of a people who live upon the N.W. margin of the Western Sea.
The last battle of the Gods. Men side largely with Morgoth. After the victory the Gods take counsel. Elves are summoned to Valinor. [Struck out: Faithful men dwell in the Lands]
Many men had not come into the old Tales. They are still at large on earth. The Fathers of Men are given a land to dwell in, raised by Ossë and Aulë in the great Western Sea. The Western Kingdom grows up. Atalantë. [Added in margin: Legend so named it afterward (the old name was Númar or Númenos) Atalantë = The Falling.] Its people great mariners, and men of great skill and wisdom. They range from Tol-eressëa to the shores of Middle-earth. Their occasional appearance among Wild Men, where Faithless Men also [?ranged corrupting them]. Some become lords in the East. But the Gods will not allow them to land in Valinor – and though they become long-lived because many have been bathed in the radiance of Valinor from Tol-eressëa – they are mortal and their span brief. They murmur against this decree. Thû comes to Atalantë, heralded [read heralding] the approach of Morgoth. But Morgoth cannot come except as a spirit, being doomed to dwell outside the Walls of Night. The Atalanteans fall, and rebel. They make a temple to Thû-Morgoth. They build an armament and assail the shores of the Gods with thunder.
The Gods therefore sundered Valinor from the earth, and an awful rift appeared down which the water poured and the armament of Atalantë was drowned. They globed the whole earth so that however far a man sailed he could never again reach the West, but came back to his starting-point. Thus new lands came into being beneath the Old World; and the East and West were bent back and [?water flowed all over the round] earth’s surface and there was a time of flood. But Atalantë being near the rift was utter[ly] thrown down and submerged. The remnant of [struck out at time of writing: Númen the Lie-númen] the Númenóreans in their ships flee East and land upon Middle-earth. [Struck out: Morgoth induces many to believe that this is a natural cataclysm.]
The [?longing] of the Númenóreans. Their longing for life on earth. Their ship burials, and their great tombs. Some evil and some good. Many of the good sit upon the west shore. These also seek out the Fading Elves. How [struck out at time of writing: Agaldor] Amroth wrestled with Thû and drove him to the centre of the Earth and the Iron-forest.
The old line of the lands remained as a plain of air upon which only the Gods could walk, and the Eldar who faded as Men usurped the sun. But many of the Númenórië could see it or faintly see it; and tried to devise ships to sail on it. But they achieved only ships that would sail in Wilwa or lower air. Whereas the Plain of the Gods cut through and traversed Ilmen [in] which even birds cannot fly, save the eagles and hawks of Manwë. But the fleets of the Númenórië sailed round the world; and Men took them for gods. Some were content that this should be so.
As I have said, this remarkable text documents the beginning of the legend of Númenor, and the extension of ‘The Silmarillion’ into a Second Age of the World. Here the idea of the World Made Round and the Straight Path was first set down, and here appears the first germ of the story of the Last Alliance, in the words ‘These also seek out the Fading Elves. How [Agaldor >] Amroth wrestled with Thû and drove him to the centre of the Earth’ (at the beginning of the text Agaldor is named as the chief of a people living on the North-west coasts of Middle-earth). The longevity of the Númenóreans is already present, but (even allowing for the compression and distortion inherent in such ‘outlines’ of my father’s, in which he attempted to seize and dash onto paper a bubbling up of new ideas) seems to have far less significance than it would afterwards attain; and is ascribed, strangely, to ‘the radiance of Valinor’, in which the mariners of Númenor were ‘bathed’ during their visits to Tol-eressëa, to which they were permitted to sail. Cf. the Quenta, IV.98: ‘Still therefore is the light of Valinor more great and fair than that of other lands, because there the Sun and Moon together rest a while before they go upon their dark journey under the world’; but this does not seem a sufficient or satisfactory explanation of the idea (see further p. 20). The mortuary culture of the Númenóreans does indeed appear, but it arose among the survivors of Númenor in Middle-earth, after the Downfall; and this remained into more developed forms of the legend, as did the idea of the flying ships which the exiles built, seeking to sail on the Straight Path through Ilmen, but achieving only flight through the lower air, Wilwa.*
The sentence ‘Thû comes to Atalantë, herald[ing] the approach of Morgoth’ certainly means that Thû prophesied Morgoth’s return, as in subsequent texts. The meaning of ‘But Morgoth cannot come except as a spirit’ is made somewhat clearer in the next version, §5.
The first version of The Fall of Númenor
The preliminary outline was the immediate precursor of a first full narrative – the manuscript described above (p. 9), placed with The Lost Road. This was followed by further versions, and I shall refer to the work as a whole (as distinct from the Akallabêth, into which it was afterwards transformed) as The Fall of Númenor, abbreviated ‘FN’; the first text has no title, but I shall call it ‘FN I’.
FN I is rough and hasty, and full of corrections made at the time of composition; there are also many others, mostly slight, made later and moving towards the second version FN II. I give it as it was written, without the second layer of emendations (except in so far as these make small necessary corrections to clarify the sense). As explained in the Preface, here as elsewhere I have introduced paragraph numbers into the text to make subsequent reference and comparison easier. A commentary, following the paragraphing of the text, follows at its end.
§1 In the Great Battle when Fionwë son of Manwë overthrew Morgoth and rescued the Gnomes and the Fathers of Men, many mortal Men took part with Morgoth. Of these those that were not destroyed fled into the East and South of the World, and the servants of Morgoth that escaped came to them and guided them; and they became evil, and they brought evil into many places where wild Men dwelt at large in the empty lands. But after their victory, when Morgoth and many of his captains were bound, and Morgoth was thrust again into the Outer Darkness, the Gods took counsel. The Elves were summoned to Valinor, as has been told, and many obeyed, but not all. But the Fathers of Men, who had served the Eldar, and fought against Morgoth, were greatly rewarded. For Fionwë son of Manwë came among them and taught them, and gave them wisdom, power and life stronger than any others of the Second Kindred.
§2 And a great land was made for them to dwell in, neither part of Middle-earth nor wholly separate from it. This was raised by Ossë out of the depths of Belegar, the Great Sea, and established by Aulë, and enriched by Yavanna. It was called Númenor, that is Westernesse, and Andúnië or the Sunsetland, and its chief city in the midmost of its western coasts was in the days of its might called Númar or Númenos; but after its fall it was named in legend Atalantë, the Ruin.
§3 For in Númenórë a great people arose, in all things more like the First Kindred than any other races of Men that have been, yet less fair and wise than they, though greater in body. And above all their arts the people of Númenor nourished shipbuilding and sea-craft, and became mariners whose like shall never be again, since the world was diminished. They ranged from Tol-eressëa, where for many ages they still had converse and dealings with the Gnomes, to the shores of Middle-earth, and sailed round to the North and South, and glimpsed from their high prows the Gates of Morning in the East. And they appeared among the wild Men, and filled them with wonder and also with fear. For many esteemed them to be Gods or sons of Gods out of the West, and evil men had told them lies concerning the Lords of the West. But the Númenóreans tarried not long yet in Middle-earth, for their hearts hungered ever westward for the undying bliss of Valinor. And they were restless and pursued with desire even at the height of their glory.
§4 But the Gods forbade them to sail beyond the Lonely Isle, and would not permit any save their kings (once in each life before he was crowned) to land in Valinor. For they were mortal Men, and it was not in the power and right of Manwë to alter their fate. Thus though the people were long-lived, since their land was more nigh than other lands to Valinor, and many had looked long on the radiance of the Gods that came faintly to Tol-eressëa, they remained mortal, even their kings, and their span brief in the eyes of the Eldar. And they murmured against this decree. And a great discontent grew among them; and their masters of lore sought unceasingly for the secrets that should prolong their lives, and they sent spies to seek these in Valinor. And the Gods were angered.
§5 And in time it came to pass that Sûr (whom the Gnomes called Thû) came in the likeness of a great bird to Númenor and preached a message of deliverance, and he prophesied the second coming of Morgoth. But Morgoth did not come in person, but only in spirit and as a shadow upon the mind and heart, for the Gods shut him beyond the Walls of the World. But Sûr spake to Angor the king and Istar his queen, and promised them undying life and lordship of the Earth. And they believed him and fell under the shadow, and the greatest part of the people of Númenor followed them. Angor raised a great temple to Morgoth in the midst of the land, and Sûr dwelt there.
§6 But in the passing of the years Angor felt the oncoming of old age, and he was troubled; and Sûr said that the gifts of Morgoth were withheld by the Gods, and that to obtain plenitude of power and undying life he must be master of the West. Wherefore the Númenóreans made a great armament; and their might and skill had in those days become exceedingly great, and they had moreover the aid of Sûr. The fleets of the Númenóreans were like a great land of many islands, and their masts like a forest of mountain-trees, and their banners like the streamers of a thunderstorm, and their sails were black. And they moved slowly into the West, for all the winds were stilled and the world lay silent in the fear of that time. And they passed Tol-eressëa, and it is said that the Elves mourned and grew sick, for the light of Valinor was cut off by the cloud of the Númenóreans. But Angor assailed the shores of the Gods, and he cast bolts of thunder, and fire came upon the sides of Taniquetil.
§7 But the Gods were silent. Sorrow and dismay were in the heart of Manwë, and he spoke to Ilúvatar, and took power and counsel from the Lord of All; and the fate and fashion of the world was changed. For the silence of the Gods was broken suddenly, and Valinor was sundered from the earth, and a rift appeared in the midst of Belegar east of Tol-eressëa, and into this chasm the great seas plunged, and the noise of the falling waters filled all the earth and the smoke of the cataracts rose above the tops of the everlasting mountains. But all the ships of Númenor that were west of Tol-eressëa were drawn down into the great abyss and drowned, and Angor the mighty and Istar his queen fell like stars into the dark, and they perished out of all knowledge. And the mortal warriors that had set foot in the land of the Gods were buried under fallen hills, where legend saith that they lie imprisoned in the Forgotten Caves until the day of Doom and the Last Battle. And the Elves of Tol-eressëa passed through the gates of death, and were gathered to their kindred in the land of the Gods, and became as they; and the Lonely Isle remained only as a shape of the past.
§8 But Ilúvatar gave power to the Gods, and they bent back the edges of the Middle-earth, and they made it into a globe, so that however far a man should sail he could never again reach the true West, but came back weary at last to the place of his beginning. Thus New Lands came into being beneath the Old World, and all were equally distant from the centre of the round earth; and there was flood and great confusion of waters, and seas covered what was once the dry, and lands appeared where there had been deep seas. Thus also the heavy air flowed round all the earth in that time, above the waters; and the springs of all waters were cut off from the stars.
§9 But Númenor being nigh upon the East to the great rift was utterly thrown down and overwhelmed in sea, and its glory perished. But a remnant of the Númenóreans escaped the ruin in this manner. Partly by the device of Angor, and partly of their own will (because they revered still the Lords of the West and mistrusted Sûr) many had abode in ships upon the east coast of their land, lest the issue of war be evil. Wherefore protected for a while by the land they avoided the draught of the sea, and a great wind arose blowing from the gap, and they sped East and came at length to the shores of Middle-earth in the days of ruin.
§10 There they became lords and kings of Men, and some were evil and some were of good will. But all alike were filled with desire of long life upon earth, and the thought of Death was heavy upon them; and their feet were turned east but their hearts were westward. And they built mightier houses for their dead than for their living, and endowed their buried kings with unavailing treasure. For their wise men hoped ever to discover the secret of prolonging life and maybe the recalling of it. But it is said that the span of their lives, which had of old been greater than that of lesser races, dwindled slowly, and they achieved only the art of preserving uncorrupt for many ages the dead flesh of men. Wherefore the kingdoms upon the west shores of the Old World became a place of tombs, and filled with ghosts. And in the fantasy of their hearts, and the confusion of legends half-forgotten concerning that which had been, they made for their thought a land of shades, filled with the wraiths of the things of mortal earth. And many deemed this land was in the West, and ruled by the Gods, and in shadow the dead, bearing the shadows of their possessions, should come there, who could no more find the true West in the body. For which reason in after days many of their descendants, or men taught by them, buried their dead in ships and set them in pomp upon the sea by the west coasts of the Old World.
§11 For the blood of the Númenóreans was most among the men of those lands and coasts, and the memory of the primeval world remained most strongly there, where the old paths to the West had of old set out from Middle-earth. And the spell that lay there was not wholly vain. For the old line of the world remained in the mind of the Gods and in the memory of the world as a shape and a plan that has been changed, but endures. And it has been likened to a plain of air, or to a straight vision that bends not to the hidden curving of the earth, or to a level bridge that rises imperceptibly but surely above the heavy air of earth. And of old many of the Númenóreans could see or half see the paths to the True West, and believed that at times from a high place they could descry the peaks of Taniquetil at the end of the straight road, high above the world.
§12 But the most, that could not see this, scorned them, and trusted in ships upon the water. But they came only to the lands of the New World, and found them to be as those of the Old; and they reported that the world was round. But upon the straight road only the Gods and the vanished Elves could walk, or such as the Gods summoned of the fading Elves of the round earth, who became diminished in substance as Men usurped the sun. For the Plain of the Gods being straight, whereas the surface of the world was bent, and the seas that lay upon it, and the heavy airs that lay above, cut through the air of breath and flight, and traversed Ilmen, in which no flesh can endure. And it is said that even those of the Númenóreans of old who had the straight vision did not all comprehend this, and they tried to devise ships that would rise above the waters of the world and hold to the imagined seas. But they achieved only ships that would sail in the air of breath. And these ships flying came also to the lands of the New World and to the East of the Old World; and they reported that the world was round. And many abandoned the Gods, and put them out of their legends, and even out of their dreams. But Men of Middle-earth looked on them with wonder and great fear, and took them to be gods; and many were content that this should be so.
§13 But not all the hearts of the Númenóreans were crooked; and the lore of the old days descending from the Fathers of Men, and the Elf-friends, and those instructed by Fionwë, was preserved among some. And they knew that the fate of Men was not bounded by the round path of the world, nor destined for the straight path. For the round is crooked and has no end but no escape; and the straight is true, but has an end within the world, and that is the fate of the Elves. But the fate of Men, they said, is neither round nor ended, and is not within the world. And they remembered from whence the ruin came, and the cutting off of Men from their just portion of the straight path; and they avoided the shadow of Morgoth according to their power, and hated Thû. And they assailed his temples and their servants, and there were wars of allegiance among the mighty of this world, of which only the echoes remain.
§14 But there remains still a legend of Beleriand: for that land in the West of the Old World, although changed and broken, held still in ancient days to the name it had in the days of the Gnomes. And it is said that Amroth was King of Beleriand; and he took counsel with Elrond son of Eärendel, and with such of the Elves as remained in the West; and they passed the mountains and came into inner lands far from the sea, and they assailed the fortress of Thû. And Amroth wrestled with Thû and was slain; but Thû was brought to his knees, and his servants were dispelled; and the peoples of Beleriand destroyed his dwellings, and drove him forth, and he fled to a dark forest, and hid himself. And it is said that the war with Thû hastened the fading of the Eldar, for he had power beyond their measure, as Felagund King of Nargothrond had found in the earliest days; and they expended their strength and substance in the assault upon him. And this was the last of the services of the older race to Men, and it is held the last of the deeds of alliance before the fading of the Elves and the estrangement of the Two Kindreds. And here the tale of the ancient world, as the Elves keep it, comes to an end.
Commentary on the first version of The Fall of Númenor
§1 As Q §18 was first written (IV. 158), it was permitted by Fionwë that ‘with the Elves should those of the race of Hador and Bëor alone be suffered to depart, if they would. But of these only Elrond was now left …’ On this extremely puzzling passage see the commentary, IV. 200, where I suggested that obscure as it is it represents ‘the first germ of the story of the departure of the Elf-friends to Númenor.’ It was removed in the rewriting, Q II §18, where there appears a reference to Men of Hithlum who ‘repentant of their evil servitude did deeds of valour, and many beside of Men new come out of the East’, but now no mention of the Elf-friends. A final hasty revision of the passage (IV. 163, notes 2 and 3) gave:
And it is said that all that were left of the three Houses of the Fathers of Men fought for Fionwë, and to them were joined some of the Men of Hithlum who repenting of their evil servitude did deeds of valour … But most Men, and especially those new come out of the East, were on the side of the Enemy.
This is very close to, and no doubt belongs in fact to the same time as, the corresponding passage in the following version of ‘The Silmarillion’ (QS*, p. 328 §16), which however omits the reference to the Men of Hithlum. I have little doubt that this development came in with the emergence of Númenor.
§2 Here first appear the names Andúnië (but as a name of the island, translated ‘the Sunsetland’), and Númenor itself (which does not occur in the preliminary outline, though the people are there called Númenórië and Númenóreans). The chief city is called Númar or Númenos, which in the outline were the names of the land. The name Belegar was emended later, here and in §7, to Belegaer.
After the words enriched by Yavanna the passage concerning names was early replaced as follows:
It was called by the Gods Andor, the Land of Gift, but by its own folk Vinya, the Young; but when the men of that land spake of it to the men of Middle-earth they named it Númenor, that is Westernesse, for it lay west of all lands inhabited by mortals. Yet it was not in the true West, for there was the land of the Gods. The chief city of Númenor was in the midmost of its western coasts, and in the days of its might it was called Andúnië, because it faced the sunset; but after its fall it was named in the legends of those that fled from it Atalantë the Downfall.
Here first appears Andor, Land of Gift, and also the name given to the land by the Númenóreans, Vinya, the Young, which did not survive in the later legend (cf. Vinyamar, Vinyalondë, Index to Unfinished Tales); Andúnië now becomes the name of the chief city. In the text as originally written the name Atalantë could refer either to the land or the city, but in the rewriting it can only refer to the city. It seems unlikely that my father intended this; see the corresponding passage in FN II and commentary.
§3 The permission given to the Númenóreans to sail as far west as Tol-eressëa, found already in the original outline, contrasts with the Akallabêth (pp. 262–3), where it is told that they were forbidden ‘to sail so far westward that the coasts of Númenor could no longer be seen’, and only the most keen-sighted among them could descry far off the tower of Avallónë on the Lonely Isle.
The Gates of Morning reappear, remarkably, from the Lost Tales (I. 216). In the original astronomical myth the Sun passed into the Outer Dark by the Door of Night and re-entered by the Gates of Morn; but with the radical transformation of the myth that entered with the Sketch of the Mythology (see IV. 49), and is found in the Quenta and Ambarkanta, whereby the Sun is drawn by the servants of Ulmo beneath the roots of the Earth, the Door of Night was given a different significance and the Gates of Morn no longer appear (see IV. 252, 255). How the reference to them here (which survives in the Akallabêth, p. 263) is to be understood I am unable to say.
In this paragraph is the first occurrence of the expression The Lords of the West.
§4 The words save their kings (once in each life before he was crowned) were early placed in square brackets. In the conclusion of QS (p. 326 §§8–9) the prohibition appears to be absolute, not to be set aside for any mortal; there Mandos says of Eärendel ‘Now he shall surely die, for he has trodden the forbidden shores’, and Manwë says ‘To Eärendel I remit the ban, and the peril that he took upon himself.’ Later (as noted under §3 above) the Ban extended also, and inevitably, to Tol-eressëa (‘easternmost of the Undying Lands’, the Akallabêth, p. 263).
The ascription of the longevity of the Númenóreans to the light of Valinor appeared already in the original outline, and I cited (p. 13) the passage from the Quenta where it is said that the light of Valinor was greater and fairer than in the other lands ‘because there the Sun and Moon together rest a while.’ But the wording here, ‘the radiance of the Gods that came faintly to Tol-eressëa’, surely implies a light of a different nature from that of the Sun and Moon (which illumine the whole world). Conceivably, the further idea that appears in the corresponding passage in QS (§79) is present here: ‘moreover the Valar store the radiance of the Sun in many vessels, and in vats and pools for their comfort in times of dark.’ The passage was later enclosed in brackets, and it does not appear in FN II; but at a subsequent point in the narrative (§6) the Elves of Tol-eressëa mourned ‘for the light of Valinor was cut off by the cloud of the Númenóreans’, and this was not rejected. Cf. the Akallabêth (p. 278): ‘the Eldar mourned, for the light of the setting sun was cut off by the cloud of the Númenóreans.’
§5 With what is said here of Morgoth’s not returning ‘in person’, for he was shut beyond the Walls of the World, ‘but only in spirit and as a shadow upon the mind and heart’, cf. the Quenta (IV. 164): ‘Some say also that Morgoth at whiles secretly as a cloud that cannot be seen or felt … creeps back surmounting the Walls and visiteth the world’ (a passage that survived in QS, pp. 332–3 §30).
§7 The concluding sentence concerning the Elves of Tol-eressëa was an addition, but one that looks as if it belongs with the writing of the text. It is very hard to interpret. The rift in the Great Sea appeared east of Tol-eressëa, but the ships that were west of the isle were drawn down into the abyss; and it might be concluded from this that Tol-eressëa also was swallowed up and disappeared: so the Elves who dwelt there ‘passed through the gates of death, and were gathered to their kindred in the land of the Gods’, and ‘the Lonely Isle remained only as a shape of the past.’ But this would be very strange, for it would imply the abandonment of the entire story of Ælfwine’s voyage to Tol-eressëa in ages after; yet Ælfwine as recorder and pupil was still present in my father’s writings after the completion of The Lord of the Rings. On the diagram of the World Made Round accompanying the Ambarkanta (IV. 247) Tol-eressëa is marked as a point on the Straight Path. Moreover, much later, in the Akallabêth (pp. 278–9), the same is told of the great chasm: it opened ‘between Númenor and the Deathless Lands’, and all the fleets of the Númenóreans (which had passed on to Aman and so were west of Tol-eressëa) were drawn down into it; but ‘Valinor and Eressëa were taken from [the world] into the realm of hidden things.’
§8 The concluding sentence (‘Thus also the heavy air …’) is a marginal addition which seems certainly to belong with the original text. It has no mark for insertion, but must surely be placed here.
§10 The desire to prolong life was already a mark of the Númenóreans (§4), but the dark picture in the Akallabêth (p. 266) of a land of tombs and embalming, of a people obsessed with death, was not present. At this stage in the evolution of the legend, as already in the preliminary outline, the tomb-culture arose among the Númenóreans who escaped the Downfall and founded kingdoms in the ‘Old World’: whether of good or evil disposition ‘all alike were filled with desire of long life upon earth, and the thought of Death was heavy upon them’; and it was the life-span of the Exiles, as it appears, that slowly dwindled. There are echoes of the present passage in the Akallabêth account of Númenor after the Shadow fell upon it in the days of Tar-Atanamir (cf. Unfinished Tales p. 221); but in the very different context of the original story, when this culture arose among those who survived the Cataclysm and their descendants, other elements were present: for the Gods were now removed into the realm of the unknown and unseen, and they became the ‘explanation’ of the mystery of death, their dwelling-place in the far West the region to which the dead passed with their possessions.
In ‘The Silmarillion’ the Gods are ‘physically’ present, because (whatever the actual mode of their own being) they inhabit the same physical world, the realm of the ‘seen’; if, after the Hiding of Valinor, they could not be reached by the voyages sent out in vain by Turgon of Gondolin, they were nonetheless reached by Eärendel, sailing from Middle-earth in his ship Wingelot, and their physical intervention of arms changed the world for ever through the physical destruction of the power of Morgoth. Thus it may be said that in ‘The Silmarillion’ there is no ‘religion’, because the Divine is present and has not been ‘displaced’; but with the physical removal of the Divine from the World Made Round a religion arose (as it had arisen in Númenor under the teachings of Thû concerning Morgoth, the banished and absent God), and the dead were despatched, for religious reasons, in burial ships on the shores of the Great Sea.
§12 ‘But upon the straight road only the Gods and the vanished Elves could walk, or such as the Gods summoned of the fading Elves of the round earth, who became diminished in substance as Men usurped the sun.’ Cf. the Quenta, IV. 100–1, as emended (a passage that goes back to the Sketch of the Mythology, IV. 21):
In after days, when because of the triumph of Morgoth Elves and Men became estranged, as he most wished, those of the Eldalië that still lived in the world faded, and Men usurped the sunlight. Then the Eldar wandered in the lonelier places of the Outer Lands, and took to the moonlight and to the starlight, and to the woods and caves, and became as shadows, wraiths and memories, such as set not sail unto the West and vanished from the world.
This passage survived very little changed in QS (§87).
I believe that the story of the flying ships built by the exiled Númenóreans, found already in the preliminary draft (p. 12), is the sole introduction of aerial craft in all my father’s works. No hint is given of the means by which they rose and were propelled; and the passage did not survive into the later legend.
§13 It is a curious feature of the original story of Númenor that there is no mention of what befell Thû at the Downfall (cf. the Akallabêth p. 280); but he reappears here as a master of temples (cf. the Lay of Leithian lines 2064–7), dwelling in a fortress (§14), an object of hatred to those of the survivors of Númenor who retained something of the ancient knowledge.
§14 In the Quenta (IV. 160–1) it is told that in the Great Battle
the Northern regions of the Western world were rent and riven, and the sea roared in through many chasms, and there was confusion and great noise; and the rivers perished or found new paths, and the valleys were upheaved and the hills trod down, and Sirion was no more. Then Men fled away … and long was it ere they came back over the mountains to where Beleriand once had been.
The last words of the earliest Annals of Beleriand (IV. 310) are ‘So ended the First Age of the World and Beleriand was no more.’ It is also said in the Quenta (IV. 162) that after the War was ended ‘there was a mighty building of ships on the shores of the Western Sea, and especially upon the great isles, which in the disruption of the Northern world were fashioned of ancient Beleriand.’
In FN a rather different conception is suggested. Though Beleriand had been ‘changed and broken’, it is spoken of as ‘that land’, it was still called Beleriand, and it was peopled by Men and Elves, able to form an alliance against Thû. I would suggest (though hesitantly) that with the emergence, here first glimpsed, of a Second Age of Middle-earth consequent on the legend of Númenor, the utter devastation of Beleriand, suitable to the finality of the conclusion of the earlier conception, had been diminished.* Moreover it seems that at this time my father did not conceive of any further destruction of Beleriand at the time of the Downfall of Númenor, as he would do later (see p. 32).
At this stage there is no mention of a first and founder king of Númenor. Elrond was still the only child of Eärendel and Elwing; his brother Elros has appeared only in late additions to the text of Q (IV. 155), which were inserted after the Númenórean legend had begun to develop. In the oldest conception in the Sketch of the Mythology (IV. 38) Elrond ‘bound by his mortal half elects to stay on earth’ (i.e. in the Great Lands), and in Q (IV. 158) he ‘elected to remain, being bound by his mortal blood in love to those of the younger race’; see my remarks on the Choice of the Half-elven, IV. 70. Elrond is here, as it seems, a leader of the Elves of Beleriand, in alliance with Amroth, predecessor of Elendil. The Last Alliance leading to the overthrow of Thû is seen as the last intervention of the Elves in the affairs of the World of Men, in itself hastening their inevitable fading. The ‘dark forest’ to which Thû fled (cf. the ‘Iron-forest’ in the original outline) is doubtless Mirkwood. In The Hobbit all that had been told of the Necromancer was that he dwelt in a dark tower in the south of Mirkwood.†
The second version of The Fall of Númenor
FN II is a clear manuscript, made by my father with FN I before him and probably soon after it. It has many emendations made in the act of composition, and none that seem to have been made after any significant interval, apart from the title, which was inserted later in pencil, and the rejection of a sentence in §7. In contrast to my father’s common tendency to begin a new text keeping close to the antecedent but then to diverge ever more strongly as he proceeded, in this case the earlier part is much changed and expanded whereas the latter is scarcely altered, other than in very minor improvements to the run of sentences, until the end is reached. To give the whole of FN II is therefore unnecessary. Retaining the paragraph numbering of FN I, I give §§1–5 and 14 in full, and of the remainder only such short passages as were significantly altered.
THE LAST TALE: THE FALL OF NÚMENOR
§1 In the Great Battle when Fionwë son of Manwë overthrew Morgoth and rescued the Exiles, the three houses of the Men of Beleriand fought against Morgoth. But most Men were allies of the Enemy; and after the victory of the Lords of the West those that were not destroyed fled eastward into Middle-earth; and the servants of Morgoth that escaped came to them, and enslaved them. For the Gods forsook for a time the Men of Middle-earth, because they had disobeyed their summons and hearkened to the Enemy. And Men were troubled by many evil things that Morgoth had made in the days of his dominion: demons and dragons and monsters, and Orcs, that are mockeries of the creatures of Ilúvatar; and their lot was unhappy. But Manwë put forth Morgoth, and shut him beyond the world in the Void without; and he cannot return again into the world, present and visible, while the Lords are enthroned. Yet his Will remaineth, and guideth his servants; and it moveth them ever to seek the overthrow of the Gods and the hurt of those that obey them.
But when Morgoth was thrust forth, the Gods held council. The Elves were summoned to return into the West, and such as obeyed dwelt again in Eressëa, the Lonely Island, which was renamed Avallon: for it is hard by Valinor. But Men of the three faithful houses and such as had joined with them were richly rewarded. For Fionwë son of Manwë came among them and taught them; and he gave them wisdom, power, and life stronger than any others have of the mortal race.
§2 And a great land was made for them to dwell in, neither part of Middle-earth nor wholly separate from it. It was raised by Ossë out of the depths of the Great Sea, and established by Aulë and enriched by Yavanna; and the Eldar brought thither flowers and fountains out of Avallon and wrought gardens there of great beauty, in which the Gods themselves at times would walk. That land was called by the Valar Andor, the Land of Gift, and by its own folk it was at first called Vinya, the Young; but in the days of its pride they named it Númenor, that is Westernesse, for it lay west of all lands inhabited by mortals; yet it was far from the true West, for that is Valinor, the land of the Gods. But its glory fell and its name perished; for after its ruin it was named in the legends of those that fled from it Atalantë, the Downfallen. Of old its chief city and haven was in the midst of its western coasts, and it was called Andúnië, because it faced the sunset. But the high place of its king was at Númenos in the heart of the land. It was built first by Elrond son of Eärendel, whom the Gods and Elves chose to be the lord of that land; for in him the blood of the houses of Hador and Bëor was mingled, and with it some part of that of the Eldar and Valar, which he drew from Idril and from Lúthien. But Elrond and all his folk were mortal; for the Valar may not withdraw the gift of death, which cometh to Men from Ilúvatar. Yet they took on the speech of the Elves of the Blessed Realm, as it was and is in Eressëa, and held converse with the Elves, and looked afar upon Valinor; for their ships were suffered to sail to Avallon and their mariners to dwell there for a while.
§3 And in the wearing of time the people of Númenor grew great and glorious, in all things more like the Firstborn than any other races of Men that have been; yet less fair and wise than the Elves, though greater in stature. For the Númenóreans were taller even than the tallest of the sons of Men in Middle-earth. Above all their arts they nourished shipbuilding and sea-craft, and became mariners whose like shall never be again, since the world has been diminished. They ranged from Eressëa in the West to the shores of Middle-earth, and came even into the inner seas; and they sailed about the North and the South, and glimpsed from their high prows the Gates of Morning in the East. And they appeared among the wild Men and filled them with wonder and dismay, and some esteemed them to be Gods or the sons of Gods out of the West; and the Men of Middle-earth feared them, for they were under the shadow of Morgoth, and believed the Gods to be terrible and cruel. The Númenóreans taught them such of the truth as they could comprehend, but it became only as a distant rumour little understood; for as yet the Númenóreans came seldom to Middle-earth and did not tarry there long. Their hearts were set westward, and they began to hunger for the undying bliss of Valinor; and they were restless and pursued by desire as their power and glory grew.
§4 For the Gods forbade them to sail beyond the Lonely Isle, and would not permit any to land in Valinor, because the Númenóreans were mortal; and though the Lords had rewarded them with long life, they could not take from them the weariness of the world that cometh at last; and they died, even their kings of the seed of Eärendel, and their span was brief in the eyes of the Elves. And they began to murmur against this decree; and a great discontent grew among them. Their masters of knowledge sought unceasingly for secrets that should prolong their lives; and they sent spies to seek forbidden lore in Avallon. But the Gods were angered.
§5 And it came to pass that Sauron, servant of Morgoth, grew mighty in Middle-earth; and the mariners of Númenor brought rumour of him. Some said that he was a king greater than the King of Númenor; some said that he was one of the Gods or their sons set to govern Middle-earth. A few reported that he was an evil spirit, perchance Morgoth himself returned. But this was held to be only a foolish fable of the wild Men. Tar-kalion was King of Númenor in those days, and he was proud; and believing that the Gods had delivered the dominion of the earth to the Númenóreans, he would not brook a king mightier than himself in any land. Therefore he purposed to send his servants to summon Sauron to Númenor, to do homage before him. The Lords sent messages to the king and spake through the mouths of wise men and counselled him against this mission; for they said that Sauron would work evil if he came; but he could not come to Númenor unless he was summoned and guided by the king’s messengers. But Tar-kalion in his pride put aside the counsel, and he sent many ships.
Now rumour of the power of Númenor and its allegiance to the Gods came also to Sauron, and he feared lest the Men of the West should rescue those of Middle-earth from the Shadow; and being cunning and filled with malice he plotted in his heart to destroy Númenor, and (if he might) to bring grief upon the Gods. Therefore he humbled himself before the messengers, and came by ship to Númenor. But as the ships of the embassy drew nigh to the land an unquiet came upon the sea, and it arose like a mountain and cast the ships far inland; and the ship whereon Sauron stood was set upon a hill. And Sauron stood upon the hill and preached a message of deliverance from death to the Númenóreans; and he beguiled them with signs and wonders. And little by little he turned their hearts toward Morgoth, his master; and he prophesied that ere long he would come again into the world. And Sauron spake to Tar-kalion the king, and to Tar-ilien his queen, and promised them life unending and the dominion of the earth, if they would turn unto Morgoth. And they believed him, and fell under the Shadow, and the greatest part of their people followed them. And Tar-kalion raised a great temple to Morgoth upon the Mountain of Ilúvatar in the midst of the land; and Sauron dwelt there and all Númenor was under his vigilance.
[The greater part of §5 was replaced by the following shorter version:]
And it came to pass that Sauron, servant of Morgoth, grew strong in Middle-earth; and he learned of the power and glory of the Númenóreans, and of their allegiance to the Gods, and he feared lest coming they should wrest the dominion of the East from him and rescue the Men of Middle-earth from the Shadow. And the king heard rumour of Sauron; and it was said that he was a king greater than the King of Númenor. Wherefore, against the counsel of the Gods, the king sent his servants to Sauron, and bade him come and do homage. And Sauron, being filled with cunning and malice, humbled himself and came; and he beguiled the Númenóreans with signs and wonders. But little by little Sauron turned their hearts towards Morgoth; and he prophesied that ere long he would come again into the world. And Sauron spake to Tar-kalion King of Númenor and to Tar-ilien his queen …
For the remainder of FN II, until the final paragraph, I note only the few differences from FN I that are of any substance. The changes of Sûr, Angor, and Istar to Sauron, Tar-kalion, and Tar-ilien are not noticed.
§6 ‘And they passed Tol-eressëa’ > ‘And they encompassed Avallon’; ‘fire came upon the sides of Taniquetil’ > ‘fire came upon Kôr and smokes rose about Taniquetil.’
§7 In FN II the paragraph opens: ‘But the Gods made no answer. Then many of the Númenóreans set foot upon the forbidden shores, and they camped in might upon the borders of Valinor.’
‘Angor the mighty and Istar his queen’ > ‘Tar-kalion the golden and bright Ilien his queen’; ‘the Forgotten Caves’ > ‘the Caves of the Forgotten’.
The mysterious concluding sentence concerning the Elves of Eressëa (see the commentary on FN I) was retained but struck out later in pencil.
§8 The concluding sentence does not appear; see the commentary on FN I.
§9 ‘Partly by the [desire >] command of Tar-kalion, and partly by their own will (because some still revered the Gods and would not go with war into the West) many had remained behind, and sat in their ships…’
There is now no mention of the great wind that arose.
§10 The paragraph now opens: ‘There, though shorn of their former power, and few in number and scattered, they after became lords and kings of Men. Some were evil and forsook not Sauron in their hearts; and some were of good will and retained memory of the Gods. But all alike …’
In ‘the span of their lives, which had of old been greater than that of the lesser races’ the words ‘greater than’ > ‘thrice’.
The concluding sentence reads: ‘For which reason in after days they would bury their dead in ships, or set them in pomp …’
§11 ‘And the spell that lay there was not wholly vain’ > ‘And this was not wholly fantasy’, but this was struck out.
‘For the ancient line of the world remained in the mind of Ilúvatar and in the thought of the Gods, and in the memory of the world …’
At the end of the paragraph is added: ‘Therefore they built very high towers in those days.’
§12 The paragraph now begins: ‘But most, who could not see this or conceive it in thought, scorned the builders of towers, and trusted to ships that sailed upon water. But they came only to the lands of the New World, and found them like to those of the Old, and subject to death; and they reported that the world was round. But upon the Straight Road only the Gods could walk, and only the ships of the Elves of Avallon could journey. For the Road being straight, whereas the surface of the earth was bent…’
The paragraph concludes: ‘Therefore many abandoned the Gods, and put them out of their legends. But Men of Middle-earth looked up with wonder upon them, and with great fear, for they descended out of the air; and they took the Númenóreans to be Gods, and some were content that this should be so.’
§13 The paragraph begins: ‘But not all the hearts of the Númenóreans were crooked; and the knowledge of the days before the ruin, descending from their fathers and the Elf-friends, and those that had held converse with the Gods, was long preserved among the wise. And they said that the fate of Men …’
‘But the fate of Men … is not complete within the world.’
‘there were wars of faith among the mighty of Middle-earth’
§14 But there remains still a legend of Beleriand: for that land in the West of the North of the Old World, where Morgoth had been overthrown, was still in a measure blessed and free from his shadow; and many of the exiles of Númenor had come thither. Though changed and broken it retained still in ancient days the name that it had borne in the days of the Gnomes. And it is said that in Beleriand there arose a king, who was of Númenórean race, and he was named Elendil, that is Elf-friend. And he took counsel with the Elves that remained in Middle-earth (and these abode then mostly in Beleriand); and he made a league with Gil-galad the Elf-king who was descended from Fëanor. And their armies were joined, and passed the mountains and came into inner lands far from the Sea. And they came at last even to Mordor the Black Country, where Sauron, that is in the Gnomish tongue named Thû, had rebuilt his fortresses. And they encompassed the stronghold, until Thû came forth in person, and Elendil and Gil-galad wrestled with him; and both were slain. But Thû was thrown down, and his bodily shape destroyed, and his servants were dispelled, and the host of Beleriand destroyed his dwelling; but Thû’s spirit fled far away, and was hidden in waste places, and took no shape again for many ages. But it is sung sadly by the Elves that the war with Thû hastened the fading of the Eldar, decreed by the Gods; for Thû had power beyond their measure, as Felagund, King of Nargothrond, had found aforetime; and the Elves expended their strength and substance in the assault upon him. And this was the last of the services of the Firstborn to Men, and it is held the last of the deeds of alliance before the fading of the Elves and the estrangement of the Two Kindreds. And here endeth the tale of the ancient world as it is known to the Elves.
Commentary on the second version of The Fall of Númenor
§1 On ‘Orcs, that are mockeries of the creatures of Ilúvatar’ see QS §18 and commentary. – It was said in FN I §5 that Morgoth ‘did not come in person, but only in spirit, and as a shadow upon the mind and heart.’ Now the idea of his ‘return’ in any sense seems to be denied; but there appears the concept of his malevolent and guiding Will that remains always in the world.
‘such as obeyed dwelt again in Eressëa’: in FN I ‘the Elves were summoned to Valinor, as has been told, and many obeyed, but not all.’ In the Quenta (IV. 162) ‘the Gnomes and Dark-elves rehabited for the most part the Lonely Isle … But some returned even unto Valinor, as all were free to do who willed’ (retained in QS, pp. 331–2 §27). The name Avallon (‘for it is hard by Valinor’) appears, but as a new name for Tol Eressëa; afterwards, in the form Avallónë (‘for it is of all cities the nearest to Valinor’), it became the name of a haven in the isle: Akallabêth p. 260.
§2 At first my father preserved exactly the rewriting of FN I given in the commentary on FN I §2, whereby Atalantë is the name of the city Andúnië after the Downfall. I have suggested that he did not in fact intend this; at any rate he corrected it here, so that Atalantë again becomes the name of Númenor drowned. Númenos now reappears from FN I §2 as originally written, where it was the name of the western city, but becomes the name of the high place of the king in the centre of the land (afterwards Armenelos).
Elrond (see the commentary on FN I §14) now becomes the first King of Númenor and the builder of Númenos; his brother Elros has still not emerged.
The statement here that the Númenóreans ‘took on the speech of the Elves of the Blessed Realm, as it was and is in Eressëa’ suggests that they abandoned their own Mannish tongue; and that this is the meaning is shown in The Lost Road (p. 68). In the Lhammas it is said (p. 179) that ‘already even in [Húrin’s father’s] day Men in Beleriand forsook the daily use of their own tongue and spoke and gave even names unto their children in the language of the Gnomes.’ The words ‘as it was and is in Eressëa’ would contradict any idea that the Lonely Isle was destroyed in the Downfall (see the commentary on FN I §7). But the difficult passage which suggests it was preserved in the present text, §7 (though subsequently struck out).
§4 The association of the longevity of the Númenóreans with the radiance of Valinor (see the commentary on FN I §4) is abandoned, and is attributed solely to the gift of the Valar.
§5 In all probability the name Sauron (replacing Sûr of FN I) first occurs here or in the closely related passage in The Lost Road (p. 66). Its first occurrence in the ‘Silmarillion’ tradition is in QS §143. The story of Sauron’s coming to Númenor is changed from that in FN I, and it is explicit that he could not have come had he not been summoned. The story as told in the first version here, in which the ships returning from Middle-earth were cast upon Númenor far inland by a great wave, and Sauron stood upon a hill and ‘preached a message of deliverance’, is told in more detail in The Lost Road; but the second version in FN II, omitting the element of the great wave, looks as if it were substituted for the first almost immediately (on the significance of this see p. 9).
The temple to Morgoth is now raised upon the Mountain of Ilúvatar in the midst of the land, and this (or in The Lost Road) is the first appearance of the Meneltarma. The story was later rejected: in the Akallabêth ‘not even Sauron dared to defile the high place’, and the temple was built in Armenelos (pp. 272–3).
§11 The addition in FN II, ‘Therefore they built very high towers in those days’, must be the first reference to the White Towers on Emyn Beraid, the Tower Hills. Cf. The Lord of the Rings Appendix A (I. iii), where it is told of the palantír of Emyn Beraid that ‘Elendil set it there so that he could look back with “straight sight” and see Eressëa in the vanished West; but the bent seas below covered Númenor for ever.’ Cf. also Of the Rings of Power in The Silmarillion, p. 292. But when the present text was written the palantíri had not (so far as one can tell) been conceived.
§14 The rewriting of the passage concerning Beleriand reinforces the suggestion in FN I that it remained a country less destroyed after the Great Battle than is described in the other texts: it was ‘still in a measure blessed’ – and moreover the Elves who remained in Middle-earth ‘abode mostly in Beleriand’. Here Elendil ‘Elf-friend’ appears, displacing Amroth of FN I. It might be thought from the words ‘in Beleriand there arose a king, who was of Númenórean race’ that he was not a survivor of the Downfall; but this is clearly not the case. In The Lost Road, closely connected with FN II, Elendil (the father in the Númenórean incarnation of ‘Elwin-Edwin’) is a resolute foe of Sauron and his dominance in Númenor; and though The Lost Road breaks off before the sailing of Tar-kalion’s fleet, Elendil must have been among those who ‘sat in their ships upon the east coast of the land’ (FN §9) and so escaped the Downfall.
Here is certainly the first appearance of Gil-galad, the Elf-king in Beleriand, descended from Fëanor (it would be interesting to know his parentage), and the story of the Last Alliance moves a stage further; and there seems no question but that it was in this manuscript that the name Mordor, the Black Country, first emerged in narrative.
The further development of The Fall of Númenor
FN II was followed by a typescript made on my father’s typewriter of that period, but not typed by him. This is seen from its being an exact copy of FN II after all corrections had been made to it, and from two or three misreadings of the manuscript. I have no doubt that the typescript was made soon afterwards. In itself it has no textual value, but my father used it as the basis for certain further changes.
Associated with it is a loose manuscript page bearing passages that relate closely to changes made to the typescript. There is here a textual development that has important bearings on the dating in general.
Two passages are in question. The first concerns §8 (which had remained unchanged from FN I, apart from the omission in FN II of the concluding sentence). The loose page has here two forms of a new version of the paragraph, of which the first, which was struck through, reads as follows:
Then Ilúvatar cast back the Great Sea west of Middle-earth and the Barren Land east of Middle-earth and made new lands and new seas where aforetime nought had been but the paths of the Sun and Moon. And the world was diminished; for Valinor and Eressëa were taken into the Realm of Hidden Things, and thereafter however far a man might sail he could never again reach the True West. For all lands old and new were equally distant from the centre of the earth. There was [flood and great confusion of waters, and seas covered what once was dry, and lands appeared where there had been deep seas,] and Beleriand fell into the sea in that time, all save the land where Beren and Lúthien had dwelt for a while, the land of Lindon beneath the western feet of the [struck out: Ered] Lunoronti.
(The section enclosed in square brackets is represented in the manuscript by a mark of omission, obviously meaning that the existing text was to be followed.) Here the words ‘[the Gods] bent back the edges of the Middle-earth’ have disappeared; it is the Great Sea in the West and ‘the Barren Land’ in the East that are ‘cast back’ by Ilúvatar. It is now said that the new lands and new seas came into being ‘where aforetime nought had been but the paths of the Sun and Moon’ (i.e. at the roots of the world, see the Ambarkanta diagrams IV. 243, 245). This was in turn lost in the further rewriting (below), where the final and very brief statement found in the Akallabêth (p. 279) is reached.
This passage is very notable, since the drowning of all Beleriand west of Lindon is here ascribed to the cataclysm of the Downfall of Númenor; see the commentaries on FN I and II, §14. The name Lunoronti of the Blue Mountains has not occurred previously (but see the Etymologies, stem LUG2); and this is perhaps the first occurrence of the name Lindon for the ancient Ossiriand, or such of it as remained above the sea (see the commentary on QS §108).
The second form of this revised version of §8 follows immediately in the manuscript:
Then Ilúvatar cast back the Great Sea west of Middle-earth, and the Empty Land east of it, and new lands and new seas were made; and the world was diminished: for Valinor and Eressëa were taken from it into the realm of hidden things. And thereafter however a man might sail, he could never again reach the True West, but would come back weary at last to the place of his beginning; for all lands and seas were equally distant from the centre of the earth, and all roads were bent. There was flood and great confusion of waters in that time, and sea covered much that in the Elder Days had been dry, both in the West and East of Middle-earth.
Thus the passage concerning the drowning of Beleriand at the time of the Númenórean cataclysm and the survival of Lindon was again removed. In this form my father then copied it onto the typescript, with change of Empty Land to Empty Lands. (If this region, called in the first version the Barren Land, is to be related to the Ambarkanta map V (IV. 251) it must be what is there called the Burnt Land of the Sun; perhaps also the Dark Land, which is there shown as a new continent, formed from the southern part of Pelmar or Middle-earth (map IV) after the vast extension of the former inland sea of Ringil at the time of the breaking of Utumno). – The expression Elder Days is not found in any writing of my father’s before this.
The second passage is the concluding paragraph in FN II §14, concerning Beleriand and the Last Alliance. Here a few pencilled changes were made to the typescript: Thû was changed to Sauron except in the sentence ‘that is in the Gnomish tongue named Thû’, where Thû > Gorthû (see p. 338); ‘in Beleriand there arose a king’ > ‘in Lindon …’; and Gil-galad is descended from Finrod, not Fëanor. The passage in the typescript was then struck through, with a direction to introduce a substitute. This substitute is found on the reverse of the loose page giving the two forms of the rewriting of §8, and was obviously written at the same time as those. It reads as follows:
But there remains a legend of Beleriand. Now that land had been broken in the Great Battle with Morgoth; and at the fall of Númenor and the change of the fashion of the world it perished; for the sea covered all that was left save some of the mountains that remained as islands, even up to the feet of Eredlindon. But that land where Lúthien had dwelt remained, and was called Lindon. A gulf of the sea came through it, and a gap was made in the Mountains through which the River Lhûn flowed out. But in the land that was left north and south of the gulf the Elves remained, and Gil-galad son of Felagund son of Finrod was their king. And they made Havens in the Gulf of Lhûn whence any of their people, or any other of the Elves that fled from the darkness and sorrow of Middle-earth, could sail into the True West and return no more. In Lindon Sauron had as yet no dominion. And it is said that the brethren Elendil and Valandil escaping from the fall of Númenor came at last to the mouths of the rivers that flowed into the Western Sea. And Elendil (that is Elf-friend), who had aforetime loved the folk of Eressëa, came to Lindon and dwelt there a while, and passed into Middle-earth and established a realm in the North. But Valandil sailed up the Great River Anduin and established another realm far to the South. But Sauron dwelt in Mordor the Black Country, and that was not very distant from Ondor the realm of Valandil; and Sauron made war against all Elves and all Men of Westernesse or others that aided them, and Valandil was hard pressed. Therefore Elendil and Gil-galad seeing that unless some stand were made Sauron would become lord of [?all] Middle-earth they took counsel together, and they made a great league. And Gil-galad and Elendil marched into the Middle-earth [?and gathered force of Men and Elves, and they assembled at Imladrist].
Towards the end the text degenerates into a scribble and the final words are a bit doubtful. If the name Imladrist is correctly interpreted there is certainly a further letter after the s, which must be a t. Cf. The Tale of Years in The Lord of the Rings (Appendix B): Second Age 3431 ‘Gilgalad and Elendil march east to Imladris.’
All this passage was in turn struck through, and not copied into the typescript. It will be seen that it brings in the new matter concerning Beleriand and Lindon which appeared in the first form of the revision of §8 but was then removed (pp. 31–2); and in addition many important new elements have entered. Gil-galad is the son of Felagund; it is now explicit that Elendil was one of the survivors of Númenor, and he has a brother named Valandil (the name of his father in The Lost Road); the river Lhûn appears, and its gulf, and the gap in the Blue Mountains through which it flowed; the Elves of Lindon built havens on the Gulf of Lhûn; Elendil established a kingdom in the North, east of the mountains, and Valandil, sailing up the Anduin, founded his realm of Ondor not far from Mordor.
Now there is no question that the entire conception of Gondor arose in the course of the composition of The Lord of the Rings. Moreover my father pencilled the following notes (also struck through) at the end of the typescript:
More of this is told in The Lord of the Rings
Only alteration required is this:
(1) Many Elves remained behind
(2) Beleriand was all sunk except for a few islands = mountains, and part of Ossiriand (called Lindon) where Gil-galad dwelt.
(3) Elrond remained with Gil-galad. Or else sailed back to Middle-earth. The Half-elven.
The second of these is decisive, since the passage last given clearly contains a working-up of this note; and it is clear that all the rewritings of the second version of The Fall of Númenor considered here come from several years later. FN II represents the form of the work at the time when The Lord of the Rings was begun. On the other hand, these revisions come from a time when it was a long way from completion, as is seen by the form Ondor, and by the brothers Elendil and Valandil, founders of the Númenórean kingdoms in Middle-earth.
Apart from these major passages of revision there were few other changes made to the typescript copy of FN II, and those very minor, save for the substitution of Elros for Elrond at both occurrences in §2. This belongs to the pre-Lord of the Rings period, as is seen from the appearance of Elros in the conclusion of QS (see p. 337, commentary on §28).*
My father next wrote a fine new manuscript incorporating the changes made to the typescript of FN II – but now wholly omitting the concluding passage (§14) concerning Beleriand and the Last Alliance, and ending with the words ‘there were wars among the mighty of Middle-earth, of which only the echoes now remain.’ This version, improved and altered in detail, shows however very little further advance in narrative substance, and clearly belongs to the same period as the revisions studied in this section.
