To those dark shores fared Ulmo, and strange was the roaring of the unlit sea in those most ancient days upon that rocky coast that bore still the scars of the tumultuous wrath of Melko. Falman-Ossë was little pleased to see Ulmo in the Great Seas, for Ulmo had taken that island whereon Ossë himself had drawn the Gods to Arvalin, saving them from the rising waters when Ringi! and Helkar thawed beneath their blazing lamps. That was many ages past in the days when the Gods were new-come strangers in the world, and during all that time the island had floated darkly in the Shadowy Seas, desolate save when Ossë climbed its beaches on his journeys in the deeps; but now Ulmo had come upon his secret island and harnessed thereto a host of the greatest fish, and amidmost was Uin the mightiest and most ancient of whales; and he bid these put forth their strength, and they drew the island mightily to the very shores of the Great Lands, even to the coast of Hisilómë northward of the Iron Mountains whither all the deepest shades withdrew when the Sun first arose.
Now Ulmo stands there and there comes a glint in the woods that marched even down to the sea-foam in those quiet days, and behold! he hears the footsteps of the Teleri crackle in the forest, and Inwë is at their head beside the stirrup of Oromë. Grievous had been their march, and dark and difficult the way through Hisilómë the land of shade, despite the skill and power of Oromë. Indeed long after the joy of Valinor had washed its memory faint the Elves sang still sadly of it, and told tales of many of their folk whom they said and say were lost in those old forests and ever wandered there in sorrow. Still were they there long after when Men were shut in Hisilómë by Melko, and still do they dance there when Men have wandered far over the lighter places of the Earth. Hisilómë did Men name Aryador, and the Lost Elves did they call the Shadow Folk, and feared them.
Nonetheless the most of the great companies of the Teleri came now to the beaches and climbed therefrom upon the island that Ulmo had brought. Ulmo counselled them that they wait not for the other kindreds, and though at first they will not yield, weeping at the thought, at last are they persuaded, and straightway are drawn with utmost speed beyond the Shadowy Seas and the wide bay of Arvalin to the strands of Valinor. There does the distant beauty of the trees shining down the opening in the hills enchant their hearts, and yet do they stand gazing back across the waters they have passed, for they know not where those other kindreds of their folk may be, and not even the loveliness of Valinor do they desire without them.
Then leaving them silent and wondering on the shore Ulmo draws back that great island-car to the rocks of Hisilómë, and behold, warmed by the distant gleam of Laurelin that lit upon its western edge as it lay in the Bay of Faëry, new and more tender trees begin to grow upon it, and the green of herbage is seen upon its slopes.
Now Ossë raises his head above the waves in wrath, deeming himself slighted that his aid was not sought in the ferrying of the Elves, but his own island taken unasked. Fast does he follow in Ulmo’s wake and yet is left far behind, for Ulmo set the might of the Valar in Uin and the whales. Upon the cliffs there stand already the Noldoli in anguish, thinking themselves deserted in the gloom, and Nóleme Finwë who had led them thither hard upon the rear of the Teleri went among them enheartening them. Full of travail their journey too had been, for the world is wide and nigh half across it had they come from most distant Palisor, and in those days neither sun shone nor moon gleamed, and pathways were there none be it of Elves or of Men. Oromë too was far ahead riding before the Teleri upon the march and was now gone back into the lands. There the Solosimpi were astray in the forests stretching deep behind, and his horn wound faintly in the ears of those upon the shore, from whence that Vala sought them up and down the dark vales of Hisilómë.
Therefore now coming Ulmo thinks to draw the Noldoli swiftly to the strand of Valinor, returning once again for those others when Oromë shall have led them to the coast. This does he, and Falman beholds that second ferrying from afar and spumes in rage, but great is the joy of the Teleri and Noldoli upon that shore where the lights are those of late summer afternoons for the distant glow of Lindeloksë. There may I leave them for a while and tell of the strange happenings that befell the Solosimpi by reason of Ossë’s wrath, and of the first dwelling upon Tol Eressëa.
Fear falls upon them in that old darkness, and beguiled by the fair music of the fay Wendelin, as other tales set forth more fully elsewhere, their leader Tinwë Linto was lost, and long they sought him, but it was in vain, and he came never again among them.4 When therefore they heard the horn of Oromë ringing in the forest great was their joy, and gathering to its sound soon are they led to the cliffs, and hear the murmur of the sunless sea. Long time they waited there, for Ossë cast storms and shadows about the return of Ulmo, so that he drove by devious ways, and his great fish faltered in their going; yet at the last do they too climb upon that island and are drawn towards Valinor; and one Ellu they chose in place of Tinwë, and he has ever since been named the Lord of the Solosimpi.5
Behold now less than half the distance have they traversed, and the Twilit Isles float still far aloof, when Ossë and Ónen waylay them in the western waters of the Great Sea ere yet the mists of the Shadowy Seas are reached. Then Ossë seizes that island in his great hand, and all the great strength of Uin may scarcely drag it onward, for at swimming and in deeds of bodily strength in the water none of the Valar, not even Ulmo’s self, is Ossë’s match, and indeed Ulmo was not at hand, for he was far ahead piloting the great craft in the glooms that Ossë had gathered, leading it onward with the music of his conches. Now ere he can return Ossë with Ónen’s aid had brought the isle to a stand, and was anchoring it even to the sea-bottom with giant ropes of those leather-weeds and polyps that in those dark days had grown already in slow centuries to unimagined girth about the pillars of his deep-sea house. Thereto as Ulmo urges the whales to put forth all their strength and himself aids with all his godlike power, Ossë piles rocks and boulders of huge mass that Melko’s ancient wrath had strewn about the seafloor, and builds these as a column beneath the island.
Vainly doth Ulmo trumpet and Uin with the flukes of his unmeasured tail lash the seas to wrath, for thither Ossë now brings every kind of deep sea creature that buildeth itself a house and dwelling of stony shell; and these he planted about the base of the island: corals there were of every kind and barnacles and sponges like stone. Nonetheless for a very great while did that struggle endure, until at length Ulmo returned to Valmar in wrath and dismay. There did he warn the other Valar that the Solosimpi may not yet be brought thither, for that the isle has grown fast in the most lonely waters of the world.
There stands that island yet—indeed thou knowest it, for it is called “the Lonely Isle”—and no land may be seen for many leagues’ sail from its cliffs, for the Twilit Isles upon the bosom of the Shadowy Seas are deep in the dim West, and the Magic Isles lie backward in the East.
Now therefore do the Gods bid the Elves build a dwelling, and Aulë aided them in that, but Ulmo fares back to the Lonely Island, and lo! it stands now upon a pillar of rock upon the seas’ floor, and Ossë fares about it in a foam of business anchoring all the scattered islands of his domain fast to the ocean-bed. Hence came the first dwelling of the Solosimpi on the Lonely Island, and the deeper sundering of that folk from the others both in speech and customs; for know that all these great deeds of the past that make but a small tale now were not lightly achieved and in a moment of time, but rather would very many men have grown and died betwixt the binding of the Islands and the making of the Ships.
Twice now had that isle of their dwelling caught the gleam of the glorious Trees of Valinor, and so was it already fairer and more fertile and more full of sweet plants and grasses than the other places of all the world beside where great light had not been seen; indeed the Solosimpi say that birches grew there already, and many reeds, and turf there was upon the western slopes. There too were many caverns, and there was a stretching shoreland of white sand about the feet of black and purple cli
ffs, and here was the dwelling even in those deepest days of the Solosimpi.
There Ulmo sate upon a headland and spake to them words of comfort and of the deepest wisdom; and all sea-lore he told them, and they hearkened; and music he taught them, and they made slender pipes of shells. By reason of that labour of Ossë there are no strands so strewn with marvellous shells as were the white beaches and the sheltered coves of Tol Eressëa, and the Solosimpi dwelt much in caves, and adorned them with those sea-treasures, and the sound of their wistful piping might be heard for many a long day come faintly down the winds.
Then Falman-Ossë’s heart melted towards them and he would have released them, save for the new joy and pride he had that their beauty dwelt thus amidmost of his realm, so that their pipes gave perpetual pleasure to his ear, and Uinen6 and the Oarni and all the spirits of the waves were enamoured of them.
So danced the Solosimpi upon the waves’ brink, and the love of the sea and rocky coasts entered in their hearts, even though they gazed in longing towards the happy shores whither long ago the Teleri and Noldoli had been borne.
Now these after a season took hope and their sorrow grew less bitter, learning how their kindred dwelt in no unkindly land, and Ulmo had them under his care and guardianship. Wherefore they heeded now the Gods’ desire and turned to the building of their home; and Aulë taught them very much lore and skill, and Manwë also. Now Manwë loved more the Teleri, and from him and from Ómar did they learn deeper of the craft of song and poesy than all the Elves beside; but the Noldoli were beloved most by Aulë, and they learned much of his science, till their hearts became unquiet for the lust of more knowing, but they grew to great wisdom and to great subtlety of skill.
Behold there is a low place in that ring of mountains that guards Valinor, and there the shining of the Trees steals through from the plain beyond and gilds the dark waters of the bay of Arvalin,7 but a great beach of finest sand, golden in the blaze of Laurelin, white in the light of Silpion, runs inland there, where in the trouble of the ancient seas a shadowy arm of water had groped in toward Valinor, but now there is only a slender water fringed with white. At the head of this long creek there stands a lonely hill which gazes at the loftier mountains. Now all the walls of that inlet of the seas are luxuriant with a marvellous vigour of fair trees, but the hill is covered only with a deep turf, and harebells grow atop of it ringing softly in the gentle breath of Súlimo.
Here was the place that those fair Elves bethought them to dwell, and the Gods named that hill Kôr by reason of its roundness and its smoothness. Thither did Aulë bring all the dust of magic metals that his great works had made and gathered, and he piled it about the foot of that hill, and most of this dust was of gold, and a sand of gold stretched away from the feet of Kôr out into the distance where the Two Trees blossomed. Upon the hill-top the Elves built fair abodes of shining white—of marbles and stones quarried from the Mountains of Valinor that glistened wondrously,8 silver and gold and a substance of great hardness and white lucency that they contrived of shells melted in the dew of Silpion, and white streets there were bordered with dark trees that wound with graceful turns or climbed with flights of delicate stairs up from the plain of Valinor to topmost Kôr; and all those shining houses clomb each shoulder higher than the others till the house of Inwë was reached that was the uppermost, and had a slender silver tower shooting skyward like a needle, and a white lamp of piercing ray was set therein that shone upon the shadows of the bay, but every window of the city on the hill of Kôr looked out toward the sea.
Fountains there were of great beauty and frailty and roofs and pinnacles of bright glass and amber that was made by Palúrien and Ulmo, and trees stood thick on the white walls and terraces, and their golden fruit shone richly.
Now at the building of Kôr the Gods gave to Inwë and to Nólemë a shoot each of either of those glorious trees, and they grew to very small and slender elfin trees, but blossomed both eternally without abating, and those of the courts of Inwë were the fairest, and about them the Teleri sang songs of happiness, but others singing also fared up and down the marble flights and the wistful voices of the Noldoli were heard about the courts and chambers; but yet the Solosimpi dwelt far off amid the sea and made windy music on their pipes of shell.
Now is Ossë very fain of those Solosimpi, the shoreland pipers, and if Ulmo be not nigh he sits upon a reef at sea and many of the Oarni are by him, and hearkens to their voice and watches their flitting dances on this shore, but to Valmar he dare not fare again for the power of Ulmo in the councils of the Valar and………. the wrath of that mighty one at the anchoring of the islands.
Indeed war had been but held off by the Gods, who desired peace and would not suffer Ulmo to gather the folk of the Valar and assail Ossë and rend the islands from their new roots. Therefore does Ossë sometimes ride the foams out into the bay of Arvalin9 and gaze upon the glory on the hills, and he longs for the light and happiness upon the plain, but most for the song of birds and the swift movement of their wings into the clear air, grown weary of his silver and dark fish silent and strange amid the deep waters.
But on a day some birds came flying high from the gardens of Yavanna, and some were white and some black and some both black and white; and being dazed among the shadows they had not where to settle, and Ossë coaxed them, and they settled about his mighty shoulders, and he taught them to swim and gave them great strength of wing, for of such strength of shoulder he had more than any [?other] being and was the greatest of swimmers; and he poured fishy oils upon their feathers that they might bear the waters, and he fed them on small fish.
Then did he turn away to his own seas, and they swam about him or fared above him on low wing crying and piping; and he showed them dwellings on the Twilit Isles and even about the cliffs of Tol Eressëa, and the manner of diving and of spearing fish they learned there, and their voices became harsh for the rugged places of their life far from the soft regions of Valinor or wailing for the music of the Solosimpi and sighing of the sea. And now have all that great folk of gulls and seamews and petrels come into their kingdom; and puffins are there, and eider-duck, and cormorants, and gannets, and rock-doves, and the cliffs are full of a chattering and a smell of fish, and great conclaves are held upon their ledges, or among spits and reefs among the waters. But the proudest of all these birds were the swans, and these Ossë let dwell in Tol Eressëa, [?flying] along its coasts or paddling inland up its streams; and he set them there as a gift and joy to the Solosimpi. But when Ulmo heard of these new deeds he was ill-pleased for the havoc wrought amid the fishes wherewith he had filled the waters with the aid of Palúrien.
Now do the Solosimpi take great joy of [?their] birds, new creatures to them, and of swans, and behold upon the lakes of Tol Eressëa already they fare on rafts of fallen timber, and some harness thereto swans and speed across the waters; but the more hardy dare out upon the sea and the gulls draw them, and when Ulmo saw that he was very glad. For lo! the Teleri and Noldoli complain much to Manwë of the separation of the Solosimpi, and the Gods desire them to be drawn to Valinor; but Ulmo cannot yet think of any device save by help of Ossë and the Oarni, and will not be humbled to this. But now does he fare home in haste to Aulë, and those twain got them speedily to Tol Eressëa, and Oromë was with them, and there is the first hewing of trees that was done in the world outside Valinor. Now does Aulë of the sawn wood of pine and oak make great vessels like to the bodies of swans, and these he covers with the bark of silver birches, or…… with gathered feathers of the oily plumage of Ossë’s birds, and they are nailed and [?sturdily] riveted and fastened with silver, and he carves prows for them like the upheld necks of swans, but they are hollow and have no feet; and by cords of great strength and slimness are gulls and petrels harnessed to them, for they were tame to the hands of the Solosimpi, because their hearts were so turned by Ossë.
Now are the beaches upon the western shores of Tol Eressëa, even at Falassë Númëa (Western Surf), thronged
with that people of the Elves, and drawn up there is a very great host indeed of those swanships, and the cry of the gulls above them is unceasing. But the Solosimpi arise in great numbers and climb into the hollow bodies of these new things of Aulë’s skill, and more of their kin fare ever to the shores, marching to the sound of innumerable pipes and flutes.
Now all are embarked and the gulls fare mightily into the twilit sky, but Aulë and Oromë are in the foremost galley and the mightiest, and seven hundred gulls are harnessed thereto and it gleams with silver and white feathers, and has a beak of gold and eyes of jet and amber. But Ulmo fares at the rear in his fishy car and trumpets loudly for the discomfiture of Ossë and the rescue of the Shoreland Elves.
But Ossë seeing how these birds have been to his undoing is very downcast, yet for the presence of those three Gods and indeed for his love of the Solosimpi that had grown by now very great he molested not their white fleet, and they came thus over the grey leagues of the ocean, through the dim sounds, and the mists of the Shadowy Seas, even to the first dark waters of the bay of Arvalin.
Know then that the Lonely Island is upon the confines of the Great Sea. Now that Great Sea or the Western Water is beyond the westernmost limits of the Great Lands, and in it are many lands and islands ere beyond their anchorage you reach the Magic Isles, and beyond these still lies Tol Eressëa. But beyond Tol Eressëa is the misty wall and those great sea glooms beneath which lie the Shadowy Seas, and thereon float the Twilit Isles whither only pierced at clearest times the faintest twinkle of the far gleam of Silpion. But in the westernmost of these stood the Tower of Pearl built in after days and much sung in song; but the Twilit Isles are held the first of the Outer Lands, which are these and Arvalin and Valinor, and Tol Eressëa is held neither of the Outer Lands or of the Great Lands where Men after roamed. But the farthest shore of those Shadowy Seas is Arvalin or Erumáni to the far south, but more northerly do they lap the very coasts of Eldamar, and here are they broader to one faring west. Beyond Arvalin tower those huge Mountains of Valinor which are in a great ring bending slowly west, but the Shadowy Seas make a vast bay to the north of Arvalin running right up to the black feet of the mountains, so that here they border upon the waters and not upon the lands, and there at the bay’s innermost stands Taniquetil, glorious to behold, loftiest of all mountains clad in purest snow, looking across Arvalin half south and half north across that mighty Bay of Faëry, and so beyond the Shadowy Seas themselves, even so that all the sails upon the sunlit waters of the Great Sea in after days (when the Gods had made that lamp) and all the throngs about the western havens of the Lands of Men could be seen from its summit; and yet is that distance counted only in unimagined leagues.