The Book of Lost Tales, Part One

  But now comes that strange fleet nigh these regions and eager eyes look out. There stands Taniquetil and he is purple and dark of one side with gloom of Arvalin and of the Shadowy Seas, and lit in glory of the other by reason of the light of the Trees of Valinor. Now where the seas lapped those shores of old their waves long ere their breaking were suddenly lit by Laurelin were it day or by Silpion were it night, and the shadows of the world ceased almost abruptly and the waves laughed. But an opening in the mountains on those shores let through a glimpse of Valinor, and there stood the hill of Kôr, and the white sand runs up the creek to meet it, but its feet are in green water, and behind the sand of gold fares away farther than eye can guess, and indeed beyond Valinor who has heard or seen anything save Ulmo, yet of a certainty here spread the dark waters of the Outer Seas: tideless are they and very cool, and so thin that no boat can float upon their bosom, and few fish swim beneath their depths.

  But now upon the hill of Kôr is a running and a joyous concourse, and all the people of the Teleri and Noldoli fare out of the gates and wait to welcome the coming of the fleet upon the shore. And now those ships leave the shadows and now are caught in the bright gleam about the inner bay, and now are they beached high and the Solosimpi dance and pipe, and mingle with the singing of the Teleri and the Noldoli’s faint music.

  Far behind lay Tol Eressëa in silence and its woods and shores were still, for nearly all that host of sea-birds had flown after the Eldar and wailed now about the shores of Eldamar: but Ossë dwelt in despondency and his silver halls in Valmar abode long empty, for he came no nearer to them for a great while than the shadow’s edge, whither came the wailing of his sea-birds far away.

  Now the Solosimpi abode not much in Kôr but had strange dwellings among the shoreland rocks, and Ulmo came and sat among them as aforetime in Tol Eressëa, and that was his time of greatest mirth and gentleness, and all his lore and love of music he poured out to them, and they drank it eagerly. Musics did they make and weave catching threads of sound whispered by waters in caverns or by wave-tops brushed by gentle winds; and these they twined with the wail of gulls and the echoes of their own sweet voices in the places of their home. But the Teleri and Inwir gathered [?harvest] of poesy and song, and were oftenest among the Gods, dancing in the skiey halls of Manwë for the joy of Varda of the Stars, or filling the streets and courts of Valmar with the strange loveliness of their pomps and revelry; for Oromë and for Nessa they danced upon green swards, and the glades of Valinor knew them as they flitted among the gold-lit trees, and Palúrien was very merry for the sight of them. Often were the Noldoli with them and made much music for the multitude of their harps and viols was very sweet, and Salmar loved them; but their greatest delight was in the courts of Aulë, or in their own dear homes in Kôr, fashioning many beautiful things and weaving many stories. With paintings and broidered hangings and carvings of great delicacy they filled all their city, and even did Valmar grow more fair beneath their skilful hands.

  Now is to tell how the Solosimpi fared often about the near seas in their swanships, or drawn by the birds, or paddling themselves with great oars that they had made to the likeness of the webs of swan or duck; and they dredged the sea-beds and won wealth of the slim shells of those magic waters and uncounted store of pearls of a most pure and starry lustre: and these were both their glory and delight and the envy of the other Eldar who longed for them to shine in the adornment of the city of Kôr.

  But those of the Noldoli whom Aulë had most deeply taught laboured in secret unceasingly, and of Aulë they had wealth of metals and of stones and marbles, and of the leave of the Valar much store too was granted to them of the radiance of Kulullin and of Telimpë held in hidden bowls. Starlight they had of Varda and strands of the bluest ilwë Manwë gave them; water of the most limpid pools in that creek of Kôr, and crystal drops from all the sparkling founts in the courts of Valmar. Dews did they gather in the woods of Oromë, and flower-petals of all hues and honeys in Yavanna’s gardens, and they chased the beams of Laurelin and Silpion amongst the leaves. But when all this wealth of fair and radiant things was gathered, they got of the Solosimpi many shells white and pink, and purest foam, and lastly some few pearls. These pearls were their model, and the lore of Aulë and the magic of the Valar were their tools, and all the most lovely things of the substance of the Earth the matters of their craft—and therefrom did the Noldoli with great labour invent and fashion the first gems. Crystals did they make of the waters of the springs shot with the lights of Silpion; amber and chrysoprase and topaz glowed beneath their hands, and garnets and rubies they wrought, making their glassy substance as Aulë had taught them but dyeing them with the juices of roses and red flowers, and to each they gave a heart of fire. Emeralds some made of the water of the creek of Kôr and glints among the grassy glades of Valinor, and sapphires did they fashion in great profusion, [?tingeing] them with the airs of Manwë amethysts there were and moonstones, beryls and onyx, agates of blended marbles and many lesser stones, and their hearts were very glad, nor were they content with a few, but made them jewels in immeasurable number till all the fair substances were well nigh exhausted and the great piles of those gems might not be concealed but blazed in the light like beds of brilliant flowers. Then took they those pearls that had and some of wellnigh all their jewels and made a new gem of a milky pallor shot with gleams like echoes of all other stones, and this they thought very fair, and they were opals; but still some laboured on, and of starlight and the purest water-drops, of the dew of Silpion, and the thinnest air, they made diamonds, and challenged any to make fairer.

  Then arose Fëanor of the Noldoli and fared to the Solosimpi and begged a great pearl, and he got moreover an urn full of the most luminous phosphor-light gathered of foam in dark places, and with these he came home, and he took all the other gems and did gather their glint by the light of white lamps and silver candles, and he took the sheen of pearls and the faint half-colours of opals, and he [?bathed] them in phosphorescence and the radiant dew of Silpion, and but a single tiny drop of the light of Laurelin did he let fall therein, and giving all those magic lights a body to dwell in of such perfect glass as he alone could make nor even Aulë compass, so great was the slender dexterity of the fingers of Fëanor, he made a jewel—and it shone of its own………10 radiance in the uttermost dark; and he set it therein and sat a very long while and gazed at its beauty. Then he made two more, and had no more stuffs: and he fetched the others to behold his handiwork, and they were utterly amazed, and those jewels he called Silmarilli, or as we say the name in the speech of the Noldoli today Silubrilthin.11 Wherefore though the Solosimpi held ever that none of the gems of the Noldoli, not even that majestic shimmer of diamonds, overpassed their tender pearls, yet have all held who ever saw them that the Silmarils of Fëanor were the most beautiful jewels that ever shone or [?glowed].

  Now Kôr is lit with this wealth of gems and sparkles most marvellously, and all the kindred of the Eldalië are made rich in their loveliness by the generosity of the Noldoli, and the Gods’ desire of their beauty is sated to the full. Sapphires in great [?wonder] were given to Manwë and his raiment was crusted with them, and Oromë had a belt of emeralds, but Yavanna loved all the gems, and Aulë’s delight was in diamonds and amethysts. Melko alone was given none of them, for that he had not expiated his many crimes, and he lusted after them exceedingly, yet said nought, feigning to hold them of lesser worth than metals.

  But now all the kindred of the Eldalië has found its greatest bliss, and the majesty and glory of the Gods and their home is augmented to the greatest splendour that the world has seen, and the Trees shone on Valinor, and Valinor gave back their light in a thousand scintillations of splintered colours; but the Great Lands were still and dark and very lonesome, and Ossë sat without the precincts and saw the moongleam of Silpion twinkle on the pebbles of diamonds and of crystals which the Gnomes cast in prodigality about the margin of the seas, and the glassy fragments splintered in their
labouring glittered about the seaward face of Kôr; but the pools amid the dark rocks were filled with jewels, and the Solosimpi whose robes were sewn with pearls danced about them, and that was the fairest of all shores, and the music of the waters about those silver strands was beyond all sounds enchanting.

  These were the rocks of Eldamar, and I saw them long ago, for Inwë was my grandsire’s sire12; and [?even] he was the eldest of the Elves and had lived yet in majesty had he not perished in that march into the world, but Ingil his son went long ago back to Valinor and is with Manwë. And I am also akin to the shoreland dancers, and these things that I tell you I know they are true; and the magic and the wonder of the Bay of Faëry is such that none who have seen it as it was then can speak without a catch of the breath and a sinking of the voice.’

  Then Meril the Queen ceased her long tale, but Eriol said nought, gazing at the long radiance of the westering sun gleaming through the apple boles, and dreaming of Faëry. At length said Meril: ‘Fare now home, for the afternoon has waned, and the telling of the tale has set a weight of desire in my heart and in thine. But be in patience and bide yet ere ye seek fellowship with that sad kindred of the Island Elves.’

  But Eriol said: ‘Even now I know not and it passes my heart to guess how all that loveliness came to fading, or the Elves might be prevailed to depart from Eldamar.’

  But Meril said: ‘Nay, I have lengthened the tale too much for love of those days, and many great things lie between the making of the gems and the coming back to Tol Eressëa: but these things many know as well as I, and Lindo or Rúmil of Mar Vanwa Tyaliéva would tell them more skilfully than I.’ Then did she and Eriol fare back to the house of flowers, and Eriol took his leave ere the western face of Ingil’s tower was yet grown grey with dusk.

  NOTES

  1 The manuscript has Vairë, but this can only be a slip.

  2 The occurrence of the name Telimpë here, and again later in the tale, as also in that of The Sun and Moon, is curious; in the tale of The Coming of the Valar and the Building of Valinor the name was changed at its first appearance from Telimpë (Silindrin) to Silindrin, and at subsequent occurrences Silindrin was written from the first (p. 79).

  3 The manuscript has Linwë here, and again below; see under Tinwë Linto in ‘Changes made to names’ at the end of these notes.

  4 This sentence, from ‘and beguiled…’, was added after, though not to all appearance much after, the writing of the text.

  5 This sentence, from ‘and one Ellu…’, was added at the same time as that referred to in note 4.

  6 The first occurrence of the form Uinen, and so written at the time of composition (i.e. not corrected from Ónen).

  7 Arvalin: thus written at the time of composition, not emended from Habbanan or Harmalin as previously.

  8 When my father wrote these texts, he wrote first in pencil, and then subsequently wrote over the top of it in ink, erasing the pencilled text—of which bits can be read here and there, and from which one can see that he altered the pencilled original somewhat as he went along. At the words ‘glistened wondrously’, however, he abandoned the writing of the new text in ink, and from this point we have only the original pencilled manuscript, which is in places exceedingly difficult to read, being more hasty, and also soft and smudged in the course of time. In deciphering this text I have been in places defeated, and I use brackets and question-marks to indicate uncertain readings, and rows of dots to show roughly the length of illegible words.

  It is to be emphasized therefore that from here on there is only a first draft, and one written very rapidly, dashed onto the page.

  9 Arvalin: here and subsequently emended from Habbanan; see note 7. The explanation is clearly that the name Arvalin came in at or before the time of the rewriting in ink over the pencilled text; though further on in the narrative we are here at an earlier stage of composition.

  10 The word might be read as ‘wizardous’.

  11 Other forms (beginning Sigm-) preceded Silubrilthin which cannot be read with certainty. Meril speaks as if the Gnomish name was the form used in Tol Eressëa, but it is not clear why.

  12 ‘my grandsire’s sire’: the original reading was ‘my grandsire’.

  Changes made to names in

  The Coming of the Elves and the Making of Kôr

  Tinwë Linto

  Inwithiel
  Tinwelint
  Wendelin
  Arvalin
  Lindeloksë
  Erumáni
  Commentary on

  The Coming of the Elves and the Making of Kôr

  I have already (p. 111) touched on the great difference in the structure of the narrative at the beginning of this tale, namely that here the Elves awoke during Melko’s captivity in Valinor, whereas in the later story it was the very fact of the Awakening that brought the Valar to make war on Melkor, which led to his imprisonment in Mandos. Thus the ultimately very important matter of the capture of the Elves about Cuiviénen by Melkor (The Silmarillion pp. 49–50) is necessarily entirely absent. The release of Melko from Mandos here takes place far earlier, before the coming of the Elvish ‘ambassadors’ to Valinor, and Melko plays a part in the debate concerning the summons.

  The story of Oromë’s coming upon the newly-awakened Elves is seen to go back to the beginnings (though here Yavanna Palúrien was also present, as it appears), but its singular beauty and force is the less for the fact of their coming being known independently to Manwë, so that the great Valar did not need to be told of it by Oromë. The name Eldar was already in existence in Valinor before the Awakening, and the story of its being given by Oromë (‘the People of the Stars’) had not arisen—as will be seen from the Appendix on Names, Eldar had a quite different etymology at this time. The later distinction between the Eldar who followed Oromë on the westward journey to the ocean and the Avari, the Unwilling, who would not heed the summons of the Valar, is not present, and indeed in this tale there is no suggestion that any Elves who heard the summons refused it; there were however, according to another (later) tale, Elves who never left Palisor (pp. 231, 234).

  Here it is Nornorë, Herald of the Gods, not Oromë, who brought the three Elves to Valinor and afterwards returned them to the Waters of Awakening (and it is notable that even in this earliest version, given more than the later to ‘explanations’, there is no hint of how they passed from the distant parts of the Earth to Valinor, when afterwards the Great March was only achieved with such difficulty). The story of the questioning of the three Elves by Manwë concerning the nature of their coming into the world, and their loss of all memory of what preceded their awakening, did not survive the Lost Tales. A further important shift in the structure is seen in Ulmo’s eager support of the party favouring the summoning of the Elves to Valinor; in The Silmarillion (p. 52) Ulmo was the chief of those who ‘held that the Quendi should be left free to walk as they would in Middle-earth’.

  I set out here the early history of the names of the chief Eldar.

  Elu Thingol (Quenya Elwë Singollo) began as Linwë Tinto (also simply Linwë); this was changed to Tinwë Linto (Tinwë). His Gnomish name was at first Tintoglin, then Tinwelint. He was the leader of the Solosimpi (the later Teleri) on the Great Journey, but he was beguiled in Hisilómë by the ‘fay’ (Tindriel >) Wendelin (later Melian), who came from the gardens of Lóri
en in Valinor; he became lord of the Elves of Hisilómë, and their daughter was Tinúviel. The leader of the Solosimpi in his place was, confusingly, Ellu (afterwards Olwë, brother of Elwë).

  The lord of the Noldoli was Finwë Nólemë (also Nólemë Finwë, and most commonly simply Nólemë); the name Finwë remained throughout the history. In the Gnomish speech he was Golfinweg. His son was Turondo, in Gnomish Turgon (later Turgon became Finwë’s grandson, being the son of Finwë’s son Fingolfin).

  The lord of the Teleri (afterwards the Vanyar) was (Ing >) Inwë, here called Isil Inwë, named in Gnomish (Gim-githil >) Inwithiel. His son, who built the great tower of Kortirion, was (Ingilmo >) Ingil. The ‘royal clan’ of the Teleri were the Inwir. Thus: