The Nature of Middle-earth

by J. R. R. Tolkien

  Of this entry, Christopher Tolkien notes: “On the absence of the name on the map – referring of course to my original map to The Lord of the Rings, which was replaced long after by the redrawing made to accompany Unfinished Tales – see UT:261–2, footnote.”

  Gwathló

  Of the next entry, headed “Gwathlo (ló)”, Christopher Tolkien writes: “The long discussion arising from this name is found in UT:261–3, with the passage concerning the Púkel-men removed and cited in the section on the Drúedain, UT:383–4. In the latter passage the sentence ‘Maybe even in the days of the War of the Ring some of the Drú-folk lingered in the mountains of Andrast, the western outlier of the White Mountains’ contains an editorial change: the original text has ‘the mountains of Angast (Long Cape)’, and the form Angast occurs again more than once in the essay. This change was based on the form Andrast communicated by my father to Pauline Baynes for inclusion, with other new names, on her decorated map of Middle-earth; see UT:261, footnote.”[13] A further editorial change may be noted: where the published text has Lefnui (UT:263, repeated in the extracted note on Púkel-men, UT:383) the typescript reads Levnui; cf. the entry for Levnui below.

  An unused note against “the great promontory … that formed the north arm of the Bay of Belfalas” (ibid.) reads: “Afterwards called still Drúwaith (Iaur) ‘(Old) Púkel-land’, and its dark woods were little visited, nor considered as part of the realm of Gondor.” Also, a sentence struck through by Tolkien, following “huge trees … under which the boats of the adventurers crept silently up into the unknown land”, (UT:263), reads: “It is said that some even on this first expedition came as far as the great fenlands before they returned, fearing to become bewildered in their mazes.”

  The discussion originally continued with the following etymological note, struck through at the same time as the deleted sentence:

  The element -ló was also of Common Eldarin origin, derived from a base (s)log: in Common Eldarin sloga had been a word used for streams of a kind that were variable and liable to overflow their banks at seasons and cause floods when swollen by rains or melting snow; especially such as the Glanduin (described above) that had their sources in mountains and fell at first swiftly, but were halted in the lower lands and flats.

  The deleted passage was replaced with that given at UT:263 starting at “So the first name they gave to it was ‘River of Shadow’, Gwath-hîr, Gwathir”. It may be noted that the word lô in this passage was corrected on the typescript from lhô. A note on the name Ringló, omitted from the passage in Unfinished Tales, occurs after the words “Gwathló, the shadowy river from the fens”. For this note, and its development, see the entry for Ringló below. After this note, an etymological statement intervenes before the last full paragraph of the excerpt published in Unfinished Tales:

  Gwath was a common Sindarin word for ‘shadow’ or dim light – not for the shadows of actual objects or persons cast by sun or moon or other lights: these were called morchaint ‘dark-shapes’.

  Erui

  Though this was the first of the Rivers of Gondor it cannot be used for ‘first’. In Eldarin er was not used in counting in series: it meant ‘one, single, alone’. erui is not the usual Sindarin for ‘single, alone’: that was ereb (< erikwa; cf. Q. erinqua); but it has the very common adjectival ending –ui of Sindarin. The name must have been given because of the Rivers of Gondor it was the shortest and swiftest and was the only one without a tributary.

  Serni

  Christopher Tolkien writes: “The statement about this name is given in the Index to Unfinished Tales, but with a misprint that has never been corrected: the Sindarin word meaning ‘pebble’ is sarn, not sern.” The opening sentence reads: “An adjectival formation from S. sarn ‘small stone, pebble’ (as described above), or a collective, the equivalent of Q. sarnie (sarniye) ‘shingle, pebble-bank’.” An unused sentence, occurring before “Its mouth was blocked with shingles”, reads: “It was the only one of the five to fall into the delta of the Anduin.”

  Sirith

  This means simply ‘a flowing’: cf. tirith ‘watching, guarding’ from the stem tir- ‘to watch’.

  Celos

  Christopher Tolkien writes: “The statement about this name is given in the Index to Unfinished Tales. On the erroneous marking of Celos on my redrawn map of The Lord of the Rings, see VII:322 n. 9.”

  Gilrain

  A significant portion of the remarks on this river name was given in UT:242–5; but the discussion begins with a passage omitted from Unfinished Tales:

  This resembles the name of Aragorn’s mother, Gilraen; but unless it is misspelt must have had a different meaning. (Originally the difference between correct Sindarin ae and ai was neglected, ai more usual in English being used for both in the general narrative. So Dairon, now corrected, for Daeron a derivative of S. daer ‘large, great’: C.E. *daira < base DAY; not found in Quenya. So Hithaiglir on map for Hithaeglir and Aiglos [for Aeglos].)[14] The element gil- in both is no doubt S. gil ‘spark, twinkle of light, star’, often used of the stars of heaven in place of the older and more elevated el-, elen- stem. (Similarly tinwë ‘spark’ was also used in Quenya). The meaning of Gilraen as a woman’s name is not in doubt. It meant ‘one adorned with a tressure set with small gems in its network’, such as the tressure of Arwen described in L.R. I 239.[15] It may have been a second name given to her after she had come to womanhood, which as often happened in legends had replaced her true name, no longer recorded. More likely, it was her true name, since it had become a name given to women of her people, the remnants of the Númenóreans of the North Kingdom of unmingled blood. The women of the Eldar were accustomed to wear such tressures; but among other peoples they were used only by women of high rank among the “Rangers”, descendants of Elros, as they claimed. Names such as Gilraen, and others of similar meaning, would thus be likely to become first names given to maid-children of the kindred of the “Lords of the Dúnedain”. The element raen was the Sindarin form of Q. raina ‘netted, enlaced’.

  In an accompanying etymological note Tolkien provides this detail regarding S. raen, Q. raina:

  C.E. base RAY ‘net, knit, contrive network or lace’; also [deleted: ‘catch’,] ‘involve in a network, enlace’ … The word was only applied to work with a single thread; weaving with cross-threads or withes was represented by the distinct base WIG.

  Of this note Christopher Tolkien writes: “Tressure, a net for confining the hair, is a word of medieval English which my father had used in his translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (stanza 69): ‘the clear jewels / that were twined in her tressure by twenties in clusters’, where the original has the form tressour.”

  The entry then continues:

  In Gilrain the element -rain though similar was distinct in origin. Probably it was derived from base RAN ‘wander, stray, go on uncertain course’, the equivalent of Q. ranya. This would not seem suitable to any of the rivers of Gondor …

  The portion given in Unfinished Tales begins here (p. 242). The final sentence of the first extract from the discussion of Gilrain in UT:243 omits the ending; the whole sentence reads: “This legend [of Nimrodel] was well-known in the Dor-en-Ernil (Land of the Prince) and no doubt the name [Gilrain] was given in memory of it, or rendered in Elvish form from an older name of the same meaning.” Also omitted was the paragraph following this sentence, which reads: “The flight of Nimrodel was dated by the chronologists at Third Age 1981. An error in Appendix B appears at this point. The correct entry read (still in 1963): ‘The Dwarves flee from Moria. Many of the Silvan Elves of Lórien flee south. Amroth and Nimrodel are lost.’ In subsequent editions or reprints ‘flee from Moria …’ to ‘Silvan Elves’ has been for reasons unknown omitted.” The correct reading of this entry has been restored in later editions (LR:1087). In addition, the first sentence of the following paragraph, introducing the passage with which the extract given in Unfinished Tales resumes (p. 243), reads: “At that time Amroth was, in the le
gend, named as King of Lórien. How this fits with the rule of Galadriel and Celeborn will be made clear in a precis of the history of Galadriel and Celeborn.” Finally, the last sentence of the last paragraph given on UT:244 was omitted; it reads: “Communication was maintained constantly with Lórien.”

  A typescript note appended after the first sentence on UT:245, against the phrase “the sorrows of Lórien, which was now left without a ruler”, and subsequently struck through by Tolkien, reads:

  Amroth had never taken a wife. For long years he had loved Nimrodel, but had sought her love in vain. She was of Silvan race and did not love the Incomers, who (she said) brought wars and destroyed the peace of old. She would speak only the Silvan Tongue, even after it had fallen into disuse among most of the people. But when the terror came out of Moria she fled away distraught, and Amroth followed her. He found her near the eaves of Fangorn (which in those days drew much nearer to Lórien). She dared not enter that wood, for the trees (she said) menaced her, and some moved to bar her way. There they had long converse; and in the end they plighted their troth, for Amroth vowed that for her sake he would leave his people even in their time of need and with her seek for a refuge of peace. ‘But there is no such”

  The deleted note ends here, in mid-sentence. As Christopher Tolkien notes (UT:242), this passage is the germ of the version of the legend of Amroth and Nimrodel given in UT:240–2.

  The discussion of Gilrain concludes (following the first paragraph given on UT:245) with this note:

  The river Gilrain if related to the legend of Nimrodel must contain an element derived from C.E. RAN ‘wander, stray, meander’. Cf. Q. ranya ‘erratic wandering’, S. rein, rain. Cf. S. randír ‘wanderer’ in Mithrandir, Q. Rána name of the spirit (Máya) that was said to abide in the Moon as its guardian.

  Ciril, Kiril

  Uncertain, but probably from KIR ‘cut’. It rose in Lamedon and flowed westward for some way in a deep rocky channel.

  Ringló

  For the element -ló see discussion of Gwathló above. But there is no record of any swamps or marsh in its course. It was a swift (and cold) river, as the element ring- [‘cold’] implies. It drew its first waters from a high snowfield that fed an icy tarn in the mountains. If this at seasons of snowmelting spread into a shallow lake, it would account for the name, another of the many that refer to a river’s source.

  Cf. the entry Ringló in the index to Unfinished Tales. This explanation of the name Ringló only arose in the course of the writing of this essay; for in the discussion of Gwathló that Tolkien struck out he had originally added this note:

  It the element ló] appears also in the name Ringló, the fourth of the Rivers of Gondor. It may be translated Chillflood. Coming down cold from the snows of the White Mountains in swift course, after its meeting with the Ciril and later with the Morthond it formed considerable marshes before it reached the sea, though these were very small compared with the fens of the Swanfleet (Nîn-in-Eilph) about Tharbad.

  In the revised discussion of Gwathló (UT:263) this note was replaced by the following:

  A similar name is found in Ringló, the fourth of the rivers of Gondor. Named as several other rivers, such as Mitheithel and Morthond (black-root), after its source Ringnen ‘chill-water’, it was later called Ringló, since it formed a fenland about its confluence with the Morthond, though this was very small compared with the Great Fen (Lô Dhaer) of the Gwathló.

  Tolkien then struck out the latter part of this note (from “since it formed a fenland” through the end), replacing it with a direction to see the final explanation of Ringló given above, in which the element lô is not derived from fenlands near the coast (“there is no record of any swamps or marsh in its course”) but from the lake that formed at the river’s source “at seasons of snowmelting” in the mountains.

  Morthond

  Similarly the Morthond ‘Black-root’, which rose in a dark valley in the mountains due south of Edoras, called Mornan [‘dark valley’], not only because of the shadow of the two high mountains between which it lay, but because through it passed the road from the Gate of the Dead Men, and living men did not go there.

  Levnui

  There were no other rivers in this region, “further Gondor,” until one came to the Levnui, the longest and widest of the Five. This was held to be the boundary of Gondor in this direction; for beyond it lay the promontory of Angast and the wilderness of ‘Old Púkel-land’ (Drúwaith Iaur) which the Númenóreans had never attempted to occupy with permanent settlements, though they maintained a Coast-guard force and beacons at the end of Cape Angast.

  Levnui is said to mean ‘fifth’ (after Erui, Sirith, Serni, Morthond), but its form offers difficulties. (It is spelt Lefnui on the Map; and that is preferable. For though in the Appendices f is said to have the sound of English f except when standing at the end of a word,[16] voiceless f does not in fact occur medially before consonants (in uncompounded words or names) in Sindarin; while v is avoided before consonants in English).[17] The difficulty is only apparent.

  Tolkien then immediately embarks on a long, elaborate, and complex discussion of the Eldarin numerals. Following this discussion, Tolkien (continuing westward on the map from Levnui) reintroduced the name Adorn, and repeated the substance of his earlier remarks: “This river, flowing from the West of Ered Nimrais into the River Isen, is fitted in style to Sindarin, but has no meaning in that language, and probably is derived from one of the languages spoken in this region before the occupation of Gondor by Númenóreans, which began long before the Downfall.” He then continued:

  Several other names in Gondor are apparently of similar origin. The element Bel- in Belfalas has no suitable meaning in Sindarin. Falas (Q. falasse) meant ‘shore’ – especially one exposed to great waves and breakers (cf. Q. falma ‘a wave-crest, wave’). It is possible that Bel had a similar sense in an alien tongue, and Bel-falas is an example of the type of place-name, not uncommon when a region is occupied by a new people, in which two elements of much the same topographical meaning are joined: the first being in the older and the second in the incoming language.[18] Probably because the first was taken by the Incomers as a particular name. However, in Gondor the shore-land from the mouth of Anduin to Dol Amroth was called Belfalas, but actually usually referred to as i·Falas ‘the surf-beach’ (or sometimes as Then-falas ‘short beach’, in contrast to An-falas ‘long beach’, between the mouths of Morthond and Levnui). But the great bay between Umbar and Angast (the Long Cape, beyond Levnui) was called the Bay of Belfalas (Côf Belfalas) or simply of Bel (Côf gwaeren Bêl ‘the windy Bay of Bêl’). So that it is more probable that Bêl was the name or part of the name of the region afterward usually called Dor-en-Ernil ‘land of the Prince’: it was perhaps the most important part of Gondor before the Númenórean settlement.

  Christopher Tolkien writes: “With ‘the windy Bay of Bêl’ cf. the poem The Man in the Moon came down too soon in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (1962), where the Man in the Moon fell ‘to a foaming bath in the windy Bay of Bel’, identified as Belfalas in the preface to the book. – This passage was struck through, presumably at once, since the next paragraph begins again ‘Several other names in Gondor are apparently of similar origin’. A page of rapid manuscript found with the typescript essay shows my father sketching an entirely different origin for the element Bel. I have referred to this text and cited it in part in Unfinished Tales (p. 247), observing that it represents an altogether different conception of the establishment of the Elvish haven (Edhellond) north of Dol Amroth from that given in Of Dwarves and Men (XII:313 and 329 n.67), where it is said that it owed its existence to ‘seafaring Sindar from the west havens of Beleriand who fled in three small ships when the power of Morgoth overwhelmed the Eldar and the Atani’. The manuscript page obviously belongs to the same very late period as the essay, as is seen both from the paper on which it is written and from the fact that the same page carries drafting for the Oath of Cirion in Quenya (UT:305).�
� This manuscript page is given here in full:

  Belfalas. This is a special case. Bel- is certainly an element derived from a pre-Númenórean name; but its source is known, and was in fact Sindarin. The regions of Gondor had a complex history in the remote past, so far as their population was concerned, and the Númenóreans evidently found many layers of mixed peoples, and numerous islands of isolated folk either clinging to old dwellings, or in mountain-refuges from invaders.[fn1] But there was one small (but important) element in Gondor of quite exceptional kind: an Eldarin settlement.[19] Little is known of its history until shortly before it disappeared; for the Eldarin Elves, whether Exiled Noldor or long-rooted Sindar, remained in Beleriand until its desolation in the Great War against Morgoth; and then if they did not take sail over Sea wandered westward [sic; read “eastward”] in Eriador. There, especially near the Hithaeglir (on either side), they found scattered settlements of the Nandor, Telerin Elves who had in the First Age never completed the journey to the shores of the Sea; but both sides recognized their kinship as Eldar. There appears, however, in the beginning of the Second Age, to have been a group of Sindar who went south. They were a remnant, it seems, of the people of Doriath, who harboured still their grudge against the Noldor and left the Grey Havens because these and all the ships there were commanded by Círdan (a Noldo). Having learned the craft of shipbuilding[fn2] they went in the course of years seeking a place for havens of their own. At last they settled at the mouth of the Morthond. There was already a primitive harbour there of fisher-folk; but these in fear of the Eldar fled into the mountains. The land between Morthond and Serni (the shoreward parts of Dor-en-Ernil)