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12 Cf. chap. VII, “Mind-Pictures”, above.
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13 This footnote entered as a long comment, dated “June 1966” by Tolkien, on the final page of this small bundle of papers. Regarding the apparent finality here of the decision that the houseless fëa “itself rebuilt its hröa to fit … is far and away the best solution”, see text 3 in this chapter, and XII:391 n.17.
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14 As first written, this text was titled: “Some notes on ‘Glorfindel’”.
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15 The matter of “identity” of materials and bodies is discussed extensively in text 1A, “The Converse of Manwë with Eru”, in this chapter.
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XVI From The Statute of Finwë and Míriel
1 What I give here as “life” actually looks most like “live”, but might also be “love”.
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2 For the impregnability of minds even for the Valar, see chap. IX, “Ósanwe-kenta”, above.
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XVII Death
1 Here and in the other two occurrences below, the word “abhorrent” is a penciled replacement for deleted “disgusting”.
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2 With the “mystery of love within Time”, cf. the “Comments” section of text 1A, “The Converse of Manwë with Eru”, of chap. XV, “Elvish Reincarnation”, above.
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3 The word “discarded” here is a typed replacement for original “absorbed”.
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4 Cf. the same concept of the complete pattern of living things through time in the text of chap. XV, “Elvish Reincarnation”, just cited.
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5 This last sentence is an addition to the typescript in pencil.
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6 Here and at all subsequent occurrences, kelvar is written above and (apparently) was intended to replace original cuivar. A faint note at the end of the essay explains the change: “kelvar = cuivar. cuy = ‘awake’ not ‘live’”.
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7 As first typed, the parenthetical statement in this sentence read: “(but most of those which he did not himself devise)”. With the statement here that Melkor “desires ever new things and loves nothing that has been or already is”, cf. the apparently closely contemporary chap. III, “Powers of the Valar” in part three of this book.
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8 The words “by Eru” were a later insertion on the typescript.
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9 As first typed, this sentence ended: “and to a world of which death, and death by the violence of others, is an accepted part”.
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10 On the unity of body and spirit in incarnates, see BODY AND SPIRIT in App. I.
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11 As originally typed this clause read: “and reduce it to a stupor of horror so that it was impotent”.
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12 Cf. INCORRUPTIBILITY OF SAINTS in App. I.
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PART THREE: THE WORLD, ITS LANDS, AND ITS INHABITANTS
I Dark and Light
1 The exception is a typed, undated letter from one Andrew Cruickshank, advertising and raising funds for the Wordsworth Ryland Mount Trust, Ltd. This charity, registered in the U.K. on 6 Feb. 1970 (now dissolved), had as its aim: “To promote, encourage, maintain, improve and advance public education and in particular the education of the public in the life and work of William Wordsworth and to establish and maintain a museum to house and preserve all such articles and effects of literary and other nature having connection with William Wordsworth or his family.”
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2 In the margin against this Tolkien wrote the word “fwyn”, which may be intended as representing the pronunciation of the Sindarin word fuin according to the conventions of Welsh orthography (though if so the spelling ought rather to be “ffwyn”). As first written, √PHUY had the start of a gloss: “prob. ‘fog, mists’, produced”, struck through in the act of writing.
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3 An apparent candidate replacement for the conception of night as a “breath” follows Tolkien’s diagram in a very hasty hand:
as a wind that followed the Sun out of the East and drove its light away West (which [?alike] they conceived as a substance like ethereal liquid that otherwise [?would flow down] like a tenuous rain on the surface of Arda and in pools, as they imagined it to do in Aman) where the Sun carries it back again leaving Earth [????] of the Sun [?flowed] or spread her light over Arda until it again [?drives it off] Arda.
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4 In the margin, against the accompanying figure, Tolkien later wrote, in pencil: “linque = liquid light”.
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5 A note written in the top margin of this page adds: “‘darkness’ conceived as a very thin misty substance had the ancient name of *phuinē (√PHUY ‘breathe out’); ‘light’ conceived also as a very ethereal but shining substance had the ancient name of *linkwē (√LIK ‘glide, slip’)”.
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6 For the late (c. 1959) but obviously long-lived extension of the term Arda to encompass the entire solar system (not just the Earth, as earlier), cf. X:337, 349, 358 n.11, and esp. 375.
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7 Tolkien “translated” the language of the Rohirrim into Old English, so here “Rohanese” (R) in fact stands for Old English (O.E.). The “Story of Eärnil” is apparently a reference to Eärnil II, the 32nd King of Gondor, and what is said of him in various parts of App. A of LR, though in fact the name Limlight does not there occur in connection with these passages. It may be that “Eärnil” here is a slip for Eorl, in which case see LR:1064.
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8 O.E. ēa ‘river’ is a common element in English river-names, frequently as an ending becoming -ey. As first written, the original Sindarin name was “Lim(p)-hir”.
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9 A marginal note against this reads: “In that case it is possible (though unlikely?) that līht in R. had sense levis” (i.e., as Latin levis adj. ‘light (not heavy)’). At the end of the text, Tolkien further notes that “[?Older] Rohanese had a voiceless initial lh, but in both Sindarin and R. this may have been voiced, or dissimilative for mh”.
An earlier version of this possible derivation reads: “S. limb > lim(m) was from C.E. limbi ‘smooth, sleek, sliding, gliding (slippery)’, applied among other things to fish, snakes, light boats [?but] [of] shallow draught, waters or liquids flowing (down) or slipping along [? or?]. But this would not have been interpreted by R. līht ‘light’ (lucent), and is not close to R. līht ‘levis’. It seems probable that the old name was actually < S. limp”.
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II The Primal Impulse
1 Text A originally gives this Quenya name of the “Great Pattern” as Arkantië, subsequently emended to Erkantië. In B it was first written as erkantië and then capitalized. It was written as Erkantië at its second occurrence.
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2 The draft as first written has to this point: “the total unfolding of which is the Great Pattern. The whole life of this may not indeed be coextensive with the life of Arda”. This was emended to replace “may” with “will”, and “life of Arda” with “Tale of Arda”.
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3 For the meanings and distinction of erma ‘prime substance’ and nassi ‘materials’, see PRIME MATTER in App. I and the entries for these terms in App. II.
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4 Text A has here “before the entry into the Tale of the living things”; this is not found in the “draft” at all.
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5 The draft here continues with a parenthetical: “(As a great monument upon which History h
as been written in Life by hands from outside.)” No such corresponding statement is found in either subsequent version.
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6 Text A reads here: “which is when a living creature perishes before it has begotten or born any seed, or offspring, or heir”.
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7 Text A reads here: “But the whole will not cease, until such time as no single living thing produces living offspring”. Also in text A the passage corresponding to that here from “Yet while it continues” to this point originally followed the passage corresponding to what is the third paragraph in text B, beginning “But others hold”. In A this passage entered as an interpolation, with an arrow indicating that it was to be inserted before the passage corresponding to the third paragraph in text B.
The corresponding passage in the draft, which as in text A follows the passage corresponding to what is the third paragraph in text B, is brief and different enough (chiefly in metaphor) to give here in full:
This [the Ermenië] continues through the ages in continuity. For though some branches occasionally may wither and end as some rivulets run into sand and clay and come not to the Sea. And that is when living creatures perish before they have begotten or born or produced seed or offspring or heir.
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8 The corresponding passage in text A is a parenthetical statement, reading: “(This may come about in turmoils made by Melcor in his last attempt to achieve mastery or revenge of destruction)”. For the significance of the spelling “Melcor”, see my editorial introduction to the text given as chap. XVII, “Death”, in part two of this book.
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9 As suggested by the Eldarin base √MEN- ‘have as object, (in)tend, proceed, make for, go towards’ PE17:93) and its derivative *mēnie ‘determination’ (PE17:94), Tolkien apparently uses “device” here not only in the modern sense given it in the OED as “6 Something devised or contrived for bringing about some end or result”; but also in one or both senses (now considered obsolete) given it in the OED as: “†2 Purpose, intention” and “3 †b. Will or desire as expressed or conveyed to another; command, order, direction, appointment”.
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10 As first written, this sentence ended: “before and not part of Eä (the Realization)”. Both text A and the draft (so far as it goes) correspond here quite closely with B.
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11 But cf. the opening of the next text.
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12 The aside beginning “only so can we understand” entered as an (apparently) contemporary note in the top margin of the page, with marks indicating that it should be inserted here.
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13 For the blending and varying of the patterns of living things, again see “The Converse of Manwë and Eru”, text 1 of chap. XV of part two of this book, as well as EVOLUTION (THEISTIC) in App. I.
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14 Cf. EXISTENCE, CONTINGENCY OF in App. I.
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15 See X:244: “‘new things’, manifesting the finger of Ilúvatar, as we say”. Cf. Exodus 8:19, referring to the miraculous plague of gnats: “Then the magicians said unto Pharaoh, This is the finger of God.”
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16 Tolkien here replaced “wedded unio[n]” with “marriage” in the act of writing. Before starting the next paragraph, Tolkien made here a rough figure, concerning the union of Half-elves and some of their offspring: “Half Elven: Arwen Aragorn. | Dior - || | Earendil. Elrond/Celebrian”.
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17 Tolkien began here, and then deleted in the act of writing, a clause reading: “yet it will work a”.
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18 Tolkien here replaced “another” with “earlier” (at the first occurrence), and “things” with “variety”, in the act of writing.
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19 The fourth (and final) paragraph of the brief draft text has here:
The fëar of Elves and Men and still later things (Ents? Dwarves) were intrusions by Eru, like the Valar – Aule and the Dwarves. Yavanna and the Ents. Maiar could take forms of Eagles etc. – [?these] were sent into Eä. They are not of Eä, but Eru’s agent in Eä.
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III Powers of the Valar
1 Tolkien supplied this title in pencil in the top margin.
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2 With erma ‘prime substance’ cf. PRIME MATTER in App. I.
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3 Cf. chap. XIV, “The Visible Forms of the Valar and Maiar”, in part two of this book.
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4 For the implications of the form Melcor for dating this and other texts, see my editorial introduction to chap. XVII, “Death” in part two of this book.
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5 As originally typed, this sentence began: “Though his mind was swift, swiftest maybe of all the Valar, and piercing …”.
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IV The Making of Lembas
1 An unfinished and then deleted passage at this point reads:
At first the grain was used entirely for making the special “waybread” needed on long journeys in the wild, as was the original purpose of the gift of the Valar. But after the Great Journey was ended
Regarding the “bread-women”, see X:214.
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2 “Three Elderwomen” – that is, apparently, the three women among the first six Elves to awake, in the Cuivienyarna named as Iminyë, Tatië, and Enelyë (XI:421; and cf. chap. VIII, “Eldarin Traditions Concerning the ‘Awakening’”, in part one of this book).
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3 The word “dim” here replaced original “lack of”; i.e., “owing to the lack of sunlight”. For the implication that the Sun existed from the Awakening onward, but that its light was dimmed, see text II of the section “Myths Transformed” of Morgoth’s Ring (and particularly X:377–8).
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V Note on Elvish Economy
1 As first written, this sentence began: “The Eldar had no arable culture”.
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2 The word here read tentatively as “initially” entered as an interlinear insertion above “food”.
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3 I have set this passage concerning the Dwarves in a separate paragraph editorially (in the original, it begins at the top of a page side, and there is no break in the text between it and what is presented here as the subsequent paragraph), in order to clarify that (as I interpret the text) it is the Dwarves, “tough and strong”, that had invented a plough that they both dragged and steered themselves.
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4 That is, in the Ered Gorgoroth, north of Doriath and south of Taur-na-Fuin.
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5 The word “cultural” was altered from “agricultural” by strikethrough of the initial letters.
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VIII Manwë’s Ban
1 Cf. chap. XV, “Elvish Reincarnation”, in part two of this book.
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2 Tolkien struck through the words “and extrusion” between “downfall” and “of Melkor”.
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3 Tolkien labored on this admonition, first writing: “in so grave a matter, in making [?common]” (perhaps the start of “command”?), then striking out these last three words and replacing them with: “by doing things which Eru permitted, without attributing error to Him”. He then struck out all from “a matter” to “Him”, before continuing the effort on the next page with “a matter …”. Further, in the left margin against this lengthy paragraph he very roughly wrote: “Debate concerning Manwë’s Ban; was it just? not for the good of Elves and Men.”
The words “knew and permitted” in the continuation replaced “was in direct commun[ion]” in the act of writing.
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4 As first written, the deeds of the Ñoldor are called “wicked” (rather than “hideous”).
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5 Tolkien first wrote “vice-ger” (i.e., for “vice-gerent”) before changing this to “vice-regent” in the act of writing. Tolkien describes Manwë as a “vice-gerent” in chap. IX, “Ósanwe-kenta”, in part two of this book.
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6 For Maelor as a post-LR variant name of Maglor, see: III:353 and fn.; X:182 §41; and XII:318 n.7.
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IX Elvish Journeys on Horseback
1 In associated draft material, Tolkien attributes these figures to “FSP” – i.e., the Field Service Pocket Book, which he would have been issued during his military training prior to being deployed to France in 1916. Both the 1914 and 1916 editions cite precisely these gaits and speeds on p. 37. (My thanks to John Garth for identifying the reference and providing the relevant page.)
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2 The latter part of this paragraph, from “From Elmoth to Gelion” to “visit Menegroth” was published at XI:335, but as I have managed to tease out a little more of the illegible text at the end, I repeat it here.
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XI Lives of the Númenóreans
1 Cf. Christopher Tolkien’s reference to and commentary on this statement at UT:224 n.1.
The Nature of Middle-earth Page 45
