The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two

by J. R. R. Tolkien

  Hence Melko can now work hurt and damage and evil in the world only through Men, and he has more power and subtlety with Men than Manwë or any of the Gods, because of his long sojourn in the world and among Men.

  In these early chartings we are in a primitive mythology, with Melko reduced to a grotesque figure chased up a great pine-tree, which is thereupon cut down to keep him out of the world, where he ‘stalks high above the air’ or ‘sits without, gnawing his fingers’, and upsets the Sun-ship so that Urwendi falls into the Sea—and, most strangely, meets her death.

  That Ingil (Gil) who with Telimektar pursues Melko is to be identified with Ingil son of Inwë who built Kortirion is certain and appears from several notes; see the Appendix on Names to Vol. I, entries Ingil, Telimektar. This is the fullest statement of the Orion-myth, which is referred to in the Tale of the Sun and Moon (see I.182, 200):

  of Nielluin [Sirius] too, who is the Bee of Azure, Nielluin whom still may all men see in autumn or winter burning nigh the foot of Telimektar son of Tulkas whose tale is yet to tell.

  In the Gnomish dictionary it is said (I.256) that Gil rose into the heavens and ‘in the likeness of a great bee bearing honey of flame’ followed Telimektar. This presumably represents a distinct conception from that referred to above, where Ingil ‘went long ago back to Valinor and is with Manwë’ (I. 129).

  With the reference to Fionwë’s slaying of Melko ‘in the end’ cf. the end of The Hiding of Valinor (I.219):

  Fionwë Úrion, son of Manwë, of love for Urwendi shall in the end be Melko’s bane, and shall destroy the world to destroy his foe, and so shall all things then be rolled away.

  Cf. also the Tale of Turambar, p. 116, where it is said that Turambar ‘shall stand beside Fionwë in the Great Wrack’.

  For the prophecies and hopes of the Elves concerning the Rekindling of the Magic Sun see pp. 285–6.

  The outline in C continues and concludes thus (again with some very slight and insignificant editing):

  (5) Longer ages elapse. Gilfanon is now the oldest and wisest Elf in Tol Eressëa, but is not of the Inwir—hence Meril-i-Turinqi is Lady of the Isle.

  Eriol comes to Tol Eressëa. Sojourns at Kortirion. Goes to Tavrobel to see Gilfanon, and sojourns in the house of a hundred chimneys—for this is the last condition of his drinking limpë. Gilfanon bids him write down all he has heard before he drinks.

  Eriol drinks limpë. Gilfanon tells him of things to be; that in his mind (although the fairies hope not) he believes that Tol Eressëa will become a dwelling of Men. Gilfanon also prophesies concerning the Great End, and of the Wrack of Things, and of Fionwë, Tulkas, and Melko and the last fight on the Plains of Valinor.

  Eriol ends his life at Tavrobel but in his last days is consumed with longing for the black cliffs of his shores, even as Meril said.

  The book lay untouched in the house of Gilfanon during many ages of Men.

  The compiler of the Golden Book takes up the Tale: one of the children of the fathers of the fathers of Men. [Against this is written:] It may perhaps be much better to let Eriol himself see the last things and finish the book.

  Rising of the Lost Elves against the Orcs and Nautar.6 The time is not ready for the Faring Forth, but the fairies judge it to be necessary. They obtain through Ulmo the help of Uin,7 and Tol Eressëa is uprooted and dragged near to the Great Lands, nigh to the promontory of Rôs. A magic bridge is cast across the intervening sound. Ossë is wroth at the breaking of the roots of the isle he set so long ago—and many of his rare sea-treasures grow about it—that he tries to wrench it back; and the western half breaks off, and is now the Isle of Íverin.

  The Battle of Rôs: the Island-elves and the Lost Elves against Nautar, Gongs,8 Orcs, and a few evil Men. Defeat of the Elves. The fading Elves retire to Tol Eressëa and hide in the woods.

  Men come to Tol Eressëa and also. Orcs, Dwarves, Gongs, Trolls, etc. After the Battle of Rôs the Elves faded with sorrow. They cannot live in air breathed by a number of Men equal to their own or greater; and ever as Men wax more powerful and numerous so the fairies fade and grow small and tenuous, filmy and transparent, but Men larger and more dense and gross. At last Men, or almost all, can no longer see the fairies.

  The Gods now dwell in Valinor, and come scarcely ever to the world, being content with the restraining of the elements from utterly destroying Men. They grieve much at what they see; but Ilúvatar is over all.

  On the page opposite the passage about the Battle of Rôs is written:

  A great battle between Men at the Heath of the Sky-roof (now the Withered Heath), about a league from Tavrobel. The Elves and the Children flee over the Gruir and the Afros.

  ‘Even now do they approach and our great tale comes to its ending.’

  The book found in the ruins of the house of a hundred chimneys.

  That Gilfanon was the oldest of the Elves of Tol Eressëa, though Meril held the title of Lady of the Isle, is said also in the Tale of the Sun and Moon (I.175): but what is most notable is that Gilfanon (not Ailios, teller of the Tale of the Nauglafring, whom Gilfanon replaced, see I.197 note 19 and 229ff.) appears in this outline, which must therefore be late in the period of the composition of the Lost Tales.

  Also noteworthy are the references to Eriol’s drinking limpë at Gilfanon’s ‘house of a hundred chimneys’. In The Cottage of Lost Play (I.17) Lindo told Eriol that he could not give him limpë to drink:

  Turinqi only may give it to those not of the Eldar race, and those that drink must dwell always with the Eldar of the Island until such time as they fare forth to find the lost families of the kindred.

  Meril-i-Turinqi herself, when Eriol besought her for a drink of limpë, was severe (I.98):

  If you drink this drink…even at the Faring Forth, should Eldar and Men fall into war at the last, still must you stand by us against the children of your kith and kin, but until then never may you fare away home though longings gnaw you…

  In the text described in I.229ff. Eriol bemoans to Lindo the refusal to grant him his desire, and Lindo, while warning him against ‘thinking to overpass the bounds that Ilúvatar hath set’, tells him that Meril has not irrevocably refused him. In a note to this text my father wrote: ‘…Eriol fares to Tavrobel—after Tavrobel he drinks of limpë.’

  The statement in this passage of outline C that Eriol ‘in his last days is consumed with longing for the black cliffs of his shores, even as Meril said’ clearly refers to the passage in The Chaining of Melko from which I have cited above:

  On a day of autumn will come the winds and a driven gull, maybe, will wail overhead, and lo! you will be filled with desire, remembering the black coasts of your home. (I.96).

  Lindo’s reference, in the passage from The Cottage of Lost Play cited above, to the faring forth of the Eldar of Tol Eressëa ‘to find the lost families of the kindred’ must likewise relate to the mentions in (5) of the Faring Forth (though the time was not ripe), of the ‘rising of the Lost Elves against the Orcs and Nautar’, and of ‘the Island-elves and the Lost Elves’ at the Battle of Rôs. Precisely who are to be understood by the ‘Lost Elves’ is not clear; but in Gilfanon’s Tale (I.231) all Elves of the Great Lands ‘that never saw the light at Kôr’ (Ilkorins), whether or not they left the Waters of Awakening, are called ‘the lost fairies of the world’, and this seems likely to be the meaning here. It must then be supposed that there dwelt on Tol Eressëa only the Eldar of Kôr (the ‘Exiles’) and the Noldoli released from thraldom under Melko; the Faring Forth was to be the great expedition from Tol Eressëa for the rescue of those who had never departed from the Great Lands.

  In (5) we meet the conception of the dragging of Tol Eressëa back eastwards across the Ocean to the geographical position of England—it becomes England (see I. 26); that the part which was torn off by Ossë, the Isle of Íverin, is Ireland is explicitly stated in the Qenya dictionary. The promontory of Rôs is perhaps Brittany.

  Here also there is a clear definition of the ‘fading
’ of the Elves, their physical diminution and increasing tenuity and transparency, so that they become invisible (and finally incredible) to gross Mankind. This is a central concept of the early mythology: the ‘fairies’, as now conceived by Men (in so far as they are rightly conceived), have become so. They were not always so. And perhaps most remarkable in this remarkable passage, there is the final and virtually complete withdrawal of the Gods (to whom the Eldar are ‘most like in nature’, I. 57) from the concerns of ‘the world’, the Great Lands across the Sea. They watch, it seems, since they grieve, and are therefore not wholly indifferent to what passes in the lands of Men; but they are henceforward utterly remote, hidden in the West.

  Other features of (5), the Golden Book of Tavrobel, and the Battle of the Heath of the Sky-roof, will be explained shortly. I give next a separate passage found in the notebook C under the heading ‘Rekindling of the Magic Sun. Faring Forth.’

  (6) The Elves’ prophecy is that one day they will fare forth from Tol Eressëa and on arriving in the world will gather all their fading kindred who still live in the world and march towards Valinor—through the southern lands. This they will only do with the help of Men. If Men aid them, the fairies will take Men to Valinor—those that wish to go—fight a great battle with Melko in Erumáni and open Valinor.9 Laurelin and Silpion will be rekindled, and the mountain wall being destroyed then soft radiance will spread over all the world, and the Sun and Moon will be recalled. If Men oppose them and aid Melko the Wrack of the Gods and the ending of the fairies will result—and maybe the Great End.

  On the opposite page is written:

  Were the Trees relit all the paths to Valinor would become clear to follow—and the Shadowy Seas open clear and free—Men as well as Elves would taste the blessedness of the Gods, and Mandos be emptied.

  This prophecy is clearly behind Vairë’s words to Eriol (I.19–20): ‘…the Faring Forth, when if all goes well the roads through Arvalin to Valinor shall be thronged with the sons and daughters of Men.’

  Since ‘the Sun and Moon will be recalled’ when the Two Trees give light again, it seems that here ‘the Rekindling of the Magic Sun’ (to which the toast was drunk in Mar Vanwa Tyaliéva, I.17, 65) refers to the relighting of the Trees. But in citation (4) above it is said that ‘the “Rekindling of the Magic Sun” refers in part to the Trees and in part to Urwendi’, while in the Tale of the Sun and Moon (I.179) Yavanna seems to distinguish the two ideas:

  ‘Many things shall be done and come to pass, and the Gods grow old, and the Elves come nigh to fading, ere ye shall see the rekindling of these trees or the Magic Sun relit’, and the Gods knew not what she meant, speaking of the Magic Sun, nor did for a long while after.

  Citation (xix) on p. 264 does not make the reference clear: Eärendel ‘returns from the firmament ever and anon with Voronwë to Kôr to see if the Magic Sun has been lit and the fairies have come back’ but in the following isolated note the Rekindling of the Magic Sun explicitly means the re-arising of Urwendi:

  (7) Urwendi imprisoned by Móru (upset out of the boat by Melko and only the Moon has been magic since). The Faring Forth and the Battle of Erumáni would release her and rekindle the Magic Sun.

  This ‘upsetting’ of the Sun-ship by Melko and the loss of the Sun’s ‘magic’ is referred to also in (4), where it is added that Urwendi fell into the sea and met her ‘death’. In the tale of The Theft of Melko it is said (I.151) that the cavern in which Melko met Ungweliant was the place where the Sun and Moon were imprisoned afterwards, for ‘the primeval spirit Móru’ was indeed Ungweliant (see I.261). The Battle of Erumáni is referred to also in (6), and is possibly to be identified with ‘the last fight on the plains of Valinor’ prophesied by Gilfanon in (5). But the last part of (5) shows that the Faring Forth came to nothing, and the prophecies were not fulfilled.

  There are no other references to the dragging of Tol Eressëa across the Ocean by Uin the great whale, to the Isle of Íverin, or to the Battle of Rôs; but a remarkable writing survives concerning the aftermath of the ‘great battle between Men at the Heath of the Sky-roof (now the Withered Heath), about a league from Tavrobel’ (end of citation (5)). This is a very hastily pencilled and exceedingly difficult text titled Epilogue. It begins with a short prefatory note:

  (8) Eriol flees with the fading Elves from the Battle of the High Heath (Ladwen-na-Dhaideloth) and crosses the Gruir and the Afros.

  The last words of the book of Tales. Written by Eriol at Tavrobel before he sealed the book.

  This represents the development mentioned as desirable in (5), that Eriol should ‘himself see the last things and finish the book’ but an isolated note in C shows my father still uncertain about this even after the Epilogue was in being: ‘Prologue by the writer of Tavrobel [i.e., such a Prologue is needed] telling how he found Eriol’s writings and put them together. His epilogue after the battle of Ladwen Daideloth is written.’

  The rivers Gruir and Afros appear also in the passage about the battle at the end of (5). Since it is said there that the Heath was about a league from Tavrobel, the two rivers are clearly those referred to in the Tale of the Sun and Moon: ‘the Tower of Tavrobel beside the rivers’ (I. 174, and see I.196 note 2). In scattered notes the battle is also called ‘the Battle of the Heaven Roof’ and ‘the Battle of Dor-na-Dhaideloth’.10

  I give now the text of the Epilogue:

  And now is the end of the fair times come very nigh, and behold, all the beauty that yet was on earth—fragments of the unimagined loveliness of Valinor whence came the folk of the Elves long long ago—now goeth it all up in smoke. Here be a few tales, memories ill-told, of all that magic and that wonder twixt here and Eldamar of which I have become acquaint more than any mortal man since first my wandering footsteps came to this sad isle.

  Of that last battle of the upland heath whose roof is the wide sky—nor was there any other place beneath the blue folds of Manwë’s robe so nigh the heavens or so broadly and so well encanopied—what grievous things I saw I have told.

  Already fade the Elves in sorrow and the Faring Forth has come to ruin, and Ilúvatar knoweth alone if ever now the Trees shall be relit while the world may last. Behold, I stole by evening from the ruined heath, and my way fled winding down the valley of the Brook of Glass, but the setting of the Sun was blackened with the reek of fires, and the waters of the stream were fouled with the war of men and grime of strife. Then was my heart bitter to see the bones of the good earth laid bare with winds where the destroying hands of men had torn the heather and the fern and burnt them to make sacrifice to Melko and to lust of ruin; and the thronging places of the bees that all day hummed among the whins and whortlebushes long ago bearing rich honey down to Tavrobel—these were now become fosses and [?mounds] of stark red earth, and nought sang there nor danced but unwholesome airs and flies of pestilence.

  Now the Sun died and behold, I came to that most magic wood where once the ageless oaks stood firm amid the later growths of beech and slender trees of birch, but all were fallen beneath the ruthless axes of unthinking men. Ah me, here was the path beaten with spells, trodden with musics and enchantment that wound therethrough, and this way were the Elves wont to ride a-hunting. Many a time there have I seen them and Gilfanon has been there, and they rode like kings unto the chase, and the beauty of their faces in the sun was as the new morning, and the wind in their golden hair like to the glory of bright flowers shaken at dawn, and the strong music of their voices like the sea and like trumpets and like the noise of very many viols and of golden harps unnumbered. And yet again have I seen the people of Tavrobel beneath the Moon, and they would ride or dance across the valley of the two rivers where the grey bridge leaps the joining waters; and they would fare swiftly as clad in dreams, spangled with gems like to the grey dews amid the grass, and their white robes caught the long radiance of the Moon………….and their spears shivered with silver flames.

  And now sorrow and…..has come upon the Elves, empty is Tavrobel and a
ll are fled, [?fearing] the enemy that sitteth on the ruined heath, who is not a league away; whose hands are red with the blood of Elves and stained with the lives of his own kin, who has made himself an ally to Melko and the Lord of Hate, who has fought for the Orcs and Gongs and the unwholesome monsters of the world—blind, and a fool, and destruction alone is his knowledge. The paths of the fairies he has made to dusty roads where thirst [?lags wearily] and no man greeteth another in the way, but passes by in sullenness.

  So fade the Elves and it shall come to be that because of the encompassing waters of this isle and yet more because of their unquenchable love for it that few shall flee, but as men wax there and grow fat and yet more blind ever shall they fade more and grow less; and those of the after days shall scoff, saying Who are the fairies—lies told to the children by women or foolish men—who are these fairies? And some few shall answer: Memories faded dim, a wraith of vanishing loveliness in the trees, a rustle of the grass, a glint of dew, some subtle intonation of the wind; and others yet fewer shall say……‘Very small and delicate are the fairies now, yet we have eyes to see and ears to hear, and Tavrobel and Kortirion are filled yet with [?this] sweet folk. Spring knows them and Summer too and in Winter still are they among us, but in Autumn most of all do they come out, for Autumn is their season, fallen as they are upon the Autumn of their days. What shall the dreamers of the earth be like when their winter come.