The Book of Lost Tales, Part One

by J. R. R. Tolkien

  4 For the story of the taking of rock and stone from Arvalin (Eruman) for the raising of the Mountains of Valinor see p. 70.

  5 ‘sire of Fëanor’ is an emendation from ‘son of Fëanor’ see note 3.

  6 After the word ‘fabrics’ there stood the following sentence, which was struck through: ‘which the Gods could an they listed have created in an hour’—a sentence notable in itself and also for its excision.

  7 The MS page beginning with the words ‘before the gates of Valmar’ and ending with ‘unabashed uttered his message, saying’ is written round the little world-map reproduced and described on pp. 81 ff.

  8 In this part of the tale the manuscript consists of detached passages, with directions from one to another; the place of this sentence is not perfectly clear, but seems most probably to belong here.

  9 The dots are in the original.

  10 ‘afterward’ is an emendation from ‘of old’. A question mark is written in the margin against this sentence.

  Changes made to names in

  The Theft of Melko and the Darkening of Valinor

  Ellu Melemno < Melemno (in Chapter V, p. 120, in an added sentence, the leader of the Solosimpi is Ellu).

  Sirnúmen < Numessir (at the first two occurrences; subsequently Sirnúmen was the form first written).

  Eruman < Harmalin (pp. 145, 152), < Habbanan (p. 151).

  Arvalin < Harvalien < Habbanan (p. 145), < Harvalien < Harmalin (p. 147); Arvalien thus first written p. 148.

  Bruithwir replaces an earlier name, probably Maron.

  Bruithwir go-Maidros < Bruithwir go-Fëanor. go- is a patronymic, ‘son of’. See notes 3 and 5 above.

  Móru This name could equally well be read, as also at its occasional occurrences elsewhere, as Morn (see the Appendix on Names). It replaces here another name, probably Mordi.

  Ungoliont < Gungliont.

  Daurin (Tórin) The original reading at the first occurence was Fëanor, changed to (?)Daurlas…akin to Fëanor, and then to a Gnome called Daurin (Tórin). The subsequent occurrences of Daurin are emendations of Fëanor.

  Commentary on

  The Theft of Melko and the Darkening of Valinor

  The story of the corruption of the Noldoli by Melko was ultimately told quite differently; for there entered the matter of the strife between Finwë’s sons Fëanor and Fingolfin (The Silmarillion p. 69), of which in the tale there is no trace, and where in any case Fëanor is not the son of Finwë Nólemë but of one Bruithwir. The primary motive in the later story of Melkor’s desire for the Silmarils (ibid. p. 67) is here represented only by a lust for the gems of the Noldoli in general: it is indeed a remarkable feature of the original mythology that though the Silmarils were present they were of such relatively small importance. There is essential agreement with the later story in its being the Noldoli at whom Melko aimed his attack, and there is a quite close, if limited, similarity in the arguments he used: the confinement of the Elves in Valinor by the Valar, and the broad realms in the East that were rightly theirs—but notably absent from Melko’s words is any reference to the coming of Men: this element is in the tale introduced later and quite differently, by Manwë himself (p. 150). Moreover the particular association of the Noldoli with the evil Vala arises from his desire for their gems: in The Silmarillion (p. 66) the Noldor turned to him for the instruction he could give, while the other kindreds held aloof.

  From this point the narratives diverge altogether; for the secret evil of Melkor was in The Silmarillion laid bare as a result of the enquiry held into the quarrel of the Noldorin princes, whereas here its revelation came about more simply from the anxiety of Finwë Nólemë about the unrest of his people. The later story is of course far superior, in that Melkor was sought by the Valar as a known enemy as soon as his machinations were uncovered (though he escaped), whereas in the tale, despite there being now every evidence that he was by no means reformed, he was merely told to go and think things over in Mandos. The germ of the story in The Silmarillion of Fëanor’s banishment to Formenos, where he was accompanied by Finwë, is present, though here the entire people of the Noldoli are ordered to leave Kôr for the rugged dale northwards where the stream Híri plunged underground, and the command to do so seems to have been less a punishment meted out to them by Manwë than a precaution and a safeguard.

  In connection with the place of the banishment of the Noldoli, here called Sirnúmen (‘Western Stream’), it may be mentioned that in an isolated note found in the little book referred to on p. 23 it is stated: ‘The river of the second rocky dwelling of the Gnomes in Valinor was kelusindi and the spring at its source kapalinda.’

  Very remarkable is the passage (p. 142) where Manwë is said to know that ‘the Elves were children of the world and must one day return to her bosom’. As I have noticed earlier (p. 82) ‘the world’ is often equated with the Great Lands, and this usage occurs repeatedly in the present tale, but it is not clear to me whether this sense is intended here. I incline to think that the meaning of the phrase is that at ‘the Great End’ the Eldar, being bound to the Earth, cannot return with the Valar and spirits that were ‘before the world’ (p. 66) to the regions whence they came (cf. the conclusion of the original Music of the Ainur, p. 60).

  Coming to the account of the theft of the jewels, the structure of the narrative is again radically different from the later story, in that there Melkor’s attack on the Noldor of Formenos, the theft of the Silmarils and the slaying of Finwë, was accomplished after his meeting with Ungoliant in the South and the destruction of the Two Trees; Ungoliant was with him at Formenos. Nor in the earliest version is there any mention of Melko’s previous visit to Formenos (The Silmarillion pp. 71–2), after which he passed through the Calacirya and went northwards up the coast, returning later in secret to Avathar (Arvalin, Eruman) to seek out Ungoliant.

  On the other hand the great festival was already the occasion for Melko’s theft of the Silmarils from the dwelling of the Noldoli, though the festival was wholly different in having a purely commemorative purpose (see The Silmarillion pp. 74–5), and it was a necessary part of that purpose that the Solosimpi should be present (in The Silmarillion ‘Only the Teleri beyond the mountains still sang upon the shores of the sea; for they recked little of seasons or times…’).

  Of Melko’s dark accomplices out of Mandos (some of them said to be ‘aforetime children of Mandos’, p. 154) there is no trace later, nor of his theft of Oromë’s horses; and while Melko is here said to have wished to leave Valinor by passes over the northern mountains, but to have thought better of it (leading to a reflection on what might have been the fate of Valinor had he not), in the later story his movement northwards was a feint. But it is interesting to observe the germ of the one in the other, the underlying idea never lost of a northward and then a southward movement, even though it takes place at a different point in the narrative and has a different motivation.

  Interesting also is the emergence of the idea that a close kinsman of Fëanor’s—only after much hesitation between brother and son becoming fixed on the father—was slain by Melkor in the dwelling of the Noldoli, Sirnúmen, precursor of Formenos; but the father had yet to be identified with the lord of the Noldoli.

  In this passage there are some slight further geographical indications. The Two Trees stood to the north of the city of Valmar (p. 143), as they are shown on the map (see pp. 81–2); and, again in agreement with the map, the Great Lands and the Outer Lands came very close together in the far North (p. 146). Most notably, the gap in the Mountains of Valinor shown on the map and which I marked with the letter e is now explained: ‘the low place in the hills’ by which Melko and his following passed out of Valinor into Arvalin-Eruman, a gap left by Tulkas and Aulë for their own entry into Valinor at the time of the raising of the mountains (p. 145).

  Of the next part of this tale (pp. 146–9) almost nothing survived. Manwë’s lecture to the Noldoli disappeared (but some of its content is briefly expressed at another place
in the narrative of The Silmarillion, p. 68: ‘The Noldor began to murmur against [the Valar], and many became filled with pride, forgetting how much of what they had and knew came to them in gift from the Valar’). Manwë’s naming of Fëanor’s father Bruithwir by the patronymic go-Maidros is notable: though the name Maidros was subsequently to be that of Fëanor’s eldest son, not of his grandfather, it was from the outset associated with the ‘Fëanorians’. There is no trace later of the strange story of the renegade servant of Mandos, who brought Melko’s outrageous message to the Valar, and who was hurled to his death from Taniquetil by the irrepressible Tulkas in direct disobedience to Manwë nor of the sending of Sorontur to Melko as the messenger of the Gods (it is not explained how Sorontur knew where to find him). It is said here that afterwards ‘Sorontur and his folk fared to the Iron Mountains and there abode, watching all that Melko did’. I have noticed in commenting (pp. 111–12) on The Chaining of Melko that the Iron Mountains, said to be south of Hisilómë (pp. 101, 118), there correspond to the later Mountains of Shadow (Ered Wethrin). On the other hand, in the Tale of the Sun and Moon (p. 176) Melko after his escape from Valinor makes himself ‘new dwellings in that region of the North where stand the Iron Mountains very high and terrible to see’ and in the original Tale of Turambar* it is said that Angband lay beneath the roots of the northernmost fastnesses of the Iron Mountains, and that these mountains were so named from ‘the Hells of Iron’ beneath them. The statement in the present tale that Sorontur ‘watched all that Melko did’ from his abode in the Iron Mountains obviously implies likewise that Angband was beneath them; and the story that Sorontur (Thorondor) had his eyries on Thangorodrim before he removed them to Gondolin survived long in the ‘Silmarillion’ tradition (see Unfinished Tales p. 43 and note 25). There is thus, apparently, a contradictory usage of the term ‘Iron Mountains’ within the Lost Tales; unless it can be supposed that these mountains were conceived as a continuous range, the southerly extension (the later Mountains of Shadow) forming the southern fence of Hisilómë, while the northern peaks, being above Angband, gave the range its name. Evidence that this is so will appear later.

  In the original story the Noldoli of Sirnúmen were given permission (through the intercession of Aulë) to return to Kôr, but Fëanor remained there in bitterness with a few others; and thus the situation of the later narrative—the Noldor in Tirion, but Fëanor at Formenos—is achieved, with the element absent of Fëanor’s banishment and unlawful return to the city of the Elves. An underlying difference to be noted is that in The Silmarillion (pp. 61–2) the Vanyar had long since departed from Tirion and gone to dwell on Taniquetil or in Valinor: of this there is no suggestion in the old tale; and of course there is the central structural difference between the early and late narratives—when Fëanor raises his standard of rebellion the Trees are still shining in Valinor.

  In the tale, a good while seems to elapse after the loss of the treasures of the Noldoli, during which they set to work again with lessened joy and Fëanor sought in vain to remake the Silmarils: this element must of course disappear in the later, much tauter structure, where Fëanor (refusing to hand over the Silmarils to the Valar for the healing of the Trees and not yet knowing that Melko has taken them) knows without attempting it that he cannot remake them any more than Yavanna can remake the Trees.

  The embassage of Fëanor and other Noldoli to Manwë, demanding that the Gods ferry them back to the Great Lands, was excised, and with it Manwë’s remarkable instruction to them concerning the coming of Men—and his expressed reluctance to have the Eldar return to ‘the world’ while Men were still in their infancy. No such idea is represented in The Silmarillion as being in Manwë’s mind (nor is there any suggestion that Manwë’s knowledge was so great); and indeed, where in the old story it was Manwë’s very description of Men and account of his policy with regard to them that gave rise to Fëanor’s rhetoric against them, and which gave strong colour to his assertion of the Valar’s true motive for bringing the Eldar to Valinor, in The Silmarillion (p. 68) these ideas are a part of the lies of Melkor (I have noticed above that in Melko’s persuasions of the Noldoli in the tale there is no reference to the coming of Men).

  An otherwise unknown element in the Music of the Ainur is revealed in Manwë’s words: that the world shall come in the end for a great while under the sway of Men. In the original version there are several suggestions in reflective asides that all was fated: so here ‘the jealousy of Elves and Men’ is seen as perhaps a necessary part of the unfolding of the history of the world, and earlier in the tale (p. 142) it is asked: ‘Who shall say but that all these deeds, even the seeming needless evil of Melko, were but a portion of the destiny of old?’

  But for all the radical changes in the narrative the characteristic note of Fëanor’s rhetoric remained; his speech to the Noldoli of Kôr rises in the same rhythms as his speech by torchlight to the Noldor of Tirion (The Silmarillion pp. 82–3).

  In the story of Melko and Ungoliont it is seen that essential elements were present ab initio: the doubt as to her origin, her dwelling in the desolate regions in the south of the Outer Lands, her sucking in of light to bring forth webs of darkness; her alliance with Melko, his rewarding her with the gems stolen from the Noldoli (though this was differently treated later), the piercing of the Trees by Melko and Ungoliont’s sucking up the light; and the great hunt mounted by the Valar, which failed of its object through darkness and mist, allowing Melko to escape out of Valinor by the northward ways.

  Within this structure there are as almost always a great many points of difference between the first story and the later versions. In The Silmarillion (p. 73) Melkor went to Avathar because he knew of Ungoliant’s dwelling there, whereas in the tale she found him wandering there seeking a way of escape. In the tale her origin is unknown, and though this element may be said to have remained in The Silmarillion (‘The Eldar know not whence she came’, ibid.), by the device of ‘Some have said…’ a clear explanation is in fact given: she was a being from ‘before the world’, perverted by Melkor, who had been her lord, though she denied him. The original idea of ‘the primeval spirit Móru’ (p. 151) is made explicit in an entry in the early word-list of the Gnomish language, where the name Muru is defined as ‘a name of the Primeval Night personified as Gwerlum or Gungliont’.*

  The old story markedly lacks the quality of the description in The Silmarillion of the descent of Melkor and Ungoliant from Mount Hyarmentir into the plain of Valinor; and there too the great festival of the Valar and Eldar was in progress at the time: here it is long since over. In The Silmarillion the assault on the Trees came at the time of the mingling of the lights (p. 75), while here Silpion was in full bloom; and the detail of the account of the destruction of the Trees is rendered quite different through the presence of the Gnome Daurin, afterwards abandoned without trace. Thus in the old story it is not actually said that Ungoliont drank the light of Silpion, but only that the tree died from her poison on Daurin’s blade, with which Melko stabbed its trunk; and in The Silmarillion Ungoliant went to ‘the Wells of Varda’ and drank them dry also. It is puzzling that the Gnome was first named Fëanor, since he was slain by Melko. It would seem that my father was at least momentarily entertaining the idea that Fëanor would play no part in the story of the Noldoli in the Great Lands; but in outlines for a later tale (pp. 238–9) he died in Mithrim. In this passage is the first appearance of miruvor, defined in the early Qenya word-list as ‘nectar, drink of the Valar’ with this cf. The Road Goes Ever On, p. 61, where my father stated that it was the name given by the Valar to the drink poured at their festivals, and compared it to the nectar of the Olympian Gods (in the translation of Namárië he rendered miruvórë ‘nectar’, ibid. p. 58).

  Most important of the differences in the tale is the immediate return of Ungoliont to her lair in the south, so that all the story in The Silmarillion (pp. 80–1) of ‘the Thieves’ Quarrel’, the rescue of Melkor by the Balrogs, and Ungoliant’s coming into
Nan Dungortheb, is absent from the narrative in the Lost Tales; the surrender of the gems of the Noldoli to Ungoliont takes place in the early version at the time of her first meeting with Melko—in The Silmarillion he did not then possess them, for the attack on Formenos had not yet taken place.

  VII

  THE FLIGHT OF THE NOLDOLI

  There is no break in Lindo’s narrative, which continues on in the same hastily-pencilled form (and near this point passes to another similar notebook, clearly with no break in composition), but I have thought it convenient to introduce a new chapter, or a new ‘Tale’, here, again taking the title from the cover of the book.

  ‘Nonetheless the Gods did not give up hope, but many a time would meet beneath the ruined tree of Laurelin and thence break and scour the land of Valinor once more unwearingly, desiring fiercely to avenge the hurts done to their fair realm; and now the Eldar at their summons aided in the chase that labours not only in the plain but toils both up and down the slopes of the mountains, for there is no escape from Valinor to west, where lie the cold waters of the Outer Seas.

  But Fëanor standing in the square about Inwë’s house in topmost Kôr will not be silenced, and cries out that all the Noldoli shall gather about him and hearken, and many thousands of them come to hear his words bearing slender torches, so that that place is filled with a lurid light such as has never before shone on those white walls. Now when they are gathered there and Fëanor sees that far the most of the company is of the kin of the Noldor1 he exhorts them to seize now this darkness and confusion and the weariness of the Gods to cast off the yoke—for thus demented he called the days of bliss in Valinor—and get them hence carrying with them what they might or listed. “If all your hearts be too faint to follow, behold I Fëanor go now alone into the wide and magic world to seek the gems that are my own, and perchance many great and strange adventures will there befall me more worthy of a child of Ilúvatar than a servant of the Gods.”2