Now was this a very grievous thing, for Glorfindel was most dearly beloved—and lo! the dint of their fall echoed about the hills, and the abyss of Thorn Sir rang. Then at the death-cry of the Balrog the Orcs before and behind wavered and were slain or fled far away, and Thorndor himself, a mighty bird, descended to the abyss and brought up the body of Glorfindel; but the Balrog lay, and the water of Thorn Sir ran black for many a day far below in Tumladin.
Still do the Eldar say when they see good fighting at great odds of power against a fury of evil: “Alas! ’Tis Glorfindel and the Balrog”, and their hearts are still sore for that fair one of the Noldoli. Because of their love, despite the haste and their fear of the advent of new foes, Tuor let raise a great stone-cairn over Glorfindel just there beyond the perilous way by the precipice of Eagle-stream, and Thorndor has let not yet any harm come thereto, but yellow flowers have fared thither and blow ever now about that mound in those unkindly places; but the folk of the Golden Flower wept at its building and might not dry their tears.
Now who shall tell of the wanderings of Tuor and the exiles of Gondolin in the wastes that lie beyond the mountains to the south of the vale of Tumladin? Miseries were theirs and death, colds and hungers, and ceaseless watches. That they won ever through those regions infested by Melko’s evil came from the great slaughter and damage done to his power in that assault, and from the speed and wariness with which Tuor led them; for of a certain Melko knew of that escape and was furious thereat. Ulmo had heard tidings in the far oceans of the deeds that were done, but he could not yet aid them for they were far from waters and rivers—and indeed they thirsted sorely, and they knew not the way.
But after a year and more of wandering, in which many a time they journeyed long tangled in the magic of those wastes only to come again upon their own tracks, once more the summer came, and nigh to its height37 they came at last upon a stream, and following this came to better lands and were a little comforted. Here did Voronwë guide them, for he had caught a whisper of Ulmo’s in that stream one late summer’s night—and he got ever much wisdom from the sound of waters. Now he led them even till they came down to Sirion which that stream fed, and then both Tuor and Voronwë saw that they were not far from the outer issue of old of the Way of Escape, and were once more in that deep dale of alders. Here were all the bushes trampled and the trees burnt, and the dale-wall scarred with flame, and they wept, for they thought they knew the fate of those who sundered aforetime from them at the tunnel-mouth.
Now they journeyed down that river but were again in fear from Melko, and fought affrays with his Orc-bands and were in peril from the wolfriders, but his firedrakes sought not at them, both for the great exhaustion of their fires in the taking of Gondolin, and the increasing power of Ulmo as the river grew. So came they after many days—for they went slowly and got their sustenance very hardly—to those great heaths and morasses above the Land of Willows, and Voronwë knew not those regions. Now here goes Sirion a very great way under earth, diving at the great cavern of the Tumultuous Winds, but running clear again above the Pools of Twilight, even where Tulkas38 after fought with Melko’s self. Tuor had fared over these regions by night and dusk after Ulmo came to him amid the reeds, and he remembered not the ways. In places that land is full of deceits and very marshy; and here the host had long delay and was vexed by sore flies, for it was autumn still, and agues and fevers fared amongst them, and they cursed Melko.
Yet came they at last to the great pools and the edges of that most tender Land of Willows; and the very breath of the winds thereof brought rest and peace to them, and for the comfort of that place the grief was assuaged of those who mourned the dead in that great fall. There women and maids grew fair again and their sick were healed, and old wounds ceased to pain; yet they alone who of reason feared their folk living still in bitter thraldom in the Hells of Iron sang not, nor did they smile.
Here they abode very long indeed, and Eärendel was a grown boy ere the voice of Ulmo’s conches drew the heart of Tuor, that his sea-longing returned with a thirst the deeper for years of stifling; and all that host arose at his bidding, and got them down Sirion to the Sea.
Now the folk that had passed into the Eagles’ Cleft and who saw the fall of Glorfindel had been nigh eight hundreds—a large wayfaring, yet was it a sad remnant of so fair and numerous a city. But they who arose from the grasses of the Land of Willows in years after and fared away to sea, when spring set celandine in the meads and they had held sad festival in memorial of Glorfindel, these numbered but three hundreds and a score of men and man-children, and two hundreds and three score of women and maid-children. Now the number of women was few because of their hiding or being stowed by their kinsfolk in secret places in the city. There they were burned or slain or taken and enthralled, and the rescue-parties found them too seldom; and it is the greatest ruth to think of this, for the maids and women of the Gondothlim were as fair as the sun and as lovely as the moon and brighter than the stars. Glory dwelt in that city of Gondolin of the Seven Names, and its ruin was the most dread of all the sacks of cities upon the face of Earth. Nor Bablon, nor Ninwi, nor the towers of Trui, nor all the many takings of Rûm that is greatest among Men, saw such terror as fell that day upon Amon Gwareth in the kindred of the Gnomes; and this is esteemed the worst work that Melko has yet thought of in the world.
Yet now those exiles of Gondolin dwelt at the mouth of Sirion by the waves of the Great Sea. There they take the name of Lothlim, the people of the flower, for Gondothlim is a name too sore to their hearts; and fair among the Lothlim Eärendel grows in the house of his father,39 and the great tale of Tuor is come to its waning.’
Then said Littleheart son of Bronweg: ‘Alas for Gondolin.’
And no one in all the Room of Logs spake or moved for a great while.
NOTES
1 Not of course the great journey to the Sea from the Waters of Awakening, but the expedition of the Elves of Kôr for the rescue of the Gnomes (see I. 26).
2 A korin is defined in The Cottage of Lost Play (I.16) as ‘a great circular hedge, be it of stone or of thorn or even of trees, that encloses a green sward’ Meril-i-Turinqi dwelt ‘in a great korin of elms’.
3 Tôn a Gwedrin is the Tale-fire.
4 There is here a direction: ‘see hereafter the Nauglafring’, but this is struck out.
5 On Heorrenda see pp. 290, 323. A small space is left after the words ‘it is thus’ to mark the place of the poem in Old English that was to be inserted, but there is no indication of what it was to be.
(In the following notes ‘the original reading’ refers to the text of Tuor A, and of Tuor B before the emendation in question. It does not imply that the reading of Tuor A was, or was not, found in the original pencilled text (in the great majority of cases this cannot be said).)
6 This passage, beginning with the words ‘And Tuor entered that cavern…’ on p. 149, is a late replacement written on a slip (see p. 147). The original passage was largely similar in meaning, but contained the following:
Now in delving that riverway beneath the hills the Noldoli worked unknown to Melko who in those deep days held them yet hidden and thralls beneath his will. Rather were they prompted by Ulmo who strove ever against Melko; and through Tuor he hoped to devise for the Gnomes release from the terror of the evil of Melko.
7 ‘three days’: ‘three years’ all texts, but ‘days?’ pencilled above ‘years’ in Tuor B.
8 The ‘evolution’ of sea-birds through Ossë is described in the tale of The Coming of the Elves, I.123; but the sentence here derives from the original pencilled text of Tuor A.
9 In the typescript Tuor C a blank was left here (see p. 147) and subsequently filled in with ‘Ulmo’, not ‘Ainur’.
10 The original reading was: ‘Thou Tuor of the lonely heart the Valar will not to dwell for ever in fair places of birds and flowers; nor would they lead thee through this pleasant land…’
11 Tuor C adds here: ‘with Ulmo’s aid’.
12 The reference to the Battle of Unnumbered Tears is a later addition to Tuor B. The original reading was: ‘who alone escaped Melko’s power when he caught their folk…’
13 In Tuor A and B Voronwë is used throughout, but this phrase, with the form Bronweg, is an addition to Tuor B (replacing the original ‘Now after many days these twain found a deep dale’).
14 The typescript Tuor C has here:
…that none, were they not of the blood of the Noldoli, might light on it, neither by chance nor agelong search. Thus was it secure from all ill hap save treachery alone, and never would Tûr have won thereto but for the steadfastness of that Gnome Voronwë.
In the next sentence Tuor C has ‘yet even so no few of the bolder of the Gnomes enthralled would slip down the river Sirion from the fell mountains’.
15 The original reading was: ‘his speech they comprehended, though somewhat different was the tongue of the free Noldoli by those days to that of the sad thralls of Melko.’ The typescript Tuor C has: ‘they comprehended him for they were Noldoli. Then spake Tûr also in the same tongue…’
16 The original reading was: ‘It was early morn when they drew near the gates and many eyes gazed…’ But when Tuor and Voronwë first saw Gondolin it was ‘in the new light of the morning’ (p. 158), and it was ‘a day’s light march’ across the plain; hence the change made later to Tuor B.
17 ‘Evil One’: original reading ‘Ainu’.
18 This passage, from ‘Rugged was his aspect…’, is a replacement on a separate slip; the original text was:
Tuor was goodly in countenance but rugged and unkempt of locks and clad in the skins of bears, yet his stature was not overgreat among his own folk, but the Gondothlim, though not bent as were no few of their kin who laboured at ceaseless delving and hammering for Melko, were small and slender and lithe.
In the original passage Men are declared to be of their nature taller than the Elves of Gondolin. See pp. 142, p. 220.
19 ‘come hither’: ‘escaped from Melko’ Tuor C.
20 ‘folk’: original reading ‘men’. This is the only place where ‘men’ in reference to Elves is changed. The use is constant in The Fall of Gondolin, and even occurs once in an odd-sounding reference to the hosts of Melko: ‘But now the men of Melko have assembled their forces’ (p. 183).
21 The passage ending here and beginning with the words ‘Then Tuor’s heart was heavy…’ on p. 162 was bracketed by my father in Tuor B, and on a loose slip referring to this bracketed passage he wrote:
(If nec[essary]): Then is told how Idril daughter of the king added her words to the king’s wisdom so that Turgon bid Tuor rest himself awhile in Gondolin, and being forewise prevailed on him [to] abide there in the end. How he came to love the daughter of the king, Idril of the Silver Feet, and how he was taught deeply in the lore of that great folk and learned of its history and the history of the Elves. How Tuor grew in wisdom and mighty in the counsels of the Gondothlim.
The only narrative difference here from the actual text lies in the introduction of the king’s daughter Idril as an influence on Tuor’s decision to remain in Gondolin. The passage is otherwise an extremely abbreviated summary of the account of Tuor’s instruction in Gondolin, with omission of what is said in the text about the preparations of the Gondothlim against attack; but I do not think that this was a proposal for shortening the written tale. Rather, the words ‘If necessary’ suggest strongly that my father had in mind only a reduction for oral delivery—and that was when it was read to the Exeter College Essay Club in the spring of 1920; see p. 147. Another proposed shortening is given in note 32.
22 This passage, beginning ‘Great love too had Idril for Tuor’’, was written on a separate slip and replaced the original text as follows:
The king hearing of this, and finding that his child Idril, whom the Eldar speak of as Irildë, loved Tuor in return, he consented to their being wed, seeing that he had no son, and Tuor was like to make a kinsman of strength and consolation. There were Idril and Tuor wed before the folk in that Place of the Gods, Gar Ainion, nigh the king’s palace; and that was a day of mirth to the city of Gondolin, but of (&c.)
The replacement states that the marriage of Tuor and Idril was the first but not the last of the unions of Man and Elf, whereas it is said in the Name-list to The Fall of Gondolin that Eärendel was ‘the only being that is half of the kindred of the Eldalië and half of Men’ (see p. 215).
23 The phrase ‘and that tale of Isfin and Eöl may not here be told’ was added to Tuor B. See p. 220.
24 Original reading: ‘a name wrought of the tongue of the Gondothlim’.
25 The sapphires given to Manwë by the Noldoli are referred to in the tale of The Coming of the Elves, I.128. The original pencilled text of Tuor A can be read here: ‘bluer than the sapphires of Súlimo’.
26 The passage ending here and beginning with ‘In these ways that bitter winter passed…’is inserted on a separate sheet in Tuor B (but is not part of the latest layer of emendation); it replaces a much shorter passage going back to the primary text of Tuor A:
Now on midwinter’s day at early even the sun sank betimes beyond the mountains, and lo! when she had gone a light arose beyond the hills to the north, and men marvelled (&c.)
See notes 34 and 37.
27 The Scarlet Heart: the heart of Finwë Nólemë, Turgon’s father, was cut out by Orcs in the Battle of Unnumbered Tears, but it was regained by Turgon and became his emblem; see I. 241 and note 11.
28 This passage describing the array and the emblems of the houses of the Gondothlim was relatively very little affected by the later revision of Tuor A; the greater part of it is in the original pencilled text, which was allowed to stand, and all the names appear to be original.
29 The word ‘burg’ is used in the Old English sense of a walled and fortified town.
30 The death of Ecthelion in the primary text of Tuor A is legible; the revision introduced a few changes of wording, but no more.
31 This sentence, from ‘and men shuddered’, was added to Tuor B. On the prophecy see I.172.
32 Tuor B is bracketed from ‘Now comes Tuor at their head to the Place of Wedding’ on p. 186 to this point, and an inserted slip relating to this bracketing reads:
How Tuor and his folk came upon Idril wandering distraught in the Place of the Gods. How Tuor and Idril from that high place saw the sack of the King’s Hall and the ruin of the King’s Tower and the passing of the king, for which reason the foe followed not after. How Tuor heard tidings of Voronwë that Idril had sent Eärendel and her guard down the hidden way, and fared into the city in search of her husband; how in peril from the enemy they had rescued many that fled and sent them down the secret way. How Tuor led his host with the luck of the Gods to the mouth of that passage, and how all descended into the plain, sealing the entrance utterly behind them. How the sorrowful company issued into a dell in the vale of Tumladin.
This is simply a summary of the text as it stands; I suppose it was a cut proposed for the recitation of the tale if that seemed to be taking too long (see note 21).
33 This passage, from ‘Here were gathered…’, replaced in Tuor B the original reading: ‘Here they are fain to rest, but finding no signs of Eärendel and his escort Tuor is downcast, and Idril weeps.’ This was rewritten partly for narrative reasons, but also to put it into the past tense. In the next sentence the text was emended from ‘Lamentation is there…’ and ‘about them looms…’ But the sentence following (‘Fire-drakes are about it…’) was left untouched; and I think that it was my father’s intention, only casually indicated and never carried through, to reduce the amount of ‘historical present’ in the narrative.
34 ‘for summer is at hand’: the original reading was ‘albeit it is winter’. See notes 26 and 37.
The Book of Lost Tales, Part 2 Page 27
