Текст книги "The Book of Lost Tales, Part One"

Автор книги: John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

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But now comes that strange fleet nigh these regions and eager eyes look out. There stands Taniquetil and he is purple and dark of one side with gloom of Arvalin and of the Shadowy Seas, and lit in glory of the other by reason of the light of the Trees of Valinor. Now where the seas lapped those shores of old their waves long ere their breaking were suddenly lit by Laurelin were it day or by Silpion were it night, and the shadows of the world ceased almost abruptly and the waves laughed. But an opening in the mountains on those shores let through a glimpse of Valinor, and there stood the hill of Kфr, and the white sand runs up the creek to meet it, but its feet are in green water, and behind the sand of gold fares away farther than eye can guess, and indeed beyond Valinor who has heard or seen anything save Ulmo, yet of a certainty here spread the dark waters of the Outer Seas: tideless are they and very cool, and so thin that no boat can float upon their bosom, and few fish swim beneath their depths.

But now upon the hill of Kфr is a running and a joyous concour1se, and all the people of the Teleri and Noldoli fare out of the gates and wait to welcome the coming of the fleet upon the shore. And now those ships leave the shadows and now are caught in the bright gleam about the inner bay, and now are they beached high and the Solosimpi dance and pipe, and mingle with the singing of the Teleri and the Noldoli’s faint music.

Far behind lay Tol Eressлa in silence and its woods and shores were still, for nearly all that host of sea-birds had flown after the Eldar and wailed now about the shores of Eldamar: but Ossл dwelt in despondency and his silver halls in Valmar abode long empty, for he came no nearer to them for a great while than the shadow’s edge, whither came the wailing of his sea-birds far away.

Now the Solosimpi abode not much in Kфr but had strange dwellings among the shoreland rocks, and Ulmo came and sat among them as aforetime in Tol Eressлa, and that was his time of greatest mirth and gentleness, and all his lore and love of music he poured out to them, and they drank it eagerly. Musics did they make and weave catching threads of sound whispered by waters in caverns or by wave-tops brushed by gentle winds; and these they twined with the wail of gulls and the echoes of their own sweet voices in the places of their home. But the Teleri and Inwir gathered [?harvest] of poesy and song, and were oftenest among the Gods, dancing in the skiey halls of Manwл for the joy of Varda of the Stars, or filling the streets and courts of Valmar with the strange loveliness of their pomps and revelry; for Oromл and for Nessa they danced upon green swards, and the glades of Valinor knew them as they flitted among the gold-lit trees, and Palъrien was very merry for the sight of them. Often were the Noldoli with them and made much music for the multitude of their harps and viols was very sweet, and Salmar loved them; but their greatest delight was in the courts of Aulл, or in their own dear homes in Kфr, fashioning many beautiful things and weaving many stories. With paintings and broidered hangings and carvings of great delicacy they filled all their city, and even did Valmar grow more fair beneath their skilful hands.

Now is to tell how the Solosimpi fared often about the near seas in their swanships, or drawn by the birds, or paddling themselves with great oars that they had made to the likeness of the webs of swan or duck; and they dredged the sea-beds and won wealth of the slim shells of those magic waters and uncounted store of pearls of a most pure and starry lustre: and these were both their glory and delight and the envy of the other Eldar who longed for them to shine in the adornment of the city of Kфr.

But those of the Noldoli whom Aulл had most deeply taught laboured in secret unceasingly, and of Aulл they had wealth of metals and of stones and marbles, and of the leave of the Valar much store too was granted to them of the radiance of Kulullin and of Telimpл held in hidden bowls. Starlight they had of Varda and strands of the bluest ilwл Manwл gave them; water of the most limpid pools in that creek of Kфr, and crystal drops from all the sparkling founts in the courts of Valmar. Dews did they gather in the woods of Oromл, and flower-petals of all hues and honeys in Yavanna’s gardens, and they chased the beams of Laurelin and Silpion amongst the leaves. But when all this wealth of fair and radiant things was gathered, they got of the Solosimpi many shells white and pink, and purest foam, and lastly some few pearls. These pearls were their model, and the lore of Aulл and the magic of the Valar were their tools, and all the most lovely things of the substance of the Earth the matters of their craft—and therefrom did the Noldoli with great labour invent and fashion the first gems. Crystals did they make of the waters of the springs shot with the lights of Silpion; a1mber and chrysoprase and topaz glowed beneath their hands, and garnets and rubies they wrought, making their glassy substance as Aulл had taught them but dyeing them with the juices of roses and red flowers, and to each they gave a heart of fire. Emeralds some made of the water of the creek of Kфr and glints among the grassy glades of Valinor, and sapphires did they fashion in great profusion, [?tingeing] them with the airs of Manwл amethysts there were and moonstones, beryls and onyx, agates of blended marbles and many lesser stones, and their hearts were very glad, nor were they content with a few, but made them jewels in immeasurable number till all the fair substances were well nigh exhausted and the great piles of those gems might not be concealed but blazed in the light like beds of brilliant flowers. Then took they those pearls that had and some of wellnigh all their jewels and made a new gem of a milky pallor shot with gleams like echoes of all other stones, and this they thought very fair, and they were opals; but still some laboured on, and of starlight and the purest water-drops, of the dew of Silpion, and the thinnest air, they made diamonds, and challenged any to make fairer.

Then arose Fлanor of the Noldoli and fared to the Solosimpi and begged a great pearl, and he got moreover an urn full of the most luminous phosphor-light gathered of foam in dark places, and with these he came home, and he took all the other gems and did gather their glint by the light of white lamps and silver candles, and he took the sheen of pearls and the faint half-colours of opals, and he [?bathed] them in phosphorescence and the radiant dew of Silpion, and but a single tiny drop of the light of Laurelin did he let fall therein, and giving all those magic lights a body to dwell in of such perfect glass as he alone could make nor even Aulл compass, so great was the slender dexterity of the fingers of Fлanor, he made a jewel—and it shone of its own………¹⁰ radiance in the uttermost dark; and he set it therein and sat a very long while and gazed at its beauty. Then he made two more, and had no more stuffs: and he fetched the others to behold his handiwork, and they were utterly amazed, and those jewels he called Silmarilli, or as we say the name in the speech of the Noldoli today Silubrilthin.¹¹ Wherefore though the Solosimpi held ever that none of the gems of the Noldoli, not even that majestic shimmer of diamonds, overpassed their tender pearls, yet have all held who ever saw them that the Silmarils of Fлanor were the most beautiful jewels that ever shone or [?glowed].

Now Kфr is lit with this wealth of gems and sparkles most marvellously, and all the kindred of the Eldaliл are made rich in their loveliness by the generosity of the Noldoli, and the Gods’ desire of their beauty is sated to the full. Sapphires in great [?wonder] were given to Manwл and his raiment was crusted with them, and Oromл had a belt of emeralds, but Yavanna loved all the gems, and Aulл’s delight was in diamonds and amethysts. Melko alone was given none of them, for that he had not expiated his many crimes, and he lusted after them exceedingly, yet said nought, feigning to hold them of lesser worth than metals.

But now all the kindred of the Eldaliл has found its greatest bliss, and the majesty and glory of the Gods and their home is augmented to the greatest splendour that the world has seen, and the Trees shone on Valinor, and Valinor gave back their light in a thousand scintillations of splintered colours; but the Great Lands were still and dark and very lon1esome, and Ossл sat without the precincts and saw the moongleam of Silpion twinkle on the pebbles of diamonds and of crystals which the Gnomes cast in prodigality about the margin of the seas, and the glassy fragments splintered in their labouring glittered about the seaward face of Kфr; but the pools amid the dark rocks were filled with jewels, and the Solosimpi whose robes were sewn with pearls danced about them, and that was the fairest of all shores, and the music of the waters about those silver strands was beyond all sounds enchanting.

These were the rocks of Eldamar, and I saw them long ago, for Inwл was my grandsire’s sire¹²; and [?even] he was the eldest of the Elves and had lived yet in majesty had he not perished in that march into the world, but Ingil his son went long ago back to Valinor and is with Manwл. And I am also akin to the shoreland dancers, and these things that I tell you I know they are true; and the magic and the wonder of the Bay of Faлry is such that none who have seen it as it was then can speak without a catch of the breath and a sinking of the voice.’

Then Meril the Queen ceased her long tale, but Eriol said nought, gazing at the long radiance of the westering sun gleaming through the apple boles, and dreaming of Faлry. At length said Meril: ‘Fare now home, for the afternoon has waned, and the telling of the tale has set a weight of desire in my heart and in thine. But be in patience and bide yet ere ye seek fellowship with that sad kindred of the Island Elves.’

But Eriol said: ‘Even now I know not and it passes my heart to guess how all that loveliness came to fading, or the Elves might be prevailed to depart from Eldamar.’

But Meril said: ‘Nay, I have lengthened the tale too much for love of those days, and many great things lie between the making of the gems and the coming back to Tol Eressлa: but these things many know as well as I, and Lindo or Rъmil of Mar Vanwa Tyaliйva would tell them more skilfully than I.’ Then did she and Eriol fare back to the house of flowers, and Eriol took his leave ere the western face of Ingil’s tower was yet grown grey with dusk.

NOTES

1 The manuscript has Vairл, but this can only be a slip.

2 The occurrence of the name Telimpл here, and again later in the tale, as also in that of The Sun and Moon, is curious; in the tale of The Coming of the Valar and the Building of Valinor the name was changed at its first appearance from Telimpл (Silindrin) to Silindrin, and at subsequent occurrences Silindrin was written from the first (p. 79).

3 The manuscript has Linwл here, and again below; see under Tinwл Linto in ‘Changes made to names’ at the end of these notes.

4 This sentence, from ‘and beguiled…’, was added after, though not to all appearance much after, the writing of the text.

5 This sentence, from ‘and one Ellu…’, was added at the same time as that referred to in note 4.

6 The first occurrence of the form Uinen, and so written at the time of composition (i.e. not corrected from Уnen).

7 Arvalin: thus written at the time of composition, not emended from Habbanan or Harmalin as previously.

8 When my father wrote these texts, he wrote first in pencil, and then subsequently wrote over the top of it in ink, erasing the pencilled text—of which bits can be read here and there, and from which one can see that he altered the pencilled original somewhat as he went along. At the words ‘glistened wondrously’, however, he abandoned the writing of the new text in ink, and from this point we have only the original pencilled manuscript, which is in places exceedingly difficult to read, being more hasty, and also soft and smudged in the course of time. In deciphering this text I have been in places defeated, and I use brackets and question-marks to indicate uncertain readings, and rows of dots to show roughly the length of illegible words.

It is to be emphasized therefore that from here on there is only a first draft, and one written very rapidly, dashed onto the page.

9 Arvalin: here and subsequently emended from Habbanan; see note 7. The explanation is clearly that the name Arvalin came in at or before the time of the rewriting in ink over the pencilled text; though further on in the narrative we are here at an earlier stage of composition.

10 The word might be read as ‘wizardous’.

11 Other forms (beginning Sigm-) preceded Silubrilthin which cannot be read with certainty. Meril speaks as if the Gnomish name was the form used in Tol Eressлa, but it is not clear why.

12 ‘my grandsire’s sire’: the original reading was ‘my grandsire’.

Changes made to names in

The Coming of the Elves and the Making of K ф r

Tinwл Linto < Linwл Tinto (this latter is the form of the name in an interpolated passage in the preceding tale, see p. 106 note 1). At two subsequent occurrences of Linwл (see note 3 above) the name was not changed, clearly through oversight; in the two added passages where th1e name occurs (see notes 4 and 5 above) the form is Tinwл (Linto).

Inwithiel < Gim-githil (the same change in The Cottage of Lost Play, see p. 22).

Tinwelint < Tintoglin.

Wendelin < Tindriel (cf. the interpolated passage in the previous tale, p. 106 note 1).

Arvalin < Habbanan throughout the tale except once, where the name was written Arvalin from the first; see notes 7 and 9 above.

Lindeloksл < Lindelуtл (the same change in The Coming of the Valar and the Building of Valinor, see p. 79).

Erumбni < Harwalin.

Commentary on

The Coming of the Elves and the Making of K ф r

I have already (p. 111) touched on the great difference in the structure of the narrative at the beginning of this tale, namely that here the Elves awoke during Melko’s captivity in Valinor, whereas in the later story it was the very fact of the Awakening that brought the Valar to make war on Melkor, which led to his imprisonment in Mandos. Thus the ultimately very important matter of the capture of the Elves about Cuiviйnen by Melkor (The Silmarillion pp. 49–50) is necessarily entirely absent. The release of Melko from Mandos here takes place far earlier, before the coming of the Elvish ‘ambassadors’ to Valinor, and Melko plays a part in the debate concerning the summons.

The story of Oromл’s coming upon the newly-awakened Elves is seen to go back to the beginnings (though here Yavanna Palъrien was also present, as it appears), but its singular beauty and force is the less for the fact of their coming being known independently to Manwл, so that the great Valar did not need to be told of it by Oromл. The name Eldar was already in existence in Valinor before the Awakening, and the story of its being given by Oromл (‘the People of the Stars’) had not arisen—as will be seen from the Appendix on Names, Eldar had a quite different etymology at this time. The later distinction between the Eldar who followed Oromл on the westward journey to the ocean and the Avari, the Unwilling, who would not heed the summons of the Valar, is not present, and indeed in this tale there is no suggestion that any Elves who heard the summons refused it; there were however, according to another (later) tale, Elves who never left Palisor (pp. 231, 234).

Here it is Nornorл, Herald of the Gods, not Oromл, who brought the three Elves to Valinor and afterwards returned them to the Waters of Awakening (and it is notable that even in this earliest version, given more than the later to ‘explanations’, there is no hint of how they passed from the distant parts of the Earth to Valinor, when afterwards the Great March was only achieved with such difficulty). The story of the questioning of the three Elves b1y Manwл concerning the nature of their coming into the world, and their loss of all memory of what preceded their awakening, did not survive the Lost Tales. A further important shift in the structure is seen in Ulmo’s eager support of the party favouring the summoning of the Elves to Valinor; in The Silmarillion (p. 52) Ulmo was the chief of those who ‘held that the Quendi should be left free to walk as they would in Middle-earth’.

I set out here the early history of the names of the chief Eldar.

Elu Thingol (Quenya Elwл Singollo) began as Linwл Tinto (also simply Linwл); this was changed to Tinwл Linto (Tinwл). His Gnomish name was at first Tintoglin, then Tinwelint. He was the leader of the Solosimpi (the later Teleri) on the Great Journey, but he was beguiled in Hisilуmл by the ‘fay’ (Tindriel >) Wendelin (later Melian), who came from the gardens of Lуrien in Valinor; he became lord of the Elves of Hisilуmл, and their daughter was Tinъviel. The leader of the Solosimpi in his place was, confusingly, Ellu (afterwards Olwл, brother of Elwл).

The lord of the Noldoli was Finwл Nуlemл (also Nуlemл Finwл, and most commonly simply Nуlemл); the name Finwл remained throughout the history. In the Gnomish speech he was Golfinweg. His son was Turondo, in Gnomish Turgon (later Turgon became Finwл’s grandson, being the son of Finwл’s son Fingolfin).

The lord of the Teleri (afterwards the Vanyar) was (Ing >) Inwл, here called Isil Inwл, named in Gnomish (Gim-githil >) Inwithiel. His son, who built the great tower of Kortirion, was (Ingilmo >) Ingil. The ‘royal clan’ of the Teleri were the Inwir. Thus:

In The Silmarillion (p. 48) is described the second star-making of Varda before and in preparation for the coming of the Elves:

Then Varda went forth from the council, and she looked out from the height of Taniquetil, and beheld the darkness of Middle-earth beneath the innumerable stars, faint and far. Then she began a great labour, greatest of all the works of the Valar since their coming into Arda. She took the silver dews from the vats of Telperion, and therewith she made new stars and brighter against the coming of the First-born…

In the earliest version we see the conception already present that the stars were created in two separate acts—that a new star-making by Varda celebrated the coming of the Elves, even though here the Elves were already awakened; and that the new stars were derived from the liquid light fallen from the Moon-tree, Silpion. The passage just cited from The Silmarillion goes on to tell that it was at the time of the second star-making that Varda ‘high in the north as a challenge to Melkor set the crown of seven mighty stars to swing, Valacirca, the Sickle of the Valar and sign of doom’ but here this is denied, and a special origin is claimed for the Great Bear, whose stars were not of Varda’s contriving but were sparks that escaped from Aulл’s forge. In the little notebook mentioned on p. 23, which is full of disjointed jottings and hastily noted projects, a different form of this myth appears:

The Silver Sickle

The seven butterflies

Aulл was making a silver sickle. Melko interrupted his work telling him a lie concerning the lady Palъrien. Aulл so wroth that he broke the sickle with a blow. Seven sparks leapt up and winged into the heavens. Varda caught them and gave them a place in the heavens as a sign of Palъrien’s honour. They fly now ever in the shape of a sickle round and round the pole.

There can be no doubt, I think, that this note is earlier than the present text.

The star Morwinyon, ‘who blazes above the world’s edge in the west’, is Arcturus; see the Appendix on Names. It is nowhere explained why Morwinyon-Arcturus is mythically conceived to be always in the west.

Turning now to the Great March and the crossing of the ocean, the origin of Tol Eressлa in the island on which Ossл drew the Gods to the western lands at the time of the fall of the Lamps (see p. 70) was necessarily lost afterwards with the loss of that story, and Ossл ceased to have any proprietary right upon it. The idea that the Eldar came to the shores of the Great Lands in three large and separated companies (in the order Teleri—Noldori—Solosimpi, as later Vanyar—Noldor—Teleri) goes back to the beginning; but here the first people and the second people each crossed the ocean alone, whereas afterwards they crossed together.

In The Silmarillion (p. 58) ‘many years’ elapsed before Ulmo returned for the last of the three kindreds, the Teleri, so long a time that they came to love the coasts of Middle-earth, and Ossл was able to persuade some of them to remain (Cнrdan the Shipwright and the Elves of the Falas, with their havens at Brithombar and Eglarest). Of this there is no trace in the earliest account, though the germ of the idea of the long wait of the lastcomers for Ulmo’s return is present. In the published version the cause of Ossл’s rage against the transportation of the Eldar on the floating island has disappeared, and his motive for anchoring the island in the ocean is wholly different: indeed he did this at the bidding of Ulmo (ibid. p. 59), who was opposed to the summoning of the Eldar to Valinor in any case. But the anchoring of Tol Eressлa as a rebellious act of Ossл’s long remained an element in the story. It is not made clear what other ‘scattered islands of his domain’ (p. 121) Ossл anchored to the sea-bottom; but since on the drawing of the World-Ship the Lonely Isle, the Magic Isles, and the Twilit Isles are all shown in the same way as ‘standing like pinnacles from the weedy depths’ (see pp. 84–6) it was probably these that Ossл now established (though Rъmil and Meril still speak of the Twilit Isles as ‘floating’ on the Shadowy Seas, pp. 68, 125).

In the old story it is made very clear that Tol Eressлa was made fast far out in the mid-ocean, and ‘no land may be seen for many leagues’ sail from its cliffs’. That was indeed the reason for its name, which was diminished when the Lonely Isle came to be set in the Bay of Eldamar. But the words used of Tol Eressлa, ‘the Lonely Isle, that looks both west and east’, in the last chapter of The Silmarillion (relatively very little worked on and revised), undoubtedly derive from the old story; in the tale of Жlfwine of England is seen the origin of this phrase: ‘the Lonely Island looking East to the Magic Archipelago and to the lands of Men beyond it, and West into the Shadows beyond whic1h afar off is glimpsed the Outer Land, the kingdom of the Gods’. The deep sundering of the speech of the Solosimpi from that of the other kindreds, referred to in this tale (p. 121), is preserved in The Silmarillion, but the idea arose in the days when Tol Eressлa was far further removed from Valinor.

As is very often to be observed in the evolution of these myths, an early idea survived in a wholly altered context: here, the growth of trees and plants on the westward slopes of the floating island began with its twice lying in the Bay of Faлry and catching the light of the Trees when the Teleri and Noldoli disembarked, and its greater beauty and fertility remained from those times after it was anchored far away from Valinor in the midst of the ocean; afterwards, this idea survived in the context of the light of the Trees passing through the Calacirya and falling on Tol Eressлa near at hand in the Bay of Eldamar. Similarly, it seems that Ulmo’s instruction of the Solosimpi in music and sea-lore while sitting ‘upon a headland’ of Tol Eressлa after its binding to the sea-bottom was shifted to Ossл’s instruction of the Teleri ‘in all manner of sea-lore and sea-music’ sitting on a rock off the coast of Middle-earth (The Silmarillion p. 58).

Very noteworthy is the account given here of the gap in the Mountains of Valinor. In The Silmarillion the Valar made this gap, the Calacirya or Pass of Light, only after the coming of the Eldar to Aman, for ‘even among the radiant flowers of the Tree-lit gardens of Valinor they [the Vanyar and Noldor] longed still at times to see the stars’ (p. 59); whereas in this tale it was a ‘natural’ feature, associated with a long creek thrust in from the sea.

From the account of the coming of the Elves to the shores of the Great Lands it is seen (p. 118) that Hisilуmл was a region bordering the Great Sea, agreeing with its identification as the region marked g on the earliest map, see pp. 81, 112; and most remarkably we meet here the idea that Men were shut in Hisilуmл by Melko, an idea that survived right through to the final form in which the Easterling Men were rewarded after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad for their treacherous service to Morgoth by being confined in Hithlum (The Silmarillion p. 195).

In the description of the hill and city of Kфr appear several features that were never lost in the later accounts of Tirion upon Tъna. Cf. The Silmarillion p. 59:

Upon the crown of Tъna the city of the Elves was built, the white walls and terraces of Tirion; and the highest of the towers of that city was the Tower of Ingwл, Mindon Eldaliйva, whose silver lamp shone far out into the mists of the sea.

The dust of gold and ‘magic metals’ that Aulл piled about the feet of Kфr powdered the shoes and clothing of Eдrendil when he climbed the ‘long white stairs’ of Tirion (ibid. p. 248).

It is not said here whether the shoots of Laurelin and Silpion that the Gods gave to Inwл and Nуlemл, which ‘blossomed both eternally without abating’, were also givers of light, but later in the Lost Tales (p. 213), after the Flight of the Noldoli, the Trees of Kфr are again referred to, and there the trees given to Inwл ‘shone still’, while the trees given to Nуlemл had been uprooted and ‘were gone no one knew whither.’ In The Si1lmarillion it is said that Yavanna made for the Vanyar and the Noldor ‘a tree like to a lesser image of Telperion, save that it did not give light of its own being’ it was ‘planted in the courts beneath the Mindon and there flourished, and its seedlings were many in Eldamar’. Thence came the Tree of Tol Eressлa.

In connection with this description of the city of the Elves in Valinor I give here a poem entitled Kфr. It was written on April 30th, 1915 (two days after Goblin Feet and You and Me, see pp. 27, 32), and two texts of it are extant: the first, in manuscript, has a subtitle ‘In a City Lost and Dead’. The second, a typescript, was apparently first entitled Kфr, but this was changed to The City of the Gods, and the subtitle erased; and with this title the poem was published at Leeds in 1923.* No changes were made to the text except that in the penultimate line ‘no bird sings’ was altered already in the manuscript to ‘no voice stirs’. It seems possible, especially in view of the original subtitle, that the poem described Kфr after the Elves had left it.

K ф r

In a City Lost and Dead

A sable hill, gigantic, rampart-crowned

Stands gazing out across an azure sea

Under an azure sky, on whose dark ground

Impearled as ’gainst a floor of porphyry

Gleam marble temples white, and dazzling halls;

And tawny shadows fingered long are made

In fretted bars upon their ivory walls

By massy trees rock-rooted in the shade

Like stony chiselled pillars of the vault

With shaft and capital of black basalt.

There slow forgotten days for ever reap

The silent shadows counting out rich hours;

And no voice stirs; and all the marble towers

White, hot and soundless, ever burn and sleep.

The story of the evolution of sea-birds by Ossл, and of how the Solosimpi went at last to Valinor in ships of swan-shape drawn by gulls, to the chagrin of Ossл, is greatly at variance with the account in The Silmarillion (p. 61):

Through a long age they [the Teleri] dwelt in Tol Eressлa; but slowly their hearts were changed, and were drawn towards the light that flowed out over the sea to the Lonely Isle. They were torn between the love of the music of the waves upon their shores, and the desire to see again their kindred and to look upon the splendour of Valinor; but in the end desire of the light was the stronger. Therefore Ulmo, submitting to the will of the Valar, sent to them Ossл, their friend, and he though grieving taught them the craft of ship-building; and when their ships were built he brought them as his parting gift many strong-winged swans. Then the swans drew the white ships of the Teleri over the windless sea; and thus at last and latest they came to Aman and the shores of Eldamar.

But the swans remained as a gift of Ossл to the Elves of Tol Eressлa, and the ships of the Teleri retained the form of the ships built by Aulл for the Solosimpi: they1 ‘were made in the likeness of swans, with beaks of gold and eyes of gold and jet’ (ibid.).

The passage of geographical description that follows (p. 125) is curious; for it is extremely similar to (and even in some phrases identical with) that in the tale of The Coming of the Valar and the Building of Valinor, p. 68. An explanation of this repetition is suggested below. This second version gives in fact little new information, its chief difference of substance being the mention of Tol Eressлa. It is now made clear that the Shadowy Seas were a region of the Great Sea west of Tol Eressлa. In The Silmarillion (p. 102) the conception had changed, with the change in the anchorage of Tol Eressлa: at the time of the Hiding of Valinor

the Enchanted Isles were set, and all the seas about them were filled with shadows and bewilderment. And these isles were strung as a net in the Shadowy Seas from the north to the south, before Tol Eressлa, the Lonely Isle, is reached by one sailing west.

There is a further element of repetition in the account of the gap in the Mountains of Valinor and the hill of Kфr at the head of the creek (p. 126), which have already been described earlier in this same tale (p. 122). The explanation of this repetition is almost certainly to be found in the two layers of composition in this tale (see note 8 above); for the first of these passages is in the revised portion and the second in the original, pencilled text. My father in his revision had, I think, simply taken in earlier the passage concerning the gap in the Mountains, the hill and the creek, and if he had continued the revision of the tale to its end the second passage would have been excised. This explanation may be suggested also for the repetition of the passage concerning the islands in the Great Sea and the coast of Valinor from the tale of The Coming of the Valar and the Building of Valinor; but in that case the implication must be that the revision in ink over the original pencilled manuscript was carried out when the latter was already far ahead in the narrative.