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

Автор книги: John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

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Then seized with a sudden fear he turned and stole from that hallowed place, and coming again by the passage through the mountain he sped back to the abode of Tы and coming before that oldest of wizards he said unto him that he was new come from the Eastward Lands, and Tы was little pleased thereat; nor any the more when Nuin made an end of his tale, telling of all he there saw—“and me-thought,” said he, “that all who slumbered there were children, yet was their stature that of the greatest of the Elves.”

Then did Tы fall into fear of Manwл, nay even of Ilъvatar the Lord of All, and he said to Nuin:

Here Gilfanon’s Tale breaks off. The wizard Tы and the Dark Elf Nuin disappeared from the mythology and never appear again, together with the marvellous story of Nuin’s coming upon the forms of the Fathers of Mankind still asleep in the Vale of Murmenalda—though from the nature of the work and the different degrees of attention that my father later gave to its different parts one cannot always distinguish between elements definitively abandoned and elements held in ‘indefinite abeyance’. And unhappy though it is that this tale should have been abandoned, we are nonetheless by no means entirely in the dark as to how the narrative would have proceeded.

I have referred earlier (p. 107, note 3) to the 1existence of two ‘schemes’ or outlines setting out the plan of the Lost Tales; and I have said that one of these is a rйsumй of the Tales as they are extant, while the other is divergent, a project for a revision that was never undertaken. There is no doubt that the former of these, which for the purposes of this chapter I will call ‘B’, was composed when the Lost Tales had reached their furthest point of development, as represented by the latest texts and arrangements given in this book. Now when this outline comes to the matter of Gilfanon’s Tale it becomes at once very much fuller, but then contracts again to cursory references for the tales of Tinъviel, Tъrin, Tuor, and the Necklace of the Dwarves, and once more becomes fuller for the tale of Eдrendel. It is clear, therefore, that B is the preliminary form, according to the method that my father regularly used in those days, of Gilfanon’s Tale, and indeed the part of the tale that was written as a proper narrative is obviously following the outline quite closely, while substantially expanding it.

There is also an extremely rough, though full, outline of the matter of Gilfanon’s Tale which though close to B has things that B does not, and vice versa; this is virtually certainly the predecessor of B, and in this chapter will be called ‘A’.

The second outline referred to above, an unrealized project for the revision of the whole work, introduces features that need not be discussed here; it is sufficient to say that the mariner was now Жlfwine, not Eriol, and that his previous history was changed, but that the general plan of the Tales themselves was largely intact (with several notes to the effect that they needed abridging or recasting). This outline I shall call ‘D’. How much time elapsed between B and D cannot be said, but I think probably not much. It seems possible that this new scheme was associated with the sudden breaking-off of Gilfanon’s Tale. As with B, D suddenly expands to a much fuller account when this point is reached.

Lastly, a much briefer and more cursory outline, which however adds one or two interesting points, also has Жlfwine instead of Eriol; this followed B and preceded D, and is here called ‘C’.

I shall not give all these outlines in extenso, which is unnecessary in view of the amount of overlap between them; on the other hand to combine them all into one would be both inaccurate and confusing. But since A and B are very close they can be readily combined into one; and I follow this account by that of D, with C in so far as it adds anything of note, And since in the matter of Gilfanon’s Tale the outlines are clearly divided into two parts, the Awakening of Men and the history of the Gnomes in the Great Lands, I treat the narrative in each case in these two parts, separately.

There is no need to give the material of the outlines in the opening passage of Gilfanon’s Tale that was actually written, but there are some points of difference between the outlines and the tale to be noted.

A and B call the wizard-king Tъvo, not Tы in C he is not named, and in D he is Tы ‘the fay’, as in the tale. Evil associations of this being appear in A: ‘Melko meets with Tъvo in the halls of Mandos during his enchainment. He teaches Tъvo much black magic.’ This was struck out, and nothing else is said of the matter; but both A and B say that it was after the escape of Melko and the ruin of the Trees that Tъvo entered the world and ‘set up a wizard kingship in the middle lands’.

In A, only, the Elves who remained behind in Palisor1 are said to have been of the people of the Teleri (the later Vanyar). This passage of Gilfanon’s Tale is the first indication we have had that there were any such Elves (see p. 131); and I incline to think that the conception of the Dark Elves (the later Avari) who never undertook the journey from the Waters of Awakening only emerged in the course of the composition of the Lost Tales. But the name Qendi, which here first appears in the early narratives, is used somewhat ambiguously. In the fragment of the written tale, the words ‘those who remained behind are they whom many call the Qendi, the lost fairies of the world,⁵ but ye Elves of Kфr name Ilkorins’ seem an altogether explicit statement that Qendirr="Dark" Elves; but a little later Gilfanon speaks of ‘the Eldar or Qendi’, and in the outline B it is said that ‘a number of the original folk called Qendi (the name Eldar being given by the Gods) remained in Palisor’. These latter statements seem to show equally clearly that Qendi was intended as a term for all Elves.

The contradiction is however only apparent. Qendi was indeed the original name of all the Elves, and Eldar the name given by the Gods and adopted by the Elves of Valinor; those who remained behind preserved the old name Qendi. The early word-list of the Gnomish tongue states explicitly that the name Elda was given to the ‘fairies’ by the Valar and was ‘adopted largely by them; the Ilkorins still preserved the old name Qendi, and this was adopted as the name of the reunited clans in Tol Eressлa’.⁶

In both A and B it is added that ‘the Gods spoke not among themselves the tongues of the Eldaliл, but could do so, and they comprehended all tongues. The wiser of the Elves learned the secret speech of the Gods and long treasured it, but after the coming to Tol Eressлa none remembered it save the Inwir, and now that knowledge has died save in the house of Meril.’ With this compare Rъmil’s remarks to Eriol, p. 48: ‘There is beside the secret tongue in which the Eldar wrote many poesies and books of wisdom and histories of old and earliest things, and yet speak not. This tongue do only the Valar use in their high counsels, and not many of the Eldar of these days may read it or solve its characters.’

Nuin’s words to Tы on the stature of the sleepers in the Vale of Murmenalda are curious. In A is added: ‘Men were almost of a stature at first with Elves, the fairies being far greater and Men smaller than now. As the power of Men has grown the fairies have dwindled and Men waxed somewhat.’ Other early statements indicate that Men and Elves were originally of very similar stature, and that the diminishing in that of the Elves was closely related to the coming of, and the dominance of, Men. Nuin’s words are therefore puzzling, especially since in A they immediately precede the comment on the original similarity of size; for he can surely only mean that the sleepers in Murmenalda were very large by comparison with the Elves. That the sleepers were in fact children, not merely likened in some way to children, is made clear in D: ‘Nuin finds the Slumbrous Dale (Murmenalda) where countless sleeping children lie.’

We come now to the point where the narrative is carried forward only in the outlines.

The Awakening of Men

according to the earlier outlines

The wizard Tъvo told Nuin that the sleepers he had found were the new Children of Ilъvatar, and that they were waiting for light. He forbade any of the Elves to wake them or to visit those places, being frightened of the wrath of Ilъvatar; but despite this Nuin went there often and watched, sitting on a rock. Once he stumbled against a sleeper, who stirred but did not wake. At last, overcome by curiosity, he awakened two, named Ermon and Elmir; they were dumb and very much afraid, but he taught them much of the Ilkorin tongue, for which reason he is called Nuin Father of Speech. Then came the First Dawn; and Ermon and Elmir alone of Men saw the first Sun rise in the West and come over to the Eastward Haven. Now Men came forth from Murmenalda as ‘a host of sleepy children’.

(In the tale of The Hiding of Valinor it was long after the first rising of the Sunship from Valinor that its Haven in the East was built; see p. 214–15. It is interesting that the first Men, Ermon and Elmir, were woken by Nuin before the first rising of the Sun, and although it was known to Tъvo that Men were ‘waiting for light’ no connection is made between Nuin’s act and the Sunrise. But of course one cannot judge the inner tenor of the narrative from such summaries. It is notable also that whereas the tongue of the Elves, in origin one and the same, was a direct gift of Ilбvatar (p. 232), Men were born into the world without language and received it from the instruction of an Ilkorin. Cf. The Silmarillion, p. 141: ‘It is said also that these Men [the people of Bлor] had long had dealings with the Dark Elves east of the mountains, and from them had learned much of their speech; and since all the languages of the Quendi were of one origin, the language of Bлor and his folk resembled the Elven-tongue in many words and devices.’)

At this point in the story the agents of Melko appear, the Ъvanimor, ‘bred in the earth’ by him (Ъvanimor, ‘who are monsters, giants, and ogres’, have been mentioned in an earlier tale, p. 75); and Tъvo protected Men and Elves from them and from ‘evil fays’. A makes mention of Orcs besides.

A servant of Melko named ‘Fъkil or Fangli’ entered the world, and coming among Men perverted them, so that they fell treacherously upon the Ilkorins; there followed the Battle of Palisor, in which the people of Ermon fought beside Nuin. According to A ‘the fays and those Men that aided them were defeated’, but B calls it an ‘undecided battle’ and the Men corrupted by Fangli fled away and became ‘wild and savage tribes’, worshipping Fangli and Melko. Thereafter (in A only) Palisor was possessed by ‘Fangli and his hosts of Nauglath (or Dwarves)’. (In the early writings the Dwarves are always portrayed as an evil people.)

From this outline it is seen that the corruption of certain Men in the beginning of their days by the agency of Melko was a feature of the earliest phase of the mythology; but of all the story here sketched there is no more than a hint or suggestion, at most, in The Silmarillion (p. 141): ‘“A darkness lies behind us,” Bлor said; “and we have turned our backs upon it, and we do not desire to retu1rn thither even in thought.”⁷

The Awakening of Men

according to the later outline

Here it is told at the beginning of the narrative that Melko’s Ъvanimor had escaped when the Gods broke the Fortress of the North, and were wandering in the forests; Fankil servant of Melko dwelt uncaptured in the world. (Fankil="=Fangli" / Fъkil of A and B. In C he is called ‘child of Melko’. Fankil has been mentioned at an earlier point in D, when at the time of the Awakening of the Elves ‘Fankil and many dark shapes escaped into the world’ see p. 107, note 3.)

Nuin ‘Father of Speech’, who went again and again to Murmenalda despite the warnings of Tы (which are not here specified), woke Ermon and Elmir, and taught them speech and many things else. Ermon and Elmir alone of Mankind saw the Sun arising in the West, and the seeds of Palъrien bursting forth into leaf and bud. The hosts of Men came forth as sleepy children, raising a dumb clamour at the Sun; they followed it westward when it returned, and were grievously afraid of the first Night. Nuin and Ermon and Elmir taught them speech.

Men grew in stature, and gathered knowledge of the Dark Elves,⁸ but Tы faded before the Sun and hid in the bottomless caverns. Men dwelt in the centre of the world and spread thence in all directions; and a very great age passed.

Fankil with the Dwarves and Goblins went among Men, and bred estrangement between them and the Elves; and many Men aided the Dwarves. The folk of Ermon alone stood by the fairies in the first war of Goblins and Elves (Goblins is here an emendation from Dwarves, and that from Men), which is called the War of Palisor. Nuin died at the hands of the Goblins through the treachery of Men. Many kindreds of Men were driven to the eastern deserts and the southern forests, whence came dark and savage peoples.

The hosts of Tareg the Ikorin marched North-west hearing a rumour of the Gnomes; and many of the lost kindreds joined him.

The History of the Exiled Gnomes

according to the earlier outlines

The Gnomes, after the passage of Helkaraksл, spread into Hisilуmл, where they had ‘trouble’ with the ancient Shadow Folk in that land—in A called ‘fay-people’, in B ‘Ъvalear fays’. (We have met the Shadow Folk of Hisilуmл before, in the tale of The Coming of the Elves, p. 119, but there this is a name given by Men, after they were shut in Hisilуmл by Melko, to the Lost Elves who remained there after straying on the march from Palisor. It will be seen in the later outlines that these Shadow Folk were an unknown people wholly distinct from Elves; and it seems therefore that the name was preserved while given a new interpretation.)

The Gnomes found the Waters of Asgon* and encamped there; then took place the Counting of the Folk, the birth of Turgon with ‘prophecies’, and the death of Fлanor. On this last matter the outlines are divergent. In A it was Nуlemл, called also Fingolma, who died: ‘his bark vanis1hes down a hidden way—said to be the way that Tuor after escaped by. He sailed to offer sacrifice in the islanded rock in Asgon.’ (To whom was he sacrificing?) In B, as first written, it was likewise ‘Fingolma (Nуlemл)’ who died, but this was emended to Fлanor; ‘his bark vanished down a hidden [way]—said to be that opening that the Noldoli after enlarged and fashioned to a path, so that Tuor escaped that way. He sailed to the Islanded Rock in Asgon because he saw something brightly glitter there and sought his jewels.’

Leaving Asgon the Gnomes passed the Bitter Hills and fought their first battle with Ores in the foothills of the Iron Mountains. (For the Iron Mountains as the southern border of Hisilуmл see p. 111–12, 158–9.) In the Tale of Tinъviel Beren came from Hisilуmл, from ‘beyond the Bitter Hills’, and ‘through the terrors of the Iron Mountains’, and it thus seems clear that the Bitter Hills and the Iron Mountains may be equated.)

The next camp of the Gnomes was ‘by Sirion’ (which here first appears); and here the Gnomes first met the Ilkorins—A adding that these Ilkorins were originally of the Noldoli, and had been lost on the march from Palisor. The Gnomes learned from them of the coming of Men and of the Battle of Palisor; and they told the Ilkorins of the tidings in Valinor, and of their search for the jewels.

Now appears for the first time Maidros son of Fлanor (previously, in the tale of The Theft of Melko, the name was given to Fлanor’s grandfather, p. 146, 158). Maidros, guided by Ilkorins, led a host into the hills, either ‘to seek for the jewels’ (A), or ‘to search the dwellings of Melko’ (B—this should perhaps read ‘search for the dwellings of Melko’, the reading of C), but they were driven back with slaughter from the doors of Angamandi; and Maidros himself was taken alive, tortured—because he would not reveal the secret arts of the Noldoli in the making of jewels—and sent back to the Gnomes maimed. (In A, which still had Nуlemл rather than Fлanor die in the Waters of Asgon, it was Fлanor himself who led the host against Melko, and it was Fлanor who was captured, tortured, and maimed.)

Then the Seven Sons of Fлanor swore an oath of enmity for ever against any that should hold the Silmarils. (This is the first appearance of the Seven Sons, and of the Oath, though that Fлanor had sons is mentioned in the Tale of the Sun and Moon, p. 192.)

The hosts of Melko now approached the camp of the Gnomes by Sirion, and they fled south, and dwelt then at Gorfalon, where they made the acquaintance of Men, both good and bad, but especially those of Ermon’s folk; and an embassy was sent to Tъvo, to Tinwelint (i.e. Thingol, see p. 132), and to Ermon.⁹ A great host was arrayed of Gnomes, Ilkorins, and Men, and Fingolma (Nуlemл) marshalled it in the Valley of the Fountains, afterwards called the Vale of Weeping Waters. But Melko himself went into the tents of Men and beguiled them, and some of them fell treacherously on 1the rear of the Gnomes even as Melko’s host attacked them; others Melko persuaded to abandon their friends, and these, together with others that he led astray with mists and wizardries, he beguiled into the Land of Shadows. (With this cf. the reference in the tale of The Coming of the Elves to the shutting of Men in Hisilуmл by Melko, p. 118.)

Then took place ‘the terrible Battle of Unnumbered Tears’. The Children of Ъrin* (Sons of Ъrin, A) alone of Men fought to the last, and none (save two messengers) came out of the fray; Turgon and a great regiment, seeing the day lost, turned and cut their way out, and rescued a part of the women and children. Turgon was pursued, and there is a reference to ‘Mablon the Ilkorin’s sacrifice to save the host’ Maidros and the other sons of Fлanor quarrelled with Turgon—because they wanted the leadership, A—and departed into the south. The remainder of the survivors and fugitives were surrounded, and swore allegiance to Melko; and he was wrathful, because he could not discover whither Turgon had fled.

After a reference to ‘the Mines of Melko’ and ‘the Spell of Bottomless Dread’ (the spell that Melko cast upon his slaves), the story concludes with ‘the Building of Gondolin’ and ‘the estrangement of Men and Elves in Hisilуmл, owing to the Battle of Unnumbered Tears’: Melko fostered distrust and kept them spying on each other, so that they should not combine against him; and he fashioned the false-fairies or Kaukareldar in their likeness, and these deceived and betrayed Men.¹⁰

Since the outlines at this point return to mere headings for the tales of Tinъviel, Tъrin, etc., it is clear that Gilfanon’s Tale would have ended here.

The History of the Exiled Gnomes

according to the later outline

The Gnomes sojourned in the Land of Shadows (i.e. Hisilуmл), and had dealings with the Shadow Folk. These were fays (C); no one knows whence they came: they are not of the Valar nor of Melko, but it is thought that they came from the outer void and primeval dark when the world was first fashioned. The Gnomes found ‘the Waters of Mithrim (Asgon)’, and here Fлanor died, drowned in the Waters of Mithrim. The Gnomes devised weapons for the first time, and quarried the dark hills. (This is curious, for it has been said in the account of the Kinslaughter at Alqaluntл that ‘so first perished the Eldar neath the weapons of their kin’, p. 165. The first acquisition of weapons by the Eldar remained a point of uncertainty for a long time.)

The Gnomes now fought for the first time with the Orcs and captured the pass of the Bitter Hills; thus they escaped out of the Land of Shadows, to Melko’s fear and amazement. They entered the Forest of Artanor (later Doriath) and the Region of the Great Plains (perhaps the forerunner of the later Talath Dirnen, the Guarded Plain of Nargothrond); and the host of Nуlemл grew to a vast size. They practised many arts, but would dwell no longer in settled abodes. The chief camp of Nуlemл was about the waters of Sirion; and the Gnomes drove the Orcs to the foothills of the Iron Mountains. Melko gathered his power in secret wrath.

Turgon was born to Nуlemл.

Maidros, ‘chief son of Fлanor’, led a host against Angband, but was driven back with fire from its gates, and he was taken alive and tortured—according to C, repeating the story of the earlier outline, because he would not reveal the secret arts of jewel-making. (It is not said here that Maidros was freed and returned, but it is implied in the Oath of the Seven Sons that follows.)

The Seven Sons of Fлanor swore their terrible oath of hatred for ever against all, Gods or Elves or Men, who should hold the Silmarils; and the Children of Fлanor left the host of Nуlemл and went back into Dor Lуmin, where they became a mighty and a fierce race.

The hosts of Tareg the Ilkorin (see p. 237) found the Gnomes at the Feast of Reunion; and the Men of Ermon first saw the Gnomes. Then Nуlemл’s host, swollen by that of Tareg and by the sons of Ermon, prepared for battle; and messengers were sent out North, South, East, and West. Tinwelint alone refused the summons, and he said: ‘Go not into the hills.’ Ъrin and Egnor* marched with countless battalions.

Melko withdrew all his forces and Nуlemл believed that he was afraid. The hosts of Elfinesse drew into the Tumbled Lands and encamped in the Vale of Fountains (Gorfalong), or as it was afterwards called the Valley of Weeping Waters.

(The outline D differs in its account of the events before the Battle of Unnumbered Tears from that in the earlier ones, here including C. In the earlier, the Gnomes fled from the camp by Sirion when Melko’s hosts approached, and retreated to Gorfalon, where the great host of Gnomes, Ilkorins, and Men was gathered, and arrayed in the Valley of the Fountains. In D, there is no mention of any retreat by Nуlemл’s hosts: rather, it seems, they advanced from the camp by Sirion into the Vale of Fountains (Gorfalong). But from the nature of these outlines they cannot be too closely pressed. The outline C, which ends here, says that when the Gnomes first encountered Men at Gorfalon the Gnomes taught them crafts—and this was one of the starting-points, no doubt, of the later Elf-friends of Beleriand.)

Certain Men suborned by Melko went among the camp as minstrels and betrayed it. Melko fell upon them at early dawn in a grey rain, and the terrible Battle of Unnumbered Tears followed, of which no full tale is told, for no Gnome will ever speak of it. (In the margin here my father wrote: ‘Melko himself was there?’ In the earlier outline Melko himself entered the camp of his enemies.)

In the battle Nуlemл was isolated and slain, and the Orcs cut out his heart; but Turgon rescued his body and his heart, and it became his emblem.¹¹ Nearly half of all the Gnomes and Men who fought there were slain.

Men fled, and the sons of Ъrin alone stood fast until they were slain; but Ъrin was taken. Turgon was terrible in his wrath, and his great battalion hewed its way out of the fight by sheer prowess.

Melko sent his host of Balrogs after them, and Mablon the Ilkorin died to save them when pursued. Turgon fled south along Sirion, gathering women and children from the camps, and aided by the magic of the stream escaped into a secret place and was lost to Melko.

The Sons of Fлanor came up too late and found a stricken field: they slew the spoilers who were left, and burying Nуlemл they built the greatest cairn in the world over him and the [?Gnomes]. It was called the Hill of Death.

There followed the Thraldom of the Noldoli. The Gnomes were filled with bitterness at the treachery of Men, and the ease with which Melko beguiled them. The outline concludes with references to ‘the Mines of Melko’ and ‘the Spell of Bottomless Dread’, and the statement that all the Men of the North were shut in Hisilуmл.

The outline D then turns to the story of Beren and Tinъviel, with a natural connection from the tale just sketched: ‘Beren son of Egnor wandered out of Dor Lуmin* into Artanor…’ This is to be the next story told by the Tale-fire (as also in outline B); in D the matter of Gilfanon’s Tale is to take four nights.

If certain features are selected from these outlines, and expressed in such a way as to emphasize agreement rather than disagreement, the likeness to the narrative structure of The Silmarillion is readily apparent. Thus:

–The Noldoli cross the Helkaraksл and spread into Hisilуmл, making their encampment by Asgon (Mithrim);

–They meet Ilkorin Elves (=Ъmanyar);

–Fлanor dies;

–First battle with Orcs;

–A Gnomish army goes to Angband;

–Maidros captured, tortured, and maimed;

–The Sons of Fлanor depart from the host of the Elves (in D only);

–A mighty battle called the Battle of Unnumbered Tears is fought between Elves and Men and the hosts of Melko;

–Treachery of Men, corrupted by Melko, at that battle;

–But the people of Ъrin (Hъrin) are faithful, and do not survive it;

–The leader of the Gnomes is isolated and slain (in D only);

–Turgon and his host cut their way out, and go to Gondolin;

–Melko is wrathful because he cannot discover where Turgon has gone;

–The Fлanorians come late to the battle (in D only);

–A great cairn is piled (in D only).

These are essential features of the story that were to survive. But the unlikenesses are many and great. Most striking of all is that the entire later history of the long years of the Siege of Angband, ending with the Battle of Sudden Flame (Dagor Bragollach), of the passage of Men over the Mountains into Beleriand and their taking service with the Noldorin Kings, had yet to emerge; indeed these outlines give the effect of only a brief time elapsing between the coming of the Noldoli from Kфr and their great defeat. This effect may be to some extent the result of the compressed nature of these outlines, and indeed the reference in the last of them, D, to the practice of many arts by the Noldoli (p. 240) somewhat counteracts the impression—in any case, Turgon, born when the Gnomes were in Hisilуmл or (according to D) when they were encamped by Sirion, is full grown at the Battle of Unnumbered Tears.¹² Even so, the picture in The Silmarillion of a period of centuries elapsing while Morgoth was straitly confined in Angband and ‘behind the guard of their armies in the north the Noldor built their dwellings and their towers’ is emphatically not present. In later ‘phases’ of the history my father steadily expanded the period between the rising of the Sun and Moon and the Battle of Unnumbered Tears. It is essential, also, to the old conception that Melko’s victory was so complete and overwhelming: vast numbers of the Noldoli became his thralls, and wherever they went lived in the slavery of his spell; in Gondolin alone were they free—so in the old tale of The Fall of Gondolin it is said that the people of Gondolin ‘were that kin of the Noldoli who alone escaped Melko’s power, when at the Battle of Unnumbered Tears he slew and enslaved their folk and wove spells about them and caused them to dwell in the Hells of Iron, faring thence at his will and bidding only’. Moreover Gondolin was not founded until after the Battle of Unnumbered Tears.¹³

Of Fлanor’s death in the early conception we can discern little; but at least it is clear that it bore no relation to the story of his death in The Silmarillion (p. 107). In these early outlines the Noldoli, leaving Hisilуmл, had their first affray with the Orcs in the foothills of the Iron Mountains or in the pass of the Bitter Hills, and these heights pretty clearly correspond to the later Mountains of Shadow, Ered Wethrin (see p. 158, 238); but in The Silmarillion (p. 106) the first encounter of the Noldor with the Orcs was in Mithrim.

The meeting of Gnomes and Ilkorins survived in the meeting of the new-come Noldor with the Grey-elves of Mithrim (ibid. p. 108); but the Noldor heard rather of the power of King Thingol of Doriath than of the Battle of Palisor.

Whereas in these outlines Maidros son of Fлanor led an attack on Angband which was repulsed with slaughter and his own capture, in The Silmarillion it was Fingolfin who appeared before Angband, and being met with silence prudently withdrew to Mithrim (p. 109). Maidros (Maedhros) had been already taken at a meeting with an embassage of Morgoth’s that was supposed to be a parley, and he heard the sound of Fingolfin’s trumpets from his place of torment on Thangorodrim—where Morgoth set him until, as he said, the Noldor forsook their war and departed. Of the divided hosts of the Noldor there is of course no trace in the old story; and the rescue of Maedhros by Fingon, who cut off his hand in order to save him, does not appear in any form: rather is he set free by Melko, though maimed, and without explanation given. But it is very characteristic that the maiming of Maidros—an important ‘moment’ in the legends—should never itself be lost, though it came to be given a wholly different setting and agency.

The Oath of the Sons of Fлanor was here sworn after the coming of the Gnomes from Valinor, and after the death of their father; and in the later outline D they then left the host of (Finwл) Nуlemл, Lord of the Noldoli, and returned to Dor Lуmin (Hisilуmл). In this and in other features that appear only in D the story is moved nearer to its later form. In the return to Dor Lуmin is the germ of the departure of the Fлanorians from Mithrim to the eastern parts of Beleriand (The Silmarillion p. 112); in the Feast of Reunion that of Mereth Aderthad, the Feast of Reuniting, held by Fingolfin for the Elves of 1Beleriand (ibid. p. 113), though the participants are necessarily greatly different; in the latecoming of the Fлanorians to the stricken field of Unnumbered Tears that of the delayed arrival of the host of Maedhros (ibid. p. 190–2); in the cutting-off and death of (Finwл) Nуlemл in the battle that of the slaying of Fingon (ibid. p. 193—when Finwл came to be Fлanor’s father, and thus stepped into the place of Bruithwir, killed by Melko in Valinor, his position as leader of the hosts in the Battle of Unnumbered Tears was taken by Fingon); and in the great cairn called the Hill of Death, raised by the Sons of Fлanor, that of the Haudh-en-Ndengin or Hill of Slain, piled by Orcs in Anfauglith (ibid. p. 197). Whether the embassy to Tъvo, Tinwelint, and Ermon (which in D becomes the sending of messengers) remotely anticipates the Union of Maedhros (ibid. p. 188–9) is not clear, though Tinwelint’s refusal to join forces with Nуlemл survived in Thingol’s rejection of Maedhros’ approaches (p. 189). I cannot certainly explain Tinwelint’s words ‘Go not into the hills’, but I suspect that ‘the hills’ are the Mountains of Iron (in The Hiding of Valinor, p. 209, called ‘the Hills of Iron’) above Angband, and that he warned against an attack on Melko; in the old Tale of Turambar Tinwelint said: ‘Of the wisdom of my heart and the fate of the Valar did I not go with my folk to the Battle of Unnumbered Tears.’