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

Автор книги: John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

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(Alalminуrл in the Faery Realms);

And making music still in sweet lament The Elves here holy and immortal dwell,

And on the stones and trees there lies a spell.

I give lastly the final poem, in the second of two slightly different versions; composed (as I believe) nearly half a century after the first.

The Trees of Kortirion

I

Alalmin у r л

O ancient city on a leaguered hill!

Old shadows linger in your broken gate, Your stones are grey, your old halls now are still,

Your towers silent in the mist await 5

Their crumbling end, while through the storeyed elms

The River Gliding leaves these inland realms

And slips between long meadows to the Sea, Still bearing down by weir and murmuring fall

One day and then another to the Sea; 10

And slowly thither many days have gone

Since first the Edain built Kortirion.

Kortirion! Upon your island hill

With winding streets, and alleys shadow-walled Where even now the peacocks pace in drill

15

Majestic, sapphirine and emerald, Once long ago amid this sleeping land

Of silver rain, where still year-laden stand

In unforgetful earth the rooted trees That cast long shadows in the bygone noon,

20

And whispered in the swiftly passing breeze, Once long ago, Queen of the Land of Elms,

High City were you of the Inland Realms.

Your trees in summer you remember still:

The willow by the spring, the beech on hill;

25

The rainy poplars, and the frowning yews

Within your aged courts that muse

In sombre splendour all the day, Until the firstling star comes glimmering,

And flittermice go by on silent wing;

30

Until the white moon slowly climbing sees

In shadow-fields the sleep-enchanted trees

Night-mantled all in silver-grey. Alalminor! Here was your citadel,

Ere bannered summer from his fortress fell;

35

About you stood arrayed your host of elms:

Green was their armour, tall and green their helms,

High lords and captains of the trees. But summer wanes. Behold, Kortirion!

The elms their full sail now have crowded on

40

Ready to the winds, like masts amid the vale

Of mighty ships too soon, too soon, to sail

To other days beyond these sunlit seas. II

Narquelion*

Alalminуrл! Green heart of this Isle

Where linger yet the Faithful Companies! 45

Still undespairing here they slowly file

Down lonely paths with solemn harmonies: The Fair, the first-born in an elder day,

Immortal Elves, who singing on their way

Of bliss of old and grief, though men forget, 50

Pass like a wind among the rustling trees,

A wave of bowing grass, and men forget Their voices calling from a time we do not know,

Their gleaming hair like sunlight long ago.

A wind in the grass! The turning of the year.

55

A shiver in the reeds beside the stream, A whisper in the trees—afar they hear,

Piercing the heart of summer’s tangled dream, Chill music that a herald piper plays

Foreseeing winter and the leafless days.

60

The late flowers trembling on the ruined walls Already stoop to hear that elven-flute.

Through the wood’s sunny aisles and tree-propped halls Winding amid the green with clear cold note

Like a thin strand of silver glass remote.

65

The high-tide ebbs, the year will soon be spent;

And all your trees, Kortirion, lament.

At morn the whetstone rang upon the blade,

At eve the grass and golden flowers were laid

To wither, and the meadows bare. 70

Now dimmed already comes the tardier dawn,

Paler the sunlight fingers creep across the lawn.

The days are passing. Gone like moths the nights

When white wings fluttering danced like satellites

Round tapers in the windless air. 75

Lammas is gone. The Harvest-moon has waned.

Summer is dying that so briefly reigned.

Now the proud elms at last begin to quail,

Their leaves uncounted tremble and grow pale,

Seeing afar the icy spears 80

Of winter march to battle with the sun.

When bright All-Hallows fades, their day is done,

And borne on wings of amber wan they fly

In heedless winds beneath the sullen sky,

And fall like dying birds upon the meres. III

Hrнvion*

85

Alas! Kortirion, Queen of Elms, alas!

This season best befits your ancient town With echoing voices sad that slowly pass,

Winding with waning music faintly down The paths of stranded mist. O fading time,

90

When morning rises late all hoar with rime,

And early shadows veil the distant woods! Unseen the Elves go by, their shining hair

They cloak in twilight under secret hoods Of grey, their dusk-blue mantles gird with bands

95

Of frosted starlight sewn by silver hands.

At night they dance beneath the roofless sky,

When naked elms entwine in branching lace The Seven Stars, and through the boughs the eye

Stares down cold-gleaming in the high moon’s face. 100

O Elder Kindred, fair immortal folk!

You sing now ancient songs that once awoke

Under primeval stars before the Dawn; You dance like shimmering shadows in the wind,

As once you danced upon the shining lawn 105

Of Elvenhome, before we were, before

You crossed wide seas unto this mortal shore.

Now are your trees, old grey Kortirion,

Through pallid mists seen rising tall and wan,

Like vessels vague that slowly drift afar

110

Out, out to empty seas beyond the bar

Of cloudy ports forlorn; Leaving behind for ever havens loud,

Wherein their crews a while held feasting proud

In lordly ease, they now like windy ghosts

115

Are wafted by cold airs to friendless coasts,

And silent down the tide are borne. Bare has your realm become, Kortirion,

Stripped of its raiment, and its splendour gone.

Like lighted tapers in a darkened fane

120

The funeral candles of the Silver Wain

Now flare above the fallen year. Winter is come. Beneath the barren sky

The Elves are silent. But they do not die!

Here waiting they endure the winter fell

125

And silence. Here I too will dwell;

Kortirion, I will meet the winter here. IV

Mettanyл*

I would not find the burning domes and sands

Where reigns the sun, nor dare the deadly snows, Nor seek in mountains dark the hidden lands

130

Of men long lost to whom no pathway goes; I heed no call of clamant bell that rings

Iron-tongued in the towers of earthly kings.

Here on the stones and trees there lies a spell Of unforgotten loss, of memory more blest

135

Than mortal wealth. Here undefeated dwell The Folk Immortal under withered elms,

Alalminуrл once in ancient realms.

I conclude this commentary with a note on my father’s use of the word Gnomes for the Noldor, who in the Lost Tales are called Noldoli. He continued to use it for many years, and it still appeared in earlier editions of The Hobbit.†

In a draft for the final paragraph of Appendix F to The Lord of the Rings he wrote:

I have sometimes (not in this book) used ‘Gnomes’ for Noldor and ‘Gnomish’ for Noldorin. This I did, for whatever Paracelsus may have thought (if indeed he invented the name) to some ‘Gnome’ will still suggest knowledge.* Now the High-elven name of this people, Noldor, signifies Those who Know; for of the three kindreds of the Eldar from their beginning the Noldor were ever distinguished both by their knowledge of things that are and were in this world, and by their desire to know more. Yet they in no way resembled the Gnomes either of learned theory or popular fancy; and I have now abandoned this rendering as too misleading. For the Noldor belonged to a race high and beautiful, the elder Children of the world, who now are gone. Tall they were, fair-skinned and grey-eyed, and their locks were dark, save in the golden house of Finrod…

In the last paragraph of Appendix F as published the reference to ‘Gnomes’ was removed, and replaced by a passage explaining the use of the word Elves to translate Quendi and Eldar despite the diminishing of the English word. This passage—referring to the Quendi as a whole—continues however with the same words as in the draft: ‘They were a race high and beautiful, and among them the Eldar were as kings, who now are gone: the People of the Great Journey, the People of the Stars. They were tall, fair of skin and grey-eyed, though their locks were dark, save in the golden house of Finrod…’ Thus these words describing characters of face and hair were actually written of the Noldor only, and not of all the Eldar: indeed the Vanyar had golden hair, and it was from Finarfin’s Vanyarin mother Indis that he, and Finrod Felagund and Galadriel his children, had their golden hair that marked them out among the princes of the Noldor. But I am unable to determine how this extraordinary perversion of meaning arose.†

II

THE MUSIC OF THE AINUR

In another notebook identical to that in which The Cottage of Lost Play was written out by my mother, there is a text in ink in my father’s hand (and all the other texts of the Lost Tales are in his hand, save for a fair copy of The Fall of Gondolin*) entitled: Link between Cottage of Lost Play and (Tale 2) Music of Ainur. This follows on directly from Vairл’s last words to Eriol on p. 20, and in turn links on directly to The Mus1ic of the Ainur (in a third notebook identical to the other two). The only indication of date for the Link and the Music (which were, I think, written at the same time) is a letter of my father’s of July 1964 (Letters p. 345), in which he said that while in Oxford ‘employed on the staff of the then still incomplete great Dictionary’ he ‘wrote a cosmogonical myth, “The Music of the Ainur”’. He took up the post on the Oxford Dictionary in November 1918 and relinquished it in the spring of 1920 (Biography pp. 99, 102). If his recollection was correct, and there is no evidence to set against it, some two years or more elapsed between The Cottage of Lost Play and The Music of the Ainur.

The Link between the two exists in only one version, for the text in ink was written over a draft in pencil that was wholly erased. In this case I follow the Link with a brief commentary, before giving The Music of the Ainur.

‘But,’ said Eriol, ‘still are there many things that remain dark to me. Indeed I would fain know who be these Valar; are they the Gods?’

‘So be they,’ said Lindo, ‘though concerning them Men tell many strange and garbled tales that are far from the truth, and many strange names they call them that you will not hear here’ but Vairл said: ‘Nay then, Lindo, be not drawn into more tale-telling tonight, for the hour of rest is at hand, and for all his eagerness our guest is way-worn. Send now for the candles of sleep, and more tales to his head’s filling and his heart’s satisfying the wanderer shall have on the morrow.’ But to Eriol she said: ‘Think not that you must leave our house tomorrow of need; for none do so—nay, all may remain while a tale remains to tell which they desire to hear.’

Then said Eriol that all desire of faring abroad had left his heart and that to be a guest there a while seemed to him fairest of all things. Thereupon came in those that bore the candles of sleep, and each of that company took one, and two of the folk of the house bade Eriol follow them. One of these was the door-ward who had opened to his knocking before. He was old in appearance and grey of locks, and few of that folk were so; but the other had a weather-worn face and blue eyes of great merriment, and was very slender and small, nor might one say if he were fifty or ten thousand. Now that was Ilverin or Littleheart. These two guided him down the corridor of broidered stories to a great stair of oak, and up this he followed them. It wound up and round until it brought them to a passage lit by small pendent lamps of coloured glass, whose swaying cast a spatter of bright hues upon the floors and hangings.

In this passage the guides turned round a sudden corner, then going down a few dark steps flung open a door before him. Now bowing they wished him good sleep, and said Littleheart: ‘dreams of fair winds and good voyages in the great seas’, and then they left him; and he found that he stood in a chamber that was small, and had a bed of fairest linen and deep pillows set nigh the window—and here the night seemed warm and fragrant, although he had but now come from rejoicing in the blaze of the Tale-fire logs. Here was all the furniture of dark wood, and as his great candle flickered its soft rays worked a magic with the room, till it seemed to him that sleep was the best of all delights, but that fair chamber the best of all for sleep. Ere he laid him down however Eriol opened the window and scent of flowers gusted in therethrough, and a glimpse he caught of a shadow-filled garden that was full of trees, but its spaces were barred with silver lights and black shadows by reason of the moon; 1yet his window seemed very high indeed above those lawns below, and a nightingale sang suddenly in a tree nearby.

Then slept Eriol, and through his dreams there came a music thinner and more pure than any he heard before, and it was full of longing. Indeed it was as if pipes of silver or flutes of shape most slender-delicate uttered crystal notes and threadlike harmonies beneath the moon upon the lawns; and Eriol longed in his sleep for he knew not what.

When he awoke the sun was rising and there was no music save that of a myriad of birds about his window. The light struck through the panes and shivered into merry glints, and that room with its fragrance and its pleasant draperies seemed even sweeter than before; but Eriol arose, and robing himself in fair garments laid ready for him that he might shed his raiment stained with travel went forth and strayed about the passages of the house, until he chanced upon a little stairway, and going down this he came to a porch and a sunny court. Therein was a lattice-gate that opened to his hand and led into that garden whose lawns were spread beneath the window of his room. There he wandered breathing the airs and watching the sun rise above the strange roofs of that town, when behold the aged door-ward was before him, coming along a lane of hazel-bushes. He saw not Eriol, for he held his head as ever bent towards the earth, and muttered swiftly to himself; but Eriol spake bidding him good morrow, and thereat he started.

Then said he: вour pardon, sir! I marked you not, for I was listening to the birds. Indeed sir you find me in a sour temper; for lo! here I have a black-winged rogue fat with impudence who singeth songs before unknown to me, and in a tongue that is strange! It irks me sir, it irks me, for methought at least I knew the simple speeches of all birds. I have a mind to send him down to Mandos for his pertness!в™At this Eriol laughed heartily, but said the door-ward: вay sir, may Tevildo Prince of Cats harry him for daring to perch in a garden that is in the care of RГmil. Know you that the Noldoli grow old astounding slow, and yet have I grey hairs in the study of all the tongues of Valar and of Eldar. Long ere the fall of Gondolin, good sir, I lightened my thraldom under Melko in learning the speech of all monsters and goblinsв”ave I not conned even the speeches of beasts, disdaining not the thin voices of the voles and mice?в”ave I not cadged a stupid tune or two to hum of the speechless beetles? Nay, I have worried at whiles even over the tongues of Men, but Melko take them! they shift and change, change and shift, and when you have them are but a hard stuff whereof to labour songs or tales. Wherefore is it that this morn I felt as Гmar the Vala who knows all tongues, as I hearkened to the blending of the voices of the birds comprehending each, recognising each well-loved tune, when tirГpti lirilla here comes a bird, an imp of Melkoв”ut I weary you sir, with babbling of songs and words.в™/p>

вay, not so,в™quoth Eriol, вut I beg of you be not disheartened by one fat imp of an ousel. If my eyes deceive not, for a good age of years you have cared for this garden. Then must you know store of songs and tongues sufficient to comfort the heart of the greatest of all sages, if indeed this be the first voice that you have heard therein, and lacked its interpretation. Is it not said that the birds of every district, nay almost of every nest, speak unalike?в™/p>

вЂTis said so, and said truly,в™quoth RГmil, вnd all the songs of Tol EressГa are to be heard at times within this garden.в™/p>

вore than heart-content am I,в™said Eriol, вo have learned that one fair tongue which the Eldar speak about this isle of Tol EressГaв”ut I marvelled to hear you speak as if there were many speeches of the Eldar: are there so?в™/p>

вye,в™said RГmil, вor there is that tongue to which the Noldoli cling yetв”nd aforetime the Teleri, the Solosimpi, and the Inwir had all their differences. Yet these were slighter and are now merged in that tongue of the island Elves which you have learnt. Still are there the lost bands too that dwell wandering sadly in the Great Lands, and maybe they speak very strangely now, for it was ages gone that that march was made from KГr, and as I hold в™was but the long wandering of the Noldoli about the Earth and the black ages of their thraldom while their kin dwelt yet in Valinor that caused the deep sundering of their speech. Akin nonetheless be assuredly Gnome-speech and Elfin of the Eldar, as my lore teacheth meв”ut lo! I weary you again. Never have I found another ear yet in the world that grew not tired ere long of such discourse. вњongues and speeches,вthey will say, вњne is enough for meвand thus said Littleheart the Gong-warden once upon a time: вњnome-speech,вsaid he, вњs enough for meв”id not that one EГrendel and Tuor and Bronweg my father (that mincingly ye miscall VoronwГ) speak it and no other?вYet he had to learn the Elfin in the end, or be doomed either to silence or to leave Mar Vanwa TyaliГvaв”nd neither fate would his heart suffer. Lo! now he is chirping Eldar like a lady of the Inwir, even Meril-i-Turinqi our queen herselfв”anwГ care for her. But even these be not allв”a href="#filepos859639">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. Much of it I learnt in KГr, a lifetime gone, of the goodness of AulГ, and thereby I know many matters: very many matters.в™/p>

вhen,в™quoth Eriol, вaybe you can tell me of things that I greatly desire to know since the words by the Tale-fire yester-eve. Who be the Valarв”anwГ, AulГ, and the ones ye nameв”nd wherefore came ye Eldar from that home of loveliness in Valinor?в™/p>

Now came those two to a green arbour and the sun was up and warm, and the birds sang mightily, but the lawns were spread with gold. Then RГmil sat upon a seat there of carven stone grown with moss, and said he: вery mighty are the things that you ask, and their true answer delves beyond the uttermost confines of the wastes of time, whither even the sight of RГmil the aged of the Noldoli may not see; and all the tales of the Valar and the Elves are so knit together that one may scarce expound any one without needing to set forth the whole of their great history.в™/p>

вetв™ said Eriol, вell me, RГmil, I beg, some of what you know even of the first beginnings, that I may begin to understand those things that are told me in this isle.в™/p>

But RГmil said: вlГvatar was the first beginning, and beyond that no wisdom of the Valar or of Eldar or of Men can go.в™/p>

вho was IlГvatar?в™said Eriol. вas he of the Gods?в™/p>

вay,в™said RГmil, вhat he was not, for he made them. IlГvatar is the Lord for Always who dwells beyond the world; who made it and is not of it or in it, but loves it.в™/p>

вhis have I never heard elsewhere,в™said Eriol.

вЂThat may be,в™said RГmil, вor в™is early days in the world of Men as yet, nor is the Music of the Ainur much spoken of.в™/p>

вell me,в™said Eriol, вor I long to learn, what was the Music of the Ainur?в™/p>

Commentary on the Link between The Cottage of Lost Play and The Music of the Ainur

Thus it was that the AinulindalГ was first to be heard by mortal ears, as Eriol sat in a sunlit garden in Tol EressГa. Even after Eriol (or Гlfwine) had fallen away, RГmil remained, the great Noldorin sage of Tirion вho first achieved fitting signs for the recording of speech and songв™(The Silmarillion p. 63), and The Music of the Ainur continued to be ascribed to him, though invested with the gravity of a remote time he moved far away from the garrulous and whimsical philologist of Kortirion. It is to be noted that in this account RГmil had been a slave under Melko.

Here the Exile of the Noldor from Valinor appears, for it is to this that RГmilв™ words about the march from KГr undoubtedly refer, rather than to InwГв™ вarch into the worldв™(pp. 16, 26); and something is said also of the languages, and of those who spoke them.

In this link-passage RГmil asserts:

(1) that the Teleri, Solosimpi, and Inwir had linguistic differences in the past;

(2) but that these dialects are now merged in the вongue of the island Elvesв™/p>

(3) that the tongue of the Noldoli (Gnomes) was deeply sundered through their departure into the Great Lands and their captivity under Melko;

(4) that those Noldoli who now dwell in Tol EressГa have learnt the tongue of the island Elves; but others remain in the Great Lands. (When RГmil spoke of вhe lost bands that dwell wandering sadly in the Great Landsв™who вaybe speak very strangely nowв™he seems to have been referring to remnants of the Noldorin exiles from KГr who had not come to Tol EressГa (as he himself had done), rather than to Elves who never went to Valinor.)*

In the Lost Tales the name given to the Sea-elves afterwards called the Teleriв”he third of the three вribesв™Ђis Solosimpi (вhoreland Pipersв™. It must now be explained that, confusingly enough, the first of the tribes, that led by King InwГ, were called the Teleri (the Vanyar of The Silmarillion). Who then were the Inwir? Eriol was told later by Meril-i-Turinqi (p. 115) that the Teleri were those that followed InwГ, вut his kindred and descendants are that royal folk the Inwir of whose blood I am.в™The Inwir were then a вoyalв™clan within the Teleri; and the relation between the old conception and that of The Silmarillion can be shown thus:

Lost Tales .. .. .. .. The Silmarillion I Teleri .. .. .. .. Vanyar (including Inwir) II Noldoli .. .. .. .. Noldor (Gnomes) III Solosimpi .. .. .. .. Teleri

In this link-passage Rьmil seems to say that the ‘Eldar’ are distinct from the ‘Gnomes’—‘akin nonetheless be assuredly Gnome-speech and Elfin of the Eldar’ and ‘Eldar’ and ‘Noldoli’ are opposed in the prose preamble to Kortirion among the Trees (p. 25). Elsewhere ‘Elfin’, as a language, is used in opposition to ‘Gnomish’, and ‘Eldar’ is used of a word of form in contradistinction to ‘Gnomish’. It is in fact made quite explicit in the Lost Tales that the Gnomes were themselves Eldar—for instance, ‘the Noldoli, who were the sages of the Eldar’ (p. 8); but on the other hand we read that after the Flight of the Noldoli from Valinor Aulл ‘gave still his love to those few faithful Gnomes who remained still about his halls, yet did he name them thereafter “Eldar”’ (p. 176). This is not so purely contradictory as appears at first sight. It seems that (on the one hand) the opposition of ‘Eldar’ or ‘Elfin’ to ‘Gnomish’ arose because Gnomish had become a language apart; and while the Gnomes were certainly themselves Eldar, their language was not. But (on the other hand) the Gnomes had long ago left Kфr, and thus came to be seen as not ‘Koreldar’, and therefore not ‘Eldar’. The word Eldar had thus narrowed its meaning, but might at any moment be expanded again to the older sense in which the Noldoli were ‘Eldar’.

If this is so, the narrowed sense of Eldar reflects the situation in after days in Tol Eressлa; and indeed, in the tales that follow, where the narrative is concerned with the time before the rebellion of the Noldoli and their departure from Valinor, they are firmly ‘Eldar’. After the rebellion, in the passage cited above, Aulл would not call the Noldoli who remained in Valinor by that name—and, by implication, he would not call those who had departed ‘Eldar’.

The same ambiguity is present in the words Elves and Elfin. Rъmil here calls the language of1 the Eldar ‘Elfin’ in opposition to ‘Gnomish’ the teller of the Tale of Tinъviel says: ‘This is my tale, and ’tis a tale of the Gnomes, wherefore I beg that thou fill not Eriol’s ear with thy Elfin names’, and in the same passage ‘Elves’ are specifically opposed to ‘Gnomes’. But, again, in the tales that follow in this book, Elves and Eldar and Eldaliл are used interchangeably of the Three Kindreds (see for instance the account of the debate of the Valar concerning the summoning of the Elves to Valinor, pp. 116–18). And finally, an apparently similar variation is seen in the word ‘fairy’ thus Tol Eressлa is the name ‘in the fairy speech’, while ‘the Gnomes call it Dor Faidwen’ (p. 13), but on the other hand Gilfanon, a Gnome, is called ‘one of the oldest of the fairies’ (p. 175).

It will be seen from Rъmil’s remarks that the ‘deep sundering’ of the speech of the Elves into two branches was at this time given an historical basis wholly different from that which afterwards caused the division. Here, Rъmil ascribes it to ‘the long wandering of the Noldoli about the Earth and the black ages of their thraldom while their kin dwelt yet in Valinor’—in later terms, ‘the Exile of the Noldor’. In The Silmarillion (see especially pp. 113, 129) the Noldor brought the Valinуrean tongue to Middle-earth but abandoned it (save among themselves), and adopted instead the language of Beleriand, Sindarin of the Grey-elves, who had never been to Valinor: Quenya and Sindarin were of common origin, but their ‘deep sundering’ had been brought about through vast ages of separation. In the Lost Tales, on the other hand, the Noldor still brought the Elvish speech of Valinor to the Great Lands, but they retained it, and there it itself changed and became wholly different. In other words, in the original conception the ‘second tongue’ only split off from the parent speech through the departure of the Gnomes from Valinor into the Great Lands; whereas afterwards the ‘second tongue’ separated from the ‘first tongue’ near the very beginning of Elvish existence in the world. Nonetheless, Gnomish is Sindarin, in the sense that Gnomish is the actual language that ultimately, as the whole conception evolved, became that of the Grey-elves of Beleriand.

With Rъmil’s remarks about the secret tongue which the Valar use and in which the Eldar once wrote poetry and books of wisdom, but few of them now know it, cf. the following note found in the little Lost Tales pocket-book referred to on p. 23:

The Gods understood the language of the Elves but used it not among themselves. The wiser of the Elves learned much of the speech of the Gods and long treasured that knowledge among both Teleri and Noldoli, but by the time of the coming to Tol Eressлa none knew it save the Inwir, and now that knowledge is dead save in Meril’s house.

Some new persons appear in this passage. Уmar the Vala ‘who knows all tongues’ did not survive the Lost Tales; a little more is heard of him subsequently, but he is a divinity without much substance. Tuor and Bronweg appear from the tale of The Fall of Gondolin, which was already written; Bronweg is the Gnomish form of Voronwл, that same Voronwл who accompanied Tuor from Vinyamar to Gondolin in the later legend. Tevildo Prin1ce of Cats was a demonic servant of Melko and the remote forerunner of Sauron; he is a principal actor in the original story of Beren and Tinъviel, which was also already written (the Tale of Tinъviel).

Littleheart the Gong-warden, son of Bronweg, now receives an Elvish name, Ilverin (an emendation from Elwenildo).

The Music of the Ainur

The original hastily pencilled and much emended draft text of The Music of the Ainur is still extant, on loose sheets placed inside the cover of the notebook that contains a fuller and much more finished text written in ink. This second version was however closely based on the first, and changed it chiefly by additions. The text given here is the second, but some passages where the two differ notably are annotated (few of the differences between the two texts are in my opinion of much significance). It will be seen from passages of the first draft given in the notes that the plural was originally Ainu, not Ainur, and that Ilъvatar was originally Ilu (but Ilъvatar also occurs in the draft).

Then said Rъmil:

‘Hear now things that have not been heard among Men, and the Elves speak seldom of them; yet did Manwл Sъlimo, Lord of Elves and Men, whisper them to the fathers of my father in the deeps of time.¹ Behold, Ilъvatar dwelt alone. Before all things he sang into being the Ainur first, and greatest is their power and glory of all his creatures within the world and without. Thereafter he fashioned them dwellings in the void, and dwelt among them, teaching them all manner of things, and the greatest of these was music.

Now he would speak propounding to them themes of song and joyous hymn, revealing many of the great and wonderful things that he devised ever in his mind and heart, and now they would make music unto him, and the voices of their instruments rise in splendour about his throne.

Upon a time Ilъvatar propounded a mighty design of his heart to the Ainur, unfolding a history whose vastness and majesty had never been equalled by aught that he had related before, and the glory of its beginning and the splendour of its end amazed the Ainur, so that they bowed before Ilъvatar and were speechless.

Then said Ilъvatar: “The story that I have laid before you, and that great region of beauty that I have described unto you as the place where all that history might be unfolded and enacted, is related only as it were in outline. I have not filled all the empty spaces, neither have I recounted to you all the adornments and things of loveliness and delicacy whereof my mind is full. It is my desire now that ye make a great and glorious music and a singing of this theme; and (seeing that I have taught you much and set brightly the Secret Fire within you)² that ye exercise your minds and powers in adorning the theme to your own thoughts and devising. But I will sit and hearken and be glad that through you I have made much beauty to come to Song.”