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

Автор книги: John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

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Then the harpists, and the lutanists, the flautists and 1pipers, the organs and the countless choirs of the Ainur began to fashion the theme of Ilъvatar into great music; and a sound arose of mighty melodies changing and interchanging, mingling and dissolving amid the thunder of harmonies greater than the roar of the great seas, till the places of the dwelling of Ilъvatar and the regions of the Ainur were filled to overflowing with music, and the echo of music, and the echo of the echoes of music which flowed even into the dark and empty spaces far off. Never was there before, nor has there been since, such a music of immeasurable vastness of splendour; though it is said that a mightier far shall be woven before the seat of Ilъvatar by the choirs of both Ainur and the sons of Men after the Great End. Then shall Ilъvatar’s mightiest themes be played aright; for then Ainur and Men will know his mind and heart as well as may be, and all his intent.

But now Ilъvatar sat and hearkened, and for a great while it seemed very good to him, for the flaws in that music were few, and it seemed to him the Ainur had learnt much and well. But as the great theme progressed it came into the heart of Melko to interweave matters of his own vain imagining that were not fitting to that great theme of Ilъvatar. Now Melko had among the Ainur been given some of the greatest gifts of power and wisdom and knowledge by Ilъvatar; and he fared often alone into the dark places and the voids seeking the Secret Fire that giveth Life and Reality (for he had a very hot desire to bring things into being of his own); yet he found it not, for it dwelleth with Ilъvatar, and that he knew not till afterward.³

There had he nonetheless fallen to thinking deep cunning thoughts of his own, all of which he showed not even to Ilъvatar. Some of these devisings and imaginings he now wove into his music, and straightway harshness and discordancy rose about him, and many of those that played nigh him grew despondent and their music feeble, and their thoughts unfinished and unclear, while many others fell to attuning their music to his rather than to the great theme wherein they began.

In this way the mischief of Melko spread darkening the music, for those thoughts of his came from the outer blackness whither Ilъvatar had not yet turned the light of his face; and because his secret thoughts had no kinship with the beauty of Ilъvatar’s design its harmonies were broken and destroyed. Yet sat Ilъvatar and hearkened till the music reached a depth of gloom and ugliness unimaginable; then did he smile sadly and raised his left hand, and immediately, though none clearly knew how, a new theme began among the clash, like and yet unlike the first, and it gathered power and sweetness. But the discord and noise that Melko had aroused started into uproar against it, and there was a war of sounds, and a clangour arose in which little could be distinguished.

Then Ilъvatar raised his right hand, and he no longer smiled but wept; and behold a third theme, and it was in no way like the others, grew amid the turmoil, till at the last it seemed there were two musics progressing at one time about the feet of Ilъvatar, and these were utterly at variance. One was very great and deep and beautiful, but it was mingled with an unquenchable sorrow, while the other was now grown to unity and a system of its own, but was loud and vain and arrogant, braying triumphantly against the other as it thought to drown it, yet ever, as it essayed to clash most fearsomely, finding itself but in some manner supplementing or harmonising with its rival.

At the midmost of this echoing struggle, whereat the halls of Ilъvatar shook and 1a tremor ran through the dark places, Ilъvatar raised up both his hands, and in one unfathomed chord, deeper then the firmament, more glorious than the sun, and piercing as the light of Ilъvatar’s glance, that music crashed and ceased.

Then said Ilъvatar: “Mighty are the Ainur, and glorious, and among them is Melko the most powerful in knowledge; but that he may know, and all the Ainur, that I am Ilъvatar, those things that ye have sung and played, lo! I have caused to be—not in the musics that ye make in the heavenly regions, as a joy to me and a play unto yourselves, alone, but rather to have shape and reality even as have ye Ainur, whom I have made to share in the reality of Ilъvatar myself. Maybe I shall love these things that come of my song even as I love the Ainur who are of my thought,⁴ and maybe more. Thou Melko shalt see that no theme can be played save it come in the end of Ilъvatar’s self, nor can any alter the music in Ilъvatar’s despite. He that attempts this finds himself in the end but aiding me in devising a thing of still greater grandeur and more complex wonder:—for lo! through Melko have terror as fire, and sorrow like dark waters, wrath like thunder, and evil as far from my light as the depths of the uttermost of the dark places, come into the design that I laid before you. Through him has pain and misery been made in the clash of overwhelming musics; and with confusion of sound have cruelty, and ravening, and darkness, loathly mire and all putrescence of thought or thing, foul mists and violent flame, cold without mercy, been born, and death without hope. Yet is this through him and not by him; and he shall see, and ye all likewise, and even shall those beings, who must now dwell among his evil and endure through Melko misery and sorrow, terror and wickedness, declare in the end that it redoundeth only to my great glory, and doth but make the theme more worth the hearing, Life more worth the living, and the World so much the more wonderful and marvellous, that of all the deeds of Ilъvatar it shall be called his mightiest and his loveliest.”

Then the Ainur feared and comprehended not all that was said, and Melko was filled with shame and the anger of shame; but Ilъvatar seeing their amaze arose in glory and went forth from his dwellings, past those fair regions he had fashioned for the Ainur, out into the dark places; and he bade the Ainur follow him.

Now when they reached the midmost void they beheld a sight of surpassing beauty and wonder where before had been emptiness; but Ilъvatar said: “Behold your choiring and your music! Even as ye played so of my will your music took shape, and lo! even now the world unfolds and its history begins as did my theme in your hands. Each one herein will find contained within the design that is mine the adornments and embellishments that he himself devised; nay, even Melko will discover those things there which he thought to contrive of his own heart, out of harmony with my mind, and he will find them but a part of the whole and tributary to its glory. One thing only have I added, the fire that giveth Life and Reality”—and behold, the Secret Fire burnt at the heart of the world.

Then the Ainur marvelled to see how the world was globed amid the void and yet separated from it; and they rejoiced to see light, and found it was both white and golden, and they laughed for the pleasure of colours, and for the great roaring of the ocean they were filled with longing. Their hearts were gl1ad because of air and the winds, and the matters whereof the Earth was made—iron and stone and silver and gold and many substances: but of all these water was held the fairest and most goodly and most greatly praised. Indeed there liveth still in water a deeper echo of the Music of the Ainur than in any substance else that is in the world, and at this latest day many of the Sons of Men will hearken unsatedly to the voice of the Sea and long for they know not what.

Know then that water was for the most part the dream and invention of Ulmo, an Ainu whom Ilъvatar had instructed deeper than all others in the depths of music; while the air and winds and the ethers of the firmament had Manwл Sъlimo devised, greatest and most noble of the Ainur. The earth and most of its goodly substances did Aulл contrive, whom Ilъvatar had taught many things of wisdom scarce less than Melko, yet was there much therein that was nought of his.⁵

Now Ilъvatar spake to Ulmo and said: “Seest thou not how Melko hath bethought him of biting colds without moderation, yet hath not destroyed the beauty of thy crystal waters nor of all thy limpid pools. Even where he has thought to conquer utterly, behold snow has been made, and frost has wrought his exquisite works; ice has reared his castles in grandeur.”

Again said Ilъvatar: “Melko hath devised undue heats, and fires without restraint, and yet hath not dried up thy desire nor utterly quelled the music of thy seas. Rather behold now the height and glory of the clouds and the magic that dwells in mist and vapours; listen to the whisper of rains upon the earth.”

Then said Ulmo: “Yea truly is water fairer now than was my best devising before. Snow is of a loveliness beyond my most secret thoughts, and if there is little music therein, yet rain is beautiful indeed and hath a music that filleth my heart, so glad am I that my ears have found it, though its sadness is among the saddest of all things. Lo! I will go seek Sъlimo of the air and winds, that he and I play melodies for ever and ever to thy glory and rejoicing.”

Now Ulmo and Manwл have been great friends and allies in almost all matters since then.⁶

Now even as Ilъvatar spake to Ulmo, the Ainur beheld how the world unfolded, and that history which Ilъvatar had propounded to them as a great music was already being carried out. It is of their gathered memories of the speech of Ilъvatar and the knowledge, incomplete it may be, that each has of their music, that the Ainur know so much of the future that few things are unforeseen by them—yet are there some that be hidden even from these.⁷ So the Ainur gazed; until long before the coming of Men—nay, who does not know that it was countless ages before even the Eldar arose and sang their first song and made the first of all the gems, and were seen by both Ilъvatar and the Ainur to be of exceeding loveliness—there grew a contention among them, so enamoured did they become of the glory of the world as they gazed upon it, and so enthralled by the history enacted therein to which the beauty of the world was but the background and the scene.

Now this was the end, that some abode still with Ilъvatar beyond the world—and these were mostly those who had been engrossed in their playing with thoughts of Ilъvatar’s plan and design, and cared only to1 set it forth without aught of their own devising to adorn it; but some others, and among them many of the most beautiful and wisest of the Ainur, craved leave of Ilъvatar to dwell within the world. For said they: “We would have the guarding of those fair things of our dreams, which of thy might have now attained to reality and surpassing beauty; and we would instruct both Eldar and Men in their wonder and uses whenso the times come that those appear upon Earth by your intent, first the Eldar and at length the fathers of the fathers of Men.” And Melko feigned that he desired to control the violence of the heats and turmoils he had set in the Earth, but of a truth purposed deep in his heart to usurp the power of the other Ainur and make war upon Eldar and Men, for he was wroth at those great gifts which Ilъvatar had purposed to give to these races.⁸

Now Eldar and Men were of Ilъvatar’s devising only, nor, for they comprehended not fully when Ilъvatar first propounded their being, did any of the Ainur dare in their music to add anything to their fashion; and these races are for that reason named rightly the Children of Ilъvatar. This maybe is the cause wherefore many others of the Ainur, beside Melko, have ever been for meddling with both Elves and Men, be it of good or evil intent; yet seeing that Ilъvatar made the Eldar most like in nature if not in power and stature to the Ainur, while to Men he gave strange gifts, their dealings have been chiefly with the Elves.⁹

Knowing all their hearts, still did Ilъvatar grant the desire of the Ainur, nor is it said he was grieved thereat. So entered these great ones into the world, and these are they whom we now call the Valar (or the Vali, it matters not).¹⁰ They dwelt in Valinor, or in the firmament; and some on earth or in the deeps of the Sea. There Melko ruled both fires and the cruellest frost, both the uttermost colds and the deepest furnaces beneath the hills of flame; and whatso is violent or excessive, sudden or cruel, in the world is laid to his charge, and for the most part with justice. But Ulmo dwells in the outer ocean and controls the flowing of all waters and the courses of rivers, the replenishment of springs and the distilling of rains and dews throughout the world. At the bottom of the sea he bethinks him of music deep and strange yet full ever of a sorrow: and therein he has aid from Manwл Sъlimo.

The Solosimpi, what time the Elves came and dwelt in Kфr, learnt much of him, whence cometh the wistful allurement of their piping and their love to dwell ever by the shore. Salmar there was with him, and Ossл and Уnen to whom he gave the control of the waves and lesser seas, and many another.

But Aulл dwelt in Valinor and fashioned many things; tools and instruments he devised and was busied as much in the making of webs as in the beating of metals; tillage too and husbandry was his delight as much as tongues and alphabets, or broideries and painting. Of him did the Noldoli, who were the sages of the Eldar and thirsted ever after new lore and fresh knowledge, learn uncounted wealth of crafts, and magics 1and sciences unfathomed. From his teaching, whereto the Eldar brought ever their own great beauty of mind and heart and imagining, did they attain to the invention and making of gems; and these were not in the world before the Eldar, and the finest of all gems were Silmarilli, and they are lost.

Yet was the greatest and chief of those four great ones Manwл Sъlimo; and he dwelt in Valinor and sate in a glorious abode upon a throne of wonder on the topmost pinnacle of Taniquetil that towers up upon the world’s edge. Hawks flew ever to and fro about that abode, whose eyes could see to the deeps of the sea or penetrate the most hidden caverns and profoundest darkness of the world. These brought him news from everywhere of everything, and little escaped him—yet did some matters lie hid even from the Lord of the Gods. With him was Varda the Beautiful, and she became his spouse and is Queen of the Stars, and their children were Fionwл-Ъrion and Erinti most lovely. About them dwell a great host of fair spirits, and their happiness is great; and men love Manwл even more than mighty Ulmo, for he hath never of intent done ill to them nor is he so fain of honour or so jealous of his power as that ancient one of Vai. The Teleri whom Inwл ruled were especially beloved of him, and got of him poesy and song; for if Ulmo hath a power of musics and of voices of instruments Manwл hath a splendour of poesy and song beyond compare.

Lo, Manwл Sъlimo clad in sapphires, ruler of the airs and wind, is held lord of Gods and Elves and Men, and the greatest bulwark against the evil of Melko.’¹¹

Then said Rъmil again:

‘Lo! After the departure of these Ainur and their vassalage all was quiet for a great age while Ilъvatar watched. Then on a sudden he said: “Behold I love the world, and it is a hall of play for Eldar and Men who are my beloved. But when the Eldar come they will be the fairest and the most lovely of all things by far; and deeper in the knowledge of beauty, and happier than Men. But to Men I will give a new gift, and a greater.” Therefore he devised that Men should have a free virtue whereby within the limits of the powers and substances and chances of the world they might fashion and design their life beyond even the original Music of the Ainur that is as fate to all things else. This he did that of their operations everything should in shape and deed be completed, and the world fulfilled unto the last and smallest.¹² Lo! Even we Eldar have found to our sorrow that Men have a strange power for good or ill and for turning things despite Gods and Fairies to their mood in the world; so that we say: “Fate may not conquer the Children of Men, but yet are they strangely blind, whereas their joy should be great.”

Now Ilъvatar knew that Men set amid the turmoils of the Ainur would not be ever of a mind to use that gift in harmony with his intent, but thereto he said: “These too in their time shall find that all they have done, even the ugliest of deeds or works, redounds at the end only to my glory, and is tributary to the beauty of my world.” Yet the Ainur say that the thought of Men is at times a grief even to Ilъvatar; wherefore if the giving of that gift of freedom was their envy and amazement, the patience of Ilъvatar at its misuse is a matter of the greatest marvelling to both Gods and Fairies. It is however of one with this gift of power that 1the Children of Men dwell only a short time in the world alive, yet do not perish utterly for ever, whereas the Eldar dwell till the Great End¹³ unless they be slain or waste in grief (for to both of these deaths are they subject), nor doth eld subdue their strength, except it may be in ten thousand centuries; and dying they are reborn in their children, so that their number minishes not, nor grows. Yet while the Sons of Men will after the passing of things of a certainty join in the Second Music of the Ainur, what Ilъvatar has devised for the Eldar beyond the world’s end he has not revealed even to the Valar, and Melko has not discovered it.’

NOTES

1 This opening sentence is lacking in the draft.

2 The reference to the setting of the Secret Fire within the Ainur is lacking in the draft.

3 This passage, from ‘Now Melko had among the Ainur…’, is developed from one much briefer in the draft: ‘Melko had among the Ainu fared most often alone into the dark places and the voids [added afterwards: seeking the secret fires].’

4 The words ‘my song’ and ‘my thought’ were in the text as written in reversed positions, and were emended afterwards in pencil to the reading given. At the beginning of the text occurs the phrase: ‘Before all things he sang into being the Ainur first.’ Cf. the opening of the Ainulindalл in The Silmarillion: ‘The Ainur…that were the offspring of his thought.’

5 There is no reference here in the draft to Manwл or Aulл.

6 This sentence concerning the friendship and alliance of Manwл and Ulmo is lacking in the draft.

7 This passage was quite different in the draft text:

And even as Ilu was speaking to Ulmo the Ainu beheld how the great history which Ilu had propounded to them to their amazement and whereto all his glory was but the hall of its enactment—how it was unfolding in myriad complexities even as had been the music they played about the feet of Ilu, how beauty was whelmed in uproar and tumult and again new beauty arose therefrom, how the earth changed and stars went out and stars were kindled, and the air swept about the firmament, and the sun and moon were loosened on their courses and had life.

8 This sentence concerning Melko is lacking in the draft.

9 In the draft this paragra1ph reads:

Now Eldar and Men were of Ilu’s devising alone, nor had any of the Ainu nor even Melko aught to do with their fashioning, though in truth his music of old and his deeds in the world mightily affected their history thereafter. For this reason maybe, Melko and many of the Ainu out of good or evil mind would ever be for meddling with them, but seeing that Ilu had made the Eldar too alike in nature if not in stature to the Ainu their dealings have been chiefly with Men.

The conclusion of this passage seems to be the only place where the second text is in direct contradiction of the draft.

10 The draft has: ‘and these are they whom ye and we now call the Valur and Valir.’

11 The entire passage following the mention of the Solosimpi and ‘their love to dwell ever by the shore’ is lacking in the draft.

12 For this passage the draft has:

“…but to Men I will appoint a task and give a great gift.” And he devised that they should have free will and the power of fashioning and designing beyond the original music of the Ainu, that by reason of their operations all things shall in shape and deed be fulfilled, and the world that comes of the music of the Ainu be completed unto the last and smallest.

13 ‘whereas the Eldar dwell for ever’ draft text.

Changes made to names in

The Music of the Ainur

Ainur Always Ainu in the draft text.

Ilъvatar Usually Ilu in the draft text, but also Ilъvatar.

Ulmo In the draft text Ulmo is thus named but also Linqil (corrected to Ulmo).

Solosimpi < Solosimpл.

Valar or Vali Draft text Valur and Valir (these appear to be masculine and feminine forms).

Уnen < уwen.

Vai < Ulmonan.

Commentary on

The Music of the Ainur

A linking passage continues the text of The Music of the Ainur and leads into the story of The Building of Valinor without any break in the narrative; but I postpone this link until the next chapter. The actual written text is likewise continuous between the two tales, and there is no suggestion or indication that the composition of The Building of Valinor did not follow that of The Music of the Ainur.

In later years the Creation myth was revised and rewritten over and over again; but it is notable that in this case only and in contrast to the development of the rest of the mythology there is a direct tradition, manuscript to manuscript, from the earliest draft to the final version: each text is directly based on the one preceding.* Moreover, and most remarkably, the earliest version, written when my father was 27 or 28 and embed1ded still in the context of the Cottage of Lost Play, was so evolved in its conception that it underwent little change of an essential kind. There were indeed very many changes, which can be followed stage by stage through the successive texts, and much new matter came in; but the fall of the original sentences can continually be recognized in the last version of the Ainulindalл, written more than thirty years later, and even many phrases survived.

It will be seen that the great theme that Ilъvatar propounded to the Ainur was originally made somewhat more explicit (‘The story that I have laid before you,’ p. 53), and that the words of Ilъvatar to the Ainur at the end of the Music contained a long declaration of what Melko had brought about, of what he had introduced into the world’s history (p. 55). But by far the most important difference is that in the early form the Ainur’s first sight of the World was in its actuality (‘even now the world unfolds and its history begins’, p. 55), not as a Vision that was taken away from them and only given existence in the words of Ilъvatar: Eд! Let these things Be! (The Silmarillion p. 20).

Yet when all differences have been observed, they are much less remarkable than the solidity and completeness with which the myth of the Creation emerged at its first beginning.

In this ‘Tale’, also, many specific features of less general import make their appearance; and many of them were to survive. Manwл, called ‘lord of Gods and Elves and Men’, is surnamed Sъlimo, ‘ruler of the airs and wind’ he is clad in sapphires, and hawks of penetrating sight fly from his dwelling on Taniquetil (The Silmarillion p. 40); he loves especially the Teleri (the later Vanyar), and from him they received their gifts of poetry and song; and his spouse is Varda, Queen of the Stars.

Manwл, Melko, Ulmo, and Aulл are marked out as ‘the four great ones’ ultimately the great Valar, the Aratar, came to be numbered nine, but there was much shifting in the membership of the hierarchy before this was reached. The characteristic concerns of Aulл, and his particular association with the Noldoli, emerge here as they were to remain, though there is attributed to him a delight in ‘tongues and alphabets’, whereas in The Silmarillion (p. 39), while this is not denied, it seems to be implied that this was rather the peculiar endowment and skill of the Noldorin Elves; later in the Lost Tales (p. 141) it is said that Aulл himself ‘aided by the Gnomes contrived alphabets and scripts’. Ulmo, specially associated with the Solosimpi (the later Teleri), is here presented as more ‘fain of his honour and jealous of his power’ than Manwл and he dwells in Vai. Vai is an emendation of Ulmonan; but this is not simply a replacement of one name by another: Ulmonan was the name of Ulmo’s halls, which were in Vai, the Outer Ocean. The significance of Vai, an important element in the original cosmology, will emerge in the next chapter.

Other divine beings now appear. Manwл and Varda have offspring, Fionwл-Ъrion and Erinti. Erinti later became Ilmarл ‘handmaid of Varda’ (The Silmarillion p. 30), but nothing was ever told of her (see p. 202). Fionwл, his name long afterwards changed to Eцnwл, 1endured to become the Herald of Manwл, when the idea of ‘the Children of the Valar’ was abandoned. Beings subordinate to Ulmo, Salmar, Ossл, and Уnen (later Uinen) appear; though these all survived in the pantheon, the conception of Maiar did not emerge for many years, and Ossл was long numbered among the Valar. The Valar are here referred to as ‘Gods’ (indeed when Eriol asked ‘are they the Gods?’ Lindo replied that they were, p. 45), and this usage survived until far on in the development of the mythology.

The idea of Elvish rebirth in their own children is here formally stated, and the different fates of Elves and Men. In this connection, the following curious matter may be mentioned. Early in the text just given (p. 53) occurs the sentence: ‘It is said that a mightier [music] far shall be woven before the seat of Ilъvatar by the choirs of both Ainur and the sons of Men after the Great End’ and in the concluding sentence of the text: ‘Yet while the sons of Men will after the passing of things of a certainty join in the Second Music of the Ainur, what Ilъvatar has devised for the Eldar beyond the world’s end he has not revealed even to the Valar, and Melko has not discovered it.’ Now in the first revision of the Ainulindalл (which dates from the 1930s) the first of these sentences was changed to read: ‘…by the choirs of the Ainur and the Children of Ilъvatar after the end of days’ whereas the second remained, in this essential, unchanged. This remained the case right through to the final version. It is possible that the change in the first passage was unintentional, the substitution of another common phrase, and that this was never subsequently picked up. However, in the published work (pp. 15, 42) I left the two passages as they stand.

III

THE COMING OF THE VALAR AND THE BUILDING OF VALINOR

As I have already noticed, the next tale is linked to The Music of the Ainur without narrative break; and it has no title in the text. It is contained in three separate books (the Lost Tales were written in the most bewildering fashion, with sections from different tales interleaved with each other); and on the cover of the book that has the opening section, following on The Music of the Ainur, is written: ‘containeth also the Coming of the Valar and beginneth the Building of Valinor’. The text is in ink, written over an erased pencil manuscript.

Then when Rъmil finished and fell silent Eriol said after a pause: ‘Great are these tidings and very new and strange in my ears, yet doth it seem that most whereof you have yet told happened outside this world, whereas if I know now wherefrom comes its life and motion and the ultimate devising of its history, I would still hear many things of the earliest deeds within its borders; of the labours of the Valar I would know, and the great beings of most ancient days. Whereof, tell me, are the Sun or the Moon or the Stars, and how came their courses and their stations? Nay more—whence are the continents of the earth, the Outer Lands, the great seas, and the Magic Isles? Even of the Eldar and their arising and of the coming of Men I would listen to your tales of wisdom and wonder.’

Then answered Rъmil: ‘Nay, but your questions are nigh as long and wordy as my tales—and the thirst of your curiosity wo1uld dry a well deeper than even my lore, an I let you drink and come again unstinted to your liking. Indeed you know not what you ask nor the length and complexity of the stories you would hear. Behold, the sun is well above the roofs and this is no hour of the day for the telling of tales. Rather is it time already, and something more, for the breaking of the fast.’ With these words Rъmil went down that lane of hazels, and passing a space of sunlight entered the house at great speed, for all that he looked ever before his toes as he went.

But Eriol sat musing in that arbour, pondering what he had heard, and many questions came into his mind that he desired to ask, until he forgot that he fasted still. But now comes Littleheart and another bearing covers and fair linen, and they say to him: ‘It is the words of Rъmil the Sage that you are fainting in the Arbour of the Thrushes for hunger and for weariness of his garrulous tongue—and thinking that very like to be, we are come to aid thee.’

Then Eriol thanked them, and breaking his fast spent the remainder of that fair day hidden in the quiet alleys of that garden deep in thought; nor did he have lack of pleasance, for although it seemed enclosed within great stone walls covered with fruit-trees or with climbing plants whose golden and red blossoms shone beneath the sun, yet were the nooks and corners of the garden, its coppices and lawns, its shady ways and flowering fields, without end, and exploration discovered always something new. Nonetheless even greater was his joy when that night again the toast was drunk to the ‘Rekindling of the Magic Sun’ and the candles held aloft and the throng went once more to the room where the Tale-fire burnt.