Morgoth's Ring (10 page)

$3 Varda was Manwe's spouse from the beginning, but Aule espoused Yavanna, her sister, in Ea.(3) Vana the fair, her younger sister, is the wife of Orome; and Nessa, the sister of Orome, is Tulkas' wife; and Uinen, lady of the seas, is the spouse of Osse. Vaire the Weaver dwells with Mandos. No spouse hath Ulmo, nor Melkor. No lord hath Nienna the sorrowful, queen of shadow, Manwe's sister and Melkor's. The wife of Lorien is Este the pale, but she goes not to the councils of the Valar and is not accounted among the rulers of Arda, but is the chief of the Maiar.

$4 With these great powers came many other spirits of like kind but less might and authority; these are the Maiar, the Beautiful,(4) the folk of the Valar. And with them are numbered also the Valarindi, the offspring of the Valar, their children begotten in Arda, yet of the race of the Ainur who were before the World; they are many and fair.

At this point my father wrote in: This is drawn from the work of Quennar Onotimo. These words refer not to what precedes but to the following passage, headed Of the Beginning of Time and its Reckoning (although in the preamble - struck through - of the rejected first page of AAm Quennar i Onotimo is said to have been the author of the Annals as a whole, p. 48).

The entire section on the subject of the Reckoning of Time was later marked in pencil: 'Transfer to the Tale of Years'. The Tale of Years, a chronological list of the same sort as that in Appendix B to The Lord of the Rings, exists in different forms, associated with the earlier and later Annals; the later form, closely associated with AAm and its companion the Grey Annals (Annals of Beleriand), is perhaps the most complex and difficult text of all that my father left behind him. This need not concern us here; but associated with it are two very fine manuscripts (one of them, the later of the two, among the most beautiful that he made: see the frontispiece) giving in almost identical form the same text Of the Beginning of Time and its Reckoning as is found here in AAm, but placing it as the opening of The Tale of Years and the prelude to the chronological list of events. These two manuscripts are of course later than the text in AAm, and some readings in which they differ from it are given in the notes. AAm continues:

This is drawn from the work of Quennar Onotimo.(5) Of the Beginning of Time and its Reckoning.

$5 Time indeed began with the beginning of Ea, and in that beginning the Valar came into the World. But the measurement which the Valar made of the ages of their labours is not known to any of the Children of Iluvatar, until the first flowering of Telperion in Valinor. Thereafter the Valar counted time by the ages of Valinor, whereof each age contained one hundred of the Years of the Valar; but each such year was longer than are nine years under the Sun.(6)

$6 Now measured by the flowering of the Trees there were twelve hours in each Day of the Valar, and one thousand of such days the Valar took to be a year in their realm. It is supposed indeed by the Lore-masters that the Valar so devised the hours of the Trees that one hundred of such years so measured should be in duration as one age of the Valar (7) (as those ages were in the days of their labours before the foundation of Valinor).(8) Nonetheless this is not certainly known.

$7 But as for the Years of the Trees and those that came after,(9) one such Year was longer than nine such years as now are. For there were in each such Year twelve thousand hours.

Yet the hours of the Trees were each seven times as long as is one hour of a full-day upon Middle-earth from sun-rise to sun-rise, when light and dark are equally divided.(10) Therefore each Day of the Valar endured for four and eighty of our hours, and each Year for four and eighty thousand: which is as much as three thousand and five hundred of our days, and is somewhat more than are nine and one half of our years (nine and one half and eight hundredths and yet a little).(11) $8 It is recorded by the Lore-masters that this is not rightly as the Valar designed at the making and ordering (12) of the Moon and Sun. For it was their intention that ten years of the Sun, no more and no less, should be in length as one Year of the Trees had been; and it was their first device that each year of the Sun should contain seven hundred times of sunlight and moonlight, and each of these times should contain twelve hours, each in duration one seventh of an hour of the Trees. By that reckoning each Sun-year would contain three hundred and fifty full days of divided moonlight and sunlight, that is eight thousand and four hundred hours, equalling twelve hundred hours of the Trees, or one tenth of a Valian Year. But the Moon and Sun proved more wayward and slower in their passage than the Valar had intended, as is hereafter told,(13) and a year of the Sun is somewhat longer than was one tenth of a Year in the Days of the Trees.

$9 The shorter year of the Sun was so made (14) because of the greater speed of all growth, and likewise of all change and withering, that the Valar knew should come to pass after the death of the Trees. And after that evil had befallen the Valar reckoned time in Arda by the years of the Sun, and do so still, even after the Change of the World and the hiding of Aman; but ten years of the Sun they account now as but one year,(15) and one thousand but as a century. This is drawn from the Yenonotie of Quennar: quoth Pengolod.(16)

$10 It is computed by the lore-masters that the Valar came to the realm of Arda, which is the Earth, five thousand Valian Years ere the first rising of the Moon, which is as much as to say forty-seven thousands and nine hundred and one of our years.

Of these, three thousand and five hundred (or thirty-three thousand five hundred and thirty of our reckoning) passed ere the measurement of time first known to the Eldar began with the flowering of the Trees. Those were the Days before days.

Thereafter one thousand and four hundred and five and ninety Valian Years (or fourteen thousand of our years and three hundred and twenty-two) followed during which the Light of the Trees shone in Valinor. Those were the Days of Bliss. In those days, in the Year one thousand and fifty of the Valar, the Elves awoke in Kuivienen and the First Age of the Children of Iluvatar began.(17)

1. The First Year of the Valar in Arda.

$11 After ages of labour beyond knowledge or reckoning in the great halls of Ea the Valar descended into Arda in the beginning of its being, and they began there their labour fore-ordained for the shaping of its lands and its waters, even from the foundations to the highest towers of the Air.

$12 But their labours were frustrated and turned aside from their design, for Melkor coveted the dominion of Arda, and he claimed the kingship and was at strife with Manwe. And Melkor wrought great ruin with fire and deadly cold and marred all that the other Valar made.

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$13 It came to pass that hearing afar of the war in Arda Tulkas the Strong came thither out of distant regions of Ea to the aid of Manwe. Then Arda was filled with the sound of his laughter, but he turned a face of' anger towards Melkor; and Melkor fled before his wrath and his mirth, and forsook Arda, and there was a long peace.

$14 Now the Valar began their labours anew; and when the lands and the waters were ordered the Valar had need of light, that the seeds of Yavanna's devising might grow and have life.

Aule therefore wrought two great lamps, as it were of silver and of gold and yet translucent, and Varda filled them with hallowed fire, to give light to the Earth. Illuin and Ormal they were named. 1900 And they were set upon mighty pillars as mountains in the midst of Arda, to the northward and the southward.

$15 Then the Valar continued their labours until all the kingdom of Arda was ordered and made ready, and there was great growth of trees and herbs, and beasts and birds came forth and dwelt in the plains and in the waters, and the mountains were green and fair to look upon. And the Valar made their dwelling upon a green isle in the midst of a lake; and that lake was between Illuin and Ormal in the midmost of Arda; and there in the Isle of Almaren, because of the blending of the lights, all things were richest in growth and fairest of hue. But the Valar were seldom there gathered in company, for ever they would fare abroad in Arda, each in his own business.

$16 And it came to pass that at last the Valar were content, and they were minded to rest a while from labour and watch the growth and unfolding of the things that they had devised and begun. Therefore Manwe ordained a great feast, and summoned all the Valar and the queens of the Valar unto Almaren, together with all their folk. And they came at his bidding; but Aule, it is said, and Tulkas were weary; for the craft of Aule and the strength of Tulkas had been at the service of all without ceasing in the days of their labour.

$17 Now Melkor knew of all that was done; for even then he had secret friends and spies among the Maiar whom he had converted to his cause, and of these the chief, as after became known, was Sauron, a great craftsman of the household of Aule.

And afar off in the dark places Melkor was filled with hatred, being jealous of the work of his peers, whom he desired to make subject to himself. Therefore he gathered to himself spirits out of the voids of Ea that he had perverted to his service, and he deemed himself strong. And seeing now his time he drew near again unto Arda, and looked down upon it, and the beauty of the Earth in its Spring filled him the more with hate.

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$18 Now therefore the Valar were gathered upon Almaren and feasted and made merry, fearing no evil, and because of the light of llluin they did not perceive the shadow in the North that was cast from afar by Melkor; for he was grown dark as the Night of the Void.(18) And it is sung that in that feast of the Spring of Arda Tulkas espoused Nessa the sister of Orome, and Vana robed [her) in her flowers, and she danced before the Valar upon the green grass of Almaren.

$19 Then Tulkas slept, being weary and content, and Melkor deemed that his hour had come. And he passed, therefore, over the Walls of the Night (19) with his host, and he came to Middle-earth in the North; and the Valar were not aware of him.

$20 Now Melkor began the delving and building of a vast fortress deep under Earth, beneath dark mountains where the light of Illuin was dim.(20) That stronghold was named Utumno.

And though the Valar knew nought of it as yet, nonetheless the evil of Melkor and the blight of his hatred flowed out thence, and the Spring of Arda was marred, and living things became sick and rotted, or were corrupted to monstrous forms.

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$21 Then the Valar knew indeed that Melkor was at work again, and they sought for his hiding-place. But Melkor, trusting in the strength of Utumno and the might of his servants, came forth suddenly to war, and struck the first blow, ere the Valar were prepared. And he assailed the lights of Illuin and Ormal, and he cast down their pillars, and broke their lamps.

Then in the overthrow of the mighty pillars lands were broken and seas arose in tumult; and when the lamps were spilled destroying flame was poured out over the Earth. And the shape of Arda and the symmetry of its waters and its lands was marred in that time, so that the first designs of the Valar were never after restored.

$22 In the confusion and the darkness Melkor escaped, though fear fell upon him; for above the roaring of the seas he heard the voice of Manwe as a mighty wind, and the earth trembled beneath the feet of Tulkas. But he came to Utumno ere Tulkas could overtake him; and there he lay hid. And the Valar could not at that time overcome him, for the greater part of their strength was needed to restrain the tumults of the Earth, and to save from ruin all that could be saved of their labour; and afterward they feared to rend the Earth again, until they knew where the Children of Iluvatar were dwelling, who were yet to come in a time that was hidden from the Valar.

$23 Thus ended the Spring of Arda. And the dwelling of the Valar upon Almaren was utterly destroyed, and the gods had no abiding place upon the face of the earth. Therefore they removed from Middle-earth and went to the Land of Aman, which was westernmost of all lands upon the borders of the world; for its west shores looked upon the Outer Sea that encircled the kingdom of Arda, and beyond were the Walls of the Night.(21) But the east-shores of Aman are the uttermost end of the Great Sea of the West; and since Melkor had returned to Middle-earth, and they could not yet overcome him, the Valar fortified their dwelling, and upon the shores of the Sea they raised the Pelori, the Mountains of Aman, highest upon earth.

And above all the mountains of the Pelori was that height which was called Taniquetil, upon whose summit Manwe set his throne. But behind the walls of the Pelori the Valar established their mansions and their domain in that region which is called Valinor. There in the Guarded Realm they gathered great store of light and all the fairest things that were saved from the ruin; and many others yet fairer they made anew, and Valinor became more beautiful even than Middle-earth in the Spring of Arda; and it was blessed and holy, for the gods dwelt there, and there nought faded nor withered, neither was there any stain upon flower or leaf in that land, nor any corruption or sickness in anything that lived; for the very stones and waters were hallowed.