Morgoth's Ring (14 page)

Year of the Valar). - The 'YT' dates were very frequently changed on the manuscript, and it is in places very difficult to interpret the changes; I give only the final forms (see pp. 47 - 8).)

1000.

$32 It came to pass that the Valar held council, for they became troubled by the tidings that Yavanna and Orome brought from the Outer Lands. And Yavanna spoke before the Valar, and foretold that the coming of the Children of Iluvatar was drawing nigh, albeit the hour and the place of that coming was known only to Iluvatar. And Yavanna besought Manwe to give light to Middle-earth, for the stay of the evils of Melkor and the comfort of the Children; and Orome and Tulkas spoke likewise, being eager for war with Utumno.

$33 But Mandos spoke and said that though the Coming was prepared it should not yet be for many Years; and the Elder Children should come in the darkness and look first upon the Stars. For so it was ordained.

$34 Then Varda went forth from the council, and she looked out from the height of Taniquetil, and beheld the darkness of the Earth beneath the innumerable stars, faint and far. Then she began a great labour, the greatest of all the works of the Valar since their coming unto Arda.

1000-1050.

$35 Now Varda took the light that issued from Telperion and was stored in Valinor and she made stars newer and brighter. And many other of the ancient stars she gathered together and set as signs in the heavens of Arda. The greatest of these was Menelmakar, the Swordsman of the Sky. This, it is said, was a sign of Turin Turambar, who should come into the world, and a foreshowing of the Last Battle that shall be at the end of Days.

1050.

$36 Last of all Varda made the sign of bright stars that is called the Valakirka, the Sickle of the Gods, and this she hung about the North as a threat unto Utumno and a token of the doom of Melkor.

$37 In that hour, it is said, the Quendi, the Elder Children of Iluvatar, awoke: these Men have named the Elves, and many other names. By the Waters of Awakening, Kuivienen, they rose

'from the sleep of Iluvatar and their eyes beheld first of all things the stars of heaven. Therefore they have ever loved the starlight, and have revered Varda Elentarie above all the Valar.

$38 In the changes of the world the shapes of lands and of seas have been broken and remade; rivers have not kept their courses, neither have mountains remained steadfast; and to Kuivienen there is no returning. But it is said among the Quendi that it lay far off in Middle-earth, eastward of Endon (which is the midmost point) and northward; and it was a bay in the Inland Sea of Helkar. And that sea stood where aforetime the roots of the mountain of Illuin had been ere Melkor overthrew it. Many waters flowed down thither from heights in the East, and the first sound that was heard by the ears of the Elves was the sound of water flowing, and the sound of water falling over stone.

$39 Long the Quendi dwelt in their first home by the water under stars and they walked the Earth in wonder; and they began to make speech and to give names to all things that they perceived. And they named themselves the Quendi, signifying those that speak with voices; for as yet they had met no other living things that spoke or sang.

$40 At this time also, it is said, Melian, fairest of the Maiar, desiring to look upon the stars, went up upon Taniquetil; and suddenly she desired to see Middle-earth, and she left Valinor and walked in the twilight.

1085.

$41 And when the Elves had dwelt in the world five and thirty Years of the Valar (which is like unto three hundred and thirty-five of our years) it chanced that Orome rode to Endon in his hunting, and he turned north by the shores of Helkar and passed under the shadows of the Orokarni, the Mountains of the East. And on a sudden Nahar set up a great neighing and then stood still. And Orome wondered and sat silent, and it seemed to him that in the quiet of the land under the stars he heard afar off many voices singing.

$42 Thus it was that the Valar found at last, as it were by chance, those whom they had so long awaited. And when Orome looked upon them he was filled with wonder, as though they were things unforeseen and unimagined; and he loved the Quendi, and named them Eldar, the people of the stars.

The original manuscript page was interpolated at this point, a passage being written in the-margin as follows:

Yet by after-knowledge the masters of lore say sadly that Orome was not, mayhap, the first of the Great Ones to look upon the Elves.

for Melkor was on the watch, and his spies were many. And it is thought that lurking near his servants had led astray some of the Quendi that ventured afield, and they took them as captives to Utumno, and there enslaved them. Of these slaves it is held came the Orkor that were afterward chief foes of the Eldar. And Melkor's lies were soon abroad, so that whispers were heard among the Quendi, warning them that if any of their kindred passed away into the shadows and were seen no more, they must beware of a fell huntsman on a great horse, for he it was that carried them off to devour them. Hence it was that at the approach of Orome many of the Quendi fled and hid themselves.

The original text then continues, with a new date 1086, 'Swiftly Orome rode back to Valinor and brought tidings to the Valar' (see $46

below). But the interpolated passage just given was subsequently replaced on a new page by the following long and important passage $$43 - 5 (found in the typescript as typed):

$43 Yet many of the Quendi were adread at his coming.

This was the doing of Melkor. For by after-knowledge the masters of lore say that Melkor, ever watchful, was first aware of the awakening of the Quendi, and sent shadows and evil spirits to watch and waylay them. So it came to pass, some years ere the coming of Orome, that if any of the Elves strayed far abroad, alone or few together, they would often vanish and never return; and the Quendi said that the Hunter had caught them, and they were afraid. Even so, in the most ancient songs of our people, of which some echoes are remembered still in the West, we hear of the shadow-shapes that walked in the hills about Kuivienen, or would pass suddenly over the stars; and of the dark Rider upon his wild horse that pursued those that wandered to take them and devour them. Now Melkor greatly hated and feared the riding of Orome, and either verily he sent his dark servants as riders, or he set lying whispers abroad, for the purpose that the Quendi should shun Orome, if ever haply they met.

$44 Thus it was that when Nahar neighed and Orome indeed came among them, some of the Quendi hid themselves, and some fled and were lost. But those that had the courage to stay perceived swiftly that the Great Rider was noble and fair and no shape out of Darkness; for the Light of Aman was in his face, and all the noblest of the Quendi were drawn towards it.

545 But of those hapless who were ensnared by Melkor little is known of a certainty. For who of the living hath descended into the pits of Utumno, or hath explored the darkness of the counsels of Melkor? Yet this is held true by the wise of Eressea: that all those of the Quendi that came into the hands of Melkor, ere Utumno was broken, were put there in prison, and by slow arts of cruelty and wickedness were corrupted and enslaved.

Thus did Melkor breed the hideous race of the Orkor in envy and mockery of the Eldar, of whom they were afterwards the bitterest foes. For the Orkor had life and multiplied after the manner of the Children of Iluvatar; and naught that had life of its own, nor the semblance thereof, could ever Melkor make since his rebellion in the Ainulindale before the Beginning: so say the wise.

And deep in their dark hearts the Orkor loathed the Master whom they served in fear, the maker only of their misery. This maybe was the vilest deed of Melkor and the most hateful to Eru.

1086.

$46 Orome tarried a while among the Quendi, and then swiftly he rode back to Valinor and brought the tidings to the Valar. And he spoke of the shadows that troubled Kuivienen.

Then the Valar sat in council and debated long what it were best to do for the guarding of the Quendi; but Orome returned at once to Middle-earth and abode with the Elves.

1090.

$47 Manwe sat long in thought upon Taniquetil, and he resolved at the last to make war upon Melkor, though Arda should receive yet more hurts in that strife. For the first time, therefore, the Valar assailed Melkor, not he the Valar, and they came forth to war in all their might, and they defeated him utterly. This they did on behalf of the Elves, and Melkor knew it well, and forgot it not.

1090-2

$48 Melkor met the onset of the Valar in the North-west of Middle-earth, and all that region was much broken. But this first victory of the hosts of the West was swift and easy, and the servants of Melkor fled before them to Utumno. Then the Valar marched over Middle-earth, and they set a guard over Kuivienen; and thereafter the Quendi knew naught of the Great War of the Gods, save that the Earth shook and groaned beneath them, and the waters were moved; and in the North there were lights as of mighty fires. But after two years the Valar passed into the far North and began the long siege of Utumno.

1092-1100.

$49 That siege was long and grievous, and many battles were fought before its gates of which naught but the rumour is known to the Quendi. Middle-earth was sorely shaken in that time, and the Great Sea that sundered it from Aman grew wide and deep.

And the lands of the far North were all made desolate in those days, and so have ever remained; for there Utumno was delved exceeding deep, and its pits and caverns reached out far beneath the earth, and they were filled with fires and with great hosts of the servants of Melkor.

1099.

$50 It came to pass that at last the gates of Utumno were broken and its halls unroofed, and Melkor took refuge in the uttermost pit. Thence, seeing that all was lost (for that time), he sent forth on a sudden a host of Balrogs, the last of his servants that remained, and they assailed the standard of Manwe, as it were a tide of flame. But they were withered in the wind of his wrath and slain with the lightning of his sword; and Melkor stood at last alone. Then, since he was but one against many, Tulkas stood forth as champion of the Valar and wrestled with him and cast him upon his face, and bound him with the chain Angainor. Thus ended the first war of the West upon the North.

Commentary on the second section of the

Annals of Aman.

(There are no textual notes to this section of the text.) In the portion given above the Annals of Aman correspond to the opening of Chapter 3 Of the Coming of the Elves in the other or 'Silmarillion' tradition (QS $$18 - 21, V.211 - 13). Contemporary (more or less) with the writing of the Annals of Aman was the major revision of the Quenta Silmarillion, but here comparison must obviously be restricted to the pre-Lord of the Rings text, together with AV 2, annals V.Y.1000 -

1990 (V.111 - 12).

$30 In AAm there is now recounted the laying by Yavanna of a sleep on living things that had awoken in the Spring of Arda, of which there is no trace in QS (or in the later rewritings).

The making of the Balrogs is then mentioned; and while in AAm ($17) the account of Melkor's 'host', spirits 'out of the voids of Ea' and 'secret friends and spies among the Maiar', is fuller than in the other tradition at any stage, the Balrogs are still firmly stated to be demons of his own making, and moreover to have been made in Utumno at this time. On the conception of Balrogs in AAm see further under $$42 - 5, 50 in this commentary, and especially p. 79, $30.

$31 That Orome's horse was white and shod with gold is stated in QS ($24) and Q ($2), but this is the first appearance of the horse's name Nahar. Orome is here represented as a guardian presence in Middle-earth, to such an extent even that the Balrogs did not issue from Utumno on account of him ($30); cf.

AV 2 (V.111) 'Morgoth withdrew before his horn'.

$$34 - 6 On the two star-makings see p. 61, $24. There is here the remarkable statement that Menelmakar (Orion) was 'a sign of Turin Turambar, who should come into the world, and a foreshowing of the Last Battle that shall be at the end of Days.' This is a reference to the Second Prophecy of Mandos (in the Quenta, IV.165):

Then shall the last battle be gathered on the fields of Valinor.

In that day Tulkas shall strive with Melko, and on his right shall stand Fionwe and on his left Turin Turambar, son of Hurin, Conqueror of Fate, coming from the halls of Mandos; and it shall be the black sword of Turin that deals unto Melko his death and final end; and so shall the children of Hurin and all Men be avenged.

The Quenya name Menelmacar is mentioned in Appendix E (I) to The Lord of the Rings; in The Fellowship of the Ring (p. 91) appears the Sindarin form: the Swordsman of the Sky, Menel-vagor with his shining belt'.