Morgoth's Ring (19 page)

$111 There came the Vanyar, and there came the Noldor, and the Maiar were gathered together, and the Valar were arrayed in their beauty and majesty; and they sang before Manwe in his lofty halls, or played upon the green slopes of Taniquetil that looked west to the Trees. In that day the streets of Valmar were empty and the stairs of Tuna were silent; only the Teleri beyond the mountains still sang upon the shores of the Sea, for they recked little of seasons or times, and gave no thought to the cares of the Rulers of Arda or to the shadow that had fallen upon Valinor, for it had not touched them, as yet.

$112 One thing only marred the design of Manwe. Feanor indeed came, for him alone Manwe had commanded to come; but Finwe came not nor any others of the Noldor of Formenos.

For said Finwe, While the ban lasts upon Feanor my son, that he may not go to Tuna, I hold myself unkinged, and will not meet my people, nor those that rule in my stead.' And Feanor came not in raiment of festival, and he wore no ornament, neither silver nor gold nor any gem; and he denied the sight of the Silmarils to Eldar and Valar, and left them locked in: darkness in their chamber of iron. Nonetheless, he met Fingolfin before the throne of Manwe, and was reconciled in words, and Fingolfin set at nought the unsheathing of the sword.

$113 It is said that even as Feanor and Fingolfin stood before Manwe, and it was the Mingling of the Lights and both, Trees were shining and the silent city of Valmar was filled with radiance as of silver and gold, in that hour Melkor and Ungoliante came over the plain and stood before the Green Mound. Then Melkor sprang up, and with his black spear he smote each Tree to its core, a little above the roots, and their sap poured forth, as it were their blood, and was spilled upon the ground. But Ungoliante sucked it up, and going then from Tree to Tree she plied her foul lips to their wounds, till they were drained; and the poison that was in her passed into their tissues and withered them; and they died. And still Ungoliante thirsted, and going to the Vats of Varda she drank them dry; but Ungoliante belched forth black vapours as she drank, and swelled to a shape so vast and hideous that even Melkor was adread.

$114 Then Darkness fell upon Valinor. Of the deeds of that day much is said in the Aldudenie (the Lament for the Trees) that Elemire of the Vanyar made and is known to all the Eldar.

Yet no song or tale could hold all the grief and terror that then befell. The Light failed; and that was woe enough, but the Darkness that followed was more than loss of light. In that hour was made the Dark which seems not lack but a thing with being of its own: for it was indeed made by malice out of Light, and it had the power to pierce the eye, and to enter heart and mind, and strangle the very will.

$115 Varda looked down from the Holy Mountain, and beheld the Shadow soaring up in sudden towers of gloom; Valmar had foundered in a deep sea of night. Soon Taniquetil stood alone, as a last island of light in a world that was drowned. All song ceased. There was silence in Valinor, and no sound could be heard, save only from afar there came on the wind through the pass of the mountains the wailing of the Teleri like the cold cry of gulls. For it blew chill from the East in that hour, and the vast shadows of the Sea were rolled against the walls of the shore.

$116 But Manwe from his high seat looked out, and his eyes alone pierced through the gloom, and he saw afar off how a Darkness beyond dark moved north over the land, and he knew that Melkor was there. Then the pursuit was begun, and the earth shook beneath the horses of the host of Orome, and the fire that was stricken from the hooves of Nahar was the first light that returned to Valinor. But so soon as any came up with the Cloud of Ungoliante, the riders of the Valar were blinded and dismayed, and they were scattered, and went they knew not whither; and the sound of the Valaroma faltered and failed.

And Tulkas was as a man caught in a black net at night, and he stood powerless and beat the air in vain. And when the Darkness had passed, it was too late: Melkor had gone whither he would, and his vengeance was full-wrought.

NOTES.

1. This annal is an early replacement; the original annal, concerning the marriage of Finrod and Earwen Olwe's daughter, reappears in very similar form in the manuscript as originally written under the year 1280. Later, in ball-point pen, my father changed the date of this annal to 1169, and added new annals for 1170,

'Miriel falls asleep and passes to Mandar' (on Mandar see p. 205), and 1172 'Doom of Manwe concerning the espousals of the Eldar.' On these matters see pp. 205 ff., and see note 4 below.

The new annals appear in the typescript as typed.

2. The name Noldor is here written with a tilde, Noldor (representing the back nasal, the ng of king; see IV.174). This becomes the normal form in all my father's later writings, though often casually omitted (none of his typewriters possessed this sign); it is not represented in the spelling of the name Noldor in this book.

3. The latter part of this passage, concerning gems, is very largely an addition. As first written, all that was said on the subject was: It is said that about this time the craftsmen of the House of Finwe (of whom Feanor his eldest son was the most skilful) first devised gems; and all Valinor was enriched by their labour.

See note 5.

4. A new annal was added here at the same time as those given in note 1: '1185 Finwe weds Indis of the Vanyar.'

5. This sentence ('Greatly he loved gems ...') is an addition going with the change and expansion referred to in note 3.

6. Naugrim was written in pencil above the original reading Nauglath (which however was not struck out), and the word 'also' (in

'whom we also name') added at the same time.

7. This Beleriandic interpolation by Pengolod, bracketed in the original, was an addition to the manuscript; cf. note 8. Against it my father later pencilled: 'Transfer to A[nnals of] B[eleriand]'.

8. This bracketed interpolation by Pengolod was an addition to the manuscript; and like that referred to in note 7 it was marked later for transfer to the Annals of Beleriand. The name of the leader of the Nandor was first written Enadar, changed immediately to Denethor (the name in AV 2, QS, and the Lhammas).

Later my father added here in pencil a new annal, for 1362:

'Here was born Isfin Fingolfin's daughter, the White Lady of the Noldor' (see note 9).

9. A hasty addition in ink, subsequently struck out, gives an annal for 1469: 'Here was born the first daughter of Fingolfin, the White Lady of the Noldor' (see note 8). It is not said elsewhere that Fingolfin had any daughter but Isfin.

10. The manuscript has 'three' o 'ten' > 'twenty' (Valian Years).

11. bewrayed: 'revealed', 'betrayed'.

12. gangrel ('vagabond') replaced beggarman (see p. 191).

13. My father first wrote Kalakilya, the old form, but changed it at once to Kalakirya; -n was added later (see p. 89, $67).

Commentary on the fourth section of the

Annals of Aman.

This section of the Annals corresponds in content to QS Chapter 4 Of the Silmarils and the Darkening of Valinor (V.227 - 31), and to AV 2

annals 2500 to the beginning of 2990 (V.113 - 14). The account in AAm bears no comparison with the cursory AV 2, and represents a wholly different impulse; indeed, in this section we see the annal form disappearing as a fully-fledged narrative emerges. As was often the case in my father's work, the story took over and expanded whatever restrictions of form he had set for it. The new narrative is double the length of that in QS, to which it is closely related in structure. In expression it is almost entirely new; and yet comparison between them will show that AAm tends rather to a greater definition of the narrative than to significant change in the structure or marked new additions - though both are present. The following comments are in no way intended as an analysis of all the differences of emphasis, suggestion, and detail between AAm and QS.

$78 Earlier in AAm, under the year 1115, appear rejected insertions (see p. 87, notes 3 and 5) in which are recorded the birth of Feanor to Finwe's wife Indis in Middle-earth in the course of the Great Journey, and her subsequent death in a fall in the Misty Mountains. Written in ball-point pen these insertions would appear to be relatively late; here on the other hand, in what seems to be an early addition (written carefully in ink, and see note 1 above), Feanor was born in Tirion, and his mother was Miriel, called Byrde Miriel (Old English byrde, 'broideress'; see pp. 185, 192). In late insertions (notes 1 and 4 above) it is recorded that in 1170 Miriel 'fell asleep' and passed to Mandos, and in 1185 Finwe married Indis of the Vanyar.

$79 At an earlier point in QS ($40) it is said that the Noldor

'contrived the fashioning of gems'; similarly in AV 2 (V.113) they 'invented gems', and again in Ainulindale' B (V.162). This idea is found in all the earlier texts, going back to the elaborate account in the old tale of The Coming of the Elves (see I.58, 127). In the later period it survived in the final version D of the Ainulindale' ($35, see pp. 19 and 34), and was still present at first in AAm (see note 3 above). The rewriting of this passage rejects the idea of 'invention': the gems of the Noldor were mined in Aman.

$80 The association of the Noldor with alphabetic script goes back to the Lost Tales, where this art is ascribed primarily to Aule (1.58); 'in those days Aule aided by the Gnomes contrived alphabets and scripts' (I.141). In Ainulindale' B {V.162) the Noldor 'added much to [Aule's] teaching and delighted much in tongues and alphabets', and this survived in the later versions.

Now Rumil and (in $83) Feanor emerge as the great inventors.

Cf. The Lord of the Rings, Appendix E (II):

The Tengwar ... had been developed by the Noldor, the kindred of the Eldar most skilled in such matters, long before their exile. The oldest Eldarin letters, the Tengwar of Rumil, were not used in Middle-earth. The later letters, the Tengwar of Feanor, were largely a new invention, though they owed something to the letters of Rumil.

If Rumil were the author of the Annals of Aman, as is said in the preamble (p. 48), he is here describing himself in the words

'most renowned of the masters of the lore of speech'.

$82 Finrod: earlier name of Finarfin (Finarphin).

$84 The form Nauglath (see note 6, p. 102) is, curiously, a reversion to the original Gnomish name of the Dwarves in the Lost Tales (see I.261), although Naugrim occurs as an original form in QS

at a later point in the narrative ($122). [The entry Naugrim was inadvertently dropped from the index to Vol. V. The references are 273, 277, 405.] - On the name Sindar see p. 91, $74.

On earlier references to the Dwarves in Beleriand see IV.336; as I noted there, the statement in the second version of the earliest Annals of Beleriand (IV.332) that the Dwarves had 'of old' a road into Beleriand is the first sign of the later idea that the Dwarves had been active in Beleriand long before the Return of the Noldor. But the present passage is the first reference to the Dwarves' aiding of Thingol in the delving and building of Menegroth. - The legend of Aule s making of the Dwarves is referred to in the texts of the earlier period: AB 2 (V.129), the Lhammas (V.178 and commentary), and QS ($123 and commentary).

$85 Here appears the important development whereby the princes of the Third House of the Noldor became close kin to Thingol of Doriath (Elwe Singollo, brother of Olwe of Alqualonde, $ 58); and Galadriel enters from The Lord of the Rings. Cf. Appendix F (I, Of the Elves): 'The Lady Galadriel of the royal house of Finrod, father of Felagund, Lord of Nargothrond' (a statement that was changed in the Second Edition of The Lord of the, Rings, when Finrod had become Finarphin and Inglor had become Finrod (Felagund)).

$86 In AV 2 (V.112, also in an interpolation by Pengolod) and in QS

($115) the Elves under Denethor did not come into Beleriand

'from the South', but came over the Blue Mountains; the meaning here is probably that they crossed the mountains in a region to the south of Ossiriand. There were nor seven rivers flowing down from the mountains, but six: the seventh river of Ossiriand was the great river Gelion, into which the six flowed.

$88 because of her kinship: in AAm $3 (as in AV 2 and in QS $9) Nienna was 'Manwe's sister and Melko(r)'s'. In AAm* (p. 65) she is named only Manwe's sister.

$92 In AV 2 two ages passed (V.Y.2500 - 2700) between the making of the Silmarils and the release of Melkor; similarly in QS

($$46 - 7). In AAm the relation of the two is reversed, with the release of Melkor placed under Year of the Trees 1400 and the final achievement of the Silmarils under 1450.

$93 With what is said here concerning the fate of Feanor cf. QS $88:

'so fiery was his spirit that his body fell to ash as his spirit sped; and it has never again appeared upon earth nor left the realm of Mandos.'

$97 On the Elves' ignorance of weapons see p. 106, $97.

$98 No mention is made in QS ($52) of the dissensions reaching the point of drawn swords. In AAm $112 'Fingolfin set at nought the unsheathing of the sword'; and in the margin of the typescript text at this point my father wrote: 'refers to what?' A later expansion of the chapter in QS, close in time to the writing of AAm, tells that Feanor menaced Fingolfin with drawn sword (p. 189, $52); and in view of $112 it seems probable that this was inadvertently omitted here.

$99 The term of Feanor's banishment (see note 10 above) is not stated in the older texts. - The name Formenos now enters, in an addition to the text.