Morgoth's Ring (26 page)

above; and with the change from present to past tense cf.

under $$175 - 8.

*

My father scribbled a few hasty notes on the typescript, but those that arose from his later rejection of the essentials of the cosmogonic myth are not given here. The following may however be recorded: $169 The words 'utterly forsake' were underlined, with a marginal note: 'They forbade return and made it impossible for Elves or Men to reach Aman - since that experiment had proved disastrous. But they would not give the Noldor aid in fighting Melkor. Manwe however sent Maia spirits in Eagle form to dwell near Thangorodrim and keep watch on all that Melkor did and assist the Noldor in extreme cases. Ulmo went to Beleriand and took a secret but active part in Elvish resistance.'

On the Eagles as Maiar see pp. 409 - 11.

$170 Beside this paragraph (and evidently arising from the words 'it was not revealed to Manwe where the beginning of Men should be') my father noted on the typescript that Manwe told the other Valar that he had been visited by the mind of Eru, and warned that Men might not be taken living from Middle-earth.

$176 Against the last sentence of this paragraph my father wrote:

'What then causes eclipses of the Moon?' See the commentary on $$179 - 80 above.

PART THREE.

THE LATER

QUENTA SILMARILLION.

THE LATER QUENTA SILMARILLION.

(I) THE FIRST PHASE.

In this book, as explained in the Foreword, my account of the development of The Silmarillion in the years following the completion of The Lord of the Rings is restricted to the 'Valinorian' part of the narrative - that is to say, to the part corresponding to the Annals of Aman.

As with the Annals of Valinor (Aman) (p. 47), my father did not begin revision of the Quenta Silmarillion as a new venture on blank sheets, but took up again the original QS manuscript and the typescript (entitled 'Eldanyare') derived from it (see V.199 - 201) and covered them with corrections and expansions. As already seen (p. 3), he noted that the revision had reached the end of the tale of Beren and Luthien on 10 May 1951. The chapters were very differently treated, some being much more developed than others and running to several further texts.

An amanuensis typescript was then made, providing a reasonably clear and uniform text from the now complicated and difficult materials. This was made by the same person as made the typescript of Ainulindale' D (p. 39) and seems to have been paginated continuously on from it. I shall call this typescript 'LQ 1' (for 'Later Quenta 1', i.e.

'the first continuous text of the later Quenta Silmarillion'). It seems virtually certain that it was made in 1951( - 2).

LQ 1 was corrected, at different times and to greatly varying extent.

A new typescript, in top copy and carbon, was professionally made later, incorporating all the alterations made to LQ 1. This text I shall call 'LQ 2'. In a letter to Rayner Unwin of 7 December 1957 (Letters no.204) my father said:

I now see quite clearly that I must, as a necessary preliminary to

'remoulding',* get copies made of all copyable material. And I shall put that in hand as soon as possible. But I think the best way of dealing with this (at this stage, in which much of the stuff is in irreplaceable sole copies) is to install a typist in my room in college, and not let any material out of my keeping, until it is multiplied.

(* This word refers to a letter from Lord Halsbury, who had said: 'I can quite see that there is a struggle ahead m re-mould it into the requisite form for publication' (cited earlier in my father's letter to Rayner Unwin).) It seems likely that it was soon after this that LQ 2 was made. It is noteworthy that it was typed on the same machine as was used for the typescript of the Annals of Aman (also extant in top copy and carbon), and both texts may well belong to the same time - say 1958. LQ 2

(like LQ 1) has naturally no textual value in itself, but it received careful emendation in Chapter 1 Of the Valar (thereafter, however, only scattered jottings).

Finally, my father turned to new narrative writing in the Matter of the First Age before the Hiding of Valinor. The first chapter, Of the Valar, much altered at this time, became separated off from the Quenta Silmarillion proper under the title Valaquenta; while the sixth chapter, Of the Silmarils and the Darkening of Valinor (numbered 4 in QS, V.227), and a part of the seventh, Of the Flight of the Noldor (numbered 5 in QS), were very greatly enlarged and gave rise to new chapters with these titles:

Of Finwe and Miriel

Of Feanor and the Unchaining of Melkor

Of the Silmarils and the Unrest of the Noldor

Of the Darkening of Valinor

Of the Rape of the Silmarils

Of the Thieves' Quarrel

This new work exemplifies the 'remoulding' to which my father looked forward in the letter to Rayner Unwin cited above. It represents (together with much other writing of a predominantly speculative nature) a second phase in his later work on The Silmarillion. The first phase included the new version of the Lay of Leithian, the later Ainulindale, the Annals of Aman and the Grey Annals, the later Tale of Tuor, and the first wave of revision of the Quenta Silmarillion, much of this work left unfinished. The years 1953 - 5 saw the preparation and publication of The Lord of the Rings; and there seems reason to think that it was a good while yet before he turned again to The Silmarillion, or at least to its earlier chapters.

In these substantially rewritten chapters of the 'second phase' he was moving strongly into a new conception of the work, a new and much fuller mode of narrative - envisaging, as it appears, a thorough-going 're-expansion' from the still fairly condensed form (despite a good deal of enlargement in the 1951 revision) that went back through QS and Q to the 'Sketch of the Mythology' of 1926, which had made a brief summary from the amplitude of The Book of Lost Tales (on this evolution see IV.76).

It has been difficult to find a satisfactory method of presentation for the later evolution of The Silmarillion. In the first place, the chapters must obviously be treated separately, since the extent of the later development, and the textual history, varies so widely. Equally clearly, a complete documentation of every alteration from start to finish (that is detailing the precise sequence of change through successive texts) is out of the question. After much experimentation the plan I have followed is based on this consideration: seeing that a great deal of the development can be ascribed to a relatively short time (the '1951

revision'), it seems best to take LQ 1, marking the end of that stage, as the 'common text'. But while I print LQ 1 in full as it was typed (as far as Chapter 5: Chapters 6 - 8 are differently treated), I also include in the text the corrections and expansions made to it subsequently, indicated as such. This gives at once a view of the state of the work in both LQ 1, at the end of the 'first phase', and in LQ 2, at the beginning of the 'second phase' some seven years later. Beyond this, the treatment of each chapter varies according to the peculiarities of its history. The late expanded versions of certain chapters belonging to the 'second phase' are treated separately (pp. 199 ff.).

Particular difficulties are encountered in the later work on The Silmarillion, in that so much of the typescript material was not made by my father, and he seems often to have corrected these texts without going back to the earlier ones from which they were taken; while when there were both top copy and carbon copy he often kept them in different places (for fear of loss), and one copy is often emended differently from the other, or one is not emended when the other is.

Moreover he was liable to emend a text after later texts had been derived from it.

1 OF THE VALAR.

In my edition of 'QS' in Volume V of this history the text of the first chapters (1, 2, 3(a), 3(b), 3(c)) is taken from the typescript which my father made from the QS manuscript in (as I have argued, V.200) December 1937 - January 1938, and which incorporated certain revisions made to the opening chapters on the manuscript. This text I will refer to as 'the QS typescript'. Both manuscript and typescript were used for the '1951 revision', but it was the latter that was the copy from which LQ 1 was made, there being some fourteen years between them. As already explained, the changes made subsequently to LQ 1

are shown as such in the text.

There is now no title-page to LQ 1 (see p. 200), which begins with AElfwine's note (with the Old English verses) and the Translator's note in an almost exact copy of the old QS typescript (V.203 - 4), the only difference being Pengoloth for Pengolod (at the first occurrence changed to Pengolodh, representing voiced 'th'). The page, like that of the QS typescript, is headed Eldanyare (History of the Elves).

The paragraph numbers are those of QS (V.204 - 7), with '10a' and

'10b' used to indicate the passages additional to the text of QS, and belonging to different times, at the end of the chapter.

Here begins the Silmarillion or History of the Silmarils.

1. Of the Valar.

$1 In the beginning Eru, [added: the One,] who in Elvish tongue is named Iluvatar, made the Ainur of his thought; and they made a great music before him. Of this Music the World was made; for Iluvatar made visible the song of the Ainur, and they beheld it as a light in the darkness. And many of the mightiest among them became enamoured of its beauty and of its history which they saw beginning and unfolding as in a Vision. Therefore Iluvatar gave to their vision Being, and set it amid the Void, and the Secret Fire was sent to burn at the heart of the World.

Then those of the Ainur who would entered into the World at the beginning of Time, and behold! it was their task to achieve it and by their labour to fulfill the Vision which they had seen.

Long they laboured in the regions of Ea, which are vast beyond the thought of Elves and Men, until in the time appointed was made Arda, the Kingdom of Earth. Then they put on the raiment of Earth and descended into it and dwelt therein; and they are therein.

$2 These spirits the Elves name the Valar, which is the Powers, and Men have often called them gods. Many lesser spirits of their own kind they brought in their train, both great and small; and some of these Men have confused with the Elves, but wrongfully [read wrongly], for they were made before the World, whereas Elves and Men awoke first on Earth, after the coming of the Valar. Yet in the making of Elves and of Men, and in the giving to each of their especial gifts, none of the Valar had any part. Iluvatar alone was their author; wherefore they are called the Children of Iluvatar [> Eru].

$3 The chieftains of the Valar were nine. These were the names of the Nine Gods [> gods] in the Elvish tongue as it was spoken in Valinor; though they have other or altered names in the speech of the Gnomes [> Sindar], and their names among Men are manifold: Manwe and Melkor, Ulmo, Aule, Mandos, Lorien [> Lorion], Tulkas, Osse, and Orome.

$4 Manwe and Melkor were brethren in the thought of Iluvatar / and mightiest of those Ainur who came into the World. But Manwe is the lord of the gods, and prince of the airs and winds, and ruler of the sky. With him dwells as wife Varda the maker of the stars [> The mightiest of those Ainur who came into the World was Melkor; but Manwe was dearest to the heart of Iluvatar and understood most clearly his purposes.

He was appointed to be, in the fullness of time, the first of all kings: lord of the realm of Arda and ruler of all that dwell therein. And there his delight is in the winds of the world and in all the regions of the air. With him in Arda dwells as spouse Varda kindler of the stars], immortal lady of the heights, whose name is holy. Fionwe and Ilmare are their son and daughter

[this sentence struck out]. Next in might and closest in friendship to Manwe is Ulmo, lord of waters. He dwells alone in the Outer Seas, but has the government of all waters, seas, and rivers, fountains and springs, throughout the earth. Subject to him is Osse, the master of the seas about the lands of Men; and his wife is Uinen the lady of the sea. Her hair lies spread through all the waters under skies.

$5 Aule has might but little less [> little less] than Ulmo. He is a smith and a master of crafts; and his spouse is Yavanna, the giver of fruits and lover of all things that grow. In majesty she i."

next to Varda, her sister, among the queens of the Valar. She is fair and tall, and often the Elves name her Palurien, the Lady of the Wide Earth.

$6 The Fanturi [> Feanturi] were brethren, and are named Mandos and Lorien [> Lorion]. Yet these are not their right names, and are the names rather of the places of their abiding.

For their right names are seldom spoken save in secret: which are Namo and Irmo. Quoth Rumil. Nurufantur the elder was also called, [> which are Namo and Irmo. Namo, the elder, is]