Morgoth's Ring (27 page)

the master of the houses of the dead, and the gatherer of the spirits of the slain. He forgets nothing, and knows all that shall be, save only what Iluvatar has hidden; but he speaks only at the command of Manwe. He is the doomsman of the Valar. Vaire the weaver is his wife, who weaves all things that have been in time in her storied webs, and the halls of Mandos that ever widen as the ages pass are clothed therewith. Olofantur the younger of these brethren was also named, [> Irmo, the younger of these brethren, is] the master of visions and of dreams. His gardens in the land of the gods are the fairest of all places in the world, and filled with many spirits. Este the pale is his wife, who walks not by day, but sleeps on an island in the dark lake of Lorien [> Lorion]. Thence her fountains bring refreshment to the folk of Valinor; yet she comes not to the councils of the Valar, and is not reckoned among their queens.

$7 Strongest of limb, and greatest in deeds of prowess, is Tulkas, who is surnamed Poldorea the Valiant. He is unclothed in his disport, which is much in wrestling; and he rides no steed, for he can outrun all things that go on feet, and he is tireless. His hair and beard are golden, and his flesh ruddy; his weapons are his hands. He recks little of either past or future, and is of small avail as a counsellor, but a hardy friend. He has great love for Fionwe, son [> Eonwe, herald] of Manwe. His wife is Nessa, sister of Orome; she is lissom of limb and fleet of foot, and dances in Valinor upon lawns of never-fading green.

$8 Orome is a mighty lord, and little less than Tulkas in strength, or in wrath, if he be aroused. He loved the lands of Earth, while they were still dark, and he left them unwillingly and came last to Valinor; and he comes even yet at times east over the mountains. Of old he was often seen upon the hills and plains. He is a hunter, and he loves all trees; for which reason he is called Aldaron, and by the Gnomes [> Sindar] Tauros

[> Tauron], the lord of forests. He delights in horses and in hounds, and his horns are loud in the friths and woods that Yavanna planted in Valinor; but he blows them not upon the Middle-earth since the fading of the Elves, whom he loved.

Vana is his wife, the ever-young, the queen of flowers, who has the beauty both of heaven and of earth upon her face and in all her works; she is the younger sister of Varda and Palurien.

$9 But mightier than she is Nienna, Manwe's sister and Melkor's. She dwells alone. Pity is in her heart, and mourning and weeping come to her; shadow is her realm and her throne hidden. For her halls are west of West, nigh to the borders of the World and Darkness [read the Darkness]; and she comes seldom to Valmar, the city of the gods, where all is glad. She goes rather to the halls of Mandos, which are nearer and yet more northward; and all those who go to Mandos cry to her.

For she is a healer of hurts, and turns pain to medicine and sorrow to wisdom. The windows of her house look outward from the walls of the World.

$10 Last do all name Melkor. But the Gnomes [> Noldor], who suffered most from his evil deeds, will not speak his name, and they call him Morgoth, the black god [> the Black Foe], and Bauglir, the Constrainer. Great might was given to him by Iluvatar, and he was coeval with Manwe, and part he had of all the powers of the other Valar; but he turned them to evil uses.

He coveted the world and all that was in it, and desired the lordship of Manwe and the realms of all the gods; and pride and jealousy and lust grew ever in his heart, till he became unlike his brethren. Wrath consumed him, and he begot violence and destruction and excess. In ice and fire was his delight. But darkness he used most in all his evil works, and turned it to fear and a name of dread among Elves and Men.

$10a Thus it may be seen that there are nine Valar, and Seven queens of the Valar of no less might; for whereas Melkor and Ulmo dwell alone, so also doth Nienna, while Este is not numbered among the Rulers. But the Seven Great Ones of the Realm of Arda are Manwe and Melkor, Varda, Ulmo, Yavanna, Aule, and Nienna; for though Manwe is their chief [> king], in majesty they are peers, surpassing beyond compare all others whether of the Valar and their kin, or of any other order that Iluvatar has conceived [> caused to be].

$10b [All the following was added to the typescript in ink: With the Valar were other spirits whose being also began before the world: these are the maiar, of the same order as the Great but of less might and majesty. Among them Eonwe the herald of Manwe, and Ilmare handmaid of Varda were the chief. Many others there are who have no names among Elves or Men, for they appear seldom in forms visible. But great and fair was Melian of the people of Yavanna, who [struck out: on her behalf] tended once the gardens of Este, ere she came to Middle-earth. And wise was Olorin, counsellor of Irmo: secret enemy of the secret evils of Melkor, for his bright visions drove away the imaginations of darkness.

Of Melian much is later told; but of Olorin this tale does not speak. In later days he dearly loved the Children of Eru, and took pity on their sorrows. Those who hearkened to him arose from despair; and in their hearts the desire to heal and to renew awoke, and thoughts of fair things that had not yet been but might yet be made for the enrichment of Arda. Nothing he made himself and nothing he possessed, but kindled the hearts of others, and in their delight he was glad.

But not all of the maiar were faithful to the Valar; for some were from the beginning drawn to the power of Melkor, and others he corrupted later to his service. Sauron was the name by which the chief of these was afterwards called, but he was not alone.]

*

All the changes shown in the text of LQ 1 given above were taken up into the second complete and continuous typescript LQ 2, made some seven years later (pp. 141 - 2), which introduced a few errors. It cannot be said when the alterations were made to LQ 1, though most of them look as if they were made at the same time.

The typescript LQ 2 was much more fully and carefully emended in this chapter than in any subsequent one, though in many cases only on one of the two copies. I give here a list of these alterations:*

$1 After 'the Secret Fire was sent to burn at the heart of the World'

was added: 'and it was called Ea', with 'Let it be! ' in a footnote (struck out on the top copy).

$2 'and some of these Men have confused with the Elves, but wrongfully' > 'these are the Maiar, whom Men have often confounded with the Elves, but wrongly' ('wrongfully' was an error on the part of the typist of LQ 1).

$3 On the form Lorien with short vowel see p. 56 note 2. The typist did not understand my father's corrections of the name on LQ 1, which were unclear, and typed at the three occurrences ($$3, 6) Lorien, Lorin, Lorion. At the first two my father corrected the name to Lorinen, but struck this out, probably at once; his final form on LQ 2 was Lorien (so marked).

$4 'in all the regions of the air.' > '... air; therefore he is surnamed Sulimo.'

The typist of LQ 2 omitted the word 'kindler' after 'Varda', so producing 'Varda of the stars'; my father changed 'stars' to

'Stars', showing that he had not observed the error.

$5 In 'she [Yavanna] is next to Varda, her sister,' the words 'her sister' were struck out (cf. under $8 below).

$6 The opening of the paragraph was again rewritten, to read: 'The Feanturi were brethren, and are called most often Mandos and Lorien. Yet these are rightly the names of the places of their abiding; for their true names are Namo and Irmo. Namo, the elder, dwells in Mandos, and is the keeper of the Houses of the Dead'

'(Vaire the weaver is his) wife' ) 'spouse'

'His gardens in the land of the gods are the fairest' > 'In Lorien are his gardens in the land of the gods, and they are the fairest'

'(Este the pale is his) wife' > 'spouse' (top copy only)

'an island in the dark lake of Lorion' ) 'an island in the tree-shadowed lake of Lorellin'

(* No doubt many of the corrections to LQ 1 as a whole belong to the

'second phase' of revision (p. 142), while LQ 2 and the corrections made to it are constituent elements in that phase; but it is obviously far more convenient and clear to set them all out together in relation to the primary text LQ 1.) $7 'Poldorea' > 'Astaldo'

'His wife is Nessa' > 'His spouse is Nessa'

$8 The earlier part of this paragraph was substantially altered, but almost all of the new text appears on the carbon copy only: He loved the lands of Middle-earth, and he left them unwillingly and came last to Valinor; and oft of old he passed back east over the mountains, and returned with his host to the hills and plains. He is a hunter of monsters and fell beasts, and delights in horses and hounds, and all trees he loves; and Tauron the Sindar called him, the lord of the forests. The Valaroma was the name of his great horn, the sound of which was like the upgoing of the Sun in scarlet, and the sheer lightning cleaving the clouds. Above all the horns of his host it was heard in the woods that Yavanna brought forth in Valinor; for there he would train his folk and his beasts for the pursuit of the evil creatures of Melkor. But the Valaroma is blown no more upon the Middle-earth since the change of the world and the fading of the Elves, whom he loved.

'she [Vana] is the younger sister of Varda and Palurien' > 'she is the younger sister of Yavanna' (top copy only) $9 'Nienna, Manwe's sister and Melkor's' o 'sister of Namo' (top copy only)

$10 'Bauglir' > 'Baugron' (top copy only)

the lordship of Manwe > the kingship of Manwe (top copy only)

$10b 'With the Valar were other spirits' > 'With the Valar, as has been said, were other spirits' (top copy only)

'these are the maiar' o 'the Maiar' (top copy only); maiar > Maiar again at end.

I have shown all these changes in unnecessary detail since they serve to indicate the nature of much of the material constituting 'the later Silmarillion'.

Commentary on Chapter 1, 'Of the Valar'.

$1 The new opening of The Silmarillion came in with the first phase of the revision, and it is obvious that it followed and was dependent on the new version of the Ainulindale', with its new conception of the Creation of the World:

Iluvatar made visible the song of the Ainur... [The Ainur saw the history of the World] unfolding as in a Vision. Therefore Iluvatar gave to their vision Being ... it was their task to achieve it and by their labour to fulfill the Vision which they had seen.

The first form of the new opening, written on the QS manuscript, had 'Long they laboured in the regions of Aman', using that name in the sense that it bore in the later Ainulindale' texts ('the Halls of Aman', the World); on the QS typescript (see p. 143) Aman was emended to Ea' (which therefore appears in LQ 1).

$2 The name Maiar, introduced in the addition made at the end of LQ 1 ($10b) and appearing in this paragraph in LQ 2, is first found in the preliminary drafting for the Annals of Aman (Mairi

> Maiar, p. 49 and note 4). See further under $10b below.

$3 The passing change of Lorien to Lorion is found also in AAm*

(the second, abandoned version of the opening of AAm), p.

65, $1.

$4 On the change to LQ 1 whereby Melkor becomes 'the mightiest of those Ainur who came into the World' (and not possessing only powers equal to those of Manwe) see p. 65, $2.

On the loss of the original sentence 'Fionwe and Ilmare are their son and daughter', heavily inked out on LQ 1, see under $10b below. So also in the final text D of the Ainulindale the reference to Fionwe and Ilmare as the son and daughter of Manwe and Varda was strongly blacked out (p. 34, $36).

On the striking out on LQ 2 of the statement that Yavanna was the sister of Varda see under $8 below.

$6 In the earliest phase of the revision a marginal note was added against the names Mandos and Lorien, which as entered on the QS typescript read:

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 Nur and Lis. Quoth Rumil.

(In the Lost Tales Mandos is the name of the God, and also the name of his halls; it is also said (1.76) that Vefantur (Mandos) called his halls by his own name, Ve.) Nur and Lis were then corrected to Namo and Irmo. The typist of LQ 1 took this up into the body of the text, which was obviously not my father's intention. This typist did the same elsewhere, and my father then restored the passage to its original status as a marginal note; but in this case he left it to stand, getting rid of the words 'Quoth Rumil' (and of the old name Nurufantur; similarly with Olofantur subsequently).

At the foot of the page carrying this passage in the carbon copy of LQ 2 he pencilled the following (referring to the names Namo and Irmo), Judgement (of what is) Desire (of what might be or should be)'.