Morgoth's Ring (68 page)

One loses, of course, the dramatic impact of such things as the first 'incarnates' waking in a starlit world - or the coming of the High Elves to Middle-earth and unfurling their banners at the first rising of the Moon.

I have given this first, because - though jotted down at great speed-it is an express statement of my father's views at this time, in three, major respects. The astronomical myths of the Elder Days cannot be regarded as a record of the traditional beliefs of the Eldar in any pure form, because the High-elves of Aman cannot have been thus ignorant; and the cosmological elements in The Silmarillion are essentially a record of mythological ideas, complex in origin, prevailing among Men.(1) In this note, however, my father appears to have accepted that these ideas do not in themselves necessarily lead to great upheaval in the essential 'world-structure' of The Silmarillion, but on the contrary provide a basis for its retention ('At that point ... I was inclined to adhere to the Flat Earth'). The conclusion of this brief statement appears then to be a further and unconnected step: that the cosmological myth of The Silmarillion was a 'creative error' on the part of its maker, since it could have no imaginative truth for people who know very well that such an 'astronomy' is delusory.

As he stated it, this may seem to be an argument of the most doubtful nature, raising indeed the question, why is the myth of the Two Trees (which so far as record goes he never showed any intention to abandon) more acceptable than that of the creation of the Sun and the Moon from the last fruit and flower of the Trees as they died? Or indeed, if this is true, how can it be acceptable that the Evening Star is the Silmaril cut by Beren from Morgoth's crown?

It is at any rate clear, for he stated it unambiguously enough, that he had come to believe that the art of the 'Sub-creator' cannot, or should not attempt to, extend to the 'mythical' revelation of a conception of the shape of the Earth and the origin of the lights of heaven that runs counter to the known physical truths of his own days: 'You cannot do this any more'. And this opinion is rendered more complex and difficult of discussion by the rise in importance of the Eldarin

'loremasters' of Aman, whose intellectual attainments and knowledge must preclude any idea that a 'false' astronomy could have prevailed among them. It seems to me that he was devising - from within it - a fearful weapon against his own creation.

In this brief text he wrote scornfully of 'the astronomically absurd business of the making of the Sun and Moon'. I think it possible that it was the actual nature of this myth that led him finally to abandon it. It is in conception beautiful, and not absurd; but it is exceedingly

'primitive'. Of the original 'Tale of the Sun and Moon' in The Book of Lost Tales I wrote (1.201):

As a result of this fullness and intensity of description, the origin of the Sun and Moon in the last fruit and last flower of the Trees has less of mystery than in the succinct and beautiful language of The Silmarillion; but also much is said here to emphasize the great size of the 'Fruit of Noon', and the increase in the heat and brilliance of the Sunship after its launching, so that the reflection rises less readily that if the Sun that brilliantly illumines the whole Earth was but one fruit of Laurelin then Valinor must have been painfully bright and hot in the days of the Trees. In the early story the last outpourings of life from the dying Trees are utterly strange and 'enormous', those of Laurelin portentous, even ominous; the Sun is astoundingly bright and hot even to the Valar, who are awestruck and disquieted by what has been done (the Gods knew 'that they had done a greater thing than they at first knew'); and the anger and distress of certain of the Valar at the burning light of the Sun enforces the feeling that in the last fruit of Laurelin a terrible and unforeseen power has been released.

As the Quenta Silmarillion evolved and changed the myth had been diminished in the scale and energy of its presentation; indeed in the final form of the chapter, and in the Annals of Aman, the description of the actual origin of the Sun and Moon is reduced to a few lines.

Yet even as hope failed and her song faltered, behold! Telperion bore at last upon a leafless bough one great flower of silver, and Laurelin a single fruit of gold.

These Yavanna took, and then the Trees died, and their lifeless stems stand yet in Valinor, a memorial of vanished joy. But the flower and fruit Yavanna gave to Aule, and Manwe hallowed them; and Aule and his folk made vessels to hold them and preserve their radiance, as is said in the Narsilion, the Song of the Sun and Moon.

These vessels the gods gave to Varda, that they might become lamps of heaven, outshining the ancient stars...

The grave and tranquil words cannot entirely suppress a sense that there emerges here an outcropping, as it were, uneroded, from an older level, more fantastic, more bizarre. As indeed it does: such was the nature of the work, evolved over so many years. But it did not stand in the work as an isolated myth, a now gratuitous element that could be excised; for bound up with it was the myth of the Two Trees ('the Elder Sun and Moon'), giving light through long ages to the land of Valinor, while Middle-earth lay in darkness, illumined only by the stars in the firmament of Arda. In that darkness the Elves awoke, the People of the Stars; and after the death of the Trees the ancient Light was preserved only in the Silmarils. In 1951 my father had written (Letters no.131, p. 148):

There was the Light of Valinor made visible in the Two Trees of Silver and Gold. These were slain by the Enemy out of malice, and Valinor was darkened, though from them, ere they died utterly, were derived the lights of Sun and Moon. (A marked difference here between these legends and most others is that the Sun is not a divine symbol, but a second-best thing, and the 'light of the Sun' (the world under the sun) become terms for a fallen world, and a dislocated imperfect vision.)

But: 'You cannot do this any more.' In the following pages will be seen how, driven by this conviction, he attempted to undo what he had done, but to retain what he might. It is remarkable that he never at this time seems to have felt that what he said in this present note provided a resolution of the problem that he believed to exist: What we have in the Silmarillion etc. are traditions... handed on by Men in Numenor and later in Middle-earth (Arnor and Gondor); but already far back - from the first association of the Dunedain and Elf-friends with the Eldar in Beleriand - blended and confused with their own Mannish myths and cosmic ideas.

It is tempting to suppose that when my father wrote that 'in reconsideration of the early cosmogonic parts' he was 'inclined to adhere to the Flat Earth and the astronomically absurd business of the making of the Sun and Moon', he was referring to Ainulindale' C and the Annals of Aman. If this were so, it might account for the developments in Ainulindale' C discussed on pp. 27 - 9, where Arda becomes a small world within the vastness of Ea - but retains the 'Flat Earth' characteristics of Ilu from the Ambarkanta and before.

In connection with my father's statement that the legends of The Silmarillion were traditions handed on by Men in Numenor and later in the Numenorean kingdoms in Middle-earth, this is a convenient place to give an entirely isolated note carefully typed (but not on his later typewriter) on a small slip and headed 'Memorandum'.

The three Great Tales must be Numenorean, and derived from matter preserved in Gondor. They were part of the Atanatarion (or the Legendarium of the Fathers of Men).

?Sindarin Nern in Edenedair (or In Adanath).

They are (1) Narn Beren ion Barahir also called Narn e-Dinuviel (Tale of the Nightingale)

(2) Narn e-mbar Hador containing (a) Narn i Chin Hurin (or Narn e-'Rach Morgoth Tale of the Curse of Morgoth); and (b) Narn en El (or Narn e-Dant Gondolin ar Orthad en El)

Should not these be given as Appendices to the Silmarillion?

In the question with which this ends my father was presumably distinguishing between long and short forms of the tales. - Two further notes on this slip, typed at the same time as the above, refer to

'the Tale of Turin' and suggest that he was working on it at that time.(2) I do not know of any precise evidence to date the great development of the 'Turin Saga', but it certainly belongs to an earlier period than the writings given in the latter part of this book.

The idea that the legends of the Elder Days derived from Numenorean tradition appears also in the abandoned typescript (AAm') of the Annals of Aman that my father made himself (p. 64).(3) In this text the preamble states:

Here begin the 'Annals of Aman'. Rumil made them in the Elder Days, and they were held in memory by the Exiles. Those parts which we learned and remembered were thus set down in Numenor before the Shadow fell upon it.

NOTES.

1. Very similar remarks are made in Note 2 to the Commentary on the Athrabeth (p. 337):

Physically Arda was what we should call the Solar System.

Presumably the Eldar could have had as much and as accurate information concerning this, its structure, origin, and its relation to the rest of Ea as they could comprehend.

A little further on in this same Note it is said: The traditions here referred to have come down from the Eldar of the First Age, through Elves who never were directly acquainted with the Valar, and through Men who received 'lore'

from the Elves, but who had myths and cosmogonic legends, and astronomical guesses, of their own. There is, however, nothing in them that seriously conflicts with present human notions of the Solar System, and its size and position relative to the Universe.

The sentence which I have italicised suggests an assured commit-ment, at the least, to the re-formation of the old cosmology. - For references in the Commentary on the Athrabeth to the Numenorean part in the transmission of legends of the Elder Days see pp. 342, 344, 360.

2. These are a proposal that Niniel (Nienor) should 'in her looks and ways' remind Turin of Lalaeth, his sister who died in childhood (see Unfinished Tales p. 147 note 7), and another, marked with a query, that Turin should think of the words of Saeros, the Elf of Doriath, when he finds Niniel naked in the eaves of the Forest of Brethil (Unfinished Tales pp. 80, 122).

On the back of this slip my father wrote (in a furious scribble in ball-point pen):

The cosmogonic myths are Numenorean, blending Elven-lore with human myth and imagination. A note should say that the Wise of Numenor recorded that the making of stars was not so, nor of Sun and Moon. For Sun and stars were all older than Arda. But the placing of Arda amidst stars and under the

[?guard] of the Sun was due to Manwe and Varda before the assault of Melkor.

I take the words 'the Wise of Numenor recorded that the making of stars was not so, nor of Sun and Moon' to mean that the making of the Sun, Moon and stars was not derived from 'Elven-lore'. It is to be noted that Arda here means 'the Earth', not 'the Solar System'.

3. I have said (p. 64) that I would be inclined to place AAm* with the writing of the original manuscript of the Annals rather than to some later time, but this is no more than a guess.

II.

This is a text of a most problematic nature, a manuscript in ink that falls into two parts which are plainly very closely associated: a discussion, with proposals for the 'regeneration' of the mythology; and an abandoned narrative. Neither has title or heading.

The Making of the Sun and Moon must occur long before the coming of the Elves; and cannot be made to be after the death of the Two Trees - if that occurred in any connexion with the sojourn of the Noldor in Valinor. The time allowed is too short.

Neither could there be woods and flowers &c. on earth, if there had been no light since the overthrow of the Lamps!(1) But how can, nonetheless, the Eldar be called the 'Star-folk'?

Since the Eldar are supposed to be wiser and have truer knowledge of the history and nature of the Earth than Men (or than Wild Elves), their legends should have a closer relation to the knowledge now possessed of at least the form of the Solar System (= Kingdom of Arda);(2) though it need not, of course, follow any 'scientific' theory of its making or development.

It therefore seems clear that the cosmogonic mythology should represent Arda as it is, more or less: an island in the void

'amidst the innumerable stars'. The Sun should be coeval with Earth, though its relative size need not be considered, while the apparent revolution of the Sun about the Earth will be accepted.*

The Stars, therefore, in general will be other and remoter parts of the Great Tale of Ea, which do not concern the Valar of Arda. Though, even if not explicitly, it will be an underlying assumption that the Kingdom of Arda is of central importance, selected amid all the immeasurable vast of Ea as the scene for the main drama of the conflict of Melkor with Iluvatar, and the Children of Eru. Melkor is the supreme spirit of Pride and Revolt, not just the chief Vala of the Earth, who has turned to evil.(3)

(* [marginal note] It is or would be in any case a 'fact of life' for any intelligence that chose the Earth for a place of life and labour. [There is no indication where this is to go, but nowhere else on the page seems suitable.])