The Book of Lost Tales, Part 1 Read online

  Now Eldar and Men were of Ilúvatar’s devising only, nor, for they comprehended not fully when Ilúvatar first propounded their being, did any of the Ainur dare in their music to add anything to their fashion; and these races are for that reason named rightly the Children of Ilúvatar. This maybe is the cause wherefore many others of the Ainur, beside Melko, have ever been for meddling with both Elves and Men, be it of good or evil intent; yet seeing that Ilúvatar made the Eldar most like in nature if not in power and stature to the Ainur, while to Men he gave strange gifts, their dealings have been chiefly with the Elves.9

  Knowing all their hearts, still did Ilúvatar grant the desire of the Ainur, nor is it said he was grieved thereat. So entered these great ones into the world, and these are they whom we now call the Valar (or the Vali, it matters not).10 They dwelt in Valinor, or in the firmament; and some on earth or in the deeps of the Sea. There Melko ruled both fires and the cruellest frost, both the uttermost colds and the deepest furnaces beneath the hills of flame; and whatso is violent or excessive, sudden or cruel, in the world is laid to his charge, and for the most part with justice. But Ulmo dwells in the outer ocean and controls the flowing of all waters and the courses of rivers, the replenishment of springs and the distilling of rains and dews throughout the world. At the bottom of the sea he bethinks him of music deep and strange yet full ever of a sorrow: and therein he has aid from Manwë Súlimo.

  The Solosimpi, what time the Elves came and dwelt in Kôr, learnt much of him, whence cometh the wistful allurement of their piping and their love to dwell ever by the shore. Salmar there was with him, and Ossë and Ónen to whom he gave the control of the waves and lesser seas, and many another.

  But Aulë dwelt in Valinor and fashioned many things; tools and instruments he devised and was busied as much in the making of webs as in the beating of metals; tillage too and husbandry was his delight as much as tongues and alphabets, or broideries and painting. Of him did the Noldoli, who were the sages of the Eldar and thirsted ever after new lore and fresh knowledge, learn uncounted wealth of crafts, and magics and sciences unfathomed. From his teaching, whereto the Eldar brought ever their own great beauty of mind and heart and imagining, did they attain to the invention and making of gems; and these were not in the world before the Eldar, and the finest of all gems were Silmarilli, and they are lost.

  Yet was the greatest and chief of those four great ones Manwë Súlimo; and he dwelt in Valinor and sate in a glorious abode upon a throne of wonder on the topmost pinnacle of Taniquetil that towers up upon the world’s edge. Hawks flew ever to and fro about that abode, whose eyes could see to the deeps of the sea or penetrate the most hidden caverns and profoundest darkness of the world. These brought him news from everywhere of everything, and little escaped him—yet did some matters lie hid even from the Lord of the Gods. With him was Varda the Beautiful, and she became his spouse and is Queen of the Stars, and their children were Fionwë-Úrion and Erinti most lovely. About them dwell a great host of fair spirits, and their happiness is great; and men love Manwë even more than mighty Ulmo, for he hath never of intent done ill to them nor is he so fain of honour or so jealous of his power as that ancient one of Vai. The Teleri whom Inwë ruled were especially beloved of him, and got of him poesy and song; for if Ulmo hath a power of musics and of voices of instruments Manwë hath a splendour of poesy and song beyond compare.

  Lo, Manwë Súlimo clad in sapphires, ruler of the airs and wind, is held lord of Gods and Elves and Men, and the greatest bulwark against the evil of Melko.’11

  Then said Rúmil again:

  ‘Lo! After the departure of these Ainur and their vassalage all was quiet for a great age while Ilúvatar watched. Then on a sudden he said: “Behold I love the world, and it is a hall of play for Eldar and Men who are my beloved. But when the Eldar come they will be the fairest and the most lovely of all things by far; and deeper in the knowledge of beauty, and happier than Men. But to Men I will give a new gift, and a greater.” Therefore he devised that Men should have a free virtue whereby within the limits of the powers and substances and chances of the world they might fashion and design their life beyond even the original Music of the Ainur that is as fate to all things else. This he did that of their operations everything should in shape and deed be completed, and the world fulfilled unto the last and smallest.12 Lo! Even we Eldar have found to our sorrow that Men have a strange power for good or ill and for turning things despite Gods and Fairies to their mood in the world; so that we say: “Fate may not conquer the Children of Men, but yet are they strangely blind, whereas their joy should be great.”

  Now Ilúvatar knew that Men set amid the turmoils of the Ainur would not be ever of a mind to use that gift in harmony with his intent, but thereto he said: “These too in their time shall find that all they have done, even the ugliest of deeds or works, redounds at the end only to my glory, and is tributary to the beauty of my world.” Yet the Ainur say that the thought of Men is at times a grief even to Ilúvatar; wherefore if the giving of that gift of freedom was their envy and amazement, the patience of Ilúvatar at its misuse is a matter of the greatest marvelling to both Gods and Fairies. It is however of one with this gift of power that the Children of Men dwell only a short time in the world alive, yet do not perish utterly for ever, whereas the Eldar dwell till the Great End13 unless they be slain or waste in grief (for to both of these deaths are they subject), nor doth eld subdue their strength, except it may be in ten thousand centuries; and dying they are reborn in their children, so that their number minishes not, nor grows. Yet while the Sons of Men will after the passing of things of a certainty join in the Second Music of the Ainur, what Ilúvatar has devised for the Eldar beyond the world’s end he has not revealed even to the Valar, and Melko has not discovered it.’

  NOTES

  1 This opening sentence is lacking in the draft.

  2 The reference to the setting of the Secret Fire within the Ainur is lacking in the draft.

  3 This passage, from ‘Now Melko had among the Ainur…’, is developed from one much briefer in the draft: ‘Melko had among the Ainu fared most often alone into the dark places and the voids [added afterwards: seeking the secret fires].’

  4 The words ‘my song’ and ‘my thought’ were in the text as written in reversed positions, and were emended afterwards in pencil to the reading given. At the beginning of the text occurs the phrase: ‘Before all things he sang into being the Ainur first.’ Cf. the opening of the Ainulindalë in The Silmarillion: ‘The Ainur…that were the offspring of his thought.’

  5 There is no reference here in the draft to Manwë or Aulë.

  6 This sentence concerning the friendship and alliance of Manwë and Ulmo is lacking in the draft.

  7 This passage was quite different in the draft text:

  And even as Ilu was speaking to Ulmo the Ainu beheld how the great history which Ilu had propounded to them to their amazement and whereto all his glory was but the hall of its enactment—how it was unfolding in myriad complexities even as had been the music they played about the feet of Ilu, how beauty was whelmed in uproar and tumult and again new beauty arose therefrom, how the earth changed and stars went out and stars were kindled, and the air swept about the firmament, and the sun and moon were loosened on their courses and had life.

  8 This sentence concerning Melko is lacking in the draft.

  9 In the draft this paragraph reads:

  Now Eldar and Men were of Ilu’s devising alone, nor had any of the Ainu nor even Melko aught to do with their fashioning, though in truth his music of old and his deeds in the world mightily affected their history thereafter. For this reason maybe, Melko and many of the Ainu out of good or evil mind would ever be for meddling with them, but seeing that Ilu had made the Eldar too alike in nature if not in stature to the Ainu their dealings have been chiefly with Men.

  The conclusion of this passage seems to be the only place where the second text is in direct contradiction of the draft.


  10 The draft has: ‘and these are they whom ye and we now call the Valur and Valir.’

  11 The entire passage following the mention of the Solosimpi and ‘their love to dwell ever by the shore’ is lacking in the draft.

  12 For this passage the draft has:

  “…but to Men I will appoint a task and give a great gift.” And he devised that they should have free will and the power of fashioning and designing beyond the original music of the Ainu, that by reason of their operations all things shall in shape and deed be fulfilled, and the world that comes of the music of the Ainu be completed unto the last and smallest.

  13 ‘whereas the Eldar dwell for ever’ draft text.

  Changes made to names in

  The Music of the Ainur

  Ainur Always Ainu in the draft text.

  Ilúvatar Usually Ilu in the draft text, but also Ilúvatar.

  Ulmo In the draft text Ulmo is thus named but also Linqil (corrected to Ulmo).

  Solosimpi < Solosimpë.

  Valar or Vali Draft text Valur and Valir (these appear to be masculine and feminine forms).

  Ónen < ówen.

  Vai < Ulmonan.

  Commentary on

  The Music of the Ainur

  A linking passage continues the text of The Music of the Ainur and leads into the story of The Building of Valinor without any break in the narrative; but I postpone this link until the next chapter. The actual written text is likewise continuous between the two tales, and there is no suggestion or indication that the composition of The Building of Valinor did not follow that of The Music of the Ainur.

  In later years the Creation myth was revised and rewritten over and over again; but it is notable that in this case only and in contrast to the development of the rest of the mythology there is a direct tradition, manuscript to manuscript, from the earliest draft to the final version: each text is directly based on the one preceding.* Moreover, and most remarkably, the earliest version, written when my father was 27 or 28 and embedded still in the context of the Cottage of Lost Play, was so evolved in its conception that it underwent little change of an essential kind. There were indeed very many changes, which can be followed stage by stage through the successive texts, and much new matter came in; but the fall of the original sentences can continually be recognized in the last version of the Ainulindalë, written more than thirty years later, and even many phrases survived.

  It will be seen that the great theme that Ilúvatar propounded to the Ainur was originally made somewhat more explicit (‘The story that I have laid before you,’ p. 53), and that the words of Ilúvatar to the Ainur at the end of the Music contained a long declaration of what Melko had brought about, of what he had introduced into the world’s history (p. 55). But by far the most important difference is that in the early form the Ainur’s first sight of the World was in its actuality (‘even now the world unfolds and its history begins’, p. 55), not as a Vision that was taken away from them and only given existence in the words of Ilúvatar: Eä! Let these things Be! (The Silmarillion p. 20).

  Yet when all differences have been observed, they are much less remarkable than the solidity and completeness with which the myth of the Creation emerged at its first beginning.

  In this ‘Tale’, also, many specific features of less general import make their appearance; and many of them were to survive. Manwë, called ‘lord of Gods and Elves and Men’, is surnamed Súlimo, ‘ruler of the airs and wind’ he is clad in sapphires, and hawks of penetrating sight fly from his dwelling on Taniquetil (The Silmarillion p. 40); he loves especially the Teleri (the later Vanyar), and from him they received their gifts of poetry and song; and his spouse is Varda, Queen of the Stars.

  Manwë, Melko, Ulmo, and Aulë are marked out as ‘the four great ones’ ultimately the great Valar, the Aratar, came to be numbered nine, but there was much shifting in the membership of the hierarchy before this was reached. The characteristic concerns of Aulë, and his particular association with the Noldoli, emerge here as they were to remain, though there is attributed to him a delight in ‘tongues and alphabets’, whereas in The Silmarillion (p. 39), while this is not denied, it seems to be implied that this was rather the peculiar endowment and skill of the Noldorin Elves; later in the Lost Tales (p. 141) it is said that Aulë himself ‘aided by the Gnomes contrived alphabets and scripts’. Ulmo, specially associated with the Solosimpi (the later Teleri), is here presented as more ‘fain of his honour and jealous of his power’ than Manwë and he dwells in Vai. Vai is an emendation of Ulmonan; but this is not simply a replacement of one name by another: Ulmonan was the name of Ulmo’s halls, which were in Vai, the Outer Ocean. The significance of Vai, an important element in the original cosmology, will emerge in the next chapter.

  Other divine beings now appear. Manwë and Varda have offspring, Fionwë-Úrion and Erinti. Erinti later became Ilmarë ‘handmaid of Varda’ (The Silmarillion p. 30), but nothing was ever told of her (see p. 202). Fionwë, his name long afterwards changed to Eönwë, endured to become the Herald of Manwë, when the idea of ‘the Children of the Valar’ was abandoned. Beings subordinate to Ulmo, Salmar, Ossë, and Ónen (later Uinen) appear; though these all survived in the pantheon, the conception of Maiar did not emerge for many years, and Ossë was long numbered among the Valar. The Valar are here referred to as ‘Gods’ (indeed when Eriol asked ‘are they the Gods?’ Lindo replied that they were, p. 45), and this usage survived until far on in the development of the mythology.

  The idea of Elvish rebirth in their own children is here formally stated, and the different fates of Elves and Men. In this connection, the following curious matter may be mentioned. Early in the text just given (p. 53) occurs the sentence: ‘It is said that a mightier [music] far shall be woven before the seat of Ilúvatar by the choirs of both Ainur and the sons of Men after the Great End’ and in the concluding sentence of the text: ‘Yet while the sons of Men will after the passing of things of a certainty join in the Second Music of the Ainur, what Ilúvatar has devised for the Eldar beyond the world’s end he has not revealed even to the Valar, and Melko has not discovered it.’ Now in the first revision of the Ainulindalë (which dates from the 1930s) the first of these sentences was changed to read: ‘…by the choirs of the Ainur and the Children of Ilúvatar after the end of days’ whereas the second remained, in this essential, unchanged. This remained the case right through to the final version. It is possible that the change in the first passage was unintentional, the substitution of another common phrase, and that this was never subsequently picked up. However, in the published work (pp. 15, 42) I left the two passages as they stand.

  III

  THE COMING OF THE VALAR AND THE BUILDING OF VALINOR

  As I have already noticed, the next tale is linked to The Music of the Ainur without narrative break; and it has no title in the text. It is contained in three separate books (the Lost Tales were written in the most bewildering fashion, with sections from different tales interleaved with each other); and on the cover of the book that has the opening section, following on The Music of the Ainur, is written: ‘containeth also the Coming of the Valar and beginneth the Building of Valinor’. The text is in ink, written over an erased pencil manuscript.

  Then when Rúmil finished and fell silent Eriol said after a pause: ‘Great are these tidings and very new and strange in my ears, yet doth it seem that most whereof you have yet told happened outside this world, whereas if I know now wherefrom comes its life and motion and the ultimate devising of its history, I would still hear many things of the earliest deeds within its borders; of the labours of the Valar I would know, and the great beings of most ancient days. Whereof, tell me, are the Sun or the Moon or the Stars, and how came their courses and their stations? Nay more—whence are the continents of the earth, the Outer Lands, the great seas, and the Magic Isles? Even of the Eldar and their arising and of the coming of Men I would listen to your tales of wisdom and wonder.’

  Then answered Rúmil: ‘Nay, but
your questions are nigh as long and wordy as my tales—and the thirst of your curiosity would dry a well deeper than even my lore, an I let you drink and come again unstinted to your liking. Indeed you know not what you ask nor the length and complexity of the stories you would hear. Behold, the sun is well above the roofs and this is no hour of the day for the telling of tales. Rather is it time already, and something more, for the breaking of the fast.’ With these words Rúmil went down that lane of hazels, and passing a space of sunlight entered the house at great speed, for all that he looked ever before his toes as he went.

  But Eriol sat musing in that arbour, pondering what he had heard, and many questions came into his mind that he desired to ask, until he forgot that he fasted still. But now comes Littleheart and another bearing covers and fair linen, and they say to him: ‘It is the words of Rúmil the Sage that you are fainting in the Arbour of the Thrushes for hunger and for weariness of his garrulous tongue—and thinking that very like to be, we are come to aid thee.’

  Then Eriol thanked them, and breaking his fast spent the remainder of that fair day hidden in the quiet alleys of that garden deep in thought; nor did he have lack of pleasance, for although it seemed enclosed within great stone walls covered with fruit-trees or with climbing plants whose golden and red blossoms shone beneath the sun, yet were the nooks and corners of the garden, its coppices and lawns, its shady ways and flowering fields, without end, and exploration discovered always something new. Nonetheless even greater was his joy when that night again the toast was drunk to the ‘Rekindling of the Magic Sun’ and the candles held aloft and the throng went once more to the room where the Tale-fire burnt.