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 Ainulindalл in The Silmarillion: ‘The Ainur…that were the offspring of his thought.’
5 There is no reference here in the draft to Manwл or Aulл.
6 This sentence concerning the friendship and alliance of Manwл 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 paragra1ph 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.
Ilъvatar Usually Ilu in the draft text, but also Ilъvatar.
Ulmo In the draft text Ulmo is thus named but also Linqil (corrected to Ulmo).
Solosimpi < Solosimpл.
Valar or Vali Draft text Valur and Valir (these appear to be masculine and feminine forms).
Уnen < уwen.
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 embed1ded 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 Ainulindalл, written more than thirty years later, and even many phrases survived.
It will be seen that the great theme that Ilъvatar 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 Ilъvatar 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 Ilъvatar: Eд! 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. Manwл, called ‘lord of Gods and Elves and Men’, is surnamed Sъlimo, ‘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.
Manwл, Melko, Ulmo, and Aulл 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 Aulл, 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 Aulл 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 Manwл 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. Manwл and Varda have offspring, Fionwл-Ъrion and Erinti. Erinti later became Ilmarл ‘handmaid of Varda’ (The Silmarillion p. 30), but nothing was ever told of her (see p. 202). Fionwл, his name long afterwards changed to Eцnwл, 1endured to become the Herald of Manwл, when the idea of ‘the Children of the Valar’ was abandoned. Beings subordinate to Ulmo, Salmar, Ossл, and Уnen (later Uinen) appear; though these all survived in the pantheon, the conception of Maiar did not emerge for many years, and Ossл 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.