Now is a court set upon the slopes of Taniquetil and Melko arraigned before all the Vali5 great and small, lying bound before the silver chair of Manwл. Against him speaketh Ossл, and Oromл, and Ulmo in deep ire, and Vбna in abhorrence, proclaiming his deeds of cruelty and violence; yet Makar still spake for him, although not warmly, for said he: “’Twere an ill thing if peace were for always: already no blow echoes ever in the eternal quietude of Valinor, wherefore, if one might neither see deed of battle nor riotous joy even in the world without, then ’twould be irksome indeed, and I for one long not for such times!” Thereat arose Palъrien in sorrow and tears, and told of the plight of Earth and of the great beauty of her designs and of those things she desired dearly to bring forth; of all the wealth of flower and herbage, of tree and fruit and grain that the world might bear if it had but peace. “Take heed, O Valar, that both Elves and Men be not devoid of all solace whenso the times come for them to find the Earth” but Melko writhed in rage at the name of Eldar and of Men and at his own impotence.
Now Aulл mightily backed her in this and after him many else of the Gods, yet Mandos and Lуrien held their peace, nor do they ever speak much at the councils of the Valar or indeed at other times, but Tulkas arose angrily from the midst of the assembly and went from among them, for he could not endure parleying where he thought the guilt to be clear. Liever would he have unchained Melko and fought him then and there alone upon the plain of Valinor, giving him many a sore buffet in meed of his illdoings, rather than making high debate of them. Howbeit Manwл sate and listened and was moved by the speech of Palъrien, yet was it his thought that Melko was an Ainu and powerful beyond measure for the future good or evil of the world; wherefore he put away harshness and his doom was this. For three ages during the displeasure of the Gods should Melko be chained in a vault of Mandos by that chain Angaino, and thereafter should he fare into the light of the Two Trees, but only so that he might for four ages yet dwell as a servant in the house of Tulkas, and obey him in requital of his ancient malice. “Thus,” 1said Manwл, “and yet but hardly, mayst thou win favour again sufficient that the Gods suffer thee to abide thereafter in an house of thine own and to have some slight estate among them as befitteth a Vala and a lord of the Ainur.”
Such was the doom of Manwл, and even to Makar and Meбssл it seemed good, albeit Tulkas and Palъrien thought it merciful to peril. Now doth Valinor enter upon its greatest time of peace, and all the earth beside, while Melko bideth in the deepest vaults of Mandos and his heart grows black within him.
Behold the tumults of the sea abate slowly, and the fires beneath the mountains die; the earth quakes no more and the fierceness of the cold and the stubbornness of the hills and rivers of ice is melted to the uttermost North and to the deepest South, even to the regions about Ringil and Helkar. Then Palъrien goes once more out over the Earth, and the forests multiply and spread, and often is Oromл’s horn heard behind her in the dimness: now do nightshade and bryony begin to creep about the brakes, and holly and ilex are seen upon the earth. Even the faces of the cliffs are grown with ivies and trailing plants for the calm of the winds and the quietude of the sea, and all the caverns and the shores are festooned with weeds, and great sea-growths come to life swaying gently when Ossл moves the waters.
Now came that Vala and sat upon a headland of the Great Lands, having leisure in the stillness of his realm, and he saw how Palъrien was filling the quiet dusk of the Earth with flitting shapes. Bats and owls whom Vefбntur set free from Mandos swooped about the sky, and nightingales sent by Lуrien from Valinor trilled beside still waters. Far away a nightjar croaked, and in dark places snakes that slipped from Utumna when Melko was bound moved noiselessly about; a frog croaked upon a bare pool’s border.
Then he sent word to Ulmo of the new things that were done, and Ulmo desired not that the waters of the inner seas be longer unpeopled, but came forth seeking Palъrien, and she gave him spells, and the seas began to gleam with fish or strange creatures crawled at bottom; yet the shellfish and the oysters no-one of Valar or of Elves knows whence they are, for already they gaped in the silent waters or ever Melko plunged therein from on high, and pearls there were before the Eldar thought or dreamed of any gem.
Three great fish luminous in the dark of the sunless days went ever with Ulmo, and the roof of Ossл’s dwelling beneath the Great Sea shone with phosphorescent scales. Behold that was a time of great peace and quiet, and life struck deep roots into the new-made soils of Earth, and seeds were sown that waited only for the light to come, and it is known and praised as the age of “Melko’s Chains”.’
NOTES
1 The following passage was added here, apparently very soon after the writing of the text, but was later firmly struck through:
The truth is that he is a son of Linwл Tinto King of the Pipers who was lost of old upon the great march from Palisor, and wandering in Hisilуmл found the lonely twilight spirit (Tindriel) Wendelin dancing in a glade of beeches. Loving her he was content to leave his folk and dance for ever in the shadows, bu1t his children Timpinen and Tinъviel long after joined the Eldar again, and tales there are concerning them both, though they are seldom told.
The name Tindriel stood alone in the manuscript as written, but it was then bracketed and Wendelin added in the margin. These are the first references in the consecutive narrative to Thingol (Linwл Tinto), Hithlum (Hisilуmл), Melian (Tindriel, Wendelin), and Lъthien Tinъviel; but I postpone discussion of these allusions.
2 Cf. the explanation of the names Eriol and Angol as ‘ironcliffs’ referred to in the Appendix on Names (entry Eriol).
3 Associated with the story of the sojourn of Eriol (Жlfwine) in Tol Eressлa, and the ‘Lost Tales’ that he heard there, are two ‘schemes’ or synopses setting out the plan of the work. One of these is, for much of its length, a rйsumй of the Tales as they are extant; the other, certainly the later, is divergent. In this second scheme, in which the voyager is called Жlfwine, the tale on the second night by the Tale-fire is given to ‘Evromord the Door-ward’, though the narrative-content was to be the same (The Coming of the Gods; the World-fashioning and the Building of Valinor; the Planting of the Two Trees). After this is written (a later addition): ‘Жlfwine goes to beg limpл of Meril; she sends him back.’ The third night by the Tale-fire is thus described:
The Door-ward continues of the Primeval Twilight. The Furies of Melko. Melko’s Chains and the awakening of the Elves. (How Fankil and many dark shapes escape into the world.) [Given to Meril but to be placed as here and much abridged.]
It seems certain that this was a revision in intention only, never achieved. It is notable that in the actual text, as also in the first of these two ‘schemes’, Rъmil’s function in the house is that of door-ward—and Rъmil, not Evromord, was the name that was preserved long after as the recounter of The Music of the Ainur.
4 The text as originally written read: ‘but the great Gods may not be slain, though their children may and all those lesser people of the Vali, albeit only at the hands of some one of the Valar.’
5 Vali is an emendation from Valar. Cf. Rъmil’s words (p. 58): ‘they whom we now call the Valar (or Vali, it matters not).’
Commentary on
The Chaining of Melko
In the interlude between this tale and the last we encounter the figure of Timpinen or Tinfang. This being had existed in my father’s mind for some years, and there are two poems about him. The first is en1titled Tinfang Warble; it is very brief, but exists in three versions. According to a note by my father the original was written at Oxford in 1914, and it was rewritten at Leeds in ‘1920–23’. It was finally published in 1927 in a further altered form, which I give here.*
Tinfang Warble
O the hoot! O the hoot!
How he trillups on his flute!
O the hoot of Tinfang Warble!
Dancing all alone,
Hopping on a stone,
Flitting like a fawn,
In the twilight on the lawn,
And his name is Tinfang Warble!