There is also an extremely rough, though full, outline of the matter of Gilfanon’s Tale which though close to B has things that B does not, and vice versa; this is virtually certainly the predecessor of B, and in this chapter will be called ‘A’.
The second outline referred to above, an unrealized project for the revision of the whole work, introduces features that need not be discussed here; it is sufficient to say that the mariner was now Жlfwine, not Eriol, and that his previous history was changed, but that the general plan of the Tales themselves was largely intact (with several notes to the effect that they needed abridging or recasting). This outline I shall call ‘D’. How much time elapsed between B and D cannot be said, but I think probably not much. It seems possible that this new scheme was associated with the sudden breaking-off of Gilfanon’s Tale. As with B, D suddenly expands to a much fuller account when this point is reached.
Lastly, a much briefer and more cursory outline, which however adds one or two interesting points, also has Жlfwine instead of Eriol; this followed B and preceded D, and is here called ‘C’.
I shall not give all these outlines in extenso, which is unnecessary in view of the amount of overlap between them; on the other hand to combine them all into one would be both inaccurate and confusing. But since A and B are very close they can be readily combined into one; and I follow this account by that of D, with C in so far as it adds anything of note, And since in the matter of Gilfanon’s Tale the outlines are clearly divided into two parts, the Awakening of Men and the history of the Gnomes in the Great Lands, I treat the narrative in each case in these two parts, separately.
There is no need to give the material of the outlines in the opening passage of Gilfanon’s Tale that was actually written, but there are some points of difference between the outlines and the tale to be noted.
A and B call the wizard-king Tъvo, not Tы in C he is not named, and in D he is Tы ‘the fay’, as in the tale. Evil associations of this being appear in A: ‘Melko meets with Tъvo in the halls of Mandos during his enchainment. He teaches Tъvo much black magic.’ This was struck out, and nothing else is said of the matter; but both A and B say that it was after the escape of Melko and the ruin of the Trees that Tъvo entered the world and ‘set up a wizard kingship in the middle lands’.
In A, only, the Elves who remained behind in Palisor1 are said to have been of the people of the Teleri (the later Vanyar). This passage of Gilfanon’s Tale is the first indication we have had that there were any such Elves (see p. 131); and I incline to think that the conception of the Dark Elves (the later Avari) who never undertook the journey from the Waters of Awakening only emerged in the course of the composition of the Lost Tales. But the name Qendi, which here first appears in the early narratives, is used somewhat ambiguously. In the fragment of the written tale, the words ‘those who remained behind are they whom many call the Qendi, the lost fairies of the world,5 but ye Elves of Kфr name Ilkorins’ seem an altogether explicit statement that Qendirr="Dark" Elves; but a little later Gilfanon speaks of ‘the Eldar or Qendi’, and in the outline B it is said that ‘a number of the original folk called Qendi (the name Eldar being given by the Gods) remained in Palisor’. These latter statements seem to show equally clearly that Qendi was intended as a term for all Elves.
The contradiction is however only apparent. Qendi was indeed the original name of all the Elves, and Eldar the name given by the Gods and adopted by the Elves of Valinor; those who remained behind preserved the old name Qendi. The early word-list of the Gnomish tongue states explicitly that the name Elda was given to the ‘fairies’ by the Valar and was ‘adopted largely by them; the Ilkorins still preserved the old name Qendi, and this was adopted as the name of the reunited clans in Tol Eressлa’.6
In both A and B it is added that ‘the Gods spoke not among themselves the tongues of the Eldaliл, but could do so, and they comprehended all tongues. The wiser of the Elves learned the secret speech of the Gods and long treasured it, but after the coming to Tol Eressлa none remembered it save the Inwir, and now that knowledge has died save in the house of Meril.’ With this compare Rъmil’s remarks to Eriol, p. 48: ‘There is beside the secret tongue in which the Eldar wrote many poesies and books of wisdom and histories of old and earliest things, and yet speak not. This tongue do only the Valar use in their high counsels, and not many of the Eldar of these days may read it or solve its characters.’
Nuin’s words to Tы on the stature of the sleepers in the Vale of Murmenalda are curious. In A is added: ‘Men were almost of a stature at first with Elves, the fairies being far greater and Men smaller than now. As the power of Men has grown the fairies have dwindled and Men waxed somewhat.’ Other early statements indicate that Men and Elves were originally of very similar stature, and that the diminishing in that of the Elves was closely related to the coming of, and the dominance of, Men. Nuin’s words are therefore puzzling, especially since in A they immediately precede the comment on the original similarity of size; for he can surely only mean that the sleepers in Murmenalda were very large by comparison with the Elves. That the sleepers were in fact children, not merely likened in some way to children, is made clear in D: ‘Nuin finds the Slumbrous Dale (Murmenalda) where countless sleeping children lie.’
We come now to the point where the narrative is carried forward only in the outlines.
The Awakening of Men
according to the earlier outlines
The wizard Tъvo told Nuin that the sleepers he had found were the new Children of Ilъvatar, and that they were waiting for light. He forbade any of the Elves to wake them or to visit those places, being frightened of the wrath of Ilъvatar; but despite this Nuin went there often and watched, sitting on a rock. Once he stumbled against a sleeper, who stirred but did not wake. At last, overcome by curiosity, he awakened two, named Ermon and Elmir; they were dumb and very much afraid, but he taught them much of the Ilkorin tongue, for which reason he is called Nuin Father of Speech. Then came the First Dawn; and Ermon and Elmir alone of Men saw the first Sun rise in the West and come over to the Eastward Haven. Now Men came forth from Murmenalda as ‘a host of sleepy children’.
(In the tale of The Hiding of Valinor it was long after the first rising of the Sunship from Valinor that its Haven in the East was built; see p. 214–15. It is interesting that the first Men, Ermon and Elmir, were woken by Nuin before the first rising of the Sun, and although it was known to Tъvo that Men were ‘waiting for light’ no connection is made between Nuin’s act and the Sunrise. But of course one cannot judge the inner tenor of the narrative from such summaries. It is notable also that whereas the tongue of the Elves, in origin one and the same, was a direct gift of Ilбvatar (p. 232), Men were born into the world without language and received it from the instruction of an Ilkorin. Cf. The Silmarillion, p. 141: ‘It is said also that these Men [the people of Bлor] had long had dealings with the Dark Elves east of the mountains, and from them had learned much of their speech; and since all the languages of the Quendi were of one origin, the language of Bлor and his folk resembled the Elven-tongue in many words and devices.’)
At this point in the story the agents of Melko appear, the Ъvanimor, ‘bred in the earth’ by him (Ъvanimor, ‘who are monsters, giants, and ogres’, have been mentioned in an earlier tale, p. 75); and Tъvo protected Men and Elves from them and from ‘evil fays’. A makes mention of Orcs besides.
A servant of Melko named ‘Fъkil or Fangli’ entered the world, and coming among Men perverted them, so that they fell treacherously upon the Ilkorins; there followed the Battle of Palisor, in which the people of Ermon fought beside Nuin. According to A ‘the fays and those Men that aided them were defeated’, but B calls it an ‘undecided battle’ and the Men corrupted by Fangli fled away and became ‘wild and savage tribes’, worshipping Fangli and Melko. Thereafter (in A only) Palisor was possessed by ‘Fangli and his hosts of Nauglath (or Dwarves)’. (In the early writings the Dwarves are always portrayed as an evil people.)