The meeting of Gnomes and Ilkorins survived in the meeting of the new-come Noldor with the Grey-elves of Mithrim (ibid. p. 108); but the Noldor heard rather of the power of King Thingol of Doriath than of the Battle of Palisor.
Whereas in these outlines Maidros son of Fлanor led an attack on Angband which was repulsed with slaughter and his own capture, in The Silmarillion it was Fingolfin who appeared before Angband, and being met with silence prudently withdrew to Mithrim (p. 109). Maidros (Maedhros) had been already taken at a meeting with an embassage of Morgoth’s that was supposed to be a parley, and he heard the sound of Fingolfin’s trumpets from his place of torment on Thangorodrim—where Morgoth set him until, as he said, the Noldor forsook their war and departed. Of the divided hosts of the Noldor there is of course no trace in the old story; and the rescue of Maedhros by Fingon, who cut off his hand in order to save him, does not appear in any form: rather is he set free by Melko, though maimed, and without explanation given. But it is very characteristic that the maiming of Maidros—an important ‘moment’ in the legends—should never itself be lost, though it came to be given a wholly different setting and agency.
The Oath of the Sons of Fлanor was here sworn after the coming of the Gnomes from Valinor, and after the death of their father; and in the later outline D they then left the host of (Finwл) Nуlemл, Lord of the Noldoli, and returned to Dor Lуmin (Hisilуmл). In this and in other features that appear only in D the story is moved nearer to its later form. In the return to Dor Lуmin is the germ of the departure of the Fлanorians from Mithrim to the eastern parts of Beleriand (The Silmarillion p. 112); in the Feast of Reunion that of Mereth Aderthad, the Feast of Reuniting, held by Fingolfin for the Elves of 1Beleriand (ibid. p. 113), though the participants are necessarily greatly different; in the latecoming of the Fлanorians to the stricken field of Unnumbered Tears that of the delayed arrival of the host of Maedhros (ibid. p. 190–2); in the cutting-off and death of (Finwл) Nуlemл in the battle that of the slaying of Fingon (ibid. p. 193—when Finwл came to be Fлanor’s father, and thus stepped into the place of Bruithwir, killed by Melko in Valinor, his position as leader of the hosts in the Battle of Unnumbered Tears was taken by Fingon); and in the great cairn called the Hill of Death, raised by the Sons of Fлanor, that of the Haudh-en-Ndengin or Hill of Slain, piled by Orcs in Anfauglith (ibid. p. 197). Whether the embassy to Tъvo, Tinwelint, and Ermon (which in D becomes the sending of messengers) remotely anticipates the Union of Maedhros (ibid. p. 188–9) is not clear, though Tinwelint’s refusal to join forces with Nуlemл survived in Thingol’s rejection of Maedhros’ approaches (p. 189). I cannot certainly explain Tinwelint’s words ‘Go not into the hills’, but I suspect that ‘the hills’ are the Mountains of Iron (in The Hiding of Valinor, p. 209, called ‘the Hills of Iron’) above Angband, and that he warned against an attack on Melko; in the old Tale of Turambar Tinwelint said: ‘Of the wisdom of my heart and the fate of the Valar did I not go with my folk to the Battle of Unnumbered Tears.’
Other elements in the story of the battle that survived—the steadfastness of the folk of Ъrin (Hъrin), the escape of Turgon—already existed at this time in a tale that had been written (that of Tъrin).
The geographical indications are slight, and there is no map of the Great Lands for the earliest period of the legends; in any case these questions are best left until the tales that take place in those lands. The Vale (or Valley) of the Fountains, afterwards the Valley (or Vale) of Weeping Waters, is in D explicitly equated with Gorfalong, which in the earlier outlines is given as Gorfalon, and seems to be distinct; but in any case neither these, nor ‘the Tumbled Lands’, can be brought into relation with any places or names in the later geography—unless (especially since in D Turgon is said to have fled ‘south down Sirion’) it may be supposed that something like the later picture of the Pass of Sirion was already in being, and that the Vale of the Fountains, or of Weeping Waters, was a name for it.
NOTES
1 Above Turuhalmл are written Duruchalm (struck out) and Halmadhurwion.
2 This paragraph is marked with queries.
3 The word may be read equally well as ‘dim’ or ‘dun’.
4 The original reading here was: ‘and few of his folk went with him, and this Tы forbade to his folk, fearing the wrath of Ilъvatar and Manwл yet did’ (sc. curiosity overcome Nuin, etc.).
5 Earlier in the Tales, ‘the Lost Elves’ are those who were lost from the great journey and wandered in Hisilуmл (see p. 118).
6 In the tale the ‘fairies’ of Tы’s dominion (i.e. the Dark Elves) are given the name Hisildi, the twilight people; in outlines A and B, in addition to Hisildi, other names are given: Humarni, Kaliondi, Lуmлarni.
7 Cf. also Sador’s words to Tъrin in his boyhood (Unfinished Tales p. 61): ‘A darkness lies behind us, and out of it few tales have come. The fathers of our fathers may have had things to tell, but they did not tell them. Even their names are forgotten. The Mountains stand between us and the life that they came from, flying from no man now knows what.’
8 Cf. The Silmarillion p. 104: ‘It is told that ere long they met Dark Elves in many places, and were befriended by them; and Men became the companions and disciples in their childhood of these ancient folk, wanderers of the Elven-race who never set out upon the paths to Valinor, and knew of the Valar only as a rumour and a distant name.’
9 Above Ermon is written, to all appearance, the Old English word Жsc (‘ash’). It seems conceivable that this is an anglicizing of Old Norse Askr (‘ash’), in the northern mythology the name of the first man, who with the first woman (Embla) were made by the Gods out of two trees that they found on the seashore (Vцluspб strophe 17; Snorra Edda, Gylfaginning §8).
10 The text has here the bracketed word ‘(Gongs)’. This might be thought to be a name for the Kaukareldar or ‘false-fairies’, but in the Gnomish word-list Gong is defined as ‘one of a tribe of the Orcs, a goblin’.
11 The cutting out of Nуlemл’s heart by the Orcs, and its recapture by Turgon his son, is referred to in an isolated early note, which says also that Turgon encased it in gold; and the emblem of the King’s Folk in Gondolin, the Scarlet Heart, is mentioned in the tale of The Fall of Gondolin.
12 Cf. p. 167: ‘Turondo son of Nуlemл was not yet upon the Earth.’ Turgon was the Gnomish name of Turondo (p. 115). In the later story Turgon was a leader of the Noldor from Valinor.
13 After the story was changed, and the founding of Gondolin was placed far earlier, the concluding part of The Silmarillion was never brought into harmony; and this was a main source of difficulty in the preparation of the pub1lished work.
APPENDIX
NAMES IN THE LOST TALES -PART I
There exist two small books, contemporary with the Lost Tales, which contain the first ‘lexicons’ of the Elvish languages; and both of them are very difficult documents.
One is concerned with the language called, in the book, Qenya, and I shall refer to this book as ‘QL’ (Qenya Lexicon). A good proportion of the entries in the first half of the alphabet were made at one time, when the work was first begun; these were very carefully written, though the pencil is now faint. Among these original entries is this group:
Lemin ‘five’
Lempe ‘ten’Leminkainen ‘23’ The choice of ‘23’ suggests that this was my father’s age at the time, and that the book was begun therefore in 1915. This is supported by some of the statements made in the first layer of entries about certain figures of the mythology, statements that are at odds with everything that is said elsewhere, and which give glimpses of a stage even earlier than the Lost Tales.