Morgoth's Ring (52 page)

$53a Then Mandos set Feanor before him in the Ring of Doom and bade him answer to all that was asked of him. Great must be the power and will of any who would lie to Mandos, or even refuse his questioning. But Feanor had no thought of it. He was so besotted with the lies of Melkor that had taken root in his proud heart (though he did not yet clearly perceive their source) that he judged himself justified in all points, and other judgement he scorned.

$53b But when all was said, and all the testimonies were spoken, and words and deeds were brought out of the dark into the light, then at last the root was laid bare: the malice of Melkor was revealed, and his lies and half-lies made plain for all to recognize who had the will to see. Straightway Tulkas was sent from the council to lay hands on Melkor and bring him again to judgement. But Feanor was not held wholly guiltless in himself. For he had forged secret swords, and had drawn one in anger unjustified, threatening the life of his kinsman.

$53c Therefore Mandos said to him: 'Thou speakest of thraldom. If thraldom it be, thou canst not escape it. For Manwe is King of Arda, and not of Aman only. And this deed was unlawful, whether in Aman or not in Aman. Though more insolent in Aman, for it is a hallowed land. Therefore this doom is now made: for twelve years thou shalt leave Tuna where this threat was uttered. In that time take counsel with thyself, and remember who and what thou art. But after that time this matter shall be set in peace and held redressed, if others will release thee.'

$53d Then Fingolfin rose and said: 'I will release my brother.' But Feanor spoke no word in answer; and when he had stood silent before the Valar for a while, he turned and left the council and departed from Valmar. At once he returned to Tuna, and before the term of seven days that was set, he gathered his goods and his treasures and left the city and went far away. With him went his sons, and Finwe his father, who would not be parted from him, in fault or guiltless, and some others also of the Noldor. But Nerdanel would not go with him, and she asked leave to abide with Indis, whom she had ever esteemed, though this had been little to the liking of Feanor.

Northward in Valinor, in the hills near to the halls of Mandos, Feanor and his sons made a strong place and a treasury at Formenos, and they laid in hoard a multitude of gems, and weapons also: they did not put aside the swords that Feanor had made. But Fingolfin now ruled the Noldor in Tuna; and thus the very words of Melkor seemed to be fulfilled (though it was Feanor who had by his own deeds brought this thing to pass); and the bitterness that Melkor had sown endured, even though his lies had been made manifest. Long afterward it lived still between Feanor and the sons of Indis.

$54 Worse now befell. In vain Tulkas sought for Melkor.

For Melkor, knowing that his devices were revealed, hid himself and passed from place to place as a cloud in the hills. And though none could discover whither he had gone, it seemed that the light of Valinor was dimmed, and the shadows of all standing things grew longer and darker in that time. It is said that for two years no one in Valinor saw Melkor again, nor heard any rumour of him, until suddenly he sought out Feanor.

Secretly he came to Formenos, in guise as a traveller that seeks for lodging; and he spoke with Feanor before his door.

Friendship he feigned with cunning argument, urging him to his former thought of flight from the trammels of the Valar.

'Behold the truth of all that I have spoken, and how thou art banished unjustly,' he said. 'But if the heart of Feanor is still undaunted, as it was in Tuna, then I will aid him and bring him far from this narrow land. For am I not Vala also? Yea, and more than those who sit here in pride. I have ever been a friend of the Noldor, knowing their worth: the most skilled and the most valiant of all the folk of Arda.'

Now Feanor's heart was still bitter at his humiliation before Mandos, and for a moment he paused and looked at Melkor in silence, wondering if indeed he might trust him so far at least as to aid his escape. But Melkor's cunning overreached his aim, and seeing Feanor hesitate, and knowing that the Silmarils held his heart in thrall, he said at the last: 'Here is a strong place well guarded, but think not that the Silmarils will lie safe in any treasury within the realm of the Valar!'

Then the fires of' the heart of Feanor were kindled, and his eyes blazed; and his sight burned through all the fair-semblance of Melkor to the dark depths of his mind, perceiving there his fierce lust for the Silmarils. Then hate overcame Feanor's fear, and he spoke shamefully to Melkor, saying: 'Get thee from my gate, gangrel! Thou jail-crow of Mandos!' And he shut the door of his house in the face of the mightiest of all the dwellers in Ea.

Then Melkor departed in shame, for he was himself in peril, and he saw not his time yet for revenge; but his heart was black with anger. And Finwe was filled with great dread, and in haste he sent messengers to Manwe in Valmar.

Commentary.

In the first part of this 'sub-chapter' Of the Silmarils and the Unrest of the Noldor the story as it was told in LQ (pp. 184 ff.) was scarcely changed even in detail, despite the many changes of wording introduced in this last version - except in the matter of the weapons of the Eldar ($$52a,b). In QS, where the matter first entered (V.228, note by pengolod to $49), it was said that 'the Elves had before possessed only weapons of the chase, spears and bows and arrows', but that now, under the influence of Melkor, the Noldor 'learned the fashioning of swords of tempered steel, and the making of mail' and shields. This was rewritten in LQ $50 (p. 188), still as an observation made by Pengolod, to read that the Elves had originally possessed no weapons, and that now they learned the making of all kinds of arms, swords, spears, bows and arrows. Similarly in AAm $97 (p. 96): 'Melkor spoke to the Eldar concerning weapons, which they had not before possessed or known'; but my father afterwards noted on the typescript of AAm (p. 106, $97): 'No! They must have had weapons on the Great Journey.' Feeling a need to explain how the Quendi survived 'amid the deceits of the starlit dusk', and concluding that they must have been armed in Middle-earth, he adopted the (to my mind) somewhat mechanical narrative device introduced here ($52a).

Explanations in such a world may prompt unneeded reflections. The passage of Orome on his horse Nahar from Aman to Middle-earth is never described, nor (I would say) need it be, nor should it be; the movements of the great Valar (and indeed of the lesser divine, as Melian) are a mystery that we do not seek to penetrate. They are from beyond Arda and do not derive from it. In the (very old) story of the transportation of the three original Elvish 'ambassadors' from Kuivienen to Valinor we might wonder with more right, perhaps, how they journeyed, for the Elves, whatever their powers, are Children of Earth, and must live and move in the physical world of Arda. My father never said any more about that; and we may suppose, if we will, that they passed over the Grinding Ice, borne upon Nahar.* But that he perceived a need to respond, at a certain level, to speculation of this kind is apparent from this story of Orome's bringing to the Eldar a great store of weapons made in Valinor - for the store must have been great to be useful in the protection of such a host.

In the latter part of the new version the story is greatly developed, and yet not in such a way as to contradict the earlier versions - which can be read as a synopsis of the latest. It may indeed be that the story (* Cf. the story referred to in the old 'Sketch of the Mythology', that 'Luthien went even over the Grinding Ice, aided by the power of her divine mother, Melian, to Mandos' halls' (IV.25, 55).

of Feanor's fierce encounter with Fingolfin in the house of Finwe was present to my father's mind already when he wrote LQ (end of $52), though he did not actually recount it till much later.

It is worth remarking that in writing the new version he also had an eye to AAm; thus in $54 he took up the words of Melkor to Feanor at Formenos in AAm $101 (p. 97) - though removing the sentence 'And think not that the Silmarils lie safe in any treasury within the realm of the gods' from its place in AAm and using it as it was used in LQ, the sudden clue for Feanor of Melkor's true intention.

There remain a few isolated points. In both texts of the last version occurs the phrase in $49b: 'The Silmarils the Eldar prized beyond all other treasures in Aman or upon Earth'. This usage goes back a long way (see the Index to Vol.IV, entries Earth and World), unsuitable as it may seem to the world in which Aman was physically approachable across the Sea. But the Earth is Middle-earth: it is not the equivalent of Arda; cf. also $52d: 'Thou it was that led the Noldor upon the long road through the perilous Earth to the light of Eldanor.'

It is also curious that Tuna is now used at every occurrence, not Tirion; see p. 90, $67, and p. 193, $52.

In $50 it is said of Melkor that 'Little he knew yet concerning Men, for engrossed with his own thought in the Music he had paid small heed to the Second Theme of Iluvatar'. Compare the Ainulindale' (both the C and D texts) $13: the Children of Iluvatar 'came with the Third Theme', and $24: Manwe 'was the chief instrument of the second Theme that Iluvatar had raised up against the discord of Melkor.' See further p. 358 note 10.

The names Fingolfin and Finarfin are thus spelt in B, but in A Fingolphin and Finarphin (see p. 265 note 10). In the Second Edition of The Lord of the Rings (1966) Finarphin was spelt thus, later changed on my suggestion to Finarfin (Appendix F, Of the Elves).

OF THE DARKENING OF VALINOR.

The first of the two late typescripts (A) comes to an end after a few lines of this next 'sub-chapter', in which LQ $55 was followed virtually word for word; and it ends at exactly the same point as does the LQ rewriting of QS (see p. 190 and note 8). For the next part of the narrative, therefore, we have on the one hand the text of QS ($$55 - 9), with the very few revisions that had been made to it in the revision of 1951, and on the other the much later and very greatly expanded version that follows here, extant throughout almost all its length only in the one typescript B. There is also a single typescript page, intermediate between A and B, which extends a short way further than does A; and much extremely rough working for the chapter in its late form which is for the most part scarcely legible.

Much of this final version of the story of Melkor and Ungoliante and the destruction of the Trees stands in such close relationship to AAm that it would be possible, for some sections of the text, to be content with reference to AAm and notes of the differences; nonetheless I give the text in full, for these reasons. First, because despite the closeness to AAm there is also a major transformation of the legend; and second, because the relation between the two traditions, The Silmarillion and the Annals, here takes a new turn, and this is important for the understanding of the nature of the published Silmarillion, and its justification. It would be less easy to follow these interesting developments if part of the text appeared only in notes referring to another text.

$55 Now the Valar were sitting in council before the gates of Valmar, fearing the lengthening of the shadows, when the messengers came from Finwe. At once Orome and Tulkas sprang up, but even as they set out in pursuit other messengers brought tidings from Eldanor. Melkor had fled through the Kalakiryan, and from the hill of Tuna the Elves had seen him pass in wrath as a thunder-cloud. 'Then,' said they, 'he turned northward, and our kinsfolk in Alqualonde report that his Shadow went by their haven towards Araman.'

Thus Melkor departed from Valinor, and for a while the Two Trees shone again unshadowed and the land was filled with light; yet as a cloud far off that looms ever higher, borne upon a slow cold wind, a doubt now marred the joy of all the dwellers in Aman, dreading they knew not what evil that yet might come.

$55a When Manwe heard of the ways that Melkor had taken, it seemed plain to him that Melkor purposed to escape to his old strongholds in the North of Middle-earth, as was indeed his most likely course. Though there was little hope in this, Orome and Tulkas with many of their folk went with all speed northward, seeking to overtake him if they might; but they found no trace or rumour of him beyond the shores of the Teleri, and in the unpeopled wastes that draw near to the Ice they could hear no tidings even from the birds. Therefore at length they returned, but the watch was redoubled along all the northern fences of Aman.