Morgoth's Ring (66 page)

10. In the Ainulindale' (p. 11, $13) it was expressly stated that the Children of Iluvatar 'came with the Third Theme, and were not in the theme which Iluvatar propounded at the beginning'. Of the Second Theme it is said in the Ainulindale' (p. 14, $24) that

'Manwe ... was the chief instrument of the Second Theme that Iluvatar had raised up against the discord of Melkor.'

It is perhaps possible that by 'the two new themes' in the present passage my father was thinking of the introduction of Elves and Men into the Music as allied 'themes' that in the Ainulindale' were described as 'the Third Theme', but it seems to me more probable that a different conception of the Music had entered. In this connection, in a passage in the final rewriting and elaboration of QS Chapter 6 (p. 275, $50) it is told that Melkor spoke secretly to the Eldar in Aman concerning Men, although he knew little about them, 'for engrossed with his own thought in the Music he had paid small heed to the Second Theme of Iluvatar'. If this was not simply an inadvertence, it might support the view that the Second and Third Themes had become those that introduced Elves and Men - although it would surely be in the Second Theme that the Elves entered, and Men in the Third. It may be noted also that in the draft continuation of the letter to Rhona Beare of October 1958 (Letters no.212), to which I have several times referred, my father wrote: 'Their "themes" were introduced into the Music by the One, when the discords of Melkor arose'; and there is a further reference to 'the Themes of the Children' in Author's Note 7 (p. 342).

11. Against the opening sentences of Note 2 is written in the margin:

'Arda means Realm'. With the statement here that 'Physically Arda was what we should call the Solar System', and in the third paragraph of this Note that 'the principal part of Arda was the Earth (Imbar "The Habitation")', though 'loosely used Arda often seems to mean the Earth', cf. the list of names associated with the revision of the Quenta Silmarillion in 1951 (p. 7):

'Arda Elvish name of Earth = our world. Also Kingdom of Arda = fenced region'. The statements in this Note imply of course a radical transformation of the cosmological myth, a recrudescence of the abandoned ideas seen in the Ainulindale' text C' of the later 1940s (pp. 3 - 6, 43). Much further writing on this subject will be found in texts given in Part Five (see especially Texts I and II, pp. 370, 375 ff.).

12. The term Imbar has not occurred before; but cf. Ambar 'the Earth' (IV.235 ff., and the Etymologies, V.372, 'Quenya a-mbar

"oikoumene", Earth'; also Ambar-metta the ending of the world' in Aragorn's words at his coronation, The Return of the King p. 245).

13. 'the principal demiurgic Ainur... had taken up their "residence"

in Arda': cf. the Ainulindale' (p. 14, $21): 'Thus it came to pass that of the Holy Ones some abode still with Iluvatar beyond the confines of the World; but others, and among them many of the greatest and most fair, took the leave of Iluvatar and descended into it.' - On the word 'demiurgic' see note 3 above.

14. erma: in the typescript B of Laws and Customs appears the word orma, a later pencilled alteration of the word hron ('the general hron [> orma] of Arda'), p. 218.

15. This is a reference to a conception not yet met: see the Appendix to this Part, pp. 361 ff.

16. The possibility of return to incarnate life through childbirth is no longer countenanced: see note 15.

17. 'Normally they must nonetheless remain in Aman': the reasons for this are explained later in this Note. See further pp. 364 - 5.

18. Luthien was not the ancestress of Earendil, son of Tuor and Idril Celebrindal of Gondolin; she was the grandmother of Elwing, wife of Earendil.

19. 'The myth that appears at the end of the Silmarillion': in so far as the reference is to any actual written text, this is the conclusion of QS (V.333, $$31 - 2), the Prophecy of Mandos.

20. Cf. Laws and Customs (typescript text B, p. 219): As ages passed the dominance of their fear ever increased,

'consuming' their bodies ... The end of this process is their

'fading' ...; for the body becomes at last, as it were, a mere memory held by the fea; and that end has already been achieved in many regions of Middle-earth, so that the Elves are indeed deathless and may not be destroyed or changed.

21. 'before and above all Eru's works'; i.e. 'before and above the works of Eru, of whatever kind'.

22. For previous references to the People of Marach see pp. 305 - 6, 23. 309, 344.

Another version of Note 9 is extant, the opening of which reads thus:

It is probable that Andreth was actually unwilling to say more.

She may also have felt unable to make up her mind about the conflicting human traditions on the point. Longer recensions of the Athrabeth, which appear to have been 'edited' under Numenorean influence (the Numenoreans were mainly derived from the People of Marach, who had more specific traditions concerning what we should call the Fall), make her give, under pressure, a more precise answer. Briefly this:

Some say the disaster happened very early in the history of our people; some say in the first generation. The Voice of the One had spoken to us, some say by a Messenger, some by a Voice only, some that it was by a knowledge in our hearts which we had from the beginning. But we were few and the world seemed very wide; and we wondered much at all that we saw, but we were ignorant, and yet desired greatly to know, and we were in haste to make things, the shapes of which grew in our minds.

Then one came among us, in our own shape, but greater and more beautiful...

From this point the text differs from the 'Tale of Adanel' (p. 346) only in very minor details of wording; but it stops (not at the foot of a page) at the words 'we would hear his voice, and receive his commands' (the 'Tale of Adanel' p. 347).

This first version was rejected and set aside, and at some later stage my father noted on the typescript: 'The rest of the notes and the conclusion of the legend of Melkor's Deception seems lost.

The full copy was sent to Mrs. E. J. Neave (my aunt) in Wales not long before her death. It seems never to have come back. Lost -

or destroyed by her hasty executors?' Then afterwards he noted against this that the complete text of the Notes and the legend (the 'Tale of Adanel') had been found. The keeping of his papers in separate places for fear of loss led to such distresses in his later years. - Jane Neave died in 1963; see the Note on Dating, p. 300.

24. With the names Lindar 'Singers' of the Teleri and Tareldar

'High-elves' cf. the Index to The Silmarillion, entries Teleri, Eldar.

25. It is notable that the old form Melko is given here as an alternative form.

26. See p.101 note 2.

27. melk-: this stem was first written with two vowels, perhaps melek-, but the second vowel seems to have been inked out.

28. Saelon: replaced by Saelind ('Wise-heart'), p. 305.

29. Cf. the words of the Voice of Eru in the 'Tale of Adanel', p. 347.

30. The meaning is: 'though we speak in uncertainty of what it is that

"indwells" '.

31. Cf. the footnote at the end of Laws and Customs, p. 250.

APPENDIX.

'The Converse of Manwe and Eru'

and later conceptions of Elvish reincarnation.

The statement at the beginning of Note 3 (p. 339) that 'in Elvish tradition their re-incarnation was a special permission granted by Eru to Manwe, when Manwe directly consulted Him at the time of the debate concerning Finwe and Miriel' seems very strange in the light of Laws and Customs among the Eldar, where it was stated very explicitly (p. 221) that 'A houseless fea that chose or was permitted to return to life re-entered the incarnate world through child-birth. Only thus could it return' (to which such 'a rare and strange case' as that of Miriel, who was 'rehoused in her own body', is noted as the only exception). In Laws and Customs it is a presupposition of the whole matter that Miriel might in the nature of things return from death if she would; thus Ulmo said in the Debate of the Valar that 'the fea of Miriel may have departed by necessity, but it departed in the will not to return', and that 'therein was her fault' (p. 242). It cannot be thought that Laws and Customs was written on the basis that rebirth was only 'granted as a special permission' by Eru to Manwe 'at the time of the debate concerning Finwe and Miriel', an idea of which there is no hint or suggestion in that work.

The explanation of this is that after the writing of Laws and Customs my father's views concerning the fate of Elves who had died underwent a radical change, and the passage cited from Note 3 to the Commentary on the Athrabeth does not in fact refer to 'rebirth' at all.

There exists a text entitled The Converse of Manwe and Eru, which followed Laws and Customs but preceded the Commentary on the Athrabeth. This work (in typescript) was planned as twofold, the first part being the questions of Manwe and the replies of Eru, and the second an elaborate philosophical discussion of the significance and implications; but it was abandoned before it was finished, and a second, more ample version of the 'Converse' was given up after only a couple of pages. I give the first part, the 'Converse', only, in the original shorter recension.

Manwe spoke to Eru, saying: 'Behold! an evil appears in Arda that we did not look for: the First-born Children, whom Thou madest immortal, suffer now severance of spirit and body.

Many of the fear of the Elves in Middle-earth are now houseless; and even in Aman there is one. The houseless we summon to Aman, to keep them from the Darkness, and all who hear our voice abide here in waiting. What further is to be done?

Is there no means by which their lives may be renewed, to follow the courses which Thou hast designed? And what of the bereaved who mourn those that have gone?'

Eru answered: 'Let the houseless be re-housed! '

Manwe asked: 'How shall this be done?'

Eru answered: 'Let the body that was destroyed be re-made.

Or let the naked fea be re-born as a child.'

Manwe said: 'Is it Thy will that we should attempt these things? For we fear to meddle with Thy Children.'

Eru answered: Have I not given to the Valar the rule of Arda, and power over all the substance thereof, to shape it at their will under My will? Ye have not been backward in these things. As for my First-born, have ye not removed great numbers of them to Aman from the Middle-earth in which I set them?'

Manwe answered: 'This we have done, for fear of Melcor, and with good intent, though not without misgiving. But to use our power upon the flesh that Thou hast designed, to house the spirits of Thy Children, this seems a matter beyond our authority, even were it not beyond our skill.'

Eru said: 'I give you authority. The skills ye have already, if ye will take heed. Look and ye will find that each spirit of My Children retaineth in itself the full imprint and memory of its former house; and in its nakedness it is open to you, so that ye may clearly perceive all that is in it. After this imprint ye may make for it again such a house in all particulars as it had ere evil befell it. Thus ye may send it back to the lands of the Living.'

Then Manwe asked further: '0 Iluvatar, hast Thou not spoken also of re-birth? Is that too within our power and authority? '

Eru answered: 'It shall be within your authority, but it is not in your power. Those whom ye judge fit to be re-born, if they desire it and understand clearly what they incur, ye shall surrender to Me; and I will consider them.'

It will be seen that wholly new dimensions to the question of the return of the Dead to the Living had now entered. My father had come to think that before the death of Miriel there had never been any

're-housing' of the fear of the Dead, and that it was only in response to the appeal of Manwe that Eru decreed such a possibility and the modes by which it might be brought about. One such mode is the rebirth of the fea as a child, but such of the Dead as desire it are to be surrendered to Eru to await His judgement in their case. The other mode is the making, by the Valar, of 'such a house in all particulars as it had ere evil befell it': the reincarnation of the Dead in a hroa identical to that which death had overtaken. The long discussion that follows the 'Converse' is very largely concerned with the ideas of

'identity' and 'equivalence' in relation to this form of reincarnation, represented as a commentary by Eldarin loremasters.

A hastily written manuscript on small slips of paper, entitled

'Reincarnation of Elves', seems to show my father's reflections on the subject between the abandonment of The Converse of Manwe and Eru and the Commentary on the Athrabeth. In this discussion he referred in rapid and elliptical expression to the difficulties at every level (including practical and psychological) in the idea of the reincarnation of the fea as the newborn child of second parents, who as it grows up recaptures the memory of its previous life: 'the most fatal objection'