Sauron Defeated (58 page)

NOTES.

1. On the threefold span of the Numenoreans see p. 378, $13. - The descendants of Hurin the Steadfast: presumably an inadvertence, for Huor, father of Tuor, father of Earendil; but Hurin is repeated in the addition to $2. Cf. the note given in VII.6, 'Trotter is a man of Elrond's race descendant of Turin', where Turin is presumably a slip for Tuor.

2. Undunie': Andunie' is the form in FN II, but on the amanuensis typescript made from FN II (V.31) the form was changed to Undunie'.

3. Tar-kalion became the fourteenth (not the thirteenth) king of Numenor by correction of the second text of The Drowning of Anadune (see p. 381, $20).

4. On uncertainty with regard to the site of the temple see p. 384, $32.

5. On the back of the slip carrying the long addition to $2 concerning Elrond and Elros are rough notes in which there is a reference to the Adunaic language; but these are not dateable.

(ii) The original text of The Drowning of Anadune.

It will become very evident that The Drowning of Anadune was as closely associated with Part Two of The Notion Club Papers as was the original Fall of Numenor with The Lost Road. I shall give first the original draft, and postpone observations about it to the conclusion.

The draft is a typescript of extreme roughness, with a great many typing errors, and I have little doubt that my father, for some reason, and for the first time, composed a primary draft entirely ab initio on a typewriter, typing at speed. Certainly there is no trace among all this great collection of texts and notes of any still more 'primary' narrative (although there are preliminary sketches which are given later, pp. 397

ff.). I print it here essentially as it was typed, correcting the obvious errors and here and there inserting punctuation, but ignoring subsequent correction. Such correction is largely confined to the opening paragraphs, after which it ceases: it looks as if my father saw that it would be impossible to carry out a wholesale rewriting on a single-spaced typescript with narrow margins. In any case these corrections were taken up into the second text, which I also give in full. One name that was consistently changed, however, is Balai > Avalai, as far as $16, where Avalai appears in the typescript as typed. I have extended the marks of length over vowels throughout the text: my father's typewriter having no such marks, he inserted them in pencil, and often omitted them.

The numbered paragraphs have of course no manuscript warrant: I have inserted them to make subsequent reference and comparison easier. This first text has in fact little division into paragraphs, and my divisions are made largely on the basis of the following version.

I shall refer to this text subsequently as 'DA I'. It had no title as typed, but The Drowning of Numenor was pencilled in afterwards.

$1 Before the coming of Men there were many Powers that governed Earth, and they were Eru-beni, servants of God, and in the earliest recorded tongue they were called Balai. Some were lesser and some greater. The mightiest and the chieftain of them all was Meleko.

$2 But long ago, even in the making of Earth, he pondered evil; he became a rebel against Eru, desiring the whole world for his own and to have none above him. Therefore Manawe his brother endeavoured to rule the earth and the Powers according to the will of Eru; and Manawe dwelt in the West. But Meleko remained, dwelling in hiding in the North, and he worked evil, and he had the greater power, and the Great Lands were darkened.

$3 And at the appointed time Men were born into the world, and they came in a time of war; and they fell swiftly under the domination of Meleko. And he now came forth and appeared as a Great King and as a god, and his rule was evil, and his worship unclean; and Men were estranged from Eru and from the Balai, his servants.

$4 But there were some of the fathers of Men who repented, seeing the evil of King Meleko, and their houses returned with sorrow to the allegiance of Eru, and they were befriended by the Balai, and they were called the Eruhil, the children of God. And the Balai and the Eruhil made war on Meleko, and for that time they destroyed his kingdom and threw down his black throne.

But Meleko was not destroyed and he went again for a while in hiding, unseen by Men. But his evil was still ever at work, and cruel kings and evil temples arose ever in the world, and the most part of Mankind were their servants; and they made war on the Eruhil.

$5 And the Balai in grief withdrew ever further west (or if they did not so they faded and became secret voices and shadows of the days of old); and the most part of the Eruhil followed them. Though it is said that some of these good men, simple folk, shepherds and the like, dwelt in the heart of the Great Lands.

$6 But all the nobler of the Eruhil and those closest in the friendship of the Balai, who had helped most in the war on the Black Throne, wandered away until they came to the last shores of the Great Seas. There they halted and were filled with dread and longing; for the Balai for the most part passed over the sea seeking the realm of Manawe. And there instructed by the Balai men learned the craft of ship-building and of sailing in the wind; and they built many small ships. But they did not dare to essay the deep waters, and journeyed mostly up and down the coasts and among the nearer isles.

$7 And it was by their ships that they were saved. For evil men multiplied in those days and pursued the Eruhil with hatred; and evil men inspired by the evil spirit of Meleko grew cunning and cruel in the arts of war and the making of many weapons; and the Eruhil were hard to put to it to maintain any land in which to dwell.

$8 And in those dark days of fear and war there arose a man among the Eruhil and his name was Earendil the Sea-friend, for his daring upon the sea was great. And it came into his heart that he would build a ship greater than any that had yet been built, and that he would sail out into the deep water and come maybe to the land of Manawe and there get help for his kinsfolk. And he let build a great ship and he called it Wingalote,(1) the Foam-flower.

$9 And when it was all ready he said farewell to his sons and his wife and all his kin; for he was minded to sail alone.

And he said: 'It is likely that you will see me never again, and if you do not, then continue your war, and endure until the end.

But if I do not fail of my errand, then also you may not see me again, but a sign you will see, and then have hope.'

$10 But Earendel (2) passed over the Great Sea and came to the Blessed Realm and spoke to Manawe.

$11 [Rejected at once: And Manawe said that he had not now the power to war against Meleko, who moreover was the rightful governor of Earth, though his right might seem to have been destroyed by his rebellion; and that the governance of the earth was now in the hands of] And Manawe said that Eru had forbidden the Balai to make war by force; and that the earth was now in the hands of Men, to make or to mar. But because of their repentance and their fidelity he would give, as was permitted to him, a land for the Eruhil to dwell in if they would.

And that land was a mighty island in the midst of the sea. But Manawe would not permit Earendil to return again amongst Men, since he had set foot in the Blessed Realm, where as yet no Death had come. And he took the ship of Earendil and filled it with silver flame and raised it above the world to sail in the sky, a marvel to behold.

$12 And the Eruhil on the shores of the sea beheld the light of it; and they knew that it was the sign of Earendil. And hope and courage was born in their hearts; and they gathered their ships, small and great, and all their goods, and set sail upon the deep waters, following the star. And there was a great calm in those days and all the winds were stilled. And the Eruhil came to the land that had been set for them, and they found it fair and fruitful, and they were glad. And they called that land Andore,(3) the land of Gift, though afterward it was mostly named Numenore, Westernesse.

$13 But not so did the Eruhil escape the doom of death that had been pronounced upon all Mankind; and they were mortal still; though for their fidelity they were rewarded by a threefold span, and their years were long and blissful and untroubled with sickness, so long as they remained true. And the Numenoreans grew wise and fair and glorious, the mightiest of men that have been; but their number was not great, for their children were few.

$14 And they were under the tutelage of the Balai, and they took the language of the Balai and forsook their own; and they wrote many things of lore and beauty in that tongue in the high tide of their realm, of which but little is now remembered. And they became mighty in all crafts, so that if they had had the mind they might easily have surpassed the evil kings of Middle-earth in the making of weapons and of war; but they were as yet men of peace; and of all arts they were most eager in the craft of ship-building, and in voyaging was the chief feat and delight of their younger men.

$15 But the Balai as yet forbade them to sail westward out of sight of the western shores of Numenor; and the Numenoreans were as yet content, though they did not fully understand the purpose of this ban. But the purpose was that the Eruhil should not be tempted to come to the Blessed Realm and there learn discontent, becoming enamoured of the immortality of the Balai, and the deathlessness of all things in their land.

$16 For as yet the Balai were permitted by Eru to maintain upon earth upon some isle or shore of the western lands still untrodden (it is not known for certain where; for Earendel alone of Men came ever thither and never again returned) an abiding place, an earthly paradise and a memorial of that which might have been, had not men turned to Meleko. And the Numenoreans named that land Avallonde the Haven of the Gods, for at times when all the air was clear and the sun was in the east they could descry, as them seemed, a city white-shining on a distant shore and great harbours and a tower; but only so when their own western haven, Andunie of Numenor, was low upon the skyline, and they dared not break the ban and sail further west. But to Numenor the Avalai came ever and anon, the children and the lesser ones of the Deathless Folk, sometimes in oarless boats, sometimes as birds flying, sometimes in other fair shapes; and they loved the Numenoreans.

$17 And so it was that the voyages of the men of Westernesse in those days went east and not west from the darkness of the North to the heats of the South and beyond to the nether darkness. And the Eruhil came often to the shores of the Great Lands, and they took pity on the forsaken world of Middle-earth; and the young princes of the Numenoreans would come among the men of the Dark Ages, and they taught them language (for the native tongues of men of Middle-earth were yet rude and unshapen) and song, and many arts, such as they could compass, and they brought them corn and wine.

$18 And the men of Middle-earth were comforted, and in some places shook off somewhat the yoke of the offspring of Meleko; and they revered the memory of the Men out of the Sea and called them Gods, for in that time the Numenoreans did not settle or dwell in Middle-earth for long. For though their feet were set eastward their hearts were ever westward.

$19 Yet in the end all this bliss and betterment turned to evil again, and men fell, as it is said, a second time. For there arose a second manifestation of the power of darkness upon earth, and whether that was but a form of the Ancient or one of his old servants that waxed to new strength, is not known. And this evil thing was called by many names, but the Eruhil named him Sauron, and men of Middle-earth (when they dared to speak his name at all) named him mostly Zigur the Great. And he made himself a great king in the midst of the earth, and was at first well-seeming and just and his rule was of benefit to all men in their needs of the body; for he made them rich, whoso would serve him. But those who would not were driven out into the waste places. Yet Zigur desired, as Meleko before, to be both a king over all kings and as a god to men. And slowly his power moved north and south, and ever westward; and he heard of the coming of the Eruhil and he was wroth. And he plotted in his heart how he might destroy Numenor.

$20 And news came also to Numenor and to Tarkalion the king, Earendel's heir (for this title had all the kings of Numenor, and they were indeed descended in unbroken line from Elros the son of Earendel), of Zigur the Great, and how he purposed to become master of all Middle-earth and after of the whole world.

And Tarkalion was angered, for the kings of Numenor had grown very glorious and proud in that time.

$21 And in the meanwhile evil, of which once long ago their fathers had tasted, albeit they had after repented, awoke again in the hearts of the Eruhil; for the desire of everlasting life and the escape from death grew ever stronger upon them as their lot in the land of Numenor grew more blissful. And they began to murmur in their hearts (and anon more openly) against the doom of men; and especially against that ban which forbade them to sail west or to visit the Blessed Realm.