Sauron Defeated (68 page)

the old road and the path of the memory of the West still went on, as it were a mighty bridge invisible that passed through the air of breath and of flight (which were bent now as the world was bent), and traversed Ilmen which flesh unaided cannot endure, until it came to Tol Eressea, the Lonely Isle, and maybe even beyond, to Valinor, where the Valar still dwell and watch the unfolding of the story of the world. And tales and rumours arose along the shores of the sea concerning mariners and men forlorn upon the water who, by some fate or grace or favour of the Valar, had entered in upon the Straight Way and seen the face of the world sink below them, and so had come to the lamplit quays of Avallone, or verily to the last beaches on the margin of Aman, and there had looked upon the White Mountain, dreadful and beautiful, before they died.

It will be seen that $49 and the first part of $50 (as far as 'But they found it not') in DA was largely retained in the Akallabeth (where however all this passage concerning the speculations of the Exiles was removed to the end of the work). But where DA has 'Avalloni is vanished from the Earth, and the Land of Gift is taken away' the Akallabeth has 'Avallone is vanished from the Earth and the Land of Aman is taken away'. In DA Avalloni is the Land of Aman; in the Akallabeth it is the haven in Tol Eressea (see p. 386). In DA those who searched the empty seas hoped to come upon 'the Lonely Isle', which is the summit of the Pillar of Heaven; in the Akallabeth they hoped to come upon

'the Isle of Meneltarma'.

In both versions the mariners who sailed west from Middle-earth seeking for the summit of Minul-Tarik or Meneltarma discovered by their voyaging that the world was round; but in DA the words are 'that the world was indeed round', whereas in the Akallabeth they are 'that the world was indeed made round'.

In The Fall of Numenor it was explicit, the kernel of the legend of the Cataclysm, that the world was made round at the time of the Downfall (see pp. 386 - 7): this was the story, and within the story the rounding of the world at that time is a fact, unqualified. In The Drowning of Anadune the Nimir (Eldar) had come to the Adunaim and expressly taught that the world was of its nature round ('as an apple it hangeth on the branches of heaven', $23), but Zigur coming had gainsaid it ('The world was not a circle closed', $31). In this work the author knows that the world is of its nature a globe; but very few of the Adunaim had believed this teaching until the voyages of the survivors of the Downfall taught them that it was true (cf. the passage ($$49-50)

written on the original text DA I, p. 355: 'For they believed still the lies of Sauron that the world was plain, until their fleets had encompassed all the world seeking for Meneltyula, and they knew that it was round'). And so (as he recounts the tradition), rather than accept the true nature of the Round World, 'the belief arose among them that it had so been made only in the time of the great Downfall, and was not thus before.' So it was that the survivors of Anadune in the West of Middle-earth came to the conception of the Straight Road: 'Therefore they thought that, while the new world fell away, the old road and the path of the memory of the Earth went on towards heaven, as it were a mighty bridge invisible.'

This is radically distinct from The Fall of Numenor (FN III $11, p. 338): For the ancient line of the world remained in the mind of Iluvatar, and in the thought of the gods, and in the memory of the world, as a shape and plan that has been changed and yet endureth.' The author of The Fall of Numenor knows that 'of old many of the exiles of Numenor could still see, some clearly and some more faintly, the paths to the True West'; but for the rationalising author (as he may seem to be) of The Drowning of Anadune the Straight Road was a belief born of desire and regret.

The author of the Akallabeth had both works before him, and in this passage he made use of them both. I give again here the concluding passage of the Akallabeth with the sources shown (necessarily somewhat approximately): The Drowning of Anadune in italic, The Fall of Numenor (FN III $$8, 12) in roman between asterisks, and passages not found in either source in roman within brackets.

But they found it not. (And those that sailed far)* came only to the new lands, and found them like to the old lands, and subject to death.* (And those that sailed furthest set but a girdle about the Earth and returned)* weary at last to the place of their beginning;* and they said: 'All roads are now bent.'

Thus in after days, what by the voyages of ships, what by (lore and) star-craft, the kings of Men knew that the world was indeed (made) round, (and yet the Eldar were permitted still to depart and to come to the Ancient West and to Avallone, if they would.) Therefore (the loremasters of Men said that a Straight Road must still be, for those that were permitted to find it. And they taught) that, while the new world fell away, the old road and the path of the memory of the (West still) went on, as it were a mighty bridge invisible (that) * passed through the air of breath and of flight *((which ($$49-50)

were bent now as the world was bent),)* and traversed Ilmen which flesh unaided cannot endure,* (until it came to Tol Eressea, the Lonely Isle, and maybe even beyond, to Valinor, where the Valar still dwell and watch the unfolding of the story of the world.) And tales and rumours (arose along the shores of the sea) concerning mariners and men forlorn upon the water who, by some fate or grace (or favour of the Valar,) had entered in upon the (Straight) Way and seen the face of the world sink below them, and so had come to (the lamplit quays of Avallone, or verily to the last beaches on the margin of) Aman, and there had looked upon the White Mountain, dreadful and beautiful, before they died.

The intention that lay behind these aspects of The Drowning of Anadune is discussed in the next section (v).

$51 The description of the gale that followed the Cataclysm was rewritten in DA III to a form close to that in the Akallabeth (p. 280), but still retaining the seven ships (see p. 387, $51): But when the land of Anadune toppled to its fall, then he

[Nimruzir] would have been drawn down and perished, and deemed it the lesser grief, for no wrench of death could be more bitter than the ruin of that day; but the wind took him, for it blew still from the West more wild than any wind that Men had known; and it tore away the sails, and snapped the masts, and hunted the unhappy men like straws upon the water; and the deeps rose up in towering anger.

Then the seven ships of Nimruzir fled before the black gale out of the twilight of doom into the darkness of the world; and waves like moving mountains capped with snow bore them up amid the clouds, and after many days cast them away far inland upon Middle-earth.

On the text of DA IV seven was altered in a hastily scribbled change to twelve.

$55 At first the conclusion in DA III retained the form in DA II, but it was replaced by the following (with pencilled corrections as shown, appearing in DA IV as typed):

And the name of that land has perished; for neither did men speak of Gimlad, nor of Abarzayan [> Yozayan] the Gift that was taken away, nor of Anadune upon the confines of the world; but the exiles on the shores of the Sea, if they turned towards the West, spoke of Akallabe [> Akallabeth] that was whelmed in the waves, the Downfallen, Atalante in the Nimrian tongue.

Akallabeth is the form in Lowdham's fragments (pp. 247, 312).

*

I have shown (p. 353) that the composition of the original draft DA I of The Drowning of Anadune fell between that of the sole manuscript E of Part Two of The Notion Club Papers and the first typescript F 1 of Night 66 in the Papers. The second text DA II fell between F 1 and the replacement F 2 (p. 375), as also did the third text DA III (p. 388, $12). The final text DA IV is the first in which the Adunaic name of 'the Land of Gift' is Yozayan, the form in F 2; it cannot be seen which of these two texts preceded the other, but this seems to be of slight importance. What is significant about these details, of course, is that they make it certain that the composition of The Drowning of Anadune was intertwined with and was completed within the same period as the further development of Part Two of The Notion Club Papers.

(v) The theory of the work.

I turn now to the fundamental question, what is the significance of the extraordinary transformations of, and omissions from, the existing legends in the development of The Drowning of Anadune? I have headed this section The theory of the work because my father used the word in this connection, and because I believe and hope to show that there was a 'theory' behind it.

Before attempting to formulate an answer, there are three extremely curious texts to be considered. All three were written at great speed, dashed down in careless expression as words came to mind, and probably one after the other. Very obviously preceding the emergence of Adunaic, they are a series of sketches of the rapidly evolving conceptions that would underlie the new version of the Numenorean legend that my father was contemplating: the first of them is in fact headed The theory of this version.

This first essay, which I will call 'Sketch I', exceedingly rough and disjointed, led on to a second ('Sketch II') which followed I for some distance, enlarging and expanding it, but was then abandoned. It is convenient to give Sketch II first so far as it goes, and then the remainder of I.

Notes on this section will be found on pp. 410 ff.

Evil reincarnates itself from time to time - reiterating, as it were, the Fall.

There were 'Enkeladim' once on earth, but that was not their name in this world: it was Eledai (in Numenorean Eldar).(1) After the First Fall they tried to befriend Men, and teach them to love the Earth and all things that grow in it. But evil also was ever at work.

There were false Eldar: counterfeits and deceits made by evil, ghosts and goblins, but not always evil to look at. They terrified Men, or else deceived and betrayed them, and hence arose the fear of Men for all the spirits of the Earth.

Men 'awoke' first in the midst of the Great Middle Earth (Europe and Asia), and Asia was first thinly inhabited, before the Dark Ages of great cold. Even before that time Men had spread westward (and eastward) as far as the shores of the Sea. The [Enkeladim >] Eledai withdrew into waste places or retreated westward.(2)

The Men who journeyed westward were in general those who remained in closest touch with the true Eledai, and for the most part they were drawn west by the rumour of a land in or beyond the Western Sea which was beautiful, and was the home of the Eledai where all things were fair and ordered to beauty. This was so for there was a great island in the Ocean where the Eledai had first

'awakened' when the world was made: that is complete and ready for their operations.

Thus it is that the more beautiful legends (containing truths) arose, of oreads, dryads, and nymphs; and of the Ljos-alfar.(3) At length Men reached the western shores of the Great Lands, and were halted on the shores of the Sea. The shock and awe and longing of that meeting has remained in their descendants ever since, and the Great Sea and the setting sun has been to them the most moving symbol of Death and of Hope for Escape.

In the margin of the text of this page, which ends at this point, my father wrote: 'The Almighty even after the Fall allowed an earthly paradise to be maintained for a while; but the Eledai were bidden to withdraw thither as men spread - if they would remain as they had been: otherwise they would fade and diminish.'(4)

In times remote, when Men, though they had now wandered for many many lives upon the face of the Earth, were yet young and untutored (save such few kindreds as had become knit in friendship with the western Eledai, and their language had become enriched, and they knew verse and song and other arts), evil once again took visible shape. A great tyrant arose, first as the war-lord of a tribe, but he grew slowly to a mighty king, magician, and finally a god. In the midst [written above: North?] of the Great Lands was the seat of this terrible dominion, and all about men became enslaved to him.

In that time Darkness became terrible. The black power slowly extended westward; for Meleko (5) knew that there lingered the most powerful and beneficent of the Eledai, and that their friendship with Men was the greatest obstacle to his complete dominion.

Those among Men of the West who were most filled with sea-hunger began to make boats, aided and inspired (as in much else) by the Eledai, and they began to essay the waters, at first with fear, but with growing mastery of wind and tide, and of themselves.

But now war broke out, for the forces of Meleko threatened the lands of the west marches of the sea. The Men of the West were strong, and free, and the Easterlings of Meleko were driven back again and again. But this was only a respite, for the Easterlings were innumerable, and the attack was ever renewed with greater force; and Meleko sent phantoms and demons and spirits of evil into the western lands, so that these also might become intolerable and a time of dread, when men cowered in their houses and looked no more on the stars.