The Lays of Beleriand (47 page)

[The remainder of the outline is in pencil and in places in-decipherable:] She lets fall her bat-garb. Her hair falls about. The lights of Angband die. Impenetrable dark falls: only the eyes of Morgoth and the faint glimmer of Tinuviel.............. Her fragrance causes all to draw near greedily. Tinuviel flies [? in at] door leaving Beren struck with horror.............

Here this outline ends. Morgoth's words 'Who art thou that flittest about my halls as a bat' occur also in the Tale of Tinuviel (II. 32) - this outline several times adopts directly the wording of the Tale, see pp. 283, 294.

This is a curious point, for in the Tale Tinuviel was not attired in a bat-skin, whereas in Synopsis III she was. It is conceivable that Melko's words actually gave rise to this element in the story.

In the Tale Tinuviel lied to Melko, saying that Tinwelint her father had driven her out, and in reply he said that she need not hope for 'soft words'- this too is a phrase that recurs in Synopsis I I I. But the remainder of this outline does not relate closely to the Tale.

Synopsis V is here very brief. After 'the enchanting of Carcharos'

(p. 294) it has only (still under the heading 'r r '): The cozening of Morgoth and the rape of the Silmaril.

The dwarvish knife of Curufin breaks.

It is clear that the concluding passage of Synopsis III, given above, was a direct precursor of Canto XIII; but some elements - and actual wording - in the scene go back to the Tale without being mentioned in the Synopsis. Luthien's words 'his rebellious daughter' (4007) seem to echo 'he is an overbearing Elf and I give not my love at his command'

(II. 32); there is a clear relation between the words of the Tale (ibid.).

Then did Tinuviel begin such a dance as neither she nor other sprite or fay or elf danced ever before or has done since and lines 4072 - 3

in dance such as never Elf nor fay

before devised, nor since that day;

and with 'the adders lay like twisted stone' (4109) cf. 'Beneath his chair the adders lay like stones.' It is interesting to see the idea of the shard of the knife-blade striking Morgoth's brow (in?he Silmarillion his cheek) emerging in the composition of this Canto; as first written (see note to lines 4163 - 6) it seems to have been the sound of the knife snapping that disturbed the sleepers, as it was expressly in the Tale (II. 33). With the

'treacherous smiths of Nogrod' (4161) who made Curufin's knife cf. the passage in The Children of Hurin concerning the bearded Dwarves of troth unmindful who made the knife of Flinding that slipped from its sheath (p.44, lines 1142 ff.): that was made by the Dwarves of Belegost, and like Curufin's

[its] edge would eat through iron noiseless

as a clod of clay is cleft by the share.

The account in The Silmarillion (pp. 180 - x) is clearly based on Canto XIII, from which it derives many features, though it is reduced, notably by compressing the two episodes of Luthien singing (3977ff., 4062ff.) into one; and the prose here owes less to the verses than in other places.

Luthien's naming herself Thuringwethil to Morgoth (line 3954) is notable. In The Silmarillion (p. 178) the bat-fell which Huan brought from Tol-in-Gaurhoth was that of Thuringwethil. "she was the messenger of Sauron, and was wont to fly in vampire's form to Angband', whereas in the Lay (lines 3402 ff.), as I have noticed (p. 284), 'the bat-wings are only said to be such as bear up Thu's messengers, and are not associated with a particular or chief messenger'. It seems possible that in the Lay Luthien devised this name ('she of hidden shadow') as a riddling description of herself, and that this led to the conception of the bat-messenger from the Wizard's Isle to Angband named Thuringwethil; but there is no proof of this.

With the

sylphine maidens of the Air

whose wings in Varda's heavenly hall

in rhythmic movement beat and fall (4077 9)

cf. the tale of The Coming of the Valar and the Building of Valinor (I. 65 - 6), where it is said that with Manwe and Varda there entered the world 'many of those lesser Vali who loved them and had played nigh them and attuned their music to theirs, and these are the Manir and the Suruli, the sylphs of the airs and of the winds'.

*

XIV.

Up through the dark and echoing gloom

as ghosts from many-tunnelled tomb,

up from the mountains' roots profound

and the vast menace underground,

their limbs aquake with deadly fear, 4180

terror in eyes, and dread in ear,

together Red they, by the beat

affrighted of their flying feet.

At last before them far away

they saw the glimmering wraith of day, 4185

the mighty archway of the gate -

and there a horror new did wait.

Upon the threshold, watchful, dire,

his eyes new-kindled with dull fire,

towered Carcharoth, a biding doom: 4190

his jaws were gaping like a tomb,

his teeth were bare, his tongue aflame;

aroused he watched that no one came,

no flitting shade nor hunted shape,

seeking from Angband to escape. 4195

Now past that guard what guile or might

could thrust from death into the light?

He heard afar their hurrying feet,

he snuffed an odour strange and sweet;

he smelled their coming long before 4200

they marked the waiting threat at door.

His limbs he stretched and shook off sleep,

then stood at gaze. With sudden leap

upon them as they sped he sprang,

and his howling in the arches rang. 4205

Too swift for thought his onset came,

too swift for any spell to tame;

and Beren desperate then aside

thrust Luthien, and forth did stride

unarmed, defenceless to defend 4210

Tinuviel until the end.

With left he caught at hairy throat,

with right hand at the eyes he smote -

his right, from which the radiance welled

of the holy Silmaril he held. 4215

As gleam of swords in fire there flashed

the fangs of Carcharoth, and crashed

together like a trap, that tore

the hand about the wrist, and shore

through brittle bone and sinew nesh, 4220

devouring the frail mortal flesh;

and in that cruel mouth unclean

engulfed the jewel's holy sheen.

The Unwritten Cantos.

There was virtually no change in the narrative from the Tale to the Lay in the opening passage of Canto XIV, but the account in The Silmarillion '

differs, in that there Beren did not strike at the eyes of the wolf with his right hand holding the Silmaril, but held the jewel up before Carcharoth to daunt him. My father intended to alter the Lay here, as is seen from a marginal direction to introduce the element of 'daunting'.

The Lay of Leithian ends here, in both the A and B texts, and also in the pages of rough draft, but an isolated sheet found elsewhere gives a few further lines, together with variants, in the first stage of composition: Against the wall then Beren reeled

but still with his left he sought to shield

fair Luthien, who cried aloud

to see his pain, and down she bowed

in anguish sinking to the ground.

There is also a short passage, found on a separate sheet at the end of the B-text, which is headed 'a piece from the end of the poem'.

Where the forest-stream went through the wood, and silent all the stems there stood

of tall trees, moveless, hanging dark

with mottled shadows on their bark

above the green and gleaming river, 5

there came through leaves a sudden shiver,

a windy whisper through the still

cool silences; and down the hill,

as faint as a deep sleeper's breath,

an echo came as cold as death: 10

'Long are the paths, of shadow made

where no foot's print is ever laid,

over the hills, across the seas!

Far, far away are the Lands of Ease,

but the Land of the Lost is further yet, 15

where the Dead wait, while ye forget.

No moon is there, no voice, no sound

of beating heart; a sigh profound

once in each age as each age dies

alone is heard. Far, far it lies, 20

the Land of Waiting where the Dead sit,

in their thought's shadow, by no moon lit.

With the last lines compare the passage at the end of the tale of Beren and Luthien in The Silmarillion (p. 186):

But Luthien came to the halls of Mandos, which are the appointed places of the Eldalie, beyond the mansions of the West upon the confines of the world. There those that wait sit in the shadow of their thought.

There is nothing else, and I do not think that there ever was anything else. All my father's later work on the poem was devoted to the revision of what was already in existence; and the Lay of Leithian ends here.

*

Of the five synopses that have been given in sections in previous pages, only the fifth bears on the escape of Beren and Luthien from Angband.

This outline was last quoted on p. 305 ('the dwarvish knife of Curufin breaks'). It continues:

Beren and Luthien flee in fear. Arousing of Carcharos. Beren's hand is bitten off in which he holds the Silmaril. Madness of Carcharos.

Angband awakes. Flight of Beren and Luthien towards the waters of Sirion. Canto [i.e. Canto x x, see p. 305] ends as they hear the pursuing wolves behind. Wrapped in Luthien's cloak they flit beneath the stars.

Thus the rescue of Beren and Luthien by Thorondor and his vassals was not yet present, and the story was still in this respect unchanged from the Tale of Tinuviel (II. 34); cf. especially:

Tinuviel wrapped part of-her dark mantle about Beren, and so for a while flitting by dusk and dark amid the hills they were seen by none.

The first record of the changed story of the escape from Angband is found on an isolated slip, written hastily in pencil and very difficult to decipher:

Carcharoth goes mad and drives all [? orcs] before him like a wind. The sound of his awful howling causes rocks to split and fall. There is an earthquake underground. Morgoth's wrath on waking. The gateway

[?falls] in and hell is blocked, and great fires and smokes burst from Thangorodrim. Thunder and lightning. Beren lies dying before the gate. Tinuviel's song as she kisses his hand and prepares to die.

Thorondor comes down and bears them amid the lightning that

[?stabs] at them like spears and a hail of arrows from the battlements.

They pass above Gondolin and Luthien sees the white city far below,

[?gleaming] like a lily in the valley. Thorondor sets her down in Brethil.

This is very close in narrative structure to the story in The Silmarillion (p. 182), with the earthquake, fire and smoke from Thangorodrim, Beren's lying near death at the Gate, Luthien's kissing his hand (staunching the wound), the descent of Thorondor, and the passage of the eagle(s) over Gondolin. This last shows that this brief outline is relatively late, since Gondolin was already in existence before the Battle of '

Unnumbered Tears (II.208). But in this text they are set down in Brethil (a name that does not appear in the works until several years later); in The Silmarillion they are set down 'upon the borders of Doriath', in 'that same dell whence Beren had stolen in despair and left Luthien asleep'. - On the reference to Gondolin as 'a lily in the valley' see I. 172.

Synopsis V has more to tell subsequently of the wanderings of Beren and Luthien before they returned to Doriath, but I now set out the remaining materials in their entirety before commenting on them. First it is convenient to cite the end of Synopsis II, which has been given already (p. 270):

Celegorm's embassy to Thingol so that Thingol knows or thinks he knows Beren dead and Luthien in Nargothrond.

Why Celegorm and Curufin hated by Thingol as p. 270 ..

The loss of Dairon.

Synopsis I V has been given (p. 273) only as far as 'They prepare to go to Angband', since the outline then turns away from the story of Beren and Luthien themselves, according to my father's projection at that time for the further course of the Lay, and continues as follows: 11.

Doriath. The hunt for Luthien and the loss of Dairon. War on the borders. Boldog slain. So Thingol knows Luthien not yet dead is caught, but fears that Boldog's raid means that Morgoth has got wind of her wandering. Actually it means no more than the legend of her beauty.

An embassy comes from Celegorm. Thingol learns that Beren is dead, and Luthien at Nargothrond. He is roused to wrath by the hints of the letter that Celegorm will leave Felagund to die, and will usurp the throne of Nargothrond. And so Thingol had better let Luthien stay where she is.

Thingol prepares an army to go against Nargothrond, but learns that Luthien has left, and Celegorm and Curufin have fled to Aglon.

He sends an embassy to Aglon. It is routed and put to flight by the sudden onslaught of Carcharas. Mablung escapes to tell the tale. The devastation of Doriath by Carcharas.

12.

The rape of the Silmaril and the home-coming of Beren and Luthien.

13.

The wolf-hunt and death of Huan and Beren.