The Peoples of Middle-earth (32 page)

1200. Sauron seeks the friendship of the Elves (in hope to subject them). He is still fair to look on, and the Elves become enamoured of the knowledge he can impart.

1300. The Elves begin the forging of the Rings of Power. It is said that this took many long years. S[auron] secretly makes the forges

[sic]

1500. The Three Great Rings are made by Celebrimbor of the Silver Grasp (celebrin 'silver', paur 'the fist or closed hand'). The Ruling Ring is made secretly by Sauron in Mordor.

1000. Sauron begins the building of Barad-dur in Mordor.

1200. Sauron courts the friendship of the Elves, hoping to get them, the chief obstacle to his dominion, into his power. Gil-galad refuses to treat with him. But Sauron is still fair to look on and the Elves of Eregion are won over by their desire of skill and knowledge.

1500. The Elves of Eregion under the guidance of Sauron begin the forging of the Rings of Power. This takes many long years.

Sauron secretly forges the One Ring in Orodruin.

1690. The Three Rings are completed. Celebrimbor becomes aware of the designs of Sauron. Barad-dur is completed with the power of [sic]

1695. The War of the Elves and Sauron begins. Many of the remaining Eldar depart west over Sea.

1696. Elrond Earendil's son is sent to Eregion by Gil-galad.

1697. Eregion is laid waste. The gates of Moria are shut. Elrond retreats with the remnant of the Eldar to Imladris.

1600. The great voyages of the Numenoreans begin. The ships are welcomed by Gil-galad and Cirdan.

1699. Imladris is besieged but holds out under the command of Elrond. Sauron overruns Eriador. Gil-galad defends Lindon and the Grey Havens.

1700. A great navy of the Numenoreans comes to the Grey Havens.

Here this text seems to have been abandoned and replaced by another and more coherent version, with entries further reduced and dates following the latest formulations in the text just given. These dates from 1500 to 1700 were then corrected on the typescript, being reduced (advanced) by a hundred years, and so moving them away from those in Appendix B, as seen in the following table (in which I give only brief indications of the actual entries).

Appendix B

1500 [> 1400] (Forging of the Three Rings begun) c.1500

1600 [> 1500] (Forging of the One Ring) c.1600

1690 [> 1590] (Three Rings completed) c.1590

1690 [> 1590] (Barad-dur completed) c.1600

1695 [> 1595) (War of Elves and Sauron begins) 1693

1697 [> 1597] (Eregion laid waste) 1697

1699 [> 1599] (Sauron overruns Eriador) 1699

1700 [> 1600] (Coming of Numenorean navy) 1700

At this stage Imladris was still founded in the year 750. The correction of all the entries from 1500 to 1700 was subsequently abandoned; the dates before correction were now those of the final chronology or very close to them, with the exception of the completion of Barad-dur and the completion of the Three Rings. In this text, by either dating, the Three Rings were not achieved for a further ninety years after the forging of the One Ring, whereas in the final chronology (by adopting in this one case the revised date, 1590) the One Ring was made ten years after the Three.

This second text then continues:

1869. Tar-Ciryatan, twelfth king of Numenor, receives the sceptre.

The first shadow falls on Numenor. The Kings become greedy of wealth and power.

2060-2251. Reign of Tar-Atanamir the Great, thirteenth King of Numenor.(19) The shadow deepens. The King's ships exact heavy tribute from Men on the coasts of Middle-earth. The Numenoreans become jealous of the immortality of the Eldar; and the King speaks openly against [the] command of the Valar that they should not sail west from their land.

2250-3000. During this time the power and splendour of the Numenoreans continues to increase; and they build many fortresses on the west shores of Middle-earth. Sauron extends his power eastward, being withheld from the coasts, and nurses his hatred of Numenor. But the Numenoreans become divided against

Here the entry breaks off, and is immediately followed by a long account (more than 2000 words) of the Numenoreans, of their origin, their division, the coming of Sauron, and the Downfall.

I believe that this strange development can be explained in this way.

At that time, as things stood, The Lord of the Rings would be published without any account, however brief, of the story of Numenor.

In the manuscript T 4 my father had written (pp. 174-6) what I have called 'a condensed history rather than a list of dates'; for it is to be remembered that in the narrative of The Lord of the Rings, despite all the many mentions of the names Numenor and Westernesse, he had told nothing of its history, and of the Downfall no more than Faramir's words in Minas Tirith, when he told Eowyn that he was thinking 'of the land of Westernesse that foundered, and of the great dark wave climbing over the green lands and above the hills'. He must now attempt to contract even what he had written in T 4, and as a comparison of the last entries in the present text just given with those in T 4 (pp. 174 - 5) shows, he was not succeeding. The reduction into a mere chronological scheme of a large history that could not be understood by a recital of events was a task profoundly uncongenial to him.

He despaired of it, and broke off in mid-sentence.

It may well have been at that point, having typed the words 'But the Numenoreans become divided against', that he decided that The Lord of the Rings must contain some account of the story of Westernesse, separate from the Tale of Years, and set it down there and then, beginning with the words 'As a reward for their sufferings in the cause against Morgoth, the Valar, the Guardians of the World, granted to the Edain a land to dwell in, removed from the dangers of Middle-earth.'

Removed from the Tale of Years, it found a place in Appendix A, Annals of the Kings and Rulers, RK pp. 315 - 18.(20) There are in fact two typescripts of this text, both composed ab initio on the typewriter; the second of these my father described in a pencilled note as a 'variant' of the first, and it was this that he used, with many minor alterations of wording and some omissions, in Appendix A. Neither version has the list of the Kings and Queens of Numenor (RK p. 315), and both have a more detailed account of the rebellion against Tar-Palantir and the marriage of Miriel his daughter to Pharazon (said in both texts to have been 'by force'), which was omitted in Appendix A. Both versions, also, have an account of Sauron's policy in his attack on the coastal fortresses and harbours of the Numenoreans which was likewise omitted, and is not found in the Akallabeth. I cite here two passages from the first version of the text.

Proudest of all the Kings was Ar-Pharazon the Golden, and no less than the kingship of all the world was his desire. But still he retained enough wisdom to fear the Lords of the West, and turned therefore his thoughts to Middle-earth. Now Sauron knowing of the dissension in Numenor thought how he might use it to achieve his revenge. He began therefore to assail the havens and forts of the Numenoreans, and invaded the coastlands under their dominion. As he foresaw this aroused the great wrath of the King, who resolved to challenge Sauron the Great for the lordship of Middle-earth. For five years Ar-Pharazon prepared, and at last he himself set sail with a great navy and armament, the greatest that had yet appeared in the world.

If Sauron had thought thus to decoy the King to Middle-earth and there destroy him, his hope deceived him. And Ar-Pharazon landed at Umbar, and so great was the splendour and might of the Numenoreans at the noon of their glory that at the rumour of them alone all men flocked to their summons and did obeisance; and Sauron's own servants fled away. The land of Mordor he had indeed fortified and made so strong that he need fear no assault upon it; but he was in doubt now, and even the Barad-dur seemed no longer secure.

Sauron therefore changed his design, and had recourse to guile. He humbled himself, and came himself on foot before Ar-Pharazon, and did him homage and craved pardon for his offences. And Ar-Pharazon spared his life; but took from him all his titles, and made him prisoner, and carried him at length back to Numenor to be hostage for the submission and faith of all who had before owed him allegiance.

'This is a hard doom,' said Sauron, 'but great kings must have their will', and he submitted as one under compulsion, concealing his delight; for things had fallen out according to his design.

Now Sauron had great wisdom and knowledge, and could find words of seeming reason for the persuasion of all but the most wary; and he could still assume a fair countenance when he wished. He was brought as a prisoner to Numenor in 3261, but he had not been there five years before he had the King's ear and was deep in his counsel.

'Great kings must have their will': this was the burden of all his advice; and whatever the King desired he said was his right, and devised plans whereby he might gain it.

Then darkness came upon the minds of the Numenoreans, and they held the Guardians in hatred, and openly denied the One who is above all; and they turned to the worship of the Dark, and of Morgoth the Lord of the Darkness. They made a great temple in the land and there did evil; for they tormented the remnant of the faithful, and there slew them or burned them. And the like they did in Middle-earth, and filled the west coasts with tales of dread, so that men cried 'Has then Sauron become King of Numenor?'

So great was his power over the hearts of the most of that people that maybe had he wished he could have taken the sceptre; but all that he wished was to bring Numenor to ruin.

Therefore he said to the King: 'One thing only now you lack to make you the greatest King in the world, the undying life that is withheld from you in fear and jealousy by the lying Powers in the West. But great kings take what is their right.' And Ar-Pharazon pondered these words, but for long fear held him back.

But at last even Ar-Pharazon the Golden, King of kings, having lived one hundred and ninety-two years,(21) felt the waning of his life and feared the approach of death and the going out into the darkness that he had worshipped. Therefore he began to prepare a vast armament for the assault upon Valinor, that should surpass the one with which he had come to Umbar even as a great galleon of Numenor surpassed a fisher-man's boat.

There follows a brief account of the expulsion of those of doubtful loyalty from the western coasts of Numenor, the voyage of Amandil into the West,(22) the sailing of the Great Armament, and the cataclysm of the Downfall. At the end of this, following the words 'But Elendil and his sons escaped with nine ships, and were borne on the wings of a great storm and cast up on the shores of Middle-earth', is a notable statement of the destruction caused by the drowning of Numenor: These were much changed in the tumult of the winds and seas that followed the Downfall; for in some places the sea rode in upon the land, and in others it piled up new coasts. Thus while Lindon suffered great loss, the Bay of Belfalas was much filled at the east and south, so that Pelargir which had been only a few miles from the sea was left far inland, and Anduin carved a new path by many mouths to the Bay. But the Isle of Tolfalas was almost destroyed, and was left at last like a barren and lonely mountain in the water not far from the issue of the River.

No such statement is found elsewhere.(23) In the Akallabeth (The Silmarillion p. 280), in a passage taken virtually without change from The Drowning of Anadune (IX.374, $52), there is no reference to any named region or river.(24)

There is no further text of the Tale of Years extant before the typescript from which Appendix B was printed. Of this it may be noted that in the preamble to the entries for the Second Age the reference to mithril reads:

This they did because they learned that mithril had been discovered in Moria. It had been believed before that this could only be got in the Ered Luin; but no more could now be found there in the old dwarf-mines.

My father struck out the second sentence on the proof.

NOTES.

1. Against this opening statement concerning the Three Ages my father later scribbled 'These Ages are called the Elder Days'. On this see p. 173 and note 7.

2. T 1 has the more natural 'Arising of Sauron'.

3. Imladrist was corrected at once to Imladris. In T 1 the form is Imladris, as also in T 2 in the entry for 1600, so that this was a mere casual reversion to the earlier form.

4. It is plain that in the 'Scheme' the death-date of one king indicates also the accession of the next, and thus the interval between two death-dates is the length of the reign of the king: for example, the fourth king died in 1347, and the fifth in 1568, and thus the fifth king reigned for 221 years.

It certainly seems most natural to suppose that the 'Scheme'

was precisely that, and that the representation of the reigns as all of the same length (differing only by one year) was a mere formula of convenience for working out the chronology as a whole. But Atanamir reigned for 50 years longer than any other, and his son for 50 years less; and this obviously relates to the passage in the Akallabeth (SA $24, going back to the original manuscript):