The Peoples of Middle-earth (59 page)

themselves, since they were familiar with p; or to such people as the Numenorean scholars in Gondor, since p occurred in the l Common Speech, and also in the Sindarin which was still used as a spoken language among the upper classes, especially in Minas Tirith.

The use by Galadriel, as reported in The Lord of the Rings, must therefore be normal. It is not however an obstacle to the use of p in representing the classical book-Quenya, pre-Exilic or post-Exilic, in grammars, dictionaries or transcripts. It is in fact desirable, since the older p was always kept distinct in writing from original s. This in Exilic conditions, which made necessary the writing down anew from memory of many of the pre-Exilic works of lore and song,(2) implies a continuing memory of the sound p, and the places in which it had previously occurred; also probably a dislike of the change to s in the colloquial Quenya on the part of the scholars. It is in any case impossible to believe that any of the Noldor ever became unfamiliar with the sound p as such. In Valinor they dwelt between the Vanyar (Ingwi) and the Teleri (Lindar),(3) with whom they were in communication and sometimes intermarried. The Vanyar spoke virtually the same language (Quenya) and retained p in daily use; the Teleri spoke a closely related language still largely intelligible to the Noldor,(4) and it also used p. The Noldor were, even compared with other Eldar, talented linguists, and if p did not occur in the language that they learned in childhood - which could only be the case with the youngest generations of those who set out from Aman - they would have had no difficulty in acquiring it.

The change p > s must therefore have been a conscious and deliberate change agreed to and accepted by a majority of the Noldor, however initiated, after the separation of their dwellings from the Vanyar. It must have occurred after the birth of Miriel, but (probably) before the birth of Feanor. The special connexion of these two persons with the change and its later history needs some consideration.

The change was a general one, based primarily on phonetic

'taste' and theory, but it had not yet become universal. It was attacked by the loremasters,(5) who pointed out that the damage this merging would do in confusing stems and their derivatives that had been distinct in sound and sense had not yet been sufficiently considered. The chief of the linguistic loremasters at that time was Feanor. He insisted that p was the true pronunciation for all who cared for or fully understood their language.

But in addition to linguistic taste and wisdom he had other motives. He was the eldest of Finwe's sons and the only child of his first wife Miriel. She was a Noldorin Elda of slender and graceful form, and of gentle disposition, though as was later discovered in matters far more grave, she could show an ultimate obstinacy that counsel or command would only make more obdurate. She had a beautiful voice and a delicate and clear enunciation, though she spoke swiftly and took pride in this skill. Her chief talent, however, was a marvellous dexterity of hand. This she employed in embroidery, which though achieved in what even the Eldar thought a speed of haste was finer and more intricate than any that had before been seen. She was therefore called Perinde (Needlewoman) - a name which she had indeed already been given as a 'mother-name'.(6) She adhered to the pronunciation p (it had still been usual in her childhood), and she desired that all her kin should adhere to it also, at the least in the pronunciation of her name.

Feanor loved his mother dearly, though except in obstinacy their characters were widely different. He was not gentle. He was proud and hot-tempered, and opposition to his will he met not with the quiet steadfastness of his mother but with fierce resentment. He was restless in mind and body, though like Miriel he could become wholly absorbed in works of the finest skill of hand; but he left many things unfinished. Feanaro was his mother-name, which Miriel gave him in recognition of his impetuous character (it meant 'spirit of fire'). While she lived she did much with gentle counsel to soften and restrain him.(7) Her death was a lasting grief to Feanor, and both directly and by its further consequences a main cause of his later disastrous influence on the history of the Noldor.

The death of Miriel Perinde - death of an 'immortal' Elda in the deathless land of Aman - was a matter of grave anxiety to the Valar, the first presage of the Shadow that was to fall on Valinor. The matter of Finwe and Miriel and the judgement that the Valar after long debate finally delivered upon it is elsewhere told.(8) Only those points that may explain the conduct of Feanor are here recalled. Miriel's death was of free will: she forsook her body and her fea went to the Halls of Waiting, while her body lay as if asleep in a garden. She said that she was weary in body and spirit and desired peace. The cause of her weariness she believed to be the bearing of Feanor, great in mind and body beyond the measure of the Eldar. Her weariness she had endured until he was full grown, but she could endure it no longer.

The Valar and all the Eldar were grieved by the sorrow of Finwe, but not dismayed: all things could be healed in Aman, and when they were rested her fea and its body could be re-united and return to the joy of life in the Blessed Realm. But Miriel was reluctant, and to all the pleas of her husband and her kin that were reported to her, and to the solemn counsels of the Valar, she would say no more than 'not yet'. Each time that she was approached she became more fixed in her determination, until at last she would listen no more, saying only: 'I desire peace. Leave me in peace here! I will not return. That is my will.'

So the Valar were faced by the one thing that they could neither change nor heal: the free will of one of the Children of Eru, which it was unlawful for them to coerce - and in such a case useless, since force could not achieve its purpose. And after some years they were faced by another grave perplexity. When it became clear at last that Miriel would never of her own will return to life in the body within any span of time that could give him hope, Finwe's sorrow became embittered. He forsook his long vigils by her sleeping body and sought to take up his own life again; but he wandered far and wide in loneliness and found no joy in anything that he did.

There was a fair lady of the Vanyar, Indis of the House of Ingwe. She had loved Finwe in her heart, ever since the days when the Vanyar and the Noldor lived close together. In one of his wanderings Finwe met her again upon the inner slopes of Oiolosse, the Mountain of Manwe and Varda; and her face was lit by the golden light of Laurelin that was shining in the plain of Ezellohar below.(9) In that hour Finwe perceived in her eyes the love that had before been hidden from him. So it came to pass that Finwe and Indis desired to be wedded, and Finwe sought the counsel of the Valar.

The long debate that they held on the matter may be passed over briefly. They were obliged to choose between two courses: condemning Finwe to bereavement of a wife for ever, or allowing one of the Eldar to take a second wife. The former seemed a cruel injustice, and contrary to the nature of the Eldar. The second they had thought unlawful, and some still held to that opinion.(10) The end of the Debate was that the marriage of Finwe and Indis was sanctioned. It was judged that Finwe's bereavement was unjust, and by persisting in her refusal to return Miriel had forfeited all rights that she had in the case; for either she was now capable of accepting the healing of her body by the Valar, or else her fea was mortally sick and beyond their power, and she was indeed 'dead', no longer capable of becoming again a living member of the kindred of the Eldar.

'So she must remain until the end of the world. For from the moment that Finwe and Indis are joined in marriage all future change and choice will be taken from her and she will never again be permitted to take bodily shape. Her present body will swiftly wither and pass away, and the Valar will not restore it.

For none of the Eldar may have two wives both alive in the world.' These were the words of Manwe, and an answer to the doubts that some had felt. For it was known to all the Valar that they alone had the power to heal or restore the body for the re-housing of a fea that should in the later chances of the world be deprived; but that to Manwe also was given the right to refuse the return of the fea.

During the time of his sorrow Finwe had little comfort from Feanor. For a while he also had kept vigil by his mother's body, but soon he became wholly absorbed again in his own works and devices. When the matter of Finwe and Indis arose he was disturbed, and filled with anger and resentment; though it is not recorded that he attended the Debate or paid heed to the reasons given for the judgement, or to its terms except in one point: that Miriel was condemned to remain for ever discarnate, so that he could never again visit her or speak with her, unless he himself should die.(11) This grieved him, and he grudged the happiness of Finwe and Indis, and was unfriendly to their children, even before they were born.

How this ill will grew and festered in the years that followed is the main matter of the first part of The Silmarillion: the Darkening of Valinor. Into the strife and confusion of loyalties in that time this seemingly trivial matter, the change of p to s, was caught up to its embitterment, and to lasting detriment to the Quenya tongue. Had peace been maintained there can be no doubt that the advice of Feanor, with which all the other loremasters privately or openly agreed, would have prevailed. But an opinion in which he was certainly right was rejected because of the follies and evil deeds into which he was later led. He made it a personal matter: he and his sons adhered to p, and they demanded that all those who were sincere in their support should do the same. Therefore those who resented his arrogance, and still more those whose support later turned to hatred, rejected his shibboleth.

Indis was a Vanya, and it might be thought that she would in this point at least have pleased Feanor, since the Vanyar adhered to p. Nonetheless Indis adopted s. Not as Feanor believed in belittlement of Miriel, but in loyalty to Finwe. For after the rejection of his prayers by Miriel Finwe accepted the change (which had now become almost universal among his people), although in deference to Miriel he had adhered to p while she lived. Therefore Indis said: 'I have joined the people of the Noldor, and I will speak as they do.' So it came about that to Feanor the rejection of p became a symbol of the rejection of Miriel, and of himself, her son, as the chief of the Noldor next to Finwe. This, as his pride grew and his mood darkened, he thought was a 'plot' of the Valar, inspired by fear of his powers, to oust him and give the leadership of the Noldor to those more servile. So Feanor would call himself Son of the Perinde, and when his sons in their childhood asked why their kin in the house of Finwe used s for p he answered: 'Take no heed! We speak as is right, and as King Finwe himself did before he was led astray. We are his heirs by right and the elder house. Let them sa-si, if they can speak no better.'

There can thus be no doubt that the majority of the Exiles used s for p in their daily speech; for in the event (after Morgoth had contrived the murder of Finwe) Feanor was deprived of the leadership, and the greater part of the Noldor who forsook Valinor marched under the command of Fingolfin, the eldest son of Indis. Fingolfin was his father's son, tall, dark, and proud, as were most of the Noldor, and in the end in spite of the enmity between him and Feanor he joined with full will in the rebellion and the exile, though he continued to claim the kingship of all the Noldor.

The case of Galadriel and her brother Finrod is somewhat different.(12) They were the children of Finarfin, Indis' second son. He was of his mother's kind in mind and body, having the golden hair of the Vanyar, their noble and gentle temper, and their love of the Valar. As well as he could he kept aloof from the strife of his brothers and their estrangement from the Valar, and he often sought peace among the Teleri, whose language he learned. He wedded Earwen, the daughter of King Olwe, and his children were thus the kin of King Elwe Pindikollo (13) (in Sindarin Elu Thingol) of Doriath in Beleriand, for he was the brother of Olwe; and this kinship influenced their decision to join in the Exile, and proved of great importance later in Beleriand. Finrod was like his father in his fair face and golden hair, and also in noble and generous heart, though he had the high courage of the Noldor and in his youth their eagerness and unrest; and he had also from his Telerin mother a love of the sea and dreams of far lands that he had never seen. Galadriel was the greatest of the Noldor, except Feanor maybe, though she was wiser than he, and her wisdom increased with the long years.

Her mother-name was Nerwen 'man-maiden', and she grew to be tall beyond the measure even of the women of the Noldor; she was strong of body, mind, and will, a match for both the loremasters and the athletes of the Eldar in the days of their youth. Even among the Eldar she was accounted beautiful, and her hair was held a marvel unmatched. It was golden like the hair of her father and her foremother Indis, but richer and more radiant, for its gold was touched by some memory of the star-like silver of her mother; and the Eldar said that the light of the Two Trees, Laurelin and Telperion, had been snared in her tresses. Many thought that this saying first gave to Feanor the thought of imprisoning and blending the light of the Trees that later took shape in his hands as the Silmarils. For Feanor beheld the hair of Galadriel with wonder and delight. He begged three times for a tress, but Galadriel would not give him even one hair. These two kinsfolk, the greatest of the Eldar of Valinor,(14) were unfriends for ever.