Morgoth's Ring (50 page)

Thou art of the Quendi, and even if thou refuse the body, thou must remain in Arda and within the time of its history.'

But the 'seeming death' to which the Elves are subject had never yet appeared in Aman in all the long years since the Vanyar and the Noldor came to Eldamar. In the Annals of Aman, written before the story of Miriel had arisen, Feanor spoke before the Valar after the Death of the Trees ($$120 - 1, p. 107):

'... Mayhap I can unlock my jewels, but never again shall I make their like; and if they be broken, then broken will be my heart, and I shall die: first of all the Children of Eru.'

'Not the first,' quoth Mandos, but they understood not his word...

Mandos knew that Morgoth had murdered Finwe at Formenos, 'and spilled the first blood of the Children of Iluvatar' ($122).

Against the words of Mandos my father afterwards noted on the AAm typescript (p. 127, $120): 'This no longer fits even the Eldar of Valinor. Finwe Feanor's father was first to be slain of the High-elves, Miriel Feanor's mother the first to die', and on the text itself he changed Feanor's 'I shall die' to 'I shall be slain'. It might seem that a distinction is made here between 'dying' and 'being slain', but I do not think that this is the case. What is meant is simply that Miriel was the first to die, and Finwe was the second to die - but the first to be slain.

After the story of Miriel had entered Feanor could no longer say 'I shall die: first of all the Children of Eru'; my father therefore, wishing to retain the pregnant words of Mandos 'Not the first', altered Feanor's to 'I shall be slain'.

Much later, this passage in AAm was used again in the new work on the Quenta Silmarillion (see p. 293), taking this form:

'... and I shall be slain, first of all the Children of Eru.'

'Not the first,' quoth Mandos, but they did not understand his words, thinking that he spoke of Miriel.

The meaning here seems to be that those who heard the words of Mandos (speaking of the murder of Finwe as yet unknown to them) thought that he spoke of Miriel, because she was the only one of the Eldar whom they knew to have died; but since Miriel had not been slain 'they did not understand his words'. Even so, it cannot be supposed that Finwe was the first to be slain of the Children of Eru; cf.

my father's note on the AAm typescript 'This no longer fits even the Eldar of Valinor, and the passage in Laws and Customs, p. 218: This destruction of the hroa, causing death or the unhousing of the fea, was soon experienced by the immortal Eldar, when they awoke in the marred and overshadowed realm of Arda.'

It is made plain in Laws and Customs and in the new 'sub-chapter'

of the Quenta Silmarillion that the primary significance of the death of Miriel is that it was the first appearance of Death in Aman; and the debate was concerned with this unlooked-for event, and its implications for the laws that governed the life of deathless Aman. In Laws and Customs (p. 241) Yavanna declared that 'the Shadow ... has marred the very hron of Arda, and all Middle-earth is perverted by the evil of Melkor ... Therefore none of those who awoke in Middle-earth, and there dwelt before they came hither, have come here wholly free. The failing of the strength of the body of Miriel may then be ascribed, with some reason, to the evil of Arda Marred, and her death be a thing unnatural.' In FM 2 (p. 254) this thought, represented as a new perception on the part of the Valar, takes this form:

And the Valar were greatly concerned to see that all their labour for the guarding of Valinor was of no avail, to keep out evil and the shadow of Melkor, if any thing, living or unliving, was brought thither out of Middle-earth and left free or unguarded; and they perceived at last how great was the power of Melkor in Arda, in the making of which as it was his part was such that all things, save in Aman alone, had an inclination to evil and to perversion from their right forms and courses. Wherefore those whose being began in Arda, and who moreover were by nature a union of spirit and body, drawing the sustenance of the latter from Arda Marred, must ever be, in some degree, liable to grief, to do or to suffer things unnatural; and though dwelling in Aman might be a guard against this evil, it was not a full cure, unless in long ages.

This was largely retained in the final text FM 4 (p. 258, $11), though without the references to Aman; and Mandos expressly declared that Death (i.e. of the Firstborn) is a consequence of the Marring of Arda ($12).

In the draft letter of 1958 cited above in reference to the death of Miriel my father continued:

I suppose a difference between this Myth and what may be perhaps called Christian mythology is this. In the latter the Fall of Man is subsequent to and a consequence (though not a necessary l consequence) of the 'Fall of the Angels': a rebellion of created free-will at a higher level than Man; but it is not clearly held (and in many versions is not held at all) that this affected the 'World' in its nature: evil was brought in from outside, by Satan. In this Myth the rebellion of created free-will precedes creation of the World (Ea); Ea has in it, subcreatively introduced, evil, rebellious, discordant elements of its own nature already when the Let it Be was spoken.

The Fall or corruption, therefore, of all things in it and all inhabitants of it, was a possibility if not inevitable.

In Of Finwe' and Miriel all this is presented as a new perception, or at least as a greatly sharpened perception, by the Valar; and 'with this thought a shadow passed over the hearts of the Valar, presage of the sorrows which the Children should bring into the world.' One might wonder that it needed the death of Miriel to bring the Powers of Arda to this perception. One might wonder also how it should be that even in Aman none of the Eldar were drowned in the sea or missed their footing in the mountains and fell from a great height. This latter consideration is indeed countered to some degree by what is told of the corporeal nature of the Elves. Their bodies are described as closely analogous to those of mortal Men, but against this is to be set the following passage from Laws and Customs (p. 218): The fear of the Elves were destined to dwell in Arda for all the life of Arda, and the death of the flesh did not abrogate that destiny. Their fear were tenacious therefore of life 'in the raiment of Arda', and far excelled the spirits of Men in power over that 'raiment', even from the first days protecting their bodies from many ills and assaults (such as disease), and healing them swiftly of injuries, so that they recovered from wounds that would have proved fatal to Men.

This, however, while diminishing the physical vulnerability of the Elves as compared with Men, does not alter the fact that the actual destruction of such bodies by violence is an inherent possibility in the nature of Arda: 'though the fea cannot be broken or disintegrated by any violence from without, the hroa can be hurt and may be utterly destroyed' (ibid.). Very explicit are the words of Manwe in his final address to the Valar before the proclamation of the Statute (p. 244):

[The Elves] came into Arda Marred, and were destined to do so, and to endure the Marring, even though they came in their beginning from beyond Ea.... We may say, therefore, that the Elves are destined to know 'death' in their mode, being sent into a world which contains 'death', and having a form for which 'death' is possible. For though by their prime nature, unmarred, they rightly dwell as spirit and body coherent, yet these are two things, not the same, and their severance (which is 'death') is a possibility inherent in their union.

But it is made plain that while, on the one hand, this possibility of

'death' for the Elves was a consequence of the Marring of Arda by Melkor, on the other hand the death of Miriel so gravely disquieted the Valar because it was the first that had taken place in Aman. Is it to be supposed, then, that until this time the Valar had been deluded, believing falsely that the incarnate Elves, by the fact of their dwelling in Aman, were protected from all possibility of the severance of spirit and body, in any of the ways that such severance might come about in Middle-earth - believing indeed that the Marring of Arda and the possibility of death for the incarnate had effect only east of the Great Sea, and only now discovering the falsity of this belief when Miriel died? (See the passage from 'text VII' on p. 400.) The 'immortality' of the Elves (co-extensive with the 'life' of Arda), their deaths and rebirths, were deep-laid and fundamental elements in my father's conception. At this time he was subjecting these ideas to an elaborate analysis, and extending that analysis to the ideas of 'deathless Aman' and the significance of Melkor in the perversion of Creation as it had been expounded to the Ainur by Iluvatar in the Beginning. This analysis is, in part, presented as a debate among the Valar themselves, in which they reach new perceptions concerning the nature of Arda; but the theoretical discussion of moral and natural laws is given an immediate dimension from its arising out of the strange story of the griefs of Finwe and Miriel. That story was retained in the published Silmarillion, but with no intimation of its implications for the Rulers of Arda and the loremasters of the Elves.

In these writings is seen my father's preoccupation in the years following the publication of The Lord of the Rings with the philosophical aspects of the mythology and its systemisation. Of the deliberations of the Gods the sages of the Eldar preserved a record among the books of their law. How far away from these grave Doctors seems the 'horned moon' that rode over AElfwine's ship off the coasts of the Lonely Isle (11.321), as 'the long night of Faerie held on'!

AElfwine is still present as communicator and commentator; but there have been great changes in Elfinesse.

*

OF FEANOR AND THE UNCHAINING OF MELKOR.

The previous 'sub-chapter' Of Finwe' and Miriel has reached only, in terms of the earlier Chapter 6, to the end of $46b (p. 185). For the next section there are only two late texts, continuing straight on in the typescripts that I have called FM 3 and FM 4 (pp. 255 - 6): from this point it is convenient to call them 'A' and 'B'. A, though a finished text, is in effect a draft for the second typescript (B) that clearly followed it immediately, and need not be further considered beyond noting that it does not contain the new passage about Feanor's wife, and that the title is Of Feanor and the Silmarils and the Darkening of Valinor: this text makes no further subdivisions.

In this section my father did not greatly alter (except by the addition concerning Feanor's wife) the text of LQ, $$46c - 48, and the changes can be recorded without giving the whole text again. Very minor differences are not mentioned.

$46c The only difference here from LQ is that Feanor's hair is said to have been 'raven-dark'. But at the end of the paragraph, after

'Seldom were the hand and mind of Feanor at rest', the following passage was added:

While still in early youth Feanor wedded Nerdanel, a maiden of the Noldor; at which many wondered, for she was not among the fairest of her people. But she was strong, and free of mind, and filled with the desire of knowledge. In her youth she loved to wander far from the dwellings of the Noldor, either beside the long shores of the Sea or in the hills; and thus she and Feanor had met and were companions in many journeys. Her father, Mahtan, was a great smith, and among those of the Noldor most dear to the heart of Aule. Of Mahtan Nerdanel learned much of crafts that women of the Noldor seldom used: the making of things of metal and stone. She made images, some of the Valar in their forms visible, and many others of men and women of the Eldar, and these were so like that their friends, if they knew not her art, would speak to them; but many things she wrought also of her own thought in shapes strong and strange but beautiful.

She also was firm of will, but she was slower and more patient than Feanor, desiring to understand minds rather than to master them. When in company with others she would often sit still listening to their words, and watching their gestures and the movements of their faces. Her mood she bequeathed in part to some of her sons, but not to all.

Seven sons she bore to Feanor, and it is not recorded in the histories of old that any others of the Eldar had so many children. With her wisdom at first she restrained Feanor when the fire of his heart burned too hot; but his later deeds grieved her and they became estranged.

Now even while Feanor and the craftsmen of the Noldor wrought with delight, foreseeing no end to their labours, and while the sons of Indis grew to manhood, the Noontide of Valinor was drawing to its close.

The text then continues as in LQ $47 (p. 185). - The name Nerdanel of Feanor's wife was an emendation: the original name as typed was Istarnie.

$47 LQ 'at the feet of the gods' becomes 'at the feet of the Mighty'.

$48 'and most of all in the healing of the many hurts that he had done to the world. His prayer Nienna aided, but the others were silent.'