Morgoth's Ring (9 page)

But this Melkor could not do, for the Earth may not be wholly destroyed against its fate; nevertheless Melkor took a portion of it, and seized it for his own, and reft it away; and he made it a little earth of his own, and it wheeled round about in the sky, following the greater earth wheresoever it went, so that Melkor could observe thence all that happened below, and

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could send forth his malice and trouble the seas and shake the lands.

And still there is rumour among the Eldar of the war in which the Valar assaulted the stronghold of Melkor, and cast him out, and removed it further from the Earth, and it remains in the sky, Ithil whom Men call the Moon. There is both blinding heat and cold intolerable, as might be looked for in any work of Melkor, but now at least it is clean, yet utterly barren; and nought liveth there, nor ever hath, nor shall. And herein is revealed again the words of Ilúvatar; for Ithil has become a mirror to the greater Earth, catching the light of the Sun, when she is invisible; and because of malice silver has been made of gold, and moonlight of sunlight, and Earth in its anguish and loss has been greatly enriched.

But of all such matters, Ælfwine, others shall tell thee...

These last words are the beginning of §28 in C, the end of the
Ainulindalë
proper, and the paragraph appears in C* in almost exactly the same form. After this C* ends abruptly with the concluding passage, C §§38-40, in which however there are some notable differences. §38 reads thus in C*: But out beyond the World in the Timeless Halls after the departure of the Valar there was silence, and Ilúvatar sat in thought, and the Holy Ones that stood nigh moved not. Then Ilúvatar spoke and he said: 'Verily I love the World and am glad that it Is. And my thought is bent to that place where are the mansions of the Elves and of Men. Behold! the Eldar shall be the fairest of Earthly creatures, and they shall have and shall conceive more beauty than all other offspring of my thought; and they shall have the greater bliss in the World. But to Men I will give a new gift.'

It is to be noted that the scrap of manuscript found with the Adûnaic papers, discussed on p. 4, has precisely the structure of C*: it begins with 'But of all such matters, Ælfwine...' and continues to the end of the paragraph '...and thus thy feet are on the beginning of the road', following this with 'But out beyond the World in the Timeless Halls...'

§39 is virtually the same in both texts; but §40, after the opening sentence (Ilúvatar's words concerning Men), continues thus to the end: Yet the Eldar know that Men have often been a grief to the Valar that love them, not least to Manwë, who knows most of the mind of Ilúvatar. For Men resemble Melkor most of all the MORGOTH`S RING - AINULINDALË -
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Ainur; and yet he hath ever feared and hated them, even those that serve him.

It is one with this gift of freedom that the Children of Men dwell only a short space in the world alive, and yet are not bound to it, nor shall perish utterly for ever. Whereas the Eldar remain until the end of days, and therefore their love of the world is deeper and more joyous, save that when evil is done to it, or its beauty is despoiled, then they are grieved bitterly, and the sorrow of the Elves for that which might have been fills now all the Earth with tears that Men hear not. But the sons of Men die indeed and leave what they have made or marred. Yet the Valar say that Men shall join in the Second Music of the Ainur, but Manwë alone knoweth what Ilúvatar hath purposed for the Elves after the World's end: the Elves know not, and Melkor hath not discovered it.

The concluding section §§38-40 was struck through, and against it my father wrote a question, whether to place it 'in The Silmarillion' or to insert it 'in modified form' earlier in the present text.

The fundamental difference between C* and C lies in this, that in C* the Sun is already present from the beginning of Arda (see the italicised passages in §24

on p. 40), and the origin of the Moon, similarly 'de-mythologised' by removal from all association with the Two Trees, is placed in the context of the tumults of Arda's making. It seems strange indeed that my father was prepared to conceive of the Moon - the Moon, that cherishes the memory of the Elves (V.118, 240) - as a dead and blasted survival of the hatred of Melkor, however beautiful its light. In consequence, the old legend of the Lamps was also abandoned: whence the different placing of the passage about Melkor's perversion of living things, p. 41.

There is no indication whatsoever of how the myth of the Two Trees was to be accommodated to these new ideas. But for that time the 'de-mythologising'

version C* was set aside; and the D text followed from C without a trace of them.

The
Annals of Aman
, certainly later than the end of the
Ainulindalë
series, contains a full account of the Making of the Sun and Moon; and in my father's long letter to Milton Waldman, written almost certainly in 1951, the old myth is fully present and its significance defined (
Letters
no.131): There was the Light of Valinor made visible in the Two Trees of Silver and Gold. These were slain by the Enemy out of malice, and Valinor was darkened, though from them, ere they died utterly, were derived the lights of Sun and Moon. (A marked 'difference here between these legends and most others is that the Sun is not a divine

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symbol, but a second-best thing, and the 'light of the Sun' (the world under the sun) become terms for a fallen world, and a dislocated imperfect vision).

In conclusion, there remains the perplexing question of the name
Anar
in C* and C, to which I can find no satisfartory solution.
Anar
occurred first in §15, where the reference is to the 'habitation in
the Halls of Anar
which the Elves call Arda, the Earth'; and here in both texts my father later emended 'Anar' to 'Aman', while in C* he added a footnote: '
Anar
= the Sun'. In §24 the spirits whom Manwë summoned to his aid 'went down into the Halls of Anar', and here again 'Anar' was later changed to 'Aman' in C; in C* the reading is somewhat different, and in this text 'Anar' was left to stand: Manwë said to the other spirits 'Let us go to the Halls of Anar where the Sun of the Little World is kindled'. The retention of 'Anar' in C*

seems however to be no more than an oversight. Finally, in §25 are named 'the Seven Great Ones of the Kingdom of Anar', changed subsequently in C* but in the act of writing in C to 'the Kingdom of Arda'.

The name
Anar
(
Anor
) = 'the Sun' goes back a long way - to
The Lost
Road
, the
Quenta Silmarillion
, and the
Etymologies
(see the Index to Vol.V), and had been repeated in
The Notion Club Papers
(IX.302-3, 306), beside
Minas Anor
,
Anárion
,
Anórien
in
The Lord of the Rings
. It seems therefore at first sight very probable that
Anar
means 'the Sun' in these texts of the
Ainulindalë
. On this assumption the footnote to §15 in C* was no more than an explanatory gloss; while

'the Kingdom of Anar' in §25 = 'the Kingdom of the Sun' ('the Sun of the Little World'): cf. the change in D §14 (p. 30) of 'the whole field of the Sun' to 'the whole field of Arda'. The fact that in C, in which the myth of the Making of the Sun and Moon is implicitly present, my father wrote 'the Kingdom of Anar' would be explicable on the basis that he had C* before him, and wrote 'Anar' inadvertently before immediately changing it to 'Arda'.

There is however a radical objection to this explanation. In §§15, 24 'the Halls of Anar' is the name given to 'the vast halls of the World' with their 'wheeling fires', in which Ilúvatar chose a place for the habitation of Elves and Men; and subsequently
Anar
>
Aman
>
Ea
(p. 31, §23). Here the interpretation of
Anar
as 'the Sun' seems impossible. It may be therefore that my father's note to C* §15 '
Anar
=

the Sun' (made at the same time as he changed 'Anar' to 'Aman' in the body of the text) implies that he had been using the name in another sense, but was now asserting that this and no other was the meaning of
Anar
.

PART TWO.

THE

ANNALS

OF

AMAN.

THE ANNALS OF AMAN.

The second version (pre-Lord of the Rings) of the Annals of Valinor (AV 2) has been given in V.109 ff. I mentioned there that the first part of AV 2 was - years later - covered with emendation and new writing, and that this new work was the initial drafting of the Annals of Aman.

In this case I shall spend no time on the original draft, apart from some points arising in it which are mentioned in the notes. It does not extend very far - not even so far as the bringing forth of the Two Trees, and so far as it goes it is extremely close to the Annals of Aman; but my father evidently very soon decided to embark on a wholly new text.

Of the Annals of Aman, which I shall refer to throughout by the abbreviation 'AAm', there is a good clear manuscript, with a fair amount of correction in different 'layers'. Emendations belonging to the time of composition, or soon after, were carefully made; and the manuscript gives the impression of being a 'fair copy', a second text.

But while passages of drafting may have been lost, I very much doubt that a complete 'first text' of the Annals existed (see further p. 121

note 17). The work undoubtedly belongs with the large development and recasting of the Matter of the Elder Days that my father undertook when The Lord of the Rings was finished (see p. 3), and it stands in close relationship to the revision at that time of the corresponding parts of the Quenta Silmarillion (V.204-43, referred to throughout as QS), the text that had been abandoned at the end of 1937. Equally clearly it followed the last text of the Ainulindale (D).

There is an amanuensis typescript of AAm bearing some late emendations and notes, together with its carbon copy bearing a very few, but different, emendations; I am inclined to date this text to 1958, although the evidence for this is a matter of inference and suggestion (see pp. 141 - 2, 300). There is also an interesting, divergent typescript of the early part of the work, made by my father (pp. 64 - 8, 79-80).

I give the whole text of the Annals narrative, incorporating the emendations made to it; where earlier readings are of interest they are recorded in the notes. I number the paragraphs for subsequent reference, and since the text is long I have divided it for convenience into six sections. The sections are followed by numbered textual notes (not in the case of section 2), and then by a commentary referenced to the paragraph-numbers.

The dates of the annals of the Years of the Trees were changed very frequently - in some cases there are as many as six substitution's - and I give only the final form. Since the continual changing of the dates seems in no case to be associated with changes in the actual narrative, and since the final articulation of the dates seems to have been achieved before the completion of the manuscript, I think it is sufficient to notice that my father at first allowed a longer span of years from the arising of the Trees to their destruction. Thus at first the Silmarils were achieved by Feanor in the: Year of the Trees 1600

(later 1450), and Tulkas was sent to lay hands on Melkor in 1700 (later 1490) - though other dates were proposed and rejected as well as these. From this point the revised dating (1490 - 1500) is the only one, but here too the dates were much altered in detail, and the final result is not at all points perfectly clear.

First section of the Annals of Aman.

The first page of AAm is extant in two forms, both fine manuscripts, all but identical in text but differing in title and in the brief preamble.

The first has the title The Annals of Valinor, and opens thus: 'Here begin the Annals of Valinor, and speak of the coming of the Valar to Arda'; beside the title was added: 'These were written by Quennar i Onotimo who learned much, and borrowed much also, from Rumil; but they were enlarged by Pengolod.' This last was struck out, and the title and preamble emended to the form they have on the second copy, as given below, with Valinor > Aman and the addition of the words

'which Rumil wrote (made)'. I imagine that my father recopied the page because he wished it to look well, and had spoiled it by these changes. The title Annals of Aman came in at this point, therefore, and very possibly the final meaning of the name Aman also: it occurs once in Ainulindale D, but as an addition to the text (p. 33, $32).

THE ANNALS OF AMAN.

Here begin the Annals of Aman, which Rumil made, and speak of the coming of the Valar to Arda:

$1 At the Beginning Eru Iluvatar made Ea, the World that is,(1) and the Valar entered into it, and they are the Powers of Ea.

These are the nine chieftains of the Valar that dwelt in Arda: Manwe, Ulmo, Aule, Orome, Tulkas, Osse, Mandos, Lorien,(2) and Melkor.

$2 Of these Manwe and Melkor were most puissant and were brethren. Manwe is lord of the Valar, and holy; but Melkor turned to lust of power and pride, and became evil and violent, and his name is accursed, and is not spoken; he is named Morgoth. Orome and Tulkas were younger in the thought of Eru ere the devising of the World, and Tulkas came fast to the kingdom of Arda. The queens of the Valar are seven: Varda, Yavanna, Nienna, Vaire, Vana, Nessa, and Uinen. No less in might and majesty are they than the chieftains, and they sit ever in the councils of the Valar.