вye,в™said RГmil, вor there is that tongue to which the Noldoli cling yetв”nd aforetime the Teleri, the Solosimpi, and the Inwir had all their differences. Yet these were slighter and are now merged in that tongue of the island Elves which you have learnt. Still are there the lost bands too that dwell wandering sadly in the Great Lands, and maybe they speak very strangely now, for it was ages gone that that march was made from KГr, and as I hold в™was but the long wandering of the Noldoli about the Earth and the black ages of their thraldom while their kin dwelt yet in Valinor that caused the deep sundering of their speech. Akin nonetheless be assuredly Gnome-speech and Elfin of the Eldar, as my lore teacheth meв”ut lo! I weary you again. Never have I found another ear yet in the world that grew not tired ere long of such discourse. вњongues and speeches,вthey will say, вњne is enough for meвand thus said Littleheart the Gong-warden once upon a time: вњnome-speech,вsaid he, вњs enough for meв”id not that one EГrendel and Tuor and Bronweg my father (that mincingly ye miscall VoronwГ) speak it and no other?вYet he had to learn the Elfin in the end, or be doomed either to silence or to leave Mar Vanwa TyaliГvaв”nd neither fate would his heart suffer. Lo! now he is chirping Eldar like a lady of the Inwir, even Meril-i-Turinqi our queen herselfв”anwГ care for her. But even these be not allв”a href="#filepos859639">there is beside the secret tongue in which the Eldar wrote many poesies and books of wisdom and histories of old and earliest things, and yet speak not. This tongue do only the Valar use in their high counsels, and not many of the Eldar of these days may read it or solve its characters. Much of it I learnt in KГr, a lifetime gone, of the goodness of AulГ, and thereby I know many matters: very many matters.в™/p>
вhen,в™quoth Eriol, вaybe you can tell me of things that I greatly desire to know since the words by the Tale-fire yester-eve. Who be the Valarв”anwГ, AulГ, and the ones ye nameв”nd wherefore came ye Eldar from that home of loveliness in Valinor?в™/p>
Now came those two to a green arbour and the sun was up and warm, and the birds sang mightily, but the lawns were spread with gold. Then RГmil sat upon a seat there of carven stone grown with moss, and said he: вery mighty are the things that you ask, and their true answer delves beyond the uttermost confines of the wastes of time, whither even the sight of RГmil the aged of the Noldoli may not see; and all the tales of the Valar and the Elves are so knit together that one may scarce expound any one without needing to set forth the whole of their great history.в™/p>
вetв™ said Eriol, вell me, RГmil, I beg, some of what you know even of the first beginnings, that I may begin to understand those things that are told me in this isle.в™/p>
But RГmil said: вlГvatar was the first beginning, and beyond that no wisdom of the Valar or of Eldar or of Men can go.в™/p>
вho was IlГvatar?в™said Eriol. вas he of the Gods?в™/p>
вay,в™said RГmil, вhat he was not, for he made them. IlГvatar is the Lord for Always who dwells beyond the world; who made it and is not of it or in it, but loves it.в™/p>
вhis have I never heard elsewhere,в™said Eriol.
вЂThat may be,в™said RГmil, вor в™is early days in the world of Men as yet, nor is the Music of the Ainur much spoken of.в™/p>
вell me,в™said Eriol, вor I long to learn, what was the Music of the Ainur?в™/p>
Commentary on the Link between The Cottage of Lost Play and The Music of the Ainur
Thus it was that the AinulindalГ was first to be heard by mortal ears, as Eriol sat in a sunlit garden in Tol EressГa. Even after Eriol (or Гlfwine) had fallen away, RГmil remained, the great Noldorin sage of Tirion вho first achieved fitting signs for the recording of speech and songв™(The Silmarillion p. 63), and The Music of the Ainur continued to be ascribed to him, though invested with the gravity of a remote time he moved far away from the garrulous and whimsical philologist of Kortirion. It is to be noted that in this account RГmil had been a slave under Melko.
Here the Exile of the Noldor from Valinor appears, for it is to this that RГmilв™ words about the march from KГr undoubtedly refer, rather than to InwГв™ вarch into the worldв™(pp. 16, 26); and something is said also of the languages, and of those who spoke them.
In this link-passage RГmil asserts:
(1) that the Teleri, Solosimpi, and Inwir had linguistic differences in the past;
(2) but that these dialects are now merged in the вongue of the island Elvesв™/p>
(3) that the tongue of the Noldoli (Gnomes) was deeply sundered through their departure into the Great Lands and their captivity under Melko;
(4) that those Noldoli who now dwell in Tol EressГa have learnt the tongue of the island Elves; but others remain in the Great Lands. (When RГmil spoke of вhe lost bands that dwell wandering sadly in the Great Landsв™who вaybe speak very strangely nowв™he seems to have been referring to remnants of the Noldorin exiles from KГr who had not come to Tol EressГa (as he himself had done), rather than to Elves who never went to Valinor.)*
In the Lost Tales the name given to the Sea-elves afterwards called the Teleriв”he third of the three вribesв™Ђis Solosimpi (вhoreland Pipersв™. It must now be explained that, confusingly enough, the first of the tribes, that led by King InwГ, were called the Teleri (the Vanyar of The Silmarillion). Who then were the Inwir? Eriol was told later by Meril-i-Turinqi (p. 115) that the Teleri were those that followed InwГ, вut his kindred and descendants are that royal folk the Inwir of whose blood I am.в™The Inwir were then a вoyalв™clan within the Teleri; and the relation between the old conception and that of The Silmarillion can be shown thus:
Lost Tales .. .. .. .. The Silmarillion I Teleri .. .. .. .. Vanyar (including Inwir) II Noldoli .. .. .. .. Noldor (Gnomes) III Solosimpi .. .. .. .. Teleri
In this link-passage Rьmil seems to say that the ‘Eldar’ are distinct from the ‘Gnomes’—‘akin nonetheless be assuredly Gnome-speech and Elfin of the Eldar’ and ‘Eldar’ and ‘Noldoli’ are opposed in the prose preamble to Kortirion among the Trees (p. 25). Elsewhere ‘Elfin’, as a language, is used in opposition to ‘Gnomish’, and ‘Eldar’ is used of a word of form in contradistinction to ‘Gnomish’. It is in fact made quite explicit in the Lost Tales that the Gnomes were themselves Eldar—for instance, ‘the Noldoli, who were the sages of the Eldar’ (p. 8); but on the other hand we read that after the Flight of the Noldoli from Valinor Aulл ‘gave still his love to those few faithful Gnomes who remained still about his halls, yet did he name them thereafter “Eldar”’ (p. 176). This is not so purely contradictory as appears at first sight. It seems that (on the one hand) the opposition of ‘Eldar’ or ‘Elfin’ to ‘Gnomish’ arose because Gnomish had become a language apart; and while the Gnomes were certainly themselves Eldar, their language was not. But (on the other hand) the Gnomes had long ago left Kфr, and thus came to be seen as not ‘Koreldar’, and therefore not ‘Eldar’. The word Eldar had thus narrowed its meaning, but might at any moment be expanded again to the older sense in which the Noldoli were ‘Eldar’.
If this is so, the narrowed sense of Eldar reflects the situation in after days in Tol Eressлa; and indeed, in the tales that follow, where the narrative is concerned with the time before the rebellion of the Noldoli and their departure from Valinor, they are firmly ‘Eldar’. After the rebellion, in the passage cited above, Aulл would not call the Noldoli who remained in Valinor by that name—and, by implication, he would not call those who had departed ‘Eldar’.