The same ambiguity is present in the words Elves and Elfin. Rъmil here calls the language of1 the Eldar ‘Elfin’ in opposition to ‘Gnomish’ the teller of the Tale of Tinъviel says: ‘This is my tale, and ’tis a tale of the Gnomes, wherefore I beg that thou fill not Eriol’s ear with thy Elfin names’, and in the same passage ‘Elves’ are specifically opposed to ‘Gnomes’. But, again, in the tales that follow in this book, Elves and Eldar and Eldaliл are used interchangeably of the Three Kindreds (see for instance the account of the debate of the Valar concerning the summoning of the Elves to Valinor, pp. 116–18). And finally, an apparently similar variation is seen in the word ‘fairy’ thus Tol Eressлa is the name ‘in the fairy speech’, while ‘the Gnomes call it Dor Faidwen’ (p. 13), but on the other hand Gilfanon, a Gnome, is called ‘one of the oldest of the fairies’ (p. 175).
It will be seen from Rъmil’s remarks that the ‘deep sundering’ of the speech of the Elves into two branches was at this time given an historical basis wholly different from that which afterwards caused the division. Here, Rъmil ascribes it to ‘the long wandering of the Noldoli about the Earth and the black ages of their thraldom while their kin dwelt yet in Valinor’—in later terms, ‘the Exile of the Noldor’. In The Silmarillion (see especially pp. 113, 129) the Noldor brought the Valinуrean tongue to Middle-earth but abandoned it (save among themselves), and adopted instead the language of Beleriand, Sindarin of the Grey-elves, who had never been to Valinor: Quenya and Sindarin were of common origin, but their ‘deep sundering’ had been brought about through vast ages of separation. In the Lost Tales, on the other hand, the Noldor still brought the Elvish speech of Valinor to the Great Lands, but they retained it, and there it itself changed and became wholly different. In other words, in the original conception the ‘second tongue’ only split off from the parent speech through the departure of the Gnomes from Valinor into the Great Lands; whereas afterwards the ‘second tongue’ separated from the ‘first tongue’ near the very beginning of Elvish existence in the world. Nonetheless, Gnomish is Sindarin, in the sense that Gnomish is the actual language that ultimately, as the whole conception evolved, became that of the Grey-elves of Beleriand.
With Rъmil’s remarks about the secret tongue which the Valar use and in which the Eldar once wrote poetry and books of wisdom, but few of them now know it, cf. the following note found in the little Lost Tales pocket-book referred to on p. 23:
The Gods understood the language of the Elves but used it not among themselves. The wiser of the Elves learned much of the speech of the Gods and long treasured that knowledge among both Teleri and Noldoli, but by the time of the coming to Tol Eressлa none knew it save the Inwir, and now that knowledge is dead save in Meril’s house.
Some new persons appear in this passage. Уmar the Vala ‘who knows all tongues’ did not survive the Lost Tales; a little more is heard of him subsequently, but he is a divinity without much substance. Tuor and Bronweg appear from the tale of The Fall of Gondolin, which was already written; Bronweg is the Gnomish form of Voronwл, that same Voronwл who accompanied Tuor from Vinyamar to Gondolin in the later legend. Tevildo Prin1ce of Cats was a demonic servant of Melko and the remote forerunner of Sauron; he is a principal actor in the original story of Beren and Tinъviel, which was also already written (the Tale of Tinъviel).
Littleheart the Gong-warden, son of Bronweg, now receives an Elvish name, Ilverin (an emendation from Elwenildo).
The Music of the Ainur
The original hastily pencilled and much emended draft text of The Music of the Ainur is still extant, on loose sheets placed inside the cover of the notebook that contains a fuller and much more finished text written in ink. This second version was however closely based on the first, and changed it chiefly by additions. The text given here is the second, but some passages where the two differ notably are annotated (few of the differences between the two texts are in my opinion of much significance). It will be seen from passages of the first draft given in the notes that the plural was originally Ainu, not Ainur, and that Ilъvatar was originally Ilu (but Ilъvatar also occurs in the draft).
Then said Rъmil:
‘Hear now things that have not been heard among Men, and the Elves speak seldom of them; yet did Manwл Sъlimo, Lord of Elves and Men, whisper them to the fathers of my father in the deeps of time.1 Behold, Ilъvatar dwelt alone. Before all things he sang into being the Ainur first, and greatest is their power and glory of all his creatures within the world and without. Thereafter he fashioned them dwellings in the void, and dwelt among them, teaching them all manner of things, and the greatest of these was music.
Now he would speak propounding to them themes of song and joyous hymn, revealing many of the great and wonderful things that he devised ever in his mind and heart, and now they would make music unto him, and the voices of their instruments rise in splendour about his throne.
Upon a time Ilъvatar propounded a mighty design of his heart to the Ainur, unfolding a history whose vastness and majesty had never been equalled by aught that he had related before, and the glory of its beginning and the splendour of its end amazed the Ainur, so that they bowed before Ilъvatar and were speechless.
Then said Ilъvatar: “The story that I have laid before you, and that great region of beauty that I have described unto you as the place where all that history might be unfolded and enacted, is related only as it were in outline. I have not filled all the empty spaces, neither have I recounted to you all the adornments and things of loveliness and delicacy whereof my mind is full. It is my desire now that ye make a great and glorious music and a singing of this theme; and (seeing that I have taught you much and set brightly the Secret Fire within you)2 that ye exercise your minds and powers in adorning the theme to your own thoughts and devising. But I will sit and hearken and be glad that through you I have made much beauty to come to Song.”
Then the harpists, and the lutanists, the flautists and 1pipers, the organs and the countless choirs of the Ainur began to fashion the theme of Ilъvatar into great music; and a sound arose of mighty melodies changing and interchanging, mingling and dissolving amid the thunder of harmonies greater than the roar of the great seas, till the places of the dwelling of Ilъvatar and the regions of the Ainur were filled to overflowing with music, and the echo of music, and the echo of the echoes of music which flowed even into the dark and empty spaces far off. Never was there before, nor has there been since, such a music of immeasurable vastness of splendour; though it is said that a mightier far shall be woven before the seat of Ilъvatar by the choirs of both Ainur and the sons of Men after the Great End. Then shall Ilъvatar’s mightiest themes be played aright; for then Ainur and Men will know his mind and heart as well as may be, and all his intent.
But now Ilъvatar sat and hearkened, and for a great while it seemed very good to him, for the flaws in that music were few, and it seemed to him the Ainur had learnt much and well. But as the great theme progressed it came into the heart of Melko to interweave matters of his own vain imagining that were not fitting to that great theme of Ilъvatar. Now Melko had among the Ainur been given some of the greatest gifts of power and wisdom and knowledge by Ilъvatar; and he fared often alone into the dark places and the voids seeking the Secret Fire that giveth Life and Reality (for he had a very hot desire to bring things into being of his own); yet he found it not, for it dwelleth with Ilъvatar, and that he knew not till afterward.3