“At last do the Gods speak fair words and just, but ere I grant their boon my heart must be appeased for old affronts. Therefore must they come putting aside their weapons at the gate, and do homage to me in these my deep halls of Utumna:—but lo! Tulkas I will not see, and if I come to Valinor then will I thrust him out.” These things did Nornorл report, and Tulkas smote his hands in wrath, but Manwл returned answer that the Gods would do as Melko’s heart desired, yet would Tulkas come and that in chains and be given to Melko’s power and pleasure; and this was Melko eager to grant for the humiliation of the Valar, and the chaining of Tulkas gave him great mirth.

Then the Valar laid aside their weapons at the gates, setting however folk to guard them, and placed the chain Angaino about the neck and arms of Tulkas, and even he might scarce support its great weight alone; and now they follow Manwл and his herald into the caverns of the North. There sat Melko in his chair, and that chamber was lit with flaming braziers and full of evil magic, and strange shapes moved with feverish movement in and out, but snakes of great size curled and uncurled without rest about the pillars that upheld that lofty roof. Then said Manwл: “Behold, we have come and salute you here in your own halls; come now and be in Valinor.”

But Melko might not thus easily forgo his sport. “Nay first,” said he, “wilt thou come Manwл and kneel before me, and after you all the Valar; but last shall come Tulkas and kiss my foot, for I have in mind something for which I owe Poldуrлa no great love.” Now he purposed to spurn Tulkas in the mouth in payment of that buffet long ago, but the Valar had foreseen something of this and did but make play of humiliation that Melko might thereby be lured from his stronghold of Utumna. In sooth Manwл hoped even to the end for peace and amity, and the Gods would at his bidding indeed have received Melko into Valinor under truce and pledges of friendship, had not his pride been insatiate and his obstinacy in evil unconquerable. Now however was scant mercy left for him within their hearts, seeing that he abode in his demand that Manwл should do homage and Tulkas bend to those ruthless feet; nonetheless the Lord of Gods and Elves approaches now the chair of Melko and makes to kneel, for such was their plan the more to ensnare that evil one; but lo, so fiercely did wrath blaze up in the hearts of Tulkas and Aulл at that sight that Tulkas leapt across the hall at a bound despite Angaino, and Aulл was behind him and Oromл followed his father and the hall was full of tumult. Then Melko sprang to his feet shouting in a loud voice and his folk came through all those dismal passages to his aid. Then lashed he at Manwл with an iron flail he bore, but Manwл breathed gently upon it and its iron tassels were blown backward, and thereupon Tulkas smote Melko full in his teeth with his fist of iron, and he and Aulл grappled with him, and straight he was wrapped thirty times in the fathoms of Angaino.

Then said Oromл: “Would that he might be slain”—and it would have been well indeed, but the great Gods may not yet be slain.⁴ Now is Melko held in dire bondage and beaten to his knees, and he is constrained to command all his vassa1lage that they molest not the Valar—and indeed the most of these, affrighted at the binding of their lord, fled away to the darkest places.

Tulkas indeed dragged Melko out before the gates, and there Aulл set upon each wrist one of the Vorotemnar and upon each ankle twain of the Ilterendi, and tilkal went red at the touch of Melko, and those bands have never since been loosened from his hands and feet. Then the chain is smithied to each of these and Melko borne thus helpless away, while Tulkas and Ulmo break the gates of Utumna and pile hills of stone upon them. And the saps and cavernous places beneath the surface of the earth are full yet of the dark spirits that were prisoned that day when Melko was taken, and yet many are the ways whereby they find the outer world from time to time—from fissures where they shriek with the voices of the tide on rocky coasts, down dark water-ways that wind unseen for many leagues, or out of the blue arches where the glaciers of Melko find their end.

After these things did the Gods return to Valmar by long ways and dark, guarding Melko every moment, and he gnawed his consuming rage. His lip was split and his face has had a strange leer upon it since that buffet dealt him by Tulkas, who even of policy could not endure to see the majesty of Manwл bow before the accursed one.

Now is a court set upon the slopes of Taniquetil and Melko arraigned before all the Vali⁵ great and small, lying bound before the silver chair of Manwл. Against him speaketh Ossл, and Oromл, and Ulmo in deep ire, and Vбna in abhorrence, proclaiming his deeds of cruelty and violence; yet Makar still spake for him, although not warmly, for said he: “’Twere an ill thing if peace were for always: already no blow echoes ever in the eternal quietude of Valinor, wherefore, if one might neither see deed of battle nor riotous joy even in the world without, then ’twould be irksome indeed, and I for one long not for such times!” Thereat arose Palъrien in sorrow and tears, and told of the plight of Earth and of the great beauty of her designs and of those things she desired dearly to bring forth; of all the wealth of flower and herbage, of tree and fruit and grain that the world might bear if it had but peace. “Take heed, O Valar, that both Elves and Men be not devoid of all solace whenso the times come for them to find the Earth” but Melko writhed in rage at the name of Eldar and of Men and at his own impotence.

Now Aulл mightily backed her in this and after him many else of the Gods, yet Mandos and Lуrien held their peace, nor do they ever speak much at the councils of the Valar or indeed at other times, but Tulkas arose angrily from the midst of the assembly and went from among them, for he could not endure parleying where he thought the guilt to be clear. Liever would he have unchained Melko and fought him then and there alone upon the plain of Valinor, giving him many a sore buffet in meed of his illdoings, rather than making high debate of them. Howbeit Manwл sate and listened and was moved by the speech of Palъrien, yet was it his thought that Melko was an Ainu and powerful beyond measure for the future good or evil of the world; wherefore he put away harshness and his doom was this. For three ages during the displeasure of the Gods should Melko be chained in a vault of Mandos by that chain Angaino, and thereafter should he fare into the light of the Two Trees, but only so that he might for four ages yet dwell as a servant in the house of Tulkas, and obey him in requital of his ancient malice. “Thus,” 1said Manwл, “and yet but hardly, mayst thou win favour again sufficient that the Gods suffer thee to abide thereafter in an house of thine own and to have some slight estate among them as befitteth a Vala and a lord of the Ainur.”

Such was the doom of Manwл, and even to Makar and Meбssл it seemed good, albeit Tulkas and Palъrien thought it merciful to peril. Now doth Valinor enter upon its greatest time of peace, and all the earth beside, while Melko bideth in the deepest vaults of Mandos and his heart grows black within him.

Behold the tumults of the sea abate slowly, and the fires beneath the mountains die; the earth quakes no more and the fierceness of the cold and the stubbornness of the hills and rivers of ice is melted to the uttermost North and to the deepest South, even to the regions about Ringil and Helkar. Then Palъrien goes once more out over the Earth, and the forests multiply and spread, and often is Oromл’s horn heard behind her in the dimness: now do nightshade and bryony begin to creep about the brakes, and holly and ilex are seen upon the earth. Even the faces of the cliffs are grown with ivies and trailing plants for the calm of the winds and the quietude of the sea, and all the caverns and the shores are festooned with weeds, and great sea-growths come to life swaying gently when Ossл moves the waters.