Tinwelint < Tintoglin.

Wendelin < Tindriel (cf. the interpolated passage in the previous tale, p. 106 note 1).

Arvalin < Habbanan throughout the tale except once, where the name was written Arvalin from the first; see notes 7 and 9 above.

Lindeloksл < Lindelуtл (the same change in The Coming of the Valar and the Building of Valinor, see p. 79).

Erumбni < Harwalin.

Commentary on

The Coming of the Elves and the Making of K ф r

I have already (p. 111) touched on the great difference in the structure of the narrative at the beginning of this tale, namely that here the Elves awoke during Melko’s captivity in Valinor, whereas in the later story it was the very fact of the Awakening that brought the Valar to make war on Melkor, which led to his imprisonment in Mandos. Thus the ultimately very important matter of the capture of the Elves about Cuiviйnen by Melkor (The Silmarillion pp. 49–50) is necessarily entirely absent. The release of Melko from Mandos here takes place far earlier, before the coming of the Elvish ‘ambassadors’ to Valinor, and Melko plays a part in the debate concerning the summons.

The story of Oromл’s coming upon the newly-awakened Elves is seen to go back to the beginnings (though here Yavanna Palъrien was also present, as it appears), but its singular beauty and force is the less for the fact of their coming being known independently to Manwл, so that the great Valar did not need to be told of it by Oromл. The name Eldar was already in existence in Valinor before the Awakening, and the story of its being given by Oromл (‘the People of the Stars’) had not arisen—as will be seen from the Appendix on Names, Eldar had a quite different etymology at this time. The later distinction between the Eldar who followed Oromл on the westward journey to the ocean and the Avari, the Unwilling, who would not heed the summons of the Valar, is not present, and indeed in this tale there is no suggestion that any Elves who heard the summons refused it; there were however, according to another (later) tale, Elves who never left Palisor (pp. 231, 234).

Here it is Nornorл, Herald of the Gods, not Oromл, who brought the three Elves to Valinor and afterwards returned them to the Waters of Awakening (and it is notable that even in this earliest version, given more than the later to ‘explanations’, there is no hint of how they passed from the distant parts of the Earth to Valinor, when afterwards the Great March was only achieved with such difficulty). The story of the questioning of the three Elves b1y Manwл concerning the nature of their coming into the world, and their loss of all memory of what preceded their awakening, did not survive the Lost Tales. A further important shift in the structure is seen in Ulmo’s eager support of the party favouring the summoning of the Elves to Valinor; in The Silmarillion (p. 52) Ulmo was the chief of those who ‘held that the Quendi should be left free to walk as they would in Middle-earth’.

I set out here the early history of the names of the chief Eldar.

Elu Thingol (Quenya Elwл Singollo) began as Linwл Tinto (also simply Linwл); this was changed to Tinwл Linto (Tinwл). His Gnomish name was at first Tintoglin, then Tinwelint. He was the leader of the Solosimpi (the later Teleri) on the Great Journey, but he was beguiled in Hisilуmл by the ‘fay’ (Tindriel >) Wendelin (later Melian), who came from the gardens of Lуrien in Valinor; he became lord of the Elves of Hisilуmл, and their daughter was Tinъviel. The leader of the Solosimpi in his place was, confusingly, Ellu (afterwards Olwл, brother of Elwл).

The lord of the Noldoli was Finwл Nуlemл (also Nуlemл Finwл, and most commonly simply Nуlemл); the name Finwл remained throughout the history. In the Gnomish speech he was Golfinweg. His son was Turondo, in Gnomish Turgon (later Turgon became Finwл’s grandson, being the son of Finwл’s son Fingolfin).

The lord of the Teleri (afterwards the Vanyar) was (Ing >) Inwл, here called Isil Inwл, named in Gnomish (Gim-githil >) Inwithiel. His son, who built the great tower of Kortirion, was (Ingilmo >) Ingil. The ‘royal clan’ of the Teleri were the Inwir. Thus:

In The Silmarillion (p. 48) is described the second star-making of Varda before and in preparation for the coming of the Elves:

Then Varda went forth from the council, and she looked out from the height of Taniquetil, and beheld the darkness of Middle-earth beneath the innumerable stars, faint and far. Then she began a great labour, greatest of all the works of the Valar since their coming into Arda. She took the silver dews from the vats of Telperion, and therewith she made new stars and brighter against the coming of the First-born…

In the earliest version we see the conception already present that the stars were created in two separate acts—that a new star-making by Varda celebrated the coming of the Elves, even though here the Elves were already awakened; and that the new stars were derived from the liquid light fallen from the Moon-tree, Silpion. The passage just cited from The Silmarillion goes on to tell that it was at the time of the second star-making that Varda ‘high in the north as a challenge to Melkor set the crown of seven mighty stars to swing, Valacirca, the Sickle of the Valar and sign of doom’ but here this is denied, and a special origin is claimed for the Great Bear, whose stars were not of Varda’s contriving but were sparks that escaped from Aulл’s forge. In the little notebook mentioned on p. 23, which is full of disjointed jottings and hastily noted projects, a different form of this myth appears:

The Silver Sickle

The seven butterflies

Aulл was making a silver sickle. Melko interrupted his work telling him a lie concerning the lady Palъrien. Aulл so wroth that he broke the sickle with a blow. Seven sparks leapt up and winged into the heavens. Varda caught them and gave them a place in the heavens as a sign of Palъrien’s honour. They fly now ever in the shape of a sickle round and round the pole.

There can be no doubt, I think, that this note is earlier than the present text.

The star Morwinyon, ‘who blazes above the world’s edge in the west’, is Arcturus; see the Appendix on Names. It is nowhere explained why Morwinyon-Arcturus is mythically conceived to be always in the west.

Turning now to the Great March and the crossing of the ocean, the origin of Tol Eressлa in the island on which Ossл drew the Gods to the western lands at the time of the fall of the Lamps (see p. 70) was necessarily lost afterwards with the loss of that story, and Ossл ceased to have any proprietary right upon it. The idea that the Eldar came to the shores of the Great Lands in three large and separated companies (in the order Teleri—Noldori—Solosimpi, as later Vanyar—Noldor—Teleri) goes back to the beginning; but here the first people and the second people each crossed the ocean alone, whereas afterwards they crossed together.

In The Silmarillion (p. 58) ‘many years’ elapsed before Ulmo returned for the last of the three kindreds, the Teleri, so long a time that they came to love the coasts of Middle-earth, and Ossл was able to persuade some of them to remain (Cнrdan the Shipwright and the Elves of the Falas, with their havens at Brithombar and Eglarest). Of this there is no trace in the earliest account, though the germ of the idea of the long wait of the lastcomers for Ulmo’s return is present. In the published version the cause of Ossл’s rage against the transportation of the Eldar on the floating island has disappeared, and his motive for anchoring the island in the ocean is wholly different: indeed he did this at the bidding of Ulmo (ibid. p. 59), who was opposed to the summoning of the Eldar to Valinor in any case. But the anchoring of Tol Eressлa as a rebellious act of Ossл’s long remained an element in the story. It is not made clear what other ‘scattered islands of his domain’ (p. 121) Ossл anchored to the sea-bottom; but since on the drawing of the World-Ship the Lonely Isle, the Magic Isles, and the Twilit Isles are all shown in the same way as ‘standing like pinnacles from the weedy depths’ (see pp. 84–6) it was probably these that Ossл now established (though Rъmil and Meril still speak of the Twilit Isles as ‘floating’ on the Shadowy Seas, pp. 68, 125).