‘But,’ said Eriol, ‘nay, surely that is not so, for at the tale’s beginning methought you promised us words concerning the present courses of the Sun and Moon and their rising in the East, and I for one, by the leave of the others here present am not minded to release you of your word.’
Then quoth Lindo laughing, ‘Nay, I remember not the promise, and did I make it then it was rash indeed, for the things you ask are nowise easy to relate, and many matters concerning the deeds in those days in Valinor are hidden from all save only the Valar. Now however am I fain rather to listen, and thou Vairл perchance will take up the burden of the tale.’
Thereat did all rejoice, and the children clapped their hands, for dearly did they love those times when Vairл was the teller of the tale; but Vairл said:
‘Lo, tales I tell of the deep days, and the first is calle1d The Hiding of Valinor.’
NOTES
1 The manuscript has here Gilfan a · Davrobel, but in the rejected earlier version of this passage the reading is Gilfanon a · Davrobel, suggesting that Gilfan was not intentional.
2 See p. 24–5 on the relation of Tavrobel to the Staffordshire village of Great Haywood. At Great Haywood the river Sow joins the Trent.
3 In the rejected version of this ‘interlude’ Gilfanon’s history is differently recounted: ‘he was long before an Ilkorin and had dwelt ages back in Hisilуmл’ ‘he came to Tol Eressлa after the great march [i.e. Inwл’s ‘march into the world’, the great expedition from Kфr, see p. 26], for he had adopted blood-kinship with the Noldoli.’—This is the first occurrence of the term Ilkorin, which refers to Elves who were ‘not of Kфr’ (cf. the later term Ъmanyar, Elves ‘not of Aman’). Artanor is the precursor of Doriath.
4 Gilfanon, a Gnome, is here called the oldest of the fairies; see p. 51.
5 No explanation of ‘the House of the Hundred Chimneys’, near the bridge of Tavrobel, is known to me, but I have never visited Great Haywood, and it may be that there was (or is) a house there that gave rise to it.
6 The rejected form of the ‘interlude’ is quite different in its latter part:
Therefore said Lindo in answer to Eriol: ‘Behold, Gilfanon here can tell you much of such matters, but first of all must you be told of the deeds that were done in Valinor when Melko slew the Trees and the Gnomes marched away into the darkness. ’Tis a long tale but well worth the hearkening.’ For Lindo loved to tell such tales and sought often an occasion for recalling them; but Gilfanon said: ‘Speak on, my Lindo, but methinks the tale will not be told tonight or for many a night after, and I shall have fared long back to Tavrobel.’ ‘Nay,’ said Lindo, ‘I will not make the tale overlong, and tomorrow shall be all your own.’ And so saying Gilfanon sighed, but Lindo lifted up his voice…
7 ‘lest it be’: this curious expression is clear in the manuscript; the usage seems wholly unrecorded, but the meaning intended must be ‘unless it be’, i.e. ‘to him alone, unless also to Varda…’
8 O1n Telimpл as the name of the ‘Moon-cauldron’, rather than Silindrin, see p. 79 and 129 note 2.
9 See p. 73, 88. At previous occurrences the name is Urwen, not Urwendi.
10 ‘twixt Erumбni and the Sea’: i.e., the Outer Sea, Vai, the western bound of Valinor.
11 The passage beginning ‘For behold, he desired in this manner…’ on p. 182 and continuing to this point was added on a detached sheet and replaced a very much shorter passage in which Manwл briefly declared his plan, and nothing was said about the powers of the Valar. But I do not think that the replacement was composed significantly later than the body of the text.
12 The earlier reading here was: ‘Then did the Gods name that ship, and they called her Or which is the Sun’, etc.
13 The earlier reading here was: ‘and the Gnomes call her Aur the Sun, and Galmir the goldgleamer’, etc.
14 An isolated note refers to the coming forth of more wholesome creatures when the Sun arose (i.e. over the Great Lands), and says that ‘all the birds sang in the first dawn’.
15 The Aulenossл: see p. 176.
16 This is the first appearance of the Sons of Fлanor.
17 Earlier reading: ‘the silver rose’.
18 Urwendi: manuscript Urwandi, but I think that this was probably unintended.
19 From this point the text of the Tale of the Sun and Moon ceases to be written over an erased pencilled original, and from the same point the original text is extant in another book. In fact, to the end of the Tale of the Sun and Moon the differences are slight, no more than alterations of wording; but the original text does explain the fact that at the first occurrence of the name Gilfanon on p. 189 the original reading was Ailios. One would guess in any case that this was a slip, a reversion to an earlier name, and that this is so is shown by the first version, which has, for ‘many marvellous deeds that Gilfano1n may tell’ (p. 194), ‘many marvellous deeds as Ailios shall tell’.
20 From this point the second version diverges sharply from the first. The first reads as follows:
And that is all, methinks,’ said Lindo, ‘that I know to tell of those fairest works of the Gods’ but Ailios said: ‘Little doth it cost thee to spin the tale, an it be of Valinor; it is a while since ye offered us a…..tale concerning the rising of the Sun and Moon in the East, and a flow of speech has poured from thee since then, but now art thou minded to [?tease], and no word of that promise.’ Of a truth Ailios beneath his roughness liked the words of Lindo as well as any, and he was eager to learn of the matter.
‘That is easy told,’ said Lindo…
What follows in the original version relates to the matter of the next chapter (see p. 220 note 2).
Ailios here claims that a promise made by Lindo has not been fulfilled, just as does Eriol, more politely, in the second version. The beginning of the tale in the first version is not extant, and perhaps as it was originally written Lindo did make this promise; but in the second he says no such thing (indeed Eriol’s question was ‘Whence be the Sun and Moon?’), and at the end of his tale denies that he had done so, when Eriol asserts it.
Changes made to names in
The Tale of the Sun and Moon
Amnor < Amnos (Amnos is the form in The Flight of the Noldoli, < Emnon; the form Amnon also occurs, see p. 172).
For changes in the passage on the names of the Sun see notes 12 and 13.
Gilfanon < Ailios (p. 189, at the first occurrence only, see note 19).
Minethlos < Mainlos.
Uolл Kъvion < Uolл Mikъmi, only at the second occurrence on p. 193; at the first occurrence, Uolл Mikъmi was left unchanged, though I have given Uolл Kъvion in the text.
Ship of Morning < Kalaventл (p. 190; i · Kalaventл ‘the Ship of Light’ occurs unemended in the text on p. 188).
the Sunship’s flames < the flames of Kalaventл (p. 193).
Sбri < Kalavйnл (p. 193, 195. Kalavйnл is the form in the original version, see note 19).
Commentary on
The Tale of the Sun and Moon
The effect of the opening of this tale is undoubtedly to emphasize more strongly than in the later accounts the horror aroused by the deeds of the Noldoli (notable is Aulл’s bitterness against them, of which nothing is said afterwards), and also the finality and 1absoluteness of their exclusion from Valinor. But the idea that some Gnomes remained in Valinor (the Aulenossл, p. 176) survived; cf. The Silmarillion p. 84: