However this may be, Ulmo at this time informed the Valar that the whole world is an Ocean, Vai, on which the Earth floats, вpheld by the word of IlГvatarв™and all the seas of the Earth, even that which divides Valinor from the Great Lands, are hollows in the Earthв™ surface, and are thus distinct from Vai, which is of another nature. All this we have already seen (p. 84 ff.); and in an earlier tale something has been said (p. 68) of the nature of the upholding waters:

Beyond Valinor I have never seen or heard, save that of a surety there are the dark waters of the Outer Seas, that have no tides, and they are very cool and thin, that no boat can sail upon their bosom or fish swim within their depths, save the enchanted fish of Ulmo and his magic car.

So here Ulmo says that neither fish nor boat will swim in its waters вo whom I have not spoken the great word that IlГvatar said to me and bound them with the spellв™

At the outer edge of Vai stands the Wall of Things, which is described as вa href="#filepos793483">deep-blueв™(p. 215). Valinor is nearer to the Wall of Things than is the eastern shore of the Great Lands, which must mean that Vai is narrower in the West than in the East. In the Wall of Things the Gods at this time made two entrances, in the West the Door of Night and in the East the Gates of Morn; and what lies beyond these entrances in the Wall is called вhe starless vastв™and вhe outer darkв™ It is not made clear how the outer air (вa href="#filepos358666">the dark and tenuous realm of Vaitya that is outside allв™ p. 181) is to be related to the conception of the Wall of Things or the Outer Dark. In the rejected preliminary text of this tale my father wrote at first (see note 16 above) that in the East вa href="#filepos807962">the Wall of Things is lowerв™ so that when the Sun returns from the Outer Dark it does not enter the eastern sky by a door but вides aboveв™the Wall. This was then changed, and the idea of the Door in the Eastern Wall, the Gates of Morn, introduced; but the implication seems clear that the Walls were originally conceived like the walls of terrestrial cities, or gardensв”alls with a top a вing-fenceв™ In the cosmological essay of the 1930s, the Ambarkanta, the Walls are quite other:

About the World are the Ilurambar, or Walls of the World. They are as ice and glass and steel, being above all imagination of the Children of Earth cold, transparent, and hard. They cannot be seen, nor can they be passed, save by the Door of Night.

Within these walls the Earth is globed: above, below, and upon all sides is Vaiya, the Enfolding Ocean. But this is more like to sea below the Earth and more like to air above the Earth.

See further p. 86.

The Tale of QorinГmi (p. 215) was never in fact toldв”n the first version of the present tale (see note 15 above) it seems that VairГ would have liked to tell it, but felt the beady eye of the captious Ailios upon her. In the early Qenya word-list QorinГmi is defined as вhe name of the Sunв™ literally вrowned in the Seaв™ the name being a derivative from a root meaning вhoke, suffocate, drownв™ with this explanation: вhe Sun, after fleeing from the Moon, dived into the sea and wandered in the caverns of the Oaritsi.в™Oaritsi is not given in the word-list, but oaris = вermaidв™ Nothing is said in the Lost Tales of the Moon giving chase to the Sun; it was the stars of Varda that Ilinsor, вuntsman of the firmamentв™ pursued, and he was вealous of the supremacy of the Sunв™(p. 195).

The conclusion of VairГв™ tale, вhe Weaving of Days, Months, and Yearsв™ shows (as it seems to me) my father exploring a mode of mythical imagining that was for him a dead end. In its formal and explicit symbolism it stands quite apart from the general direction of his thought, and he excised it without trace. It raises, also, a strange question. In what possible sense were the Valar вutside Timeв™before the weavings of Danuin, Ranuin, and Fanuin? In The Music of the Ainur (p. 55) IlГvatar said: вven now the world unfolds and its history beginsв™in the final version (The Silmarillion p. 20) it is said that

The Great Music had been but the growth and flowering of thought in the Timeless Halls, and the Vision only a foreshowing; but now they had entered in at the beginning of Timeв¦/p>

(It is also said in The Silmarillion (p. 39) that when the Two Trees of Valinor began to shine there began the Count of Time; this refers to the beginning of the measurement of Time from the waxing and the waning of the Trees.)

In the present tale the works of Danuin, Ranuin, and Fanuin are said to be the cause of вhe subjection of all things within the world to time and changeв™ But the very notion of a history, a consecutive story, self-evidently implies time and change; how then can Valinor be said only now to come under the necessity of change, with the ordering of the motions of the Sun and Moon, when it has undergone vast changes in the course of the story of the Lost Tales? Moreover the Gods now know вhat hereafter even they should in counted time be subject to slow eld and their bright days to waningв™ But the very statement (for instance) that Гmar-Amillo was вhe youngest of the great Valarв™who entered the world (p. 67) is an assertion that the other Valar, older than he, were вubject to eldв™ вgeв™has of course for mortal beings two aspects, which draw always closer: time passes, and the body decays. But of the вaturalв™immortality of the Eldar it is said (p. 59): вor doth eld subdue their strength, unless it may be in ten thousand centuriesв™ Thus they вgeв™(so Gilfanon is вhe most aged that now dwelt in the isleв™and is вa href="#filepos250890">one of the oldest of the fairiesв™ p. 175), but they do not вgeв™(do not become enfeebled). Why then do the Gods know that вereafterв™they will be вubject to slow eldв™Ђwhich can only mean ageing in the latter sense? It may well be that there is a deeper thought here than I can fathom; but certainly I cannot explain it.

Finally, at the end of all the early writing concerning it, it may be remarked how major a place was taken in my fatherв™ original conception by the creation of the Sun and the Moon and the government of their motions: the astronomical myth is central to the whole. Afterwards it was steadily diminished, until in the end, perhaps, it would have disappeared altogether.

X

GILFANON в™ TALE: THE TRAVAIL OF THE NOLDOLI AND THE COMING OF MANKIND

The rejected draft text of The Hiding of Valinor continues a little way beyond the end of VairГв™ tale, thus:

Now after the telling of this tale no more was there of speaking for that night, but Lindo begged Ailios to consent to a tale-telling of ceremony to be held the next night or as soon as might be; but Ailios would not agree, pleading matters that he must needs journey to a distant village to settle. So was it that the tale-telling was fixed ere the candles of sleep were lit for a sevennight from that timeв”nd that was the day of TuruhalmГ¹ or the Logdrawing. вTwill be a fitting day,в™saith Lindo, вor the sports of the morning in the snow and the gathering of the logs from the woods and the songs and drinking of TuruhalmГ will leave us of right mood to listen to old tales beside this fire.в™/p>

As I have noticed earlier (p. 204), the original form of the Tale of the Sun and Moon and The Hiding of Valinor belonged to the phase before the entry of Gilfanon of Tavrobel, replacing Ailios.

Immediately following this rejected draft text, on the same manuscript page, the text in ink of the Tale of Turambar (TГrin) begins, with these words:

When then Ailios had spoken his fill the time for the lighting of candles was at hand, and so came the first day of TuruhalmГ to an end; but on the second night Ailios was not there, and being asked by Lindo one Eltas began a taleв¦/p>