The story of ‘The Travail of the Noldoli and the Coming of Mankind’ that was to have been told by Gilfanon, but which after its opening pages most unhappily never got beyond the stage of outline projections, was to be followed by that of Beren and Tinъviel (see I. 241). After the Battle of Unnumbered Tears there is mention of the Thraldom of the Noldoli, the Mines of Melko, the Spell of Bottomless Dread, the shutting of Men in Hisilуmл, and then ‘Beren son of Egnor wandered out of Dor Lуmin into Artanor…’ (In The Silmarillion the deeds of Beren and Lъthien preceded the Battle of Unnumbered Tears.)

Now in the Tale of Tinъviel there is a reference, in both versions, to the ‘thrall-Noldoli’ who laboured in Hisilуmл and of Men dwelling there; and as the passage introducing Beren was first written in the manuscript his father was one of these slaves. It is said, again in both versions, that neither Tinwelint nor the most part of his people went to the battle, but that his lordship was greatly increased by fugitives from it (p. 9); and to the following statement that his dwelling was hidden by the magic of Gwendeling/Melian the typescript adds the word ‘thereafter’ (p. 43), i.e. after the Battle of Unnumbered Tears. In the changed passage in the typescript referring to Egnor he is one of the chiefest foes of Melko ‘in all the kin of the Gnomes that still were free’.

All this seems to allow of only one conclusion: the events of the Tale of Tinъviel took place after the great battle; and this seems to be clinched by the express statement in the typescript: where the manuscript (p. 15) says that Melko ‘sought ever to destroy the friendship and intercourse of Elves and Men’, the second version adds (p. 44): ‘lest they forget the Battle of Unnumbered Tears and once more arise in wrath against him’.

It is very odd, therefore, that Vлannл should say at the beginning (in the manuscript only, p. 10 and see p. 43) that she will tell ‘of things that happened in the halls of Tinwelint after the arising of the Sun indeed but long ere the unforgotten Battle of Unnumbered Tears’. (This in any case seems to imply a much longer period between the two events than is suggested in the outlines for Gilfanon’s Tale: see I. 242). This is repeated later (p. 17): ‘it was a thing unthought…that any Elf…should fare untended to the halls of Melko, even in those earlier days before the Battle of Tears when Melko’s power had not grown great…’ But it is stranger still that this second sentence is retained in the typescript (p. 45). The typescript version has thus two inescapably contradictory statements:

Melko ‘sought ever to destroy the friendship and intercourse of Elves and Men, lest they forget the Battle of Unnumbered Tears’ (p. 44);

‘Little love was there between the woodland Elves and the folk of Angband even in those days before the Battle of Unnumbered Tears’ (p. 45).

Such a radical contradiction within a single text is in the highest degree unusual, perhaps unique, in all the writings concerned with the First Age. But I can see no way to explain it, other than simply accepting it as a radical contradiction; nor indeed can I explain those statements in both versions that the events of the tale took place before the battle, since virtually all indications point to the contrary.*

§ 3. Miscellaneous Matters

(i) Morgoth

Beren addresses Melko as ‘most mighty Belcha Morgoth’, which are said to be his names among the Gnomes (p. 44). In the Gnomish dictionary Belcha is given as the Gnomish form corresponding to Melko (see I. 260), but Morgoth is not found in it: indeed this is the first and only appearance of the name in the Lost Tales. The element goth is given in the Gnomish dictionary with the meaning ‘war, strife’ but if Morgoth meant at this period ‘Black Strife’ it is perhaps strange that Beren should use it in a flattering speech. A name-list made in the 1930s explains Morgoth as ‘formed from his Orc-name Goth “Lord or Master” with mor “dark or black” prefixed’, but it seems very doubtful that this etymology is valid for the earlier period. This name-list explains Gothmog ‘Captain of Balrogs’ as containing the same Orc-element (‘Voice of Goth (Morgoth)’); but in the name-list to the tale of The Fall of Gondolin (p. 216) the name Gothmog is said to mean ‘Strife-and-hatred’ (mog-‘detest, hate’ appears in the Gnomish dictionary), which supports the interpretation of Morgoth in the present tale as ‘Black Strife’.*

(ii) Orcs and Balrogs

Despite the reference to ‘the wandering bands of the goblins and the Orcs’ (p. 14, retained in the typescript version), the terms are certainly synonymous in the Tale of Turambar. The Orcs are described in the present tale (ibid.) as ‘foul broodlings of Melko’. In the second version (p. 44) wolf-rider Orcs appear.

Balrogs, mentioned in the tale (p. 15), have appeared in one of the outlines for Gilfanon’s Tale (I. 241); but they had already played an important part in the earliest of the Lost Tales, that of The Fall of Gondolin (see pp. 212–13).

(iii) Tinъviel’s ‘lengthening spell’

Of the ‘longest things’ named in this spell (pp. 19–20, 46) two, ‘the sword of Nan’ and ‘the neck of Gilim the giant’, seem now lost beyond recall, though they survived into the spell in the Lay of Leithian, where the sword of Nan is itself named, Glend, and Gilim is called ‘the giant of Eruman’. Gilim in the Gnomish dictionary means ‘winter’ (see I. 260, entry Melko), which does not seem particularly appropriate: though a jotting, very difficult to read, in the little notebook used for memoranda in connection with the Lost Tales (see I. 171) seems to say that Nan was a ‘giant of summer of the South’, and that he was like an elm.

The Indravangs (Indrafangs in the typescript) are the ‘Longbeards’ this is said in the Gnomish dictionary to be ‘a special name of the Nauglath or Dwarves’ (see further the Tale of the Nauglafring, p. 247).

Karkaras (Carcaras in the typescript) ‘Knife-fang’ is named in the spell since he was originally conceived as the ‘father of wolves, who guarded the gates of Angamandi in those days and long had done so’ (p. 21). In The Silmarillion (p. 180) he has a different history: chosen by Morgoth ‘from among the whelps of the race of Draugluin’ and reared to be the death of Huan, he was set before the gates of Angband in that very time. In The Silmarillion (ibid.) Carcharoth is rendered ‘the Red Maw’, and this expression is used in the text of the tale (p. 34): ‘both hand and jewel Karkaras bit off and took into his red maw’.

Glorund is the name of the dragon in the Tale of Turambar (Glaurung in The Silmarillion).

In the tale of The Chaining of Melko there is no suggestion that Tulkas had any part in the making of the chain (there in the form Angaino): I. 100.

(iv) The influence of the Valar

There is frequent suggestion that the Valar in some way exercised a direct influence over the minds and hearts of the distant Elves in the Great Lands. Thus it is said (p. 15) that the Valar must have inspired Beren’s ingenious speech to Melko, and while this may be no more than a ‘rhetorical’ flourish, it is clear that Tinъviel’s dream of Beren is meant to be accepted as ‘a dream of the Valar’ (p. 19). Again, ‘the Valar set a new hope in her heart’ (p. 47); and later in Vлannл’s tale the Valar are seen as active ‘fates’, guiding the destinies of the characters—so the Valar ‘brought’ Huan to find Beren and Tinъviel in Nan Dumgorthin (p. 35), and Tinъviel says to Tinwelint that ‘the Valar alone saved Beren from a bitter death’ (p. 37).