[Formendacil]

The "Link" at the start of this tale is brief: Eriol wants to know more, and eventually Lindo tells a tale at the Hall of Fire that answers what happens next.

Although obvious similarities in theme and action abound between this and the later text, I was struck rereading this chapter just how much Tolkien's plotting improved between this version and the later versions. One key example is that in the earlier text, the strife between the Valar and the Noldoli is almost completely manufactured by Melko. Although he goes about whispering half-truths and lies amongst the Elves, there is no real evidence that this causes any harm--it is only when Melko goes lying to Manwë with accusations that real division comes about.

Interesting too, what the narrator says about Manwë: "Heavy was Manwë's heart at these words, for he had feared long that that great amity of the Valar and Eldar be ever perchance broken, knowing that the Elves were children of the world and must one day return to her bosom." I find this passage intriguing, because it suggests that Manwë, who is elsewhere shown to be naively hopeful about Melko's ability and likelihood of repenting, is far more foreseeing and prepared--indeed, overly so, given that the Gnomes have done NOTHING yet--for the Elves to go astray.

Anyway, Finwë's embassy attempts a clumsy defence, but Melko's evil goes off without a hitch, and the Noldoli are banished from Kôr, finding a new home, Sirnúmen, the precursor to Formenelos. And this is what I mean when I say the later plot is much improved: there, Melkor's words cause more than just unease--people (well, Fëanor anyway) cause strike, and the punishment of banishing is enacted for that, leading to a genuine rift between the Valar and Noldor: genuine because even if Melkor was an actor behind it, his lies led to actions, not just to accusations.

A major difference--and, I think, another example of the later text's strength--is the long pause between the two major calamities: the death of Fëanor's father and the theft of the jewels, and the death of the Two Trees. In The Silmarillion, these actions are joined, happening as part of a single catastrophe, while here they are strung out. To me, the narrative between the two events seems to stagnate a little; Melko seems to have no idea what to do with himself once he has stolen the jewels--and, indeed, his motivation to take them in the first place seems to be mere greed.

It fascinates me that Fëanor was not originally Finwë's son, but all the more so because, as CT shows in the notes and commentary, Tolkien wavered between having his great desire for revenge be due to his grief as a son or father--and although Bruithwir would remain a distinct (if undifferentiated) character, I find myself wondering if the decision to go with "father" as the dead character was one that allowed much of the later history to develop. I do not think it would have made Fëanor as likely to be welded to the royal house, since the death of a royal grandson would not have had the same whole-nation motivating factor as the death of the Tribal Father--and I doubt whether the Seven Sons of Fëanor would have developed, since six surviving sons would have uncut the unsalvable grief of losing a most beloved child.

Which is not to say that it COULDN'T have been written! But I do think that the choice of father rather than son was more conducive to developing the story as we would have it and I incline to suspect it might have contributed to its fermentation. Imagine how different the legendarium would have been without the Seven Sons of Fëanor! Would there have been an Oath? Would the House of Finwë and its domestic drama have ever risen to such a central place?

Other thoughts...

1.) Lacking a connection to Fëanor, Finwë seems rather more saintly in the original text--more worth of his epessë Nólemë, anyway.

2.) I like the triennial/septennial celebrations and the 21-yearly jubilees.

3.) The story of the messenger killed by the angry Valar and Eldar is the only regret I have about losing the gap between the two calamities. Not to say that this taboo-breaking tale would necessarily have fit in the later tale, but it has weight to it, and it feels like an thematic precursor to the kinslayings.

4.) There is ONE point where the lies of Melko are seen to have had some impact, but it's a bit "too little, too late." After Manwë tries to convince the Noldoli to stay in Valinor by revealing Men and their nature, Fëanor produces a speech of indignation that directly parallels Melkor's lies in the Silm, and the narrator does day that "it is a matter for great wonder, the subtle cunning of Melko... pouring from Fëanor his foe."

5. Ungwë Lianti covets the gems of the Noldor, but unless I'm missing something, she doesn't actually devour them in the old story. To quote: "so came all that treasury of most lovely gems fairer than any others that the world has ever seen into the foul keeping of Wirilómë, and was wound in webs of darkness and hidden deep in the caverns of the eastern slopes of the great hills that are the southern boundary of Eruman." The dread and horror of Ungoliant is far less here, but I'll grant that I like the mental image this evokes: a lost treasure in the most desolate of places in the most binding of cobwebs.

6. We get our first mention of miruvor--by way of a blade steeped in it, for no apparent reason.

7. Speaking of things in The Lord of the Rings, I was immediately reminded of the Nazgûl by this passage: "Know then that Oromë had great stables and a breeding ground of good horses not so far from this spot, where a wild forest land had grown up. Thither Melko steals, and a herd of black horses he captures, cowing them with the terror he could wield." The parallel to the theft of the black horses from the Rohirrim is even stronger if you consider that at least the mearas were considered to be of the lineage of the horses of Oromë.