Chapter 1: Of the Beginning of Time

[Aiwendil]

Obviously, the big difference here is that Findegil’s text is assembled in a more piece-meal fashion from Ainulindale, AAm, LQ, MT, and LT, whereas mine is based almost entirely on AAm, with fewer additions from the other sources. One might say that Findegil takes a maximalist approach, erring on the side of including passages from most sources when in doubt, while I take a minimalist approach, only breaking up Tolkien’s text when there seems to be a very good reason. As I reviewed both our texts, I became increasingly convinced that what would be best is something somewhere in between those extremes.

The danger in my approach is of course that we leave out material that could profitably be included, and I think my text does suffer from this. As I think both Findegil and ArcusCalion tend toward the “maximalist” side of things, I trust I don’t have to argue much to persuade you of this fact!

On the other hand, there are a few dangers I see in taking Findegil’s approach, and I think his text also suffers as a result in some ways. First of all, there is the simple fact that chopping up Tolkien’s text into relatively small pieces disturbs it from a literary point of view, breaking up the rhythm of Tolkien’s language and the unity of his writing. This is of course unavoidable in our project, and we have explicitly decided that we are not going to trouble ourselves too much about stylistic descrepancies. Yet at the same time, I think that we ought to be careful not to hurt the text in this way unless necessary.

Beyond this general point, I think the problems that a lot of chopping up of the texts can lead to are mainly redundancies and contradictions. As we saw in some of the later chapters, it’s surprisingly easy for redundancies to creep in when one assembles a text from multiple sources. I think there are several places where this happens in Findegil’s texts of chapters 1 and 2. It’s also possible to inadvertantly introduce contradictions without noticing it, if subtly different ideas lay behind the different texts.

As a bit of an aside, in reviewing these texts I find myself getting a bit confused about the relative dating (and therefore priority) of the Ainulindale, AAm, and LQ. Of the AAm manuscript, Christopher Tolkien writes:

The work undoubtedly belongs with the large development and recasting of the Matter of the Elder Days that my father undertook when The Lord of the Rings was finished (see p. 3), and it stands in close relationship to the revision at that time of the corresponding parts of the Quenta Silmarillion (V.204-43, referred to throughout as QS), the text that had been abandoned at the end of 1937. Equally clearly it followed the last text of the Ainulindalë (D).

So at least we can say that AAm and LQ1 have priority over Ainulindale, but it is not clear whether AAm or LQ1 is later. For the material up to the “Finwë and Miriel” chapter, there is no “second phase” LQ2 text, but there is a “second phase” AAm typescript with emendations. Based on this, I’m inclined to say that AAm has priority up to “Finwë and Miriel” (exclusive), and LQ2 has priority from there through the Flight of the Noldor. (We may have discussed this elsewhere, but I can’t recall).

All right, having said all that, let me try to get into the texts a little more closely and discuss some issues I see.

Myths Transformed II

Findegil’s text makes heavy use, in the beginning of chapter 1, of the narrative from MT II. This narrative was Tolkien’s first (and I think only?) attempt to put into ‘literary’ form the story of the beginning of Arda with the new cosmology (round earth, sun and moon existing from the beginning). We have decided, of course, to reject the new cosmology, but Findegil’s text presupposes that we can still use some of the narrative.

I’m uncertain as to whether this is usable. As Christopher Tolkien discusses here and in his discussion of the ‘Athrabeth’, the new cosmology conceives of Arda as being equivalent to the solar system, with the sun a star, and innumerable other stars elsewhere in the vast reaches of Eä. And it seems to me that, even if in the first few paragraphs there is no explicit mention of the round earth or of the sun, this conception underlies the narrative. In MT II and in Findegil’s text, while the Valar locate Arda and begin their labour there, other Ainur go out into other parts of Eä; this is an idea not present in the earlier texts, and I think it goes hand in hand with the idea that Arda, our solar system, is just the realm of one star among countless others. Similarly, the text here says that Melkor could have ruled in other parts of Eä, but that he instead sought for Arda. In the earlier cosmology, there is no suggestion that Arda could be difficult for the Ainur to locate once they entered Eä, nor that there were other places (other solar systems, I take this to mean) where Melkor could have set up shop on his own. In short, I can see a good argument that the opening of this narrative is inextricably bound up with the new cosmology - and that therefore we must reject the whole narrative, not just the parts that explicitly mention a round earth or the sun.

There is one addition from MT II in Findegil’s text of chapter 1 that does not appear to have any cosmological implications, and that is BoT-17. This could stand even if we accept the argument above. However, I’m not sure whether this is true as Findegil says:

BoT-17: The search for Melkor, when the signs of evil are seen is a new element introduced in MT. But for me at least it makes a lot of sense.

In AAm, under 3450, we have:

§21 Then the Valar knew indeed that Melkor was at work again, and they sought for his hiding-place.

So I don’t see this particular addition from MT adding much.


The First War and Spring of Arda

For these early parts, aside from the question of MT II, Findegil’s text and mine differ mainly in that Findegil takes a little bit more from LQ and Ainulindale, while I often take the equivalent statements from AAm. But these are pretty minor differences, and I don’t see any particular problems with Findegil’s text here. It couldn’t hurt to take another look at the bits where I used AAm and Findegil used other sources, and decide for each one which source is best for that spot - but this is minor detail-work, not a big issue.

BoT-19, -20, -21

Here we have in Findegil’s text two passages from the Ainulindale followed by one from AAm. There are two things I question here. First (and perhaps this is just my failure to understand something), Findegil has in BoT-20 taken a passage about Melkor taking physical form that in the Ainulindale comes much earlier, at the beginning of the first battle between Melkor and the Valar. Why was this moved here? I assume it’s because there is a canonical statement post-dating the Ainulindale somewhere that this is when Melkor took physical form, in which case that’s fine. Otherwise it should be moved back to where it was.

The other point is that I see a redundancy here between BoT-19 (from the Ainulindale) and BoT-21 (from AAm). We have:

And when he saw his time, Melkor revealed himself, and he made war again on the Valar his brethren

And then:

}And Melkor, trusting in the strength of Utumno and the might of his servants, came forth suddenly to war

So we state twice that Melkor goes to war against the Valar. I would propose instead using the whole of §21 of AAm here, as I did in my version, instead of BoT-17 through -21:

Then the Valar knew indeed that Melkor was at work again, and they sought for his hiding-place. But Melkor, trusting in the strength of Utumno and the might of his servants, came forth suddenly to war, and struck the first blow, ere the Valar were prepared. And he assailed the lights of Illuin and Ormal, and he cast down their pillars, and broke their lamps. Then in the overthrow of the mighty pillars lands were broken and seas arose in tumult; and when the lamps were spilled destroying flame was poured out over the Earth. And the shape of Arda and the symmetry of its waters and its lands was marred in that time, so that the first designs of the Valar were never after restored.

Assuming there is justification for moving Melkor’s assumption of physical form here, we can reintroduce BoT-20 like so:

Then the Valar knew indeed that Melkor was at work again, and they sought for his hiding-place. BoT-20 <Ainulindale [A]nd {he also} Melkor took visible form, but because of his mood, and the malice that increased in him, that form was dark and terrible. And he {descended}[arose] upon Earth in power and majesty greater than any other of the Valar, as a mountain that wades in the sea and has its head above the clouds and is clad in ice and crowned with fire and smoke; and the light of his eyes was like a flame that withers with heat and pierces with a deadly cold.> {But Melkor} And trusting in the strength of Utumno and the might of his servants, he came forth suddenly to war, and struck the first blow, ere the Valar were prepared. And he assailed the lights of Illuin and Ormal, and he cast down their pillars, and broke their lamps. Then in the overthrow of the mighty pillars lands were broken and seas arose in tumult; and when the lamps were spilled destroying flame was poured out over the Earth. And the shape of Arda and the symmetry of its waters and its lands was marred in that time, so that the first designs of the Valar were never after restored.

Note that I have removed the “also” from the Ainulindale passage, which there referred back to the other Valar taking physical form.

In this same section is BoT-22, of which Findegil wrote:

BoT-22: This is based on the maps, where after the fall of the lamps the three different continents Aman, Middle-earth and the Land of the Sun are build out of the full symmetric single land mass around the See of Almaren.

I think I’m missing something here. I don’t see any change here from what’s in AAm, and I don’t understand why there is an editorial marking here at all.

BoT-23, -24

Here Findegil already notes that he finds a bit of redundancy between LQ and AAm, and I agree. But I think the main problem here is a slight contradiction between LQ (BoT-23) and AAm (BoT-24). LQ and AAm seem to give different explanations as to why Melkor escaped from the Valar at this time. LQ attributes it to his increased strength and the fact that he now has many servants; AAm, on the other hand says that it is because the Valar were busy restraining the tumults he had caused. Again, here I propose eliminating the addition from LQ and using AAm as a whole:

In the confusion and the darkness Melkor escaped, though fear fell upon him; for above the roaring of the seas he heard the voice of Manwë as a mighty wind, and the earth trembled beneath the feet of Tulkas. But he came to Utumno ere Tulkas could overtake him; and there he lay hid. And the Valar could not at that time overcome him, for the greater part of their strength was needed to restrain the tumults of the Earth, and to save from ruin all that could be saved of their labour; and afterward they feared to rend the Earth again, until they knew where the Children of Ilúvatar were dwelling.

BoT-25, -26

Findegil’s text returns to LQ at the end of this paragraph for:

Thus {he}[Melkor[/u] escaped from the wrath of the Valar, and far in the North he BoT-25 <editorial addition had> built himself a fortress, and delved great caverns underground, and deemed that he was secure from assault for ever.

To my mind, this is rather tortured and unnecessary. We have already just said that Melkor escaped and that he came to Utumno, and we have already described Utumno’s building earlier. I don’t see any need for this sentence in itself. However, there is something valuable in BoT-26, where Findegil incorporates the footnote about Angband being built and commanded by Sauron. I agree that this should be stated somewhere, but since the reason given for his building Angband is to guard against attack from Aman, I think we must add this later, after the Valar have gone west and established their home in Valinor. So I would just end this paragraph (and chapter) with:

and afterward they feared to rend the Earth again, until they knew where the Children of Ilúvatar were dwelling, who were yet to come in a time that was hidden from the Valar.

Building of Valinor

Let’s move on to the part that Findegil breaks off as chapter 2, “Of Valinor and the Two Trees”. Both Findegil and I begin this with AAm and then insert some material from LT. However, Findegil also inserts a bit from LQ in VT-LQ-01, and I think this leads to another redundancy:

VT-LQ-01 <LQ2But the {Gods}[Valar] removed into the uttermost West and there made their home and fortified it; and they built many mansions in that land upon the borders of the World, which is called Valinor. And Valinor was bounded upon the hither side by the Great Sea of the West

The problem is that this is then followed by an excerpt from LT that tells everything here from “and there made their home” onward at much greater length. In my version, I instead take this statement from AAm:

Therefore they removed from Middle-earth and went to the Land of Aman, which was westernmost of all lands upon the borders of the ancient world; for its west shores looked upon the Outer Sea that encircled the kingdom of Arda, and beyond were the Walls of the Night.

This tells only that they have gone west to Aman, but does not tell of the building of their home, because that is about to be told in the LT passages.

We both follow this with excerpts from LT that tell of the Valar finding a wide land beyond Avathar and raising the mountains, so this is fine.

I find another redundancy in Findegil’s text here, though:

§13 Now in that guarded land the Valar gathered all light and all fair things;

This is from LQ, and it is followed by a vivid account from LT of the Valar gathering materials to Valinor and then gathering light and putting it in cauldrons. Again, I think the shorter statement from LQ is mostly redundant with what is about to be told from LT, except perhaps for the “fair things” that they gather.

LT Descriptions of Valars’ Dwellings

Findegil and I both include excerpts from LT giving details about the dwellings of the Valar, but we differ in where we place them - Findegil places them just after the gathering of light and materials, while I place them much later, incorporating them into the passage in AAm that describes (in far less detail) the places where some of the Valar dwell. I think Findegil’s placement of them leads to another redundancy, because that passage from AAm (at the end of this chapter) now seems to repeat some things that were told earlier. I also think the LT descriptions of the dwellings fit rather well in that AAm passage. So in this case, I prefer my placement of those passages.


Building of Valimar

In AAm, the building of Valimar, the city, is apparently distinct from the building of the mansions of the Valar. In fact, this is stated rather explicitly:

Originally Posted by ”AAm”

And it came to pass that, after Valinor was full-wrought and the mansions of the Valar were established and their gardens and woodlands were arrayed, the Valar built their city in the midst of the plain beyond the Pelóri.

In Findegil’s text, we have the LT account of the building of the mansions, which includes the building of Valimar, and then a (somewhat tortured, I fear) transposition of this AAm passage into the pluperfect:

And it came to pass that, after Valinor was fullwrought and the mansions of the Valar were established and their gardens and woodlands were arrayed, that the Valar had built their city in the midst of the plain beyond the Pelori.

I think, instead, we must follow the sequence of events in AAm: the mansions are built (though, as I said earlier, I’d prefer to leave their descriptions for the end of the chapter), then Valimar is built. We can break up the LT material as I did, moving the description of the building of the city to this point.

It’s also worth noting that in AAm, the statements about Valinor becoming more beautiful even than Middle-earth in the Spring of Arda, and about Middle-earth being left in twilight, occur just before the building of Valimar. Findegil’s text moves these to after the creation of the Trees, but I’m not sure I see the justification or necessity for that.

Growth of the Trees

Here Findegil includes a description of the Trees’ growth from LT which I did not include. I think that this is a good addition. There may be some minor details of the descriptions to look into more carefully, but to first order I think that Findegil’s text for this part (up to and including VT-EX-27) is good.

Names of the Trees

I agree that it’s nice to have the detail of Yavanna and Lórien naming the Trees, but as Findegil’s text stands, there is a slight feeling of redundancy between this passage from LT and the following passage from LQ, which gives the many names of the Trees. This can perhaps be fixed by some light editing.

In the LT, the Valar name each Tree immediately after it grows, rather than naming them both after they both have grown. If we followed that, I think the editing of the text of the LT passages would be a little less tortured. It’s true that in the earlier story, one Tree grew entirely first, before the other had even sprouted, whereas in the later story they seem to be growing a bit at the same time - but I still think there’s room for the Valar to name Telperion before we move on to the description of Laurelin’s growth; then they can praise Yavanna’s work and name Laurelin once it is done growing.

A bit of an aside: in the later texts, I think “Telperion” is the more usual name rather than “Silpion”; should that not be the name given by Lórien? I don’t recall the history of the names of the Trees all that well, though, so maybe not.

Waxing and Waning of the Trees

I find another slight redundancy in Findegil’s text here, where a passage from LQ describing the daily waxing and waning of the Trees is followed by a passage from LT wherein Yavanna tells the other Valar about the waxing and waning of the Trees. More problematically, Yavanna’s speech to the Valar here assumes that Laurelin has just waned and Silpion is waxing - but that is because in LT Laurelin was the elder Tree. In our story, Telperion waxes first.

Gathering of the Light

As far as I can see we have the following stories about the light of the Trees:

LT: Ulmo retrieves light from ‘blazing lakes’ and ‘pools of brilliance’ (presumably left after the destruction of the Lamps) and deposits it in the two great cauldrons Kulullin and Silindrin. The Trees are made by watering the ground with this light. After the Trees grow, Yavanna instructs the Valar to water each Tree with light from its respective cauldron every twelve hours when it wanes. Urwen and Silmo are tasked with this watering.

LQ: The Valar gather all light to Valinor. The Trees are made. Varda lets hoard the dews from the Trees in great vats, like shining lakes.

AAm: The Valar gather great store of light in Valinor. The Trees are made. Varda gathers the light that spills from them in great vats near the mound and the Maiar draw light from these vats and bring it to the more distant parts of Valinor, so that all the land will gain nourishment from it.

MT II: (There were no Lamps. Melkor disarrays the sun and drives Tilion out of the moon.) Varda has a store of Primeval Light. The Two Trees are made (presumably with this light).

In my opinion, Findegil’s draft includes too much from all these sources, so that they tend to repeat and contradict each other. For instance, in no text by Tolkien are there both great cauldrons from which the Trees are watered with light and great vats in which Varda gathers the light that is spilled. On the contrary, it seems to me that the vats of Varda replaced the cauldrons. Further, the “Primeval Light” mentioned in MT seems to me to replace the light (from the Lamps) that was gathered to Valinor after the destruction of Almaren, and I don’t think it has any place in our version of the story.

Reckoning of Time

I included in my text the sections from AAm on the Valian year. Findegil mentioned that he recalled us discussing the Valian year at some point and deciding not to include any specifics on it, but I cannot find this discussion.

The issue, I suppose, is the later idea appearing in “The Shibboleth of Fëanor” of a Valian year being equivalent to 144 solar years, rather than the roughly 9.58 solar years of AAm. However, I have always been under the impression that this later version of the Valian year was adopted because of the revised cosmology. Even if that weren’t the case, I think an argument could be made that it is a proposed change that we cannot adopt, because it seriously distorts the pre-sun chronology. So I lean toward including this AAm passage.


Joy in Valinor and Twilight in Middle-earth

After telling of the Trees, Findegil’s text has passages from AAm, Ainulindale, and MT that seem to me to repeat and/or contradict each other. From AAm we have the statement that Valinor becomes more beautiful than Middle-earth in the Spring of Arda and that the Valar are joyful and leave Middle-earth in twilight (this has been moved here from its place in AAm, where it is before the making of the Trees). Then from Ainulindale we have a passage telling that Melkor walks abroad in Middle-earth and that the Valar dwell in bliss and seldom come to Middle-earth. And then we have from MT a section of outlining that says that the Valar go more and more often to Valinor and that then they are driven out of Middle-earth by Melkor and his servants. In my opinion, the AAm and Ainulindale passages are mostly redundant, and the MT passage contradicts them. In AAm and Ainulindale, Melkor does not drive them out of Middle-earth. Moreover, in the MT outline, it seems as if the Valar do not right away establish Valinor as their permanent home; they only “go there” sometimes, but that becomes more and more often.

My preference here would be to leave out the MT excerpt and move the AAm passage but move it back to its original location (unless there’s a good reason to put it here). Then I suppose we can retain the full Ainulindale passage - even if it does slightly repeat the AAm passage, they are now far enough apart that it is not so obvious.

Here, where from the Ainulindale we tell of Melkor walking abroad in Middle-earth, is where I would put the statement from LQ about Angband being built and given to Sauron to guard against attack from Valinor.

Finally, we have the short descriptions from the Ainulindale of the dwelling places and activities of a few of the Valar. As I said earlier, I still think that this is the best place to put the LT descriptions of their dwellings. And then we have in my draft the Gift of Eru, but as Findegil has reminded me, we used this in the Ainulindale (and I agree that that is the better place for it).

Well, that was long, but I hope it was useful. I feel as if I am starting to see a text take shape that is superior to both of our versions. I can try to produce a text that implements my proposals above.