The Book of Lost Tales Part I: A Readthrough

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Findegil

But nonetheless you should moderate your tone as long as you does not have your own facts straight: the later Hour, Tuor's father has a different name in the Lost Tales: Peleg.

Indeed, my list of names that are the same in The Book of Lost Tales and The Silmarillion was wrong in three places, because I simply put down forms that I remembered as being the same in both, and did not actually check, which is just asking for trouble.

I think my addition of Huor instead of Peleg was a stupid slip when I should have posted Túrin (and also possibly have posted other names from the chapter “Turambar and the Foalóke”, namely Brodda and Mîm, though I was not intending to list every name that was the same in the Book of Lost Tales and the published Silmarillion). But I don’t really know how Huor wrongly slipped in. I fully admit this as an inexcusable error.

Another error was my listing of Barahir in the list where Christopher Tolkien quite clearly states that Barahir only appears as a change in a late retelling of the “The Tale of Tinúviel”. In the main account Beren’s father is named Egnor.

Also, the form Tinwë Linto which I gave for Thingol is a rare variant. The most common name for the character in the Book of Lost Tales is Tinwelint.

Sorry, I couldn't resist to point that out, even so I think the discussion is worthless. The point should be taken on both sides: The names bear some potential for confusion, but it is less the changes made compared to later versions than the pure number of them.

Here I very much disagree. Tar-Jêx originally posted: “… the name are all different, very few the same.” The names are not all different from those in the published Silmarillion. Most of them are the same or at least very close to the versions which appear in the published Silmarillion, unless Tar-Jêx is possibly including forms that appear only very seldom in the Book of Lost Tales and were soon changed by Tolkien to more familiar forms within the Book of Lost Tales.

I do not take Tar-Jêx’s point, because I do not see the point. Tar-Jêx excused himself by claiming that he “… was more talking about places and things, not characters.” But he does not explain by indicating what persons and places in the Book of Lost Tales so confused him, instead pointing out two supposed personal name changes and he gets that wrong also.

My own suspicion is that Tar-Jêx does not now clearly recall what turned him off the Book of Lost Tales, only vaguely that some of the changes in the nomenclature were involved. But this has led him to statements that are quite untrue concerning the extent of the name changes.

The name changes he claims are mostly either non-existent, or very minor. They are at least no more than one might expect in a work published as an early version of Tolkien’s Silmarillion. One surely ought to expect some differences in plot and names from the published Silmarillion.

To complain that differences between the Book of Lost Tales and the Silmarillion are confusing to the point that the reader finds the works unreadable suggests to me that that reader must be very easily confused.

I fully admit Tar-Jêx’s right not to like the Book of Lost Tales but the reasons he presents for doing to do not make sense to me.

[Tar-Jêx]

Originally Posted by jallanite

The name changes he claims are mostly either non-existent, or very minor. They are at least no more than one might expect in a work published as an early version of Tolkien’s Silmarillion. One surely ought to expect some differences in plot and names from the published Silmarillion.

To complain that differences between the Book of Lost Tales and the Silmarillion are confusing to the point that the reader finds the works unreadable suggests to me that that reader must be very easily confused.

I fully admit Tar-Jêx’s right not to like the Book of Lost Tales but the reasons he presents for doing to do not make sense to me.

While I admit that I was wrong in saying that all of the names were different, there are still a great deal, and some of the more important ones. The renaming of the Solosimpi and Teleri can be quite a confusing one. After going back through the book, scanning for name changes, I noticed with the Valar that after the initial name changes, they still don't have just one name. Many of them have multiple different forms of their name, or just multiple names entirely. Melkor is an example. He was Melko, then Melkor, also known as Morgoth, Bauglir, Morgoth Bauglir, the Dark Lord, and other various 'evil' titles. This is also true for what I was referring to, the places. A great deal of them don't undergo name changes, but are called different things every other page.

We seem to have a misunderstanding, though, as I personally really enjoy BoLT. I was stating that a reader can be turned off and become disinterested when every place or item is being referred to by a different name every second page. A number of people I know that have tried to read BoLT found the name switching to be confusing, and never knew what was being referred to.

[Formendacil]

Time to move the discussion on! Well, time to post something for the next chapter, anyway. The topic of shifting names remains a major on-display feature of Chapter III, which picks up immediately from Chapter II (CT notes there is no textual break between the two and their Links). Compared with the later, published Silmarillion, this chapter is part "Valaquenta," part "Of the Beginning of Days," and 100% unlike both of them.

The Link:

The Link here is short and CT does not separate it, as he did the longer on in "The Music of the Ainur" from the main tale. This is again told by Rúmil, though we're back in the Hall of Fire.

Originally Posted by Of the Coming of the Valar and the Building of Valinor

"Then [said Rúmil] with the leave of Lindo and of Vairë I will begin the tale, else will you go on asking for ever; and may the company have pardon if they hear old tales again." But Vairë said that those words concerning the oldest things were far from stale yet in the ears of the Eldar.

I quote this because this could almost be the Downs' motto: "I will discuss the topic, else will you go on asking forever, and may the company pardon if they heard old tales again." But, said the Downers, those words concerning Tolkien things were far from stale yet.

There's a lot going on in this chapter, but the thing that stood out for me first and foremost--possibly because of the ongoing discussion in this thread--is all the information revealed about the Valar. The names and how much they've stayed the same (though there HAVE been some changes) leap immediately to mind, but there's more than that. The comparison to the Valaquenta is apt, because we have more than one "list of the Valar" here--we have about three, I'd say: an initial one, when they enter the world, an update as they go through the earliest days, and finally--and most extensively--the list of their houses.

The Maiar have yet to appear--at least named as such. There are countless spirits in the train of the Valar and there is no clear distinction between the great Valar and their followers--and in the cases of Ossë and Ónen (Uinen) and Salmar, figures who would later be Maiar are here clearly called Valar. But the big difference from the later legendarium--at least if you want my opinion--is that, in the BoLT conception, the Valar could have children. Most importantly, Oromë is the son of Yavanna and Aulë. (He clearly takes after his mother, it seems.)

On this last point, it says of Oromë and his lands in Valinor: "Much indeed he loves those realms yet is he very often in the world without; more often even than Ossë and as often as Palúrien." The special care that Oromë and Yavanna had for the Great Lands would persist into the published Silmarillion, where they seemed to be somewhat randomly chosen to have similar interests. We see here, though, why they originally had such closely related concerns: the god of hunting was the son of the goddess of nature.

And speaking of gods and goddesses, the Valar having children is but one feature demonstrating how the BoLT version of the Valar feels more like the real-world pantheons they represent. Unlike the more clinical (or is it compressed?) Valar of the later Silm, the list here trails off a bit more (what do we really know about Omar, the youngest of the Valar?), includes more rogues (Makar and Meássë), and more generations. To me, this made the entire chapter feel a lot like Hesiod's "Theogony," and I noted in the margins that the halls of Makar and Meássë seemed to remind me more of Valhalla than anything in the later Silm--though Tolkien does not glorify it at all.

We get more geography in this chapter, and although Tolkien would not create a map of the kind we fans grew familiar with from The Hobbit, the LotR, etc, there's a clear geography here on the large scale: Valinor and the Great Lands with the Magic Isles and the Twilit Isles set between--and in the ancillary information in the commentary, CT reproduces two "maps" in a looser sense, showing his father's conceptions of the cosmological structure of the world, as it then stood. The terminology shifted a bit and elements were refined, but this is the germ of early Silmarillion-contemporary "Ambarkanta." In other words, this is already close to the cosmology of the published Silmarillion.

(But with a caveat! Tolkien did not ever manage to rework the Silm so that it was "always round Earth," but he did want to.)

Even so, the information given here is more detailed and precise than most of what comes in the published Silm, and at least when I first read it--before I encountered the Ambarkanta a few volumes later--it seemed to fill in some of the questions the later text prompted.

To give an idea of how much is covered here, in his commentary, CT breaks down the chapter into sections for discussion, and I will list them off:

I. The Coming of the Valar and their encounter with Melko
II. The earliest conception of the Western Lands, and the Oceans
III. The Lamps
IV. The Two Trees
V. The Dwellings of the Valar
VI. The Gods of Death and the Fates of Elves and Men

Some minor notes I made, more or less in the order I encountered them:

1. "[The Valar] chose certain of their number to seek out the wrongdoer, and these were Mandos and Tulkas, Mandos for that of his dread aspect was Melko more in fear than of aught else save it were the strength of Tulkas' arm, and Tulkas was the other."

Melkor's special bitterness for Tulkas would remain, but I can't remember another reference to having a concern or fear where Mandos was concerned. It's the sort of thing that would be in-character, not least given the later imprisonment he would suffer in the halls of Mandos, but I can't recall the later Melkor ever giving the Doomsman of the Valar second pause.

2. A case of inconsistent characterization? "It was the rede of Aulë and of his wife Palúrien, for they were the most grieved by the mischief of Melko's turmoils and trusted his promises not at all," it says of them on the bottom of page 68 in my text, and then halfway through page 69, it says "Aulë suaded Melko to build two towers to the North and South," setting up Melko's ice-as-"an imperishable substance of great strength" deception.

3. "Then Ossë, for Ulmo was not there, gathered to him the Oarni, and putting forth their might they dragged that island whereupon stood the Valar westward from the waters till they came to Eruman"--why would Ulmo object? I know he and Ossë never see eye-to-eye, but did I miss what the difference of philosophy was in this matter?

4. Lórien and Vána share more of the glory with Yavanna here for the creation of the Two Trees and this how things roll in the BoLT--they will also play a more prominent role in the BoLT creation of the sun and moon.

5. On page 73, Tolkien calls Palúrien "mother of magic." I wonder what Sam and Galadriel would make of this--though Lothlórien does feel like somewhere Yavanna would be held in high regard.

6. Regarding the Two Trees, one of the most intriguing differences between the BoLT and the later legendarium is the order of the Trees' creation. Later, the silver tree would come first and the moon like it; here, it was Laurelin first and also the sun. The change to the later version predates The Lord of the Rings and thus predates the famous "consciously Catholic in the revision" moment Tolkien claimed to have had with that text; nonetheless, I note that change makes the legendarium more congruent with the Bible: "there was evening and there was morning"--in that order. I am not going to argue that there's enough evidence to say Tolkien was making the legendarium more Catholic-congruent, but it would track with the more "pagan" feel of the BoLT giving way to the more "angelic" Valar of the later legends, who are not "gods."

Finally, this chapter comes with a poem included in the commentary: "Habbanan beneath the Stars." My sole comment here is wonderment at the third line: "There is a sound of faint guitars."

The only mention of guitars in all the matter of Middle-earth? I certainly cannot think of another. Maybe it's just me, but I find it a bit jarring.

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Tar-Jêx

He was Melko, then Melkor, also known as Morgoth, Bauglir, Morgoth Bauglir, the Dark Lord, and other various 'evil' titles. This is also true for what I was referring to, the places. A great deal of them don't undergo name changes, but are called different things every other page.

Yes the same person is called Melko in The Book of Lost Tales, and other names in later works, principally Melkor and Morgoth. But the name Melko is very close to the name Melkor and the name Morgoth is only mentioned once in The Book of Lost Tales (other than in Christopher Tolkien’s commentary), which should make the Book of Lost Tales less confusing than the published Silmarillion. The forms Dark Lord and Bauglir do not even appear in The Book of Lost Tales. You would seem to indicate that the published Silmarillion is more confusing than Book of Lost Tales, which I do not think was your intention.

As to place names, name even one place name in The Book of Lost Tales, that is “called different things every other page.” Name even a single name that is mentioned “every second page” throughout the work. Gross exaggeration does not convince me.

We seem to have a misunderstanding, though, as I personally really enjoy BoLT.

The misunderstanding, if it is a misunderstanding, comes from you own statement: “I will admit, I did close my book gently, but firmly, in frustration of these ‘silent changes’”. Is this true?

I was stating that a reader can be turned off and become disinterested when every place or item is being referred to by a different name every second page. A number of people I know that have tried to read BoLT found the name switching to be confusing, and never knew what was being referred to.

Name a single case in The Book of Lost Tales where “every place or item is being referred to by a different name every second page”.

I have less understanding of what you are talking about the more you try to explain. I can understand a reader being slightly confused on occasion by differences in the Book of Lost Tales and the published Silmarillion, or in either book by itself, but I see place names changing only sometimes, not “every second page” throughout the Book of Lost Tales.

Continual use of gross exaggeration undercuts the points you are trying to explain, suggesting to me that you cannot support your points by simple statements, either because you are clumsy in your writing or because you simply can’t support them at all.

Yes, the Book of Lost Tales is sometimes confusing in its changing of names. Any stronger statement is gross exaggeration, in the same way the a complaint that the published Silmarillion is sometimes confusing with its similar names: Finwë, Fingolfin, Finarfin, Fingon, and Finrod. This is true. Possibly the changes in the Book of Lost Tales can be even more confusing to some people. Personally, I find it somewhat less confusing. Neither work is so confusing that I closed either book gently, but firmly. Both books were interesting enough that I read them in enjoyment, despite occasional confusion, as with many books.

[Tar-Jêx]

Apparently the use of exaggeration makes my points completely invalid.

I think I was quite clear that I was exaggerating. I never said that I didn't enjoy BoLT, rather that I was slightly frustrated at one point. It's like marriage. Anyway, this is basically just getting off topic and stupid. Abort this now meaningless discussion.

Formendacil, in the Silmarillion, it is stated multiple times that Melkor only feared Tulkas, for his physical strength was unmatched. I think Mandos was cut from the podium because of the similarities between him and Melkor. Melkor struck fear and doom into the hearts of many, so why would he fear one who did the same thing?

I believe the Silmarillion removed reference to solely Mandos and Tulkas being sent to seek out Melkor, and just had the whole crew go instead. Manwe came to his door and asked to come in, and Melkor allowed them, but was not pleased with Tulkas' presence. Nothing was mentioned of Mandos, and so he was basically removed from the event, while still being present.

[jallanite]

To continue with the main subject of this thread, I note particularly the discussion of the Valar.

We have Tolkien describing the actual arrival of the Valar and their people in the world, whereas in the published Silmarillion in the chapter “Of the Beginning of Days” this is just assumed to have occurred in a distant time, perhaps because Tolkien wished later to imagine a longer length of time during which the Earth existed. The Valar may have arrived at different times, but we are only specifically told that Tulkas came late, seemingly the last of the Valar to come, and was sufficient to supply the strength and power which drove Melkor from Middle-earth. But in this early account Tulkas is merely described among the others who have newly arrived and there is no early war between the Valar and Melko(r) before the destruction of the two lamps.

The Valar are mostly the same named in Tolkien’s later list of the Valar and Maiar with no distinction made between them here. Vaire is missing, though her name is applied to another, Eriol’s hostess, who is not much like the later Valier. Mandos’ wife is Fui Nienna who later accounts make instead to be the sister of Mandos and Lórien. Estë, the wife of Lórien, is not mentioned at all in the Book of Lost Tales. Nessa, the wife of Tulkas and brother to Oromë, is also not mentioned now, perhaps missed by a slip of Tolkien since she will become important in details at the end of this chapter and later.

Four more Valar are named in this chapter and also later in the book: the fierce brother-and-sister war deities Makar and Meássë; the youngest of the great Valar, Ómar, a singer and a linguist, later identified as the twin brother of Salmar; and Nornorë, the herald of the gods. None of these personages reappear outside the Book of Lost Tales.

Fiönwë and Erinti, son and daughter of Manwë and Varda, are not mentioned in this chapter, though both have been mentioned earlier on page 58, and both will also be mentioned later. By the published Silmarillion, Fiönwë will have become Ëonwë, herald of Manwë, and Eriniti will have become Ilmarë the handmaid of Varda. Eriniti is listed on page 251 with reference to vanished tales where it appears she was at one time the sister of “Noldorin and Amillo”, that is sister of Salmar and Ómar. The maiden Nielíqui is only mentioned once at the end of this chapter on page 72 and is only later identified as the daughter of Oromë and Vána. Telimehtar in later chapters is to be named as the son of Tulkas and Nessa.

Later still more beings appear in connection with the Sun and Moon. There is Urwen(di), the sun-maiden, who in the published Silmarillion becomes Árien. There is also Tilion who is perhaps the same as Silimo who long tended the silver tree. However, unlike the published Silmarillion where Tilion becomes steersman of the moon, in this account the moon is governed by a different being named Iinsor; and in the moon is yet another wight, Uolë Kúvion, by some named the Old Man of the Moon. These are more likely to be only people of some of the Valar rather than Valar themselves. The same may be true of some others mentioned because Tolkien, in this state in his writing, makes no firm distinction between classes of supernatural beings, though he probably made distinctions which he did not write down here.

Melian the Maia of the published Silmarillion is here definitely not a Vala but is called a sprite or a fay.

Tolkien gives many names to the peoples of the Valar and there are many different sorts. Manwë and Varda are accompanied by “the Mánir and the Súruli, the sylphs of the airs and of the winds.” Yavanna is accompanied by “the Nermir and the Tavari, Nandini and Orossi, brownies, fays, pixies, leprawns”. And so it goes for other Valar. This gives a greater zest to Tolkien’s world than does the later version, or so I think.

I particularly like the Book of Lost Tales account of the first coming of Melko to earth:

Now swiftly as they fared, Melko was there before them, having rushed headlong flaming through the airs in the impetuosity of his speed, and there was a tumult of the sea where he had dived and the mountains above him spouted flames and the earth gaped and rocked; and Manwë beholding this was wroth.

[Formendacil]

Not so much discussion this past week--if the comparison to Hesiod's Theogony holds, that doesn't surprise me. The list of the gods is important, but not always exciting...

I am a micron shy of being absolutely certain here, but it definitely seems to me that Christopher Tolkien has abridged the text at the start of the Link here, picking up after some recap with "And a marvel of wizardry liveth...". And unless I absolutely missed it somewhere, CT does not explain why he's done it. I assume it's because the text rambles or isn't up to his father's usual standards or SOMETHING. I'm going with the theory that everything it contains will be repeated later in the same Link, which is rather long. It's an odd lacuna, regardless, given the thoroughness with which CT usually presents new texts. In later volumes, it is true, he will often omit passages or texts that are substantially the same as later or earlier versions printed elsewhere, but there's no other.

In the midst of this redacted passage, Eriol hears the music of Tinfang Warble, a character I really don't know how to introduce other than to say "he's the Book of Lost Tales' closest parallel to Tom Bombadil." It's not a perfect parallel, obviously. Tinfang Warble is not an intentional enigma, though the way Vairë describes him at first does not seem that far removed from some of theories out there about Tom:

Originally Posted by The Book of Lost Tales

"There be none," said Vairë, "not even of the Solosimpi, who can rival him therein, albeit those same pipers claim him as their kin; yet 'tis said everywhere that this same spirit is neither wholly of the Valar nor of the Eldar, but is half a fay of the woods and dells, one of the great companies of the children of Palúrien, and half a Gnome or Shoreland Piper.

This half-blood lineage sounds a lot like Thingol and Melian, and in a footnote here, CT shows that Tolkien add to the text to suggest just that--but then he struck it through, removing the reference to Tinwë Linto and Wendelin. Of course, whether Tolkien removed it because it was inconsistent with how he wanted to present the story at that time, or whether because he'd decided against Tinfang Warble being the sibling of Tinúviel, is another matter.

Tinfang Warble fascinates me because he is emblematic to me of the differences between the BoLT and the later legendarium. From his name to his improbable ability to come and go between the Lonely Isle and the Great Lands to his eerie, "fairy" quality, he is nearly impossible to imagine in the later legendarium. But that's where he reminds me of Tom Bombadil--because if you read the Silmarillion and then told me that a singing genius loci in yellow boots would make a major, three chapter contribution to the tale of the War of the Ring, it'd be equally hard to imagine.

Anyway, Tinfang's music leads to Eriol's desire to satiate the longing that music brings, by drinking limpë, and for this he has go into Kortirion and get the lady's permission.

The queen is a descendant of Ingil son of Inwë (making the Royal House of the first company of the Eldar considerably larger than it will later become), and this relation to In(g)wë is not the most important way she has parallels to the later character of Galadriel (Galadriel's father, Finarfin, was the son of Indis, a Vanya of Ingwë's family--the exact relationship is not one Tolkien expressed consistently--and the source of her golden hair.) Like Galadriel, Meril is held in deep reverence by her people and her role in the story is to probe the hearts and desires of the protagonists.

In short, Meril tells Eriol that he can never become an elf and that he doesn't even know what he's asking without knowing the history of the Elves. And thus we get another story (though in a potential revision, Tolkien was going to have Eriol return to the Cottage of Lost Play empty-handed and have Rúmil tell the story instead of Meril-i-Turinqui).

In the process, we've learned a lot about limpë and its effects. Comments?

"Melko's Chains" has the same main plot elements as the later story in the Silmarillion: the Valar decide something must be done about Melko(r), they go to war, and bring him back from Utumn(o/a) in chains--but with one major difference. In the Silmarillion, this campaign is done completely out of consideration for the Elves; in the Book of Lost Tales, the Elves aren't even mentioned in connection with the matter until Melko is being judged, when Palúrien's counsel runs, "Take heed, O Valar, that both Elves and Men be not devoid of all solace whenso the times come for them to find the Earth."

This is a major difference in motivation and plotting, but it seems like an almost trivial difference to me, compared with the drastic stylistic differences between the earlier and later versions.

Some notes I made as I was reading:

1. "But Meril said, 'friendship is possible, maybe, but kinship not so.'" It's worth noting, in the Lost Tales, that Beren is an Elf and there's no suggestion that Tuor would share Idril's fate. The changes-of-fate Lúthien and Tuor undergo is a product of the later legendarium.

2. " 'Nay,' said she, 'on a day of autumn will come the winds and a driven gull, maybe, will wail overhead, and lo! you will be filled with desire, remembering the black coasts of your home.' " Ironically, since Meril is trying to argue Eriol away from tying himself to the fate of the Elves, this longing of his Mannish heritage as a son of Eárendel sounds a lot like the doom of Eldar that Legolas suffers in The Lord of the Rings.

3. To continue with one of my points from last chapter, Oromë's participation in the creation of the first forests with his mother, a participation he lacks in the later legendarium, sheds light on the later tales nonetheless--we are told, after all, that one of his names is "Tauron"--lord of the forests. It makes even more sense in this context, where the first hunter is the son of the mother of the forests.

4. "Full of evil and unwholesome were they; luring and restlessness and horror they brought, turning the dark into an ill and fearful thing, which it was not before." This is one of Tolkien's favourite themes with the Elves, right down to Midsummer Eve in Minas Tirith after the War of the Ring.

5. "Tilkal." It's improbable name aside, its existence puts mithril into a tradition of invented metals. Also, the footnote calls ilsa and laurë the "magic names" of gold and silver. I don't know about "magic," but I'm reminded of "argent" and "or" as heraldic names of the same.

6. Telimektar son of Tulkas gets his first mention.

7. Mandos and Lórien riding together on the same chariot, in addition to being a more evocative image than the later text provides, is another reminder they are brethren.

8. Aulë and his long-handled war-hammer. Shades of mjölnir, anyone? (He's really more of a Hephaestion/Vulcan, but still...)

9. "In sooth Manwë hoped even to end for peace and amity." Is Manwë to be considered super-naïve or is he a paragon of goodness?

10. "yet the shellfish and oysters no-one of the Valar or of Elves knows whence they are, for they gaped in the silent waters or ever Melko lunged therein from on high, and pearls there were before the Eldar thought or dreamed of any gem." Forget Tinfang Warble! Here's the real parallel to Tom Bombadil. Is Bombadil an oyster?


There are two poems in the Commentary, both included for their connection to Tinfang Warble. The first, called "Tinfang Warble," reached its centenary this year (so you can drink to that if you're lacking in Tolkien toasts) and I'd be lying if I said that it didn't remind me of "tra-la-la-lally." "Over the Hills and Far Away" is, to my mind, much the better of the two. Both were still around in 1927--well past the Lost Tales era and into the beginning of the Silmarillion tradition (though not necessarily connected with it--but a reminder nonetheless that the Silm began and essentially remained an annalistic compendium of the stories in the BoLT). That was the year "Tinfang Warble" saw publication and "Over the Hills and Far Away" was rewritten.

Finally, CT admits he's taken advantage of an interjection by Eriol and reminder of him and Meril-i-Turinqui to separate "Melko's Chains" from the following chapter. Perhaps moreso than the foregoing chapters, we have an artificial division here, one that seems all the more natural given the division of this same section of the Silmarillion into multiple chapters.

[jallanite]

Tinfang Warble also has a vague origin, being either, in a crossed-out passage, the son of the Elfin King Tinwelint by the twilight spirit Wendelin and brother to Lúthen Tinúviel or son of an unidentified Gnome or Shoreland Piper by an unidentified fay who was one of the followers of Palúrien.

The metal tilkal created by Aulë is said by Tolkien to be an amalgam of six metals: copper, silver, tin, lead, iron, and gold. Traditionally there were seven metals to match the seven planets and seven days of the week, but when the metal electrum was recognized as a alloy of gold and silver, after the first centuries, electrum ceased to be considered a planetary metal. The planet Jupiter was then associated with tin and the planet Mercury, which had previously been associated with tin, was now associated instead with the metal mercury. Tolkien, limiting his metals to six, avoids including both the amalgam of electrum and the new addition of mercury.

The war against Melko is somewhat disappointing. First, the male Valar and their male children take part, but not the female Valar; not even the war goddess Méassë, so far as is told. And there is not really a war. Instead Melko is just tricked into becoming a prisoner. In The Lord of the Rings Faramir will later say:

But fear no more! I would not take this thing, if it lay by the highway. Not were Minas Tirith falling in ruin and I alone could save her, so, using the weapon of the Dark Lord for her good and my glory. No, I do not wish for such triumphs, Frodo son of Drogo.

In the published Silmarillion Melkor is defeated only after many untold battles and great devastation of the environment, and is defeated in a fair single combat against Tulkas, one on one. Yet Tolkien expresses a dislike of such punishment in his essay “On Fairy Stories”. Tolkien writes:

Yet it is not clear that ‘fair fight’ is less cruel than ‘fair judgement’; or that piercing a dwarf with a sword is more just than the execution of wicked kings and evil stepmothers – which Lang abjures.

On page 108 of the Book of Lost Tales, Part One, Christopher Tolkien states that the earliest version of his father’s poem on Tinfang Warble, Over Old Hills and Far Away, has a subtitle in Old English with the same meaning: Ʒeond fyrne beorgas 7 heonan feor.

The letters Ʒ and 7 are here somewhat rough, seemingly written by hand, rather than being from an italic font like the other letters. Possibly they did not have these characters in their fonts.

The letter 7 represents a capital version of the Latin word et ‘and’ in the shorthand writing system created by Cicero’s scribe Marcus Tullius Tiro. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tironian_notes . The lowercase symbol ⁊ is available in Unicode as symbol U+204A, but its rarer use as a non-standard uppercase symbol is not, and so the Arabic number 7 may be used in Unicode as a substitute when uppercase is desired. These symbols were commonly used in the Old English language approximately between the years 450 and 1150. The normal lowercase symbol ⁊ is still used in Irish and in Scots Gaelic. See https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2014...alway-ireland/ .

In Old English the letter G/g is written in what is called insular form as ᵹ, but is normally produced as a normal G/g in current style in printed editions of Old English text. The letter G/g had four distinct pronunciations in Old English:

Hard g as in get [ɡɛt]
The fricative sound [ɣ], related to [ɡ] as the Scottish ch in loch is related to k
The modern English soft sound [dʒ], as in gem [dʒɛm]
Minimal sound [j] as in the first letter in you [juː]

Usually these pronunciations are distinguished in modern spelling of Old English by using the dotted form Ġ/ġ for the latter two sounds. More rarely the Middle English letter yogh is used instead. Yogh is in origin derived from the English insular G/g written as ᵹ. Tolkien uses a capital yogh as the first letter in this subtitle.

Yogh is printed as Ȝ/ȝ or as Ʒ/ʒ, the latter form being the more modern use. But this form is also used in the International Phonetic Alphabet for the letter ezh, as in measure [mɛʒuɹ]. Unicode accordingly now distinguishes ezh, which is always printed as Ʒ/ʒ, from yogh which may be printed either as Ȝ/ȝ or as Ʒ/ʒ, but in most computer fonts appears as the distinct form Ȝ/ȝ. See the article http://www.evertype.com/standards/wynnyogh/ezhyogh.html , one of many, many articles by the amazing Michael Everson. This article led to Unicode adding yogh as a letter in Unicode version 3.0.0 in September 1999 to be differentiated from IPA ezh. Also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Everson .

Michael Everson is since 2012 also publisher of the Irish translation of An Hobad (The Hobbit). See http://www.evertype.com/books/hobad.html .