Tuvo the wizard king

[Lilly]

That was interesting, Lalwendë, that you thought of Tevildo as perhaps being a recycling of Tu/Tuvo.

I first thought that this Tu/Tuvo character might have later evolved into Thû - Thû the Hunter and Thû the Necromancer. Both of these being early names of Sauron, as was Tevildo.

Tolkien, or so it seems to me, sometimes approached working out characters and their places in the history of Arda in rather circuitous ways.

I also recalled a brief mention of Tu/Tuvo by Tom Shippey - HERE. Unfortunately the article does nothing to illuminate who Tu was, but it is an interesting discussion of how Tolkien might have evolved his own particular concept of Elves.

[Lalwendë]

I'm beginning to think that Tu must have evolved, along with Tevildo, into Sauron eventually.

I found the passages relating to Tu and to Nuin the Dark Elf (which aside from anything else, proves how your eye can always be caught by something anew in Tolkien's work - it's a quite beautful piece of writing and a crying shame he didn't use it ), and what strikes me most strongly is that Tu reminds me of Merlin, what with the dwelling under the lake, and the passageway leading to the sleeping Men before their awakening.

Tu doesn't really strike me as having been evil though, and as Groin says, Tolkien struck out the possibility of this in one of his drafts - so could he really have been the genesis for Sauron???

He certainly seems like a prototype Maia though, with his knowledge of who/what the sleepers were, and his warning to Nuin not to tell any other Elves what he saw.

The sleepers themselves struck me as being very Arthurian...

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

Tu doesn't really strike me as having been evil though, and as Groin says, Tolkien struck out the possibility of this in one of his drafts - so could he really have been the genesis for Sauron???

Gives a whole new meaning to what Elrond says about Sauron:

Originally Posted by The Council of Elrond

For nothing is evil in the beginning. Even Sauron was not so.

Of course, I doubt Elrond meant it meta-textually.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Formendacil

Of course, I doubt Elrond meant it meta-textually.

Maybe Elrond is a keen Post-modernist?

[Pitchwife]

OT:

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

Tu reminds me of Merlin, what with the dwelling under the lake, and the passageway leading to the sleeping Men before their awakening.

Just asking for information, Lal: what source are you referring to that mentions Merlin dwelling under a lake, and what do the sleepers have to do with it? I've read about him being confined (by Vivian/Nimue) to a hawthorn bush or a hill/barrow (both after his involvement with Arthur and the Round Table), but nothing about him residing under water. Since Merlin is a minor hobby of mine, I'd love to be enlightened...

Apart from that, and from everything that has been said, I find the whole Tu/Tuvo business quite fascinating as one of the early germs from which the Legendarium might have evolved into something quite different from the canon we know. How would the Silmarillion read if Tu and his story had been retained as conceived, instead of Tu and Tevildo being fused into Sauron (which I believe correct)? I just can't help wondering...

Back to Groin's original question: What kind of being was Tuvo (as first conceived)? Tolkien calls him a 'fay', which doesn't sound very helpful. He uses 'fairy' more or less as a synonym for 'elf' in his early writings. But does 'fay' = 'fairy'? The only example for 'fay' that I can recall at the moment is Luthien, who is referred do as 'L. the Fay' in one of the titles for the Lay of Leithian (quite a couple of years later). But Luthien was part Elf, part Maia, so which part of her heritage does the epitheton refer to (even if we assume that Tolkien's usage was consistent)?
Maybe Tolkien didn't know (or couldn't decide) who or what Tuvo was any better than we do, but just invented him first and decided he didn't fit in later. Which may be the reason why he didn't keep him but, being loth to abandon him completely, merged him and Tevildo into the Sauron we all know and love.

[Andsigil]

Originally Posted by Pitchwife

The only example for 'fay' that I can recall at the moment is Luthien, who is referred do as 'L. the Fay' in one of the titles for the Lay of Leithian (quite a couple of years later). But Luthien was part Elf, part Maia, so which part of her heritage does the epitheton refer to (even if we assume that Tolkien's usage was consistent)?

Tolkien called Feanor "fey" at the time of his death when he pursued retreating Orcs into Angband.

The Silmarillion, pg. 107

Yet cause he had for great joy, though it was hidden from him for a while. For Feanor, in his wrath against the Enemy, would not halt, but pressed on behind the remnant of the Orcs, thinking so to come at Morgoth himself; and he laughed aloud as he wielded his sword, rejoicing that he had dared the wrath of the Valar and the evils of the road, that he might see the hour of his vengeance. Nothing did he know of Angband or the great strength of defence that Morgoth had so swiftly prepared; but even had he known it would not have deterred him, for he was fey, consumed by the flame of his own wrath. Thus it was that he drew far ahead of the van of his host; and seeing this the servants of Morgoth turned to bay, and there issued from Angand Balrogs to aid them. There upon the confines of Dor Daedeloth, the land of Morgoth, Feanor was surrounded, with few friends about him. Long he fought on, and undismayed, though he was wrapped in fire and wounded with many wounds; but at the last he was smitten to the ground by Gothmog, Lord of Balrogs, whom Ecthelion after slew in Gondolin. There he would have perished, had not his sons in that moment come up with force to his aid; and the Balrogs left him, and departed to Angband.

[Rumil]

I thought fay with an 'a' described the 'spiritual' (faerie?) beings including the Maiar and Valar (and probably others). Though I doubt this was so developed at the early stage we're discussing here. Am I remembering this right?

Hi Pitchwife, can't remember anything to do with Merlin living in/on/under a lake (though the Lady of the Lake comes to mind). The sleepers are the knights of the round table who sleep beneath Glastonbury Tor, so they say, until Britain's hour of greatest peril when they will rise to defeat the enemy!

Fey with an 'e' has the usual meaning of other-worldly, fated or doomed and wilful which I guess means the two words are somewhat related.

[Orald]

Tolkien used the term fay when he was describing the lesser ainur that were part of the hosts of the different Valar in BoLT. Tolkien also used the terms pixies, brownies, & leprawns among others. Throughout the rest of BoLT, he uses the term almost exclusively when describing proto-maiar, with the exception of Luthien, who was herself daughter of one such fay. So I think it is fair to say that if Tu/Tuvo would have eventually made it into the the later versions, he would have been a maia.

In the Silmarillion, the use of the word fey, to me, means that Fëanor was under a spell of madness.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

In the Silmarillion, the use of the word fey, to me, means that Fëanor was under a spell of madness.

The word is also used of Theoden in the Great Charge, and 'fey he seemed' appears more than once to describe someone apparently under a 'madness.'

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Pitchwife

OT:

Just asking for information, Lal: what source are you referring to that mentions Merlin dwelling under a lake, and what do the sleepers have to do with it? I've read about him being confined (by Vivian/Nimue) to a hawthorn bush or a hill/barrow (both after his involvement with Arthur and the Round Table), but nothing about him residing under water. Since Merlin is a minor hobby of mine, I'd love to be enlightened...

Mostly from various fictional works - the scenes with Tu and Nuin especially brought to mind The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, which is interesting as that has Svartelves and Morthbrood and that odd tunnel in Fundindelve....I've decided it's time to give that another read!