The Book of Lost Tales Part I: A Readthrough

[Mithalwen]

Don't sneer. Buying the paperbacks then was a significant cost for me and I don't think I even saw a hardback. Hard no doubt to believe in the day of Amazon and e readers but it was illegal to discount books bac then.I also find large hardbacks cmbersome to read unless at a desk.

[IxnaY AintsaY]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

Don't sneer. Buying the paperbacks then was a significant cost for me and I don't think I even saw a hardback. Hard no doubt to believe in the day of Amazon and e readers but it was illegal to discount books bac then.I also find large hardbacks cmbersome to read unless at a desk.

I read electronic versions where I can these days, but I too have the same feelings about soft- versus hard-cover. I like hardcovers for the durability and the look on the shelf, but other than that...

Semi-on-topic: BoLT I and II are the only volumes of HOME which I've never reread, and, perhaps irrationally, I'm still not keen on revisiting in person. Largely because of a vague but disturbing memory of a Tinfang Warble poem that makes me shudder a little whenever it comes to mind.

Ok, yeah, that last bit was snark-in-cheek, but the general thrust is accurate enough. Still, I can't deny the possibility that this opinion I formed perhaps 20 years ago might be unfair, so I'm happy to see a thread like this.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by IxnaY AintsaY

Largely because of a vague but disturbing memory of a Tinfang Warble poem that makes me shudder a little whenever it comes to mind.

The only thing I know about this Tinfang is that there was a cryptic clue about him way back when that was only solved when somebody systematically went through the index of HOME.

[Formendacil]

"To these words did Eriol's mind so lean, for it seemed to him that a new world and very fair was opening to him, that he heard naught else till he was bidden by Vairë to be seated."

And as Eriol gets his first introduction to the world of the Lost Tales (not yet called known as Middle-earth), so do we, and his reaction reminds me of my first forays into Middle-earth in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings: a new world and very fair opening to me. Mind you, even to the Middle-earth veteran, coming to the Book of Lost Tales can be a bit like coming on a new world, so different yet similar is it to what would come later.

At the meta-level, "The Cottage of Lost Play" establishes the forms that will be the norm through Volumes I & II of the HoME: Tolkien's original text, with a brief introduction, followed by footnotes, followed by a list of name-changes, followed by Christopher Tolkien's commentary on the text, then ending with related poetry. I feel that this last point should be highlighted somewhat. Properly speaking, the poems included with The Book of Lost Tales are not part of the Lost Tales; rather, they are CT's first steps towards the HoME as a comprehensive series of ALL the materials related to Middle-earth (even if he will fall slightly short--the Osanwë Kenta, for example, and sundry philological notes would not make it into the HoME).

Unlike all the chapters of the Book of Lost Tales that will follow, "The Cottage of Lost Play" has no direct correlative part in the published Silmarillion, because it fulfills the function that Christopher Tolkien thinks to have been the chief mistake in his handling of the later Silm: it fulfills the role of the framing device. Eriol is the interlocutor between us and the tales of the ancient world, and this chapter shows how the device will be used: all the stories shall be TOLD to Eriol. This is a familiar trope from the LotR, where Aragorn tells the tale of Beren and Lúthien, where Bilbo tells the tale of Eärendil, where Legolas tells the tale of Amroth and Nimrodel, and where Sam and Frodo look forward to when we shall hear their tale (from Tolkien, as it will happen).

There are other tropes in this chapter that immediately--and perhaps more obviously--recall The LotR. For example, the Cottage of Lost Play itself seems very much like a type of Rivendell. It is easy to read the description of Rivendell in The Hobbit as applying to the Cottage: the "house was perfect whether you liked food, or sleep, or work, or story-telling, or singing, or just sitting and thinking best, or a pleasant mixture of them all." In particular, the routine of the household, which we see in "Many Meetings" after Frodo finally wakes, seems familiar. In the LotR, Elrond's household goes to the Hall of Fire to hear tales told after a great feast, while in the Cottage, Lindo and Vairë's household goes to the Room of Logs (again, the idea of fire) to hear tales after a great feast.

The Lonely Isle itself seems familiar, which is not what you would necessarily expect coming from the 1977 Silm--very little action is set there and what little there is told very perfunctorily; the reader is left to imagine the isle as desired or, if you're me, to imagine it hardly at all. But the Lonely Isle of the BoLT is quite the opposite: rather than a periphery location of little concern in the tales, it is literally and figuratively at the centre of the tales. Not only is this where the Tales are told, but the Isle seemed destined to play a role in the future of the tales (as did Eriol himself). Regarding the centrality of the isle, here is what is said of Kortirion, its capital:

Originally Posted by J.R.R. Tolkien

Know then that today, or more like 'twas yesterday, you crossed the borders of that region that is called Alalminórë or the "Land of Elms," which the Gnomes call Gar Lossion, or the "Place of Flowers." Now this region is accounted the centre of the island, and its fairest realm: but above all the towns and villages of Alalminórë is held Koromas, or as some call it, Kortirion, and this city is the one wherein you find yourself. Both because it stands at the heart of the island, and from the height of its mighty tower, do those that speak of it with love call it the Citadel of the Island, or of the world itself.

--emphasis added

It is hard to imagine the later Tol Eressëa, land of the resettled Exiles, as containing "the Citadel... of the world itself"--and equally hard for me to imagine the Elves of the later legendarium claiming it as such! But the Elves here do, and we are given such a more in-depth picture of the island that it seems quite a bit more possible. And as far as that picture goes--and the reason I say it seems familiar--the Lonely Isle reminds me a lot of the Shire. No doubt this is because both the Shire and the Lonely Isle are written by Tolkien as Englands, of a sort. This is part of the whole purpose of the Lost Tales, at least at one point in its history: Eriol (from Heligoland, the European homeland of the later Angles) is a proto-Anglo-Saxon, coming on England--and faërie, for it is faërie--for the first time.

Although "The Cottage of Lost Play" is about the framework for the tales rather than the tales themselves, Tolkien does not start here--as the published Silmarillion does--from the very beginning. Instead, we get several references to events of the Tales, events we (like Eriol) are not to know the fullness of until much later. Among these I would include the references to Eärendel, especially in the backstory of Littleheart the Gong-warden: "He sailed in Wingilot with Eärendel in that last voyage wherein they sought for Kôr. It was the ringing of this Gong on the Shadowy Seas that awoke the Sleeper in the Tower of Pearl that stands far out to west in the Twilit Isles."

Kôr, mentioned in that text, is another lodestone pointing to a major element of the BoLT legendarium, and the account of the Koromas/Kortirion leads to talk of Meril-i-Turinqi and her family, which is rather more family that Ingwë is given in the later texts, and his part seems to have been larger and more rebellious in the hinted at story of "the days [when] hearing the lament of the world Inwë led them forth to the lands of Men"--our first glimpse of what would come to be called the War of Wrath.

And then of course there is limpë, the drink of the Eldar, which Eriol does not get to drink. Limpë will prove more important to Eriol's story (unwritten though it is) than miruvor did to Frodo's, but other than being marvellous drinks of the Elves, the two could not be more common. Indeed, I see more similarity with [i]lembas[/b]. Both lembas and limpë are reserved to the Queen (Galadriel--or Melian rather, since this is information from the notes to the Narn-i-Chîn-Húrin--in the first case; Meril-i-Turinqi in the latter) and both have what could be called metaphysical effects. But the similarity ends there. I don't always like the comparison, but I am willing to grant that there are grounds for saying lembas is a type of the Eucharist; there is no way I can imagine to make a similar claim for limpë--unless one wants to say that it is the Forbidden Fruit of Eden and that Eriol is seeking the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Even more difficult to imagine than limpë in Rivendell or Lothlórien is the fact that the inhabitants have to shrink in order to enter the Cottage. This is a bit of whimsy (CT makes a direct comparison to "Goblin Feet" in the commentary) that would later be almost antithetical to Tolkien.

One minor question: when did Eriol learn the elf-tongue? Or, to put it another way, what language are they speaking in this tale? I assume--and I might be drawing off half-digested knowledge of later chapters--that they are speaking Elven (what would later be called Quenya), but as far as this chapter goes, there's no real evidence that I recall. For that matter, the Elves seem remarkably blasé about this human wandering around in their midst.

No doubt I should keep in mind that the history of the Lonely Isle was quite differently conceived then and that Númenor and its cataclysm had not even been conceived, but all the same, from his own complete curiosity, it does not seem to me that Eriol had ever heard anything about this isle and there is nothing to suggest that other Men are abroad--even if the barriers to their arrival are not at all as lofty as those that Gandalf brings Bilbo and Frodo through in the later conception.


What if?
There are all sorts of "what ifs" one could consider here, especially regarding what a similar framework might have looked like in a post-LotR Silm. As already noted, the Lonely Isle became much more difficult for mere mortals to reach--and even if you got there, good luck getting BACK to Middle-earth. A far more likely approach, if Tolkien wanted to preserve the mood might have been to set it at Rivendell.

A major note of what-if lingers about the poem. "The Trees of Kortirion," CT tells us, looks to have been revised nearly a half-century after its original composition, probably about 1962 for a possible inclusion in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. And we're not talking about the ORIGINAL version here, I want to emphasize; we're talking about a version completely overhauled in the wake of the LotR, which--had it been published--would have had equal canonical stature to any of the other Bombadil poems (I give them coëval status with The Hobbit myself).

This is astounding--to me, anyway--because the revised, ca.1962, poem is still about a city titled "Kortirion." Is this still the Elvish name for Warwick-in-England? Or is it still the central city of Tol Eressëa? What about the whole "Kor" part of its name? Kôr, we will see more fully later, was the name in the BoLT of the city that the Silmarillion calls Tirion. Did Tolkien still envision "Kor" existing, perhaps as an alternate name for Tirion? Or is it simply part of the name of this other city, with a different--and nowhere elaborated--etymological history? It's hard to imagine that Tolkien didn't at least have a private half-answer in his thoughts to this question.

I also have another question to ponder--assuming there isn't enough discussion-meat already in this post--one comes down to linguistic taste: how do you feel about the Book of Lost Tales terminology? And I don't mean the prose here (though that is far game to discuss); I'm thinking more of the vocabulary: the use of "fairies" as a synonym for "Elves," the use of "gnomes" at all. I get a huge kick out of Tombo the gong myself, though it does not "feel" very Middle-earth to me.

[Galadriel55]

I have never read BOLT, so I apologize if my questions and comments are very obvious, but please bear with me.

Originally Posted by Formendacil

"To these words did Eriol's mind so lean, for it seemed to him that a new world and very fair was opening to him, that he heard naught else till he was bidden by Vairë to be seated."

Quick note - in this Vaire related to the one we all know as one of the Valar? I know Tolkien reused many discarded names, often for completely different characters. But if I picked one of the Valar to tell a story, it would be Vaire. Like, if she would have been a Greek goddess instead of a Valie, she would have been the goddess of history. It would make total sense for stories - and what is history, if not stories? - to be told in her house.

Originally Posted by Formy

And as Eriol gets his first introduction to the world of the Lost Tales (not yet called known as Middle-earth),

Well, this is the first time I hear this name for ME, and I think it works quite well as a synonym. I think many a reader has thought or felt about ME like that - as if it's a world of lost tales - but maybe just hasn't phrased it exactly like that. The World of Lost Tales is what an outsider like myself might call Middle-earth; the locals would probably never call themselves that, but readers are (much to their regret) not locals.

Originally Posted by Formy

I also have another question to ponder--assuming there isn't enough discussion-meat already in this post--one comes down to linguistic taste: how do you feel about the Book of Lost Tales terminology? And I don't mean the prose here (though that is far game to discuss); I'm thinking more of the vocabulary: the use of "fairies" as a synonym for "Elves," the use of "gnomes" at all. I get a huge kick out of Tombo the gong myself, though it does not "feel" very Middle-earth to me.

Once again, I can't comment very much on this having never read the book, but I have seen several such excerpts (thanks to you educated Downers ). The use of gnome and fairy really bugs me. It does not bring the right image to mind. Especially the word gnomes - Russian has adopted that word to refer to little people (like garden gnomes), and in LOTR the word is actually used to signify Dwarves. Gnom Gimli is a perfectly sound combination. Gnom Legolas makes me doubt my sanity. Each time I have to remind myself that gnomes are Elves, or at one point I think it referred specifically to the Noldor, but either way they are not Dwarves and are nothing like Dwarves (and each time I encounter that word first thing that comes to mind is something akin to Andvari, but also eager to make mischief and craft things like a LOTR Dwarf.).

And on top of that there's the common modern meaning of "gnomes" and "fairies" - a meaning significantly different from what it once used to be. On one hand the choice of name is a bad thing, since the modern image interferes with how the reader understands the character. But on the other hand, for careful readers it revives the idea that fairies and princesses and etc are not what Disney makes them out to be, but the lore behind them is much deeper (and quite different!). Seriously, though - have you never heard of a child saying "that can't be Cinderella, she doesn't have a blue dress"? The same goes for fairies. They don't have to be little winged sparkly things fluttering around, and people need a reminder of that.

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

I have never read BOLT, so I apologize if my questions and comments are very obvious, but please bear with me.

No need to apologise! That's what this thread is for.

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

Quick note - in this Vaire related to the one we all know as one of the Valar? I know Tolkien reused many discarded names, often for completely different characters.

It's one of the reusings, I'm afraid.

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

But if I picked one of the Valar to tell a story, it would be Vaire. Like, if she would have been a Greek goddess instead of a Valie, she would have been the goddess of history. It would make total sense for stories - and what is history, if not stories? - to be told in her house.

Actually, now that I think about, having spun out the connection, I wonder if Tolkien's choice of reusing the name for the Vala Historian wasn't influenced by a similarity of roles.

Vairë in the Lost Tales is the wife of Lindo and the Cottage of Lost Play is their household. And, as indicated in my post above, I think the cottage compares well to the Last Homely House. Comparing it to the Halls of Mandos... maybe not so much.

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

Well, this is the first time I hear this name for ME, and I think it works quite well as a synonym. I think many a reader has thought or felt about ME like that - as if it's a world of lost tales - but maybe just hasn't phrased it exactly like that. The World of Lost Tales is what an outsider like myself might call Middle-earth; the locals would probably never call themselves that, but readers are (much to their regret) not locals.

True--as a name for the legendarium, ME isn't 100% precise: too much of it takes place in Valinor. In case you're wondering, the Lost Tales use "the Great Lands" (itself an emendation from generally using "the Outer Lands") in place of using "Middle-earth" to refer to the lands of men east of the sea.

I like the implications of "the Outer Lands," and I actually meant to bring it up when talking about how Kortirion is called the Citadel of the World, because it corroborates the idea that, in the Lost Tales, the Lonely Isle may have been lonely, but it was at the heart of things, not the periphery.

Once again, I can't comment very much on this having never read the book, but I have seen several such excerpts (thanks to you educated Downers ). The use of gnome and fairy really bugs me. It does not bring the right image to mind. Especially the word gnomes - Russian has adopted that word to refer to little people (like garden gnomes), and in LOTR the word is actually used to signify Dwarves. Gnom Gimli is a perfectly sound combination. Gnom Legolas makes me doubt my sanity. Each time I have to remind myself that gnomes are Elves, or at one point I think it referred specifically to the Noldor, but either way they are not Dwarves and are nothing like Dwarves (and each time I encounter that word first thing that comes to mind is something akin to Andvari, but also eager to make mischief and craft things like a LOTR Dwarf.).

And on top of that there's the common modern meaning of "gnomes" and "fairies" - a meaning significantly different from what it once used to be. On one hand the choice of name is a bad thing, since the modern image interferes with how the reader understands the character. But on the other hand, for careful readers it revives the idea that fairies and princesses and etc are not what Disney makes them out to be, but the lore behind them is much deeper (and quite different!). Seriously, though - have you never heard of a child saying "that can't be Cinderella, she doesn't have a blue dress"? The same goes for fairies. They don't have to be little winged sparkly things fluttering around, and people need a reminder of that.[/QUOTE]

There's a lot of things that could be spun off into a separate thread from these (and most) CbC-type discussions, so in time-honoured fashion, I'm going to do just that for "Gnomes and Fairies"--not least because Tolkien kept up the habit until at least the publication of [i]The Hobbit/i] (I do not remember offhand if the earliest LotR drafts still used them, but I think so) and because now I have translations questions.

SEE HERE FOR THAT THREAD

[Boromir88]

I definitely get the Rivendell feeling when reading about Vaire and Lindo's place. There's something to an author establishing a "home." And not just a home in the sense of a physical residence, with walls and rooms...etc, but a "home" for the reader. Some place of rest and relaxation, cheer, tales, warmth, food. A place that conjures up these senses and emotions for the reader.

I think the success of The Lord of the Rings can be tied to The Shire being home. It's strongly established from the get go and Tolkien spends practically half of Book 1 in The Shire. Some might think that makes the story too slow, but in my opinion it creates a foothold for the reader. The Shire is meant to feel like "home," to the reader, and be just as bitter and difficult for the reader to leave as it is for Frodo in the story. So if the Cottage was in some way inspiration for Rivendell, as the "Last Homely House," that's good to draw on our feelings of home.

Originally Posted by G55

Quick note - in this Vaire related to the one we all know as one of the Valar? I know Tolkien reused many discarded names, often for completely different characters. But if I picked one of the Valar to tell a story, it would be Vaire. Like, if she would have been a Greek goddess instead of a Valie, she would have been the goddess of history. It would make total sense for stories - and what is history, if not stories? - to be told in her house.

No, I'm fairly sure this is a case of Tolkien re-using a name. Although, that doesn't mean there is no connection. I think it's clear when settling on Vaire, as one of the Valar, Tolkien was in some way drawing back to Vaire, the elf in Lost Tales:

"...nor, since Nienna is the wife of Mandos, has Vaire the Weaver, his wife in the later story, appeared, with her tapestries that portray 'all things that have ever been in Time,' and clothe the halls of Mandos 'that ever widen as the ages pass' - in Lost Tales the name of Vaire is given to an Elf of Tol Eressea." ~CT Commentary on the Coming of the Valar

Eriol saw now that they were in a short broad corridor whose walls halfway up were arrassed; and on those tapestries were many stories pictured whereof he knew not at that time the purport. Above the tapestries it seemed there were paintings, but he could not see for gloom, for the candle-bearers were behind, and before him the only lights came from an open door through which poured a red glow as of a big fire. ~The Cottage of Lost Play

[Belegorn]

Originally Posted by IxnaY AintsaY

Ok, yeah, that last bit was snark-in-cheek, but the general thrust is accurate enough. Still, I can't deny the possibility that this opinion I formed perhaps 20 years ago might be unfair, so I'm happy to see a thread like this.

You prefer Sauron to Tevildo Prince of Cats?

[Tar-Jêx]

Originally Posted by Belegorn

You prefer Sauron to Tevildo Prince of Cats?

I quite liked Tevildo, but it didn't make sense for a cat to be an evil minion. Carcharoth seemed like it fit better in the universe than a cat, because cats have never been explained.

[jallanite]

The Elvish city of Kôr may be based on the city of Kôr in the novel She: A History of Adventure by H. Rider Haggard, one of the most influential novels in modern literature. In Henry Resknik’s interview with Tolkien in 1966, Tolkien states, “I suppose as a boy She interested me as much as anything …” See http://efanzines.com/Niekas/Niekas-18.pdf , page 40.

Haggard’s Kôr is a ruined African city where Ayesha, an immortal white queen, has ruled for two millennia. Ayesha reveals that she has learned the secret of immortality and that she possesses other supernatural powers including the ability to read the minds of others, a form of telegnosis, and the ability to heal wounds and cure illness.

Ayesha is by some considered to be the origin of Tolkien’s Elven ruler Galadriel.

One Willam H. Stoddard partly posts at http://www.troynovant.com/Stoddard/T...nd-Ayesha.html :

Chapter XIII of She, “Ayesha Unveils”, offers a striking series of events. The narrator of the story speaks with Ayesha in a hidden chamber, and learns of her agelessness. She shows him a “font-like vessel” in which she summons up images of his own journey to her country, telling him she learned of him through such images; and when he calls it magic, she tells him:

It is no magic — that is a dream of ignorance. There is no such thing as magic, though there is such a thing as knowledge of the hidden ways of Nature. This water is my glass; in it I see what passes when at times it is my will to summon it …

After this, he asks her to allow him to look on her face, and she unveils herself, revealing beauty that he compares to that of a celestial being, which he says lies “in a visible majesty, in an imperial grace, in a godlike stamp of softened power” — and he covers his eyes and goes away shaken, reflecting that it is not safe to look on such beauty.

Note how many details can be compared with Frodo’s visit to the mirror of Galadriel in The Fellowship of the Ring. Lothlórien, like Kôr, is an ancient city holding the memory of a distant past, and ruled by an undying queen. Both accounts include a pool of water that shows visions, partly out of the mind and memory of the viewer, and partly of distant places. And Galadriel not only is overwhelmingly beautiful, like Ayesha, but, when she considers accepting the One Ring from Frodo, takes on the same quality of visible majesty. Her climactic line “All shall love me and despair!” would sound entirely natural in Ayesha’s voice.

The one great difference is that Haggard makes Ayesha fundamentally evil, though capable of occasional softer feelings; but Tolkien makes Galadriel ultimately good, despite her being capable of pride, ambition, and rebellion. In the end, Galadriel is redeemed, whereas Ayesha is destroyed by those same qualities, which she is unable to renounce.

Tolkien may have unconsciously picked the name Kôr for his city from Haggard’s novel, or even purposely borrowed the name, but later changed it to Tirion upon Túna to avoid the connection.

For further discussion of Haggard’s Kôr and Tolkien’s Kôr, see John D. Rateliff’s essay “She and Tolkien, Revisited” in Tolkien and the Study of His Sources, edited by Jason Fisher.

[Orphalesion]

Yes the name connection between Kôr in She and Kôr in the Book of Lost Tales is interesting I came upon it a few years ago and it even prompted me to read it. Ayesha does seem a lot like an "evil" Galadriel and perhaps offers a glimpse of how Galadriel would have acted if she had fallen to the temptation and taken the Ring from Frodo.
It would not be the only time Tolkien was inspired by (relatively) contemporary fiction, another example Psamathos Psamathides from Roverandom who bears resemblance to a character from an earlier Children's Book (more so in the early drafts)

I find it also interesting how important Kôr was to the Elves in this early conception, much more, it seems to me than Tirion later would be. I mean in this early stage it's the Ilkorindi "The Elves that never have dwelt in Kor" instead of the Úmanyar "The Elves that have never been to Aman" and their city in exile on Tol Erresea is Kortirion (whcih could be interpreted as Kor-Tower) instead of Avallone "Near Aman". Kôr was almost an Elf Jerusalem.

In the later mythology the Elves seemed to yearn for the lands of Aman/Eldamar/Valinor and not so much for Tirion itself, with the possible exception of Turgon.
For instance, if Tirion was as important to the psyche of the Exiles as Kôr had been, Galadriel's lament would have said "Maybe thou shalt find Tirion" instead of "Maybe thou shalt find Valimar" and it would be "The Undying City" instead of "The undying Lands"

[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.