Chapter 1: Of the Beginning of Time

[ArcusCalion]

Welcome gandalf! It's nice to have another person around besides me and Findegil! I think I've been driving him a little crazy haha

To answer your points in order:

1. The "their coming" refers to the Elves. So the days before the coming of the Elves. It is not redundant therefore.

2. However weird it feels for Tulkas to use fire to defeat Melkor, it is what Tolkien wrote in his latest version of the story (Myths Transformed). Who are we to question him?

3. Iluvatar gifted the light to Varda which she used to make the stars. She is always the star-maker, not merely a transporter.

4. The names were removed here because later on in the draft they are formally named in the body of the text:

Aulë, therefore, at the prayer of Yavanna, wrought two mighty Lamps {[added: Illuin and Ormal]} for the lighting of Arda; and the Valar set them upon lofty pillars northward and southward in Middle-earth,> which he had built amid the Encircling Seas. Then Varda filled the lamps and Manwë hallowed them, and the Valar set them upon high pillars, loftier far than are any mountains of the later days. One lamp they raised near to the North of Middle-earth, and it was named {[Foronte >]} Illuin; and the other was raised in the South, and it was named {[Hyarante >]} Ormal; and the light of the Lamps of the Valar flowed out ever the Earth so that all was lit as it were in a changeless Day.

I hope you'll stick around! We could use the help =)

Elen sila lumenn' omentielvo.