The Book of Lost Tales - J. R. Tolkien [124]
11 Tuor C adds here: ‘with Ulmo’s aid’.
12 The reference to the Battle of Unnumbered Tears is a later addition to Tuor B. The original reading was: ‘who alone escaped Melko’s power when he caught their folk…’
13 In Tuor A and B Voronwë is used throughout, but this phrase, with the form Bronweg, is an addition to Tuor B (replacing the original ‘Now after many days these twain found a deep dale’).
14 The typescript Tuor C has here:
…that none, were they not of the blood of the Noldoli, might light on it, neither by chance nor agelong search. Thus was it secure from all ill hap save treachery alone, and never would Tûr have won thereto but for the steadfastness of that Gnome Voronwë.
In the next sentence Tuor C has ‘yet even so no few of the bolder of the Gnomes enthralled would slip down the river Sirion from the fell mountains’.
15 The original reading was: ‘his speech they comprehended, though somewhat different was the tongue of the free Noldoli by those days to that of the sad thralls of Melko.’ The typescript Tuor C has: ‘they comprehended him for they were Noldoli. Then spake Tûr also in the same tongue…’
16 The original reading was: ‘It was early morn when they drew near the gates and many eyes gazed…’ But when Tuor and Voronwë first saw Gondolin it was ‘in the new light of the morning’ (p. 158), and it was ‘a day’s light march’ across the plain; hence the change made later to Tuor B.
17 ‘Evil One’: original reading ‘Ainu’.
18 This passage, from ‘Rugged was his aspect…’, is a replacement on a separate slip; the original text was:
Tuor was goodly in countenance but rugged and unkempt of locks and clad in the skins of bears, yet his stature was not overgreat among his own folk, but the Gondothlim, though not bent as were no few of their kin who laboured at ceaseless delving and hammering for Melko, were small and slender and lithe.
In the original passage Men are declared to be of their nature taller than the Elves of Gondolin. See pp. 142, p. 220.
19 ‘come hither’: ‘escaped from Melko’ Tuor C.
20 ‘folk’: original reading ‘men’. This is the only place where ‘men’ in reference to Elves is changed. The use is constant in The Fall of Gondolin, and even occurs once in an odd-sounding reference to the hosts of Melko: ‘But now the men of Melko have assembled their forces’ (p. 183).
21 The passage ending here and beginning with the words ‘Then Tuor’s heart was heavy…’ on p. 162 was bracketed by my father in Tuor B, and on a loose slip referring to this bracketed passage he wrote:
(If nec[essary]): Then is told how Idril daughter of the king added her words to the king’s wisdom so that Turgon bid Tuor rest himself awhile in Gondolin, and being forewise prevailed on him [to] abide there in the end. How he came to love the daughter of the king, Idril of the Silver Feet, and how he was taught deeply in the lore of that great folk and learned of its history and the history of the Elves. How Tuor grew in wisdom and mighty in the counsels of the Gondothlim.
The only narrative difference here from the actual text lies in the introduction of the king’s daughter Idril as an influence on Tuor’s decision to remain in Gondolin. The passage is otherwise an extremely abbreviated summary of the account of Tuor’s instruction in Gondolin, with omission of what is said in the text about the preparations of the Gondothlim against attack; but I do not think that this was a proposal for shortening the written tale. Rather, the words ‘If necessary’ suggest strongly that my father had in mind only a reduction for oral delivery—and that was when it was read to the Exeter College Essay Club in the spring of 1920; see p. 147. Another proposed shortening is given in note 32.
22 This passage, beginning ‘Great love too had Idril for Tuor’’, was written on a separate slip and replaced the original text as follows:
The king hearing of this, and finding that his child Idril, whom the Eldar speak of as Irild