The Book of Lost Tales - J. R. Tolkien [125]
The replacement states that the marriage of Tuor and Idril was the first but not the last of the unions of Man and Elf, whereas it is said in the Name-list to The Fall of Gondolin that Eärendel was ‘the only being that is half of the kindred of the Eldalië and half of Men’ (see p. 215).
23 The phrase ‘and that tale of Isfin and Eöl may not here be told’ was added to Tuor B. See p. 220.
24 Original reading: ‘a name wrought of the tongue of the Gondothlim’.
25 The sapphires given to Manwë by the Noldoli are referred to in the tale of The Coming of the Elves, I.128. The original pencilled text of Tuor A can be read here: ‘bluer than the sapphires of Súlimo’.
26 The passage ending here and beginning with ‘In these ways that bitter winter passed…’is inserted on a separate sheet in Tuor B (but is not part of the latest layer of emendation); it replaces a much shorter passage going back to the primary text of Tuor A:
Now on midwinter’s day at early even the sun sank betimes beyond the mountains, and lo! when she had gone a light arose beyond the hills to the north, and men marvelled (&c.)
See notes 34 and 37.
27 The Scarlet Heart: the heart of Finwë Nólemë, Turgon’s father, was cut out by Orcs in the Battle of Unnumbered Tears, but it was regained by Turgon and became his emblem; see I. 241 and note 11.
28 This passage describing the array and the emblems of the houses of the Gondothlim was relatively very little affected by the later revision of Tuor A; the greater part of it is in the original pencilled text, which was allowed to stand, and all the names appear to be original.
29 The word ‘burg’ is used in the Old English sense of a walled and fortified town.
30 The death of Ecthelion in the primary text of Tuor A is legible; the revision introduced a few changes of wording, but no more.
31 This sentence, from ‘and men shuddered’, was added to Tuor B. On the prophecy see I.172.
32 Tuor B is bracketed from ‘Now comes Tuor at their head to the Place of Wedding’ on p. 186 to this point, and an inserted slip relating to this bracketing reads:
How Tuor and his folk came upon Idril wandering distraught in the Place of the Gods. How Tuor and Idril from that high place saw the sack of the King’s Hall and the ruin of the King’s Tower and the passing of the king, for which reason the foe followed not after. How Tuor heard tidings of Voronwë that Idril had sent Eärendel and her guard down the hidden way, and fared into the city in search of her husband; how in peril from the enemy they had rescued many that fled and sent them down the secret way. How Tuor led his host with the luck of the Gods to the mouth of that passage, and how all descended into the plain, sealing the entrance utterly behind them. How the sorrowful company issued into a dell in the vale of Tumladin.
This is simply a summary of the text as it stands; I suppose it was a cut proposed for the recitation of the tale if that seemed to be taking too long (see note 21).
33 This passage, from ‘Here were gathered…’, replaced in Tuor B the original reading: ‘Here they are fain to rest, but finding no signs of Eärendel and his escort Tuor is downcast, and Idril weeps.’ This was rewritten partly for narrative reasons, but also to put it into the past tense. In the next sentence the text was emended from ‘Lamentation is there…’ and ‘about them looms…’ But the sentence following (‘Fire-drakes are about it…’) was left untouched; and I think that it was my father’s intention, only casually indicated and never carried through, to reduce the amount of ‘historical present’ in the narrative.
34 ‘for summer is at hand’: the original reading was ‘albeit it is winter’. See notes 26 and 37.
35 The original reading was:
Now the Mountains were