The Book of Lost Tales - J. R. Tolkien [138]
(v) The stature of Elves and Men
The passage concerning Tuor’s stature on p. 159, before it was rewritten (see note 18), can only mean that while Tuor was not himself unusually tall for a Man he was nonetheless taller than the Elves of Gondolin, and thus agrees with statements made in the Tale of Turambar (see p. 142). As emended, however, the meaning is rather that Men and Elves were not greatly distinct in stature.
(vi) Isfin and Eöl
The earliest version of this tale is found in the little Lost Tales notebook (see I. 171), as follows:
Isfin and Eöl
Isfin daughter of Fingolma loved from afar by Eöl (Arval) of the Mole-kin of the Gnomes. He is strong and in favour with Fingolma and with the Sons of Fëanor (to whom he is akin) because he is a leader of the Miners and searches after hidden jewels, but he is illfavoured and Isfin loathes him.
(Fingolma as a name for Finwë Nólemë appears in outlines for Gilfanon’s Tale, I.238–9.) We have here an illfavoured miner named Eöl ‘of the Mole’ who loves Isfin but is rejected by her with loathing; and this is obviously closely parallel to the illfavoured miner Meglin with the sign of the sable mole seeking the hand of idril, who rejects him, in The Fall of Gondolin. It is difficult to know how to interpret this. The simplest explanation is that the story adumbrated in the little notebook is actually earlier than that in The Fall of Gondolin; that Meglin did not yet exist; and that subsequently the image of the ‘ugly miner—unsuccessful suitor’ became that of the son, the object of desire becoming Idril (niece of Isfin), while a new story was developed for the father, Eöl the dark Elf of the forest who ensnared Isfin. But it is by no means clear where Eöl the miner was when he ‘loved from afar’ Isfin daughter of Fingolma. There seems to be no reason to think that he was associated with Gondolin; more probably the idea of the miner bearing the sign of the Mole entered Gondolin with Meglin.
IV
THE NAUGLAFRING
We come now to the last of the original Lost Tales to be given consecutive narrative form. This is contained in a separate notebook, and it bears the title The Nauglafring: The Necklace of the Dwarves.
The beginning of this tale is somewhat puzzling. Before the telling of The Fall of Gondolin Lindo told Littleheart that ‘it is the desire of all that you tell us the tales of Tuor and of Eärendel as soon as may be’ (p. 144), and Littleheart replied: ‘It is a mighty tale, and seven times shall folk fare to the Tale-fire ere it be rightly told; and so twined is it with those stories of the Nauglafring and of the Elf-march that I would fain have aid in that telling of Ailios here…’ Thus Littleheart’s surrender of the chair of the tale-teller to Ailios at the beginning of the present text, so that Ailios should tell of the Nauglafring, fits the general context well; but we should not expect the new tale to be introduced with the words ‘But after a while silence fell’, since The Fall of Gondolin ends ‘And no one in all the Room of Logs spake or moved for a great while.’ In any case, after the very long Fall of Gondolin the next tale would surely have waited till the following evening.
This tale is once again a manuscript in ink over a wholly erased original in pencil, but only so far as the words ‘sate his greed’ on page 230. From this point to the end there is only a primary manuscript in pencil in the first stage of composition, written in haste—in places hurled on to the page, with a good many words not certainly decipherable; and a part of this was extensively rewritten while the tale was still in progress (see note 13).
The Nauglafring
The Necklace of the Dwarves
But after a while silence fell, and folk murmured ‘Eärendel’, but others said ‘Nay—what of the Nauglafring, the Necklace of the Dwarves.’ Therefore said Ilfiniol, leaving the chair of the tale-teller: