The Book of Lost Tales - J. R. Tolkien [150]
Now hearing the cries of Ufedhin Gwendelin looked in wonder after him, and stayed her tender words; and memory came back into her eyes so that she cried as in amaze beholding the Necklace of the Dwarves that hung about the white throat of Tinúviel. Then wrathfully she asked of Beren what it might portend, and wherefore he suffered the accursed thing to touch Tinúviel; and told Beren17 all that tale such as Huan had told him, in deed or guess, and of the pursuit and fighting at the ford he told also, saying at the end: “Nor indeed do I see who, now that Lord Tinwelint is fared to Valinor, should so fittingly wear that jewel of the Gods as Tinúviel.” But Gwendelin told of the dragon’s ban upon the gold and the [?staining] of blood in the king’s halls, “and yet another and more potent curse, whose arising I know not, is woven therewith,” said she, “nor methinks was the labour of the Dwarves free from spells of the most enduring malice.” But Beren laughed, saying that the glory of the Silmaril and its holiness might overcome all such evils, even as it burnt the [?foul] flesh of Karkaras. “Nor,” said he, “have I seen ever my Tinúviel so fair as now she is, clasped in the loveliness of this thing of gold” but Gwendelin said: “Yet the Silmaril abode in the Crown of Melko, and that is the work of baleful smiths indeed.”
Then said Tinúviel that she desired not things of worth or precious stones but the elfin gladness of the forest, and to pleasure Gwendelin she cast it from her neck; but Beren was little pleased and he would not suffer it to be flung away, but warded it in his………18
Thereafter did Gwendelin abide a while in the woods among them and was healed; and in the end she fared wistfully back to the land of Lórien and came never again into the tales of the dwellers of Earth; but upon Beren and Tinúviel fell swiftly that doom of mortality that Mandos had spoken when he sped them from his halls—and in this perhaps did the curse of Mîm have [?potency] in that it came more soon upon them; nor this time did those twain fare the road together, but when yet was the child of those twain, Dior19 the Fair, a little one, did Tinúviel slowly fade, even as the Elves of later days have done throughout the world, and she vanished in the woods, and none have seen her dancing ever there again. But Beren searched all the lands of Hithlum and of Artanor ranging after her; and never has any of the Elves had more loneliness than his, or ever he too faded from life, and Dior his son was left ruler of the brown Elves and the green, and Lord of the Nauglafring.
Mayhap what all Elves say is true, that those twain hunt now in the forest of Oromë in Valinor, and Tinúviel dances on the green swards of Nessa and of Vána daughters of the Gods for ever more; yet great was the grief of the Elves when the Guilwarthon went from among them, and being leaderless and lessened of magic their numbers minished; and many fared away to Gondolin, the rumour of whose growing power and glory ran in secret whispers among all the Elves.
Still did Dior when come to manhood rule a numerous folk, and he loved the woods even as Beren had done; and songs name him mostly Ausir the Wealthy for his possession of that wondrous gem set in the Necklace of the Dwarves. Now the tales of Beren and Tinúviel grew dim in his heart, and he took to wearing it about his neck and to love its loveliness most dearly; and the fame of that jewel spread like fire through all the regions of the North, and the Elves said one to another: “A Silmaril of Fëanor burns in the woods of Hisilómë.”
Now fare the long days of Elfinesse unto that time when Tuor dwelt in Gondolin; and children then had Dior the Elf,20 Auredhir and Elwing, and Auredhir was most