The Book of Lost Tales - J. R. Tolkien [156]
In his association with the Dwarves Ufedhin is reminiscent of Eöl, Maeglin’s father, of whom it is said in The Silmarillion (p. 133) that ‘for the Dwarves he had more liking than any other of the Elvenfolk of old’ cf. ibid. p. 92: ‘Few of the Eldar went ever to Nogrod or Belegost, save Eöl of Nan Elmoth and Maeglin his son.’ In the early forms of the story of Eöl and Isfin (referred to in The Fall of Gondolin, p. 165) Eöl has no association with Dwarves. In the present tale there is mention (p. 224) of ‘great traffic’ carried on by the Dwarves ‘with the free Noldoli’ (with Melko’s servants also) in those days: we may wonder who these free Noldoli were, since the Rodothlim had been destroyed, and Gondolin was hidden. Perhaps the sons of Fëanor are meant, or Egnor Beren’s father (see p. 65).
The idea that it was the Dwarves of Nogrod who were primarily involved survived into the later narrative, but they became exclusively so, and those of Belegost specifically denied all aid to them (The Silmarillion p. 233).
Turning now to the Elves, Beren is here of course still an Elf (see p. 139), and in his second span of life he is the ruler, in Hithlum—Hisilómë, of an Elvish people so numerous that ‘not even Beren knew the tale of those myriad folk’ (p. 234); they are called ‘the green Elves’ and ‘the brown Elves and the green’, for they were ‘clad in green and brown’, and Dior ruled them in Hithlum after the final departure of Beren and Tinúviel. Who were they? It is far from clear how they are to be set into the conception of the Elves of the Great Lands as it appears in other Tales. We may compare the passage in The Coming of the Elves (I.118–19):
Long after the joy of Valinor had washed its memory faint [i.e., the memory of the journey through Hisilómë] the Elves sang still sadly of it, and told tales of many of their folk whom they said and say were lost in those old forests and ever wandered there in sorrow. Still were they there long after when Men were shut in Hisilómë by Melko, and still do they dance there when Men have wandered far over the lighter places of the Earth. Hisilómë did Men name Aryador, and the Lost Elves did they call the Shadow Folk, and feared them.
But in that tale the conception still was that Tinwelint ruled ‘the scattered Elves of Hisilomë’, and in the outlines for Gilfanon’s Tale the ‘Shadow Folk’ of Hisilómë had ceased to be Elves (see p. 64). In any case, the expression ‘green Elves’, coupled with the fact that it was the Green-elves of Ossiriand whom Beren led to the ambush of the Dwarves at Sarn Athrad in the later story (The Silmarillion p. 235), shows which Elvish people they were to become, even though there is as yet no trace of Ossiriand beyond the river Gelion and the story of the origin of the Laiquendi (ibid. pp. 94, 96).
It was inevitable that ‘the land of the dead that live’ should cease to be in Hisilómë (which seems to have been in danger of having too many inhabitants), and a note on the manuscript of the Tale of the Nauglafring says: ‘Beren must be in “Doriath beyond Sirion” on a…..not in Hithlum.’ Doriath beyond Sirion was the region called in The Silmarillion (p. 122) Nivrim, the West March, the woods on the west bank of the river between the confluence of Teiglin and Sirion and Aelin-uial, the Meres of Twilight. In the Tale of Tinúviel Beren and Tinúviel, called i.Cuilwarthon, ‘became mighty fairies in the lands about the north of Sirion’ (p. 41).
Gwendelin/Gwenniel appears a somewhat faint and ineffective figure by comparison with the Melian of The Silmarillion. Conceivably, an aspect of this is the far slighter protection afforded to the realm of Artanor by her magic than that of the impenetrable wall and deluding mazes of the Girdle of Melian (see p. 63). But the nature of the protection in the old conception is very unclear.