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By Root 1334 0

part in the expedition to the Great Lands is Tulkas; but whatever story underlay his presence, despite the anger and sorrow of the Valar at the March of the Elves (see p. 257), is quite irrecoverable. (A very faint hint concerning it is found in two isolated notes: ‘Tulkas gives—or the Elves take limpë with them’, and ‘Limpë given by the Gods (Oromë? Tulkas?) when Elves left Valinor’ cf. The Flight of the Noldoli (I.166): ‘no limpë had they [the Noldoli] as yet to bring away, for that was not given to the fairies until long after, when the March of Liberation was undertaken’.) According to (1) above Tulkas fought with and overthrew Melko ‘in the battle of the Silent Pools’ and the Silent Pools are the Pools of Twilight, ‘where Tulkas after fought with Melko’s self’ (The Fall of Gondolin, p. 195; the original reading here was ‘Noldorin and Tulkas’).

The name Lumbi is found elsewhere (in a list of names associated with the tale of The Coming of the Valar, I.93), where it is said to be Melko’s third dwelling; and a jotting in notebook C, sufficiently mysterious, reads: ‘Lumfad. Melko’s dwelling after release. Castle of Lumbi.’ But this story also is lost.

That the Noldoli were led back to Valinor by Egalmoth and Galdor, as stated in (1), is notable. This is contradicted in detail by a statement in the Name-list to The Fall of Gondolin, which says (p. 215) that Egalmoth was slain in the raid on the dwelling at the mouth of Sirion when Elwing was taken; and contradicted in general by the next citation to be given, which denies that the Elves were permitted to dwell in Valinor.

The only other statement concerning these events is found in the first of the four outlines that constitute Gilfanon’s Tale, which I there called ‘A’ (I.234). This reads:

(3) March of the Elves out into the world.

The capture of Noldorin.

The camp in the Land of Willows.

Army of Tulkas at the Pools of Twilight……and [?many] Gnomes, but Men fall on them out of Hisilómë.

Defeat of Melko.

Breaking of Angamandi and release of captives.

Hostility of Men. The Gnomes collect some of the jewels.

Elwing and most of the Elves go back to dwell in Tol Eressëa. The Gods will not let them dwell in Valinor.

This seems to differ from (1) in the capture of Noldorin and in the attack of Men from Hisilómë before the defeat of Melko; but the most notable statement is that concerning the refusal of the Gods to allow the Elves to dwell in Valinor. There is no reason to think that this ban rested only, or chiefly, on the Noldoli. The text, (3), does not refer specifically to the Gnomes in this connection; and the ban is surely to be related to ‘the sorrow and wrath of the Gods’ at the time of the March of the Elves (p. 253). Further, it is said in The Cottage of Lost Play (I.16) that Ingil son of Inwë returned to Tol Eressëa with ‘most of the fairest and the wisest, most of the merriest and the kindest, of all the Eldar’, and that the town that he built there was named ‘Koromas or “the Resting of the Exiles of Kôr”.’ This is quite clearly to be connected with the statement in that ‘Most of the Elves go back to dwell in Tol Eressëa’, and with that given on p. 255: ‘The wars with Men and the departure to Tol Eressëa (the Eldar unable to endure the strife of the world.’. These indications taken together leave no doubt, I think, that my father’s original conception was of the Eldar of Valinor undertaking the expedition into the Great Lands against the will of the Valar; together with the rescued Noldoli they returned over the Ocean, but being refused re-entry into Valinor they settled in Tol Eressëa, as ‘the Exiles of Kôr’. That some did return in the end to Valinor may be concluded from the words of Meril-i-Turinqi (I.129) that Ingil, who built Kortirion, ‘went long ago back to Valinor and is with Manwë’. But Tol Eressëa remained the land of the fairies in the early conception, the Exiles of Kôr, Eldar and Gnomes, speaking both Eldarissa and Noldorissa.

It seems that there is nothing else to be found or said concerning the original story of the coming of aid out of