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By Root 1256 0

return to learn of it, but on the other he was present at the Wolf-hunt. Tifanto was then changed to Dairon throughout the tale, except in the story of the Wolf-hunt, where Tifanto was replaced by a new character, Mablung. This shows that Tifanto was removed from the hunt before the change of name to Dairon, but does not explain how, under the name Tifanto, he was both lost in the wilds and present at the hunt. Since there is nothing in the MS itself to explain this puzzle, I can only conclude that my father did, in fact, write at first that Tifanto was lost and never came back, and also that he took part in the Wolf-hunt; but observing this contradiction he introduced Mablung in the latter rôle (and probably did this even before the tale was completed, since at the last appearance of Mablung his name was written thus, not emended from Tifanto: see note 15). It was subsequent to this that Tifanto was emended, wherever it still stood, to Dairon.

In the tale the hunt is differently managed from the story in The Silmarillion (where, incidentally, Beleg Strongbow was present). It is curious that all (including, as it appears, Huan!) save Beren were asleep when Karkaras came on them (‘in Beren’s watch’, p. 39). In The Silmarillion Huan slew Carcharoth and was slain by him, whereas here Karkaras met his death from the king’s spear, and the boy Ausir tells at the end that Huan lived on to find Beren again at the time of ‘the great deeds of the Nauglafring’ (p. 41). Of Huan’s destiny, that he should not die ‘until he encountered the mightiest wolf that would ever walk the world’, and of his being permitted ‘thrice only ere his death to speak with words’ (The Silmarillion p. 173), there is nothing here.

The most remarkable feature of the Tale of Tinúviel remains the fact that in its earliest extant form Beren was an Elf; and in this connection very notable are the words of the boy at the end (p. 40):

Yet said Mandos to those twain: ‘Lo, O Elves, it is not to any life of perfect joy that I dismiss you, for such may no longer be found in all the world where sits Melko of the evil heart—and know ye that ye will become mortal even as Men, and when ye fare hither again it will be for ever, unless the Gods summon you indeed to Valinor.’

In the tale of The Coming of the Valar and the Building of Valinor there occurs the following passage (I. 76; commentary I. 90):

Thither [i.e. to Mandos] in after days fared the Elves of all the clans who were by illhap slain with weapons or did die of grief for those that were slain—and only so might the Eldar die, and then it was only for a while. There Mandos spake their doom, and there they waited in the darkness, dreaming of their past deeds, until such time as he appointed when they might again be born into their children, and go forth to laugh and sing again.

The same idea occurs in the tale of The Music of the Ainur (I. 59). The peculiar dispensation of Mandos in the case of Beren and Tinúviel as here conceived is therefore that their whole ‘natural’ destiny as Elves was changed: having died as Elves might die (from wounds or from grief) they were not reborn as new beings, but returned from Mandos in their own persons—yet now ‘mortal even as Men’. The earliest eschatology is too unclear to allow of a satisfactory interpretation of this ‘mortality’, and the passage in The Building of Valinor on the fates of Men (I. 77) is particularly hard to understand (see the commentary on it, I. 90ff.). But it seems possible that the words ‘even as Men’ in the address of Mandos to Beren and Tinúviel were included to stress the finality of whatever second deaths they might undergo; their departure would be as final as that of Men, there would be no second return in their own persons, and no reincarnation. They will remain in Mandos (‘when ye fare hither again it will be for ever’)—unless they are summoned by the Gods to dwell in Valinor. These last words should probably be related to the passage in The Building of Valinor concerning the fate of certain Men (I. 77):

Few are they and happy indeed for whom