The Book of Lost Tales, Part 1 - J. R. R. Tolkien [124]
The rewritten Tinúviel was followed with no break by a first form of the ‘interlude’ introducing Gilfanon of Tavrobel as a guest in the house, and this led into the Tale of the Sun and Moon. But subsequently my father changed his mind, and so struck out the dialogue of Lindo and Eriol from the beginning of the Link to Tinúviel, which was not now to follow The Flight of the Noldoli, and wrote it out again in the other book at the end of that tale. At the same time he rewrote the Gilfanon ‘interlude’ in an extended form, and placed it at the end of The Flight of the Noldoli. Thus:
Flight of the Noldoli
Words of Lindo and Eriol
Tale of Tinúviel
Gilfanon ‘interlude’
Tale of the Sun and Moon and the Hiding of Valinor
Flight of the Noldoli
Words of Lindo and Eriol
Gilfanon ‘interlude’ (rewritten)
Tale of the Sun and Moon and the Hiding of Valinor
That the rewriting of Tinúviel was one of the latest elements in the composition of the Lost Tales seems clear from the fact that it is followed by the first form of the Gilfanon ‘interlude’, written at the same time: for Gilfanon replaced Ailios, and Ailios, not Gilfanon, is the guest in the house in the earlier versions of the Tale of the Sun and Moon and The Hiding of Valinor, and is the teller of the Tale of the Nauglafring.
The poem about the Man in the Moon exists in many texts, and was published at Leeds in 1923;* long after and much changed it was included in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (1962). I give it here in a form close to the earlier published version, but with a few (mostly very minor) alterations made subsequently. The 1923 version was only a little retouched from the earliest workings—where it has the title ‘Why the Man in the Moon came down too soon: an East Anglian phantasy’ in the first finished text the title is ‘A Faërie: Why the Man in the Moon came down too soon’, together with one in Old English: Se Móncyning.
Why the Man in the Moon
came down too soon
The Man in the Moon had silver shoon
And his beard was of silver thread;
He was girt with pale gold and inaureoled
With gold about his head.
4
Clad in silken robe in his great white globe
He opened an ivory door
With a crystal key, and in secrecy
He stole o’er a shadowy floor;
8
Down a filigree stair of spidery hair
He slipped in gleaming haste,
And laughing with glee to be merry and free
He swiftly earthward raced.
12
He was tired of his pearls and diamond twirls;
Of his pallid minaret
Dizzy and white at its lunar height
In a world of silver set;
16
And adventured this peril for ruby and beryl
And emerald and sapphire,
And all lustrous gems for new diadems,
Or to blazon his pale attire.
20
He was lonely too with nothing to do
But to stare at the golden world,
Or strain for the hum that would distantly come
As it gaily past him whirled;
24
And at plenilune in his argent moon
He had wearily longed for Fire—
Not the limpid lights of wan selenites,
But a red terrestrial pyre
28
With impurpurate glows of crimson and rose
And leaping orange tongue;
For great seas of blues and the passionate hues
When a dancing dawn is young;
32
For the meadowy ways like chrysoprase
By winding Yare and Nen.
How he longed for the mirth of the populous Earth
And the sanguine blood of men;
36
And coveted song and laughter long
And viands hot and wine,
Eating pearly cakes of light snowflakes
And drinking thin moonshine.
40
He twinkled his feet as he thought of the meat,
Of the punch and the peppery brew,
Till he tripped unaware on his slanting stair,
And fell like meteors do;
44
As the whickering sparks in splashing arcs
Of stars blown down like rain
From his laddery path took a foaming bath
In the Ocean of