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By Root 1108 0

the goings and comings of the Sun, and never may she be brought beyond the guidance of your hand, and such is the virtue of this cord that the goings and returnings of the Sun shall be accounted the most timely and inevitable of all things on Earth.” Thereafter did Ranuin in like manner, and behold Manwë felt a stout rope within his palm invisible. “Herewith,” said Ranuin, “shalt thou hold and steer the wayward Moon, as well as may be, and so great is the virtue of the ‘thong of Ranuin’ that even the fickle and untimely Moon shall be a measure of time to Elves and Men.” Lastly did Fanuin bid bear his mighty cable’s end to Manwë, and Manwë touched it, and it was made fast to a great rock upon Taniquetil (that is called therefore Gonlath), and Fanuin said: “Now doth this mightiest cable hold both the Moon and Sun in tow; and herewith mayest thou coordinate their motions and interweave their fates; for the rope of Fanuin is the Rope of Years, and Urwendi issuing through the Door of Night shall wind it all tangled with the daycord’s slender meshes, round and about the Earth until the Great End come—and so shall all the world and the dwellers within it, both Gods and Elves and Men, and all the creatures that go and the things that have roots thereon, be bound about in the bonds of Time.”

Then were all the Gods afraid, seeing what was come, and knowing that hereafter even they should in counted time be subject to slow eld and their bright days to waning, until Ilúvatar at the Great End calls them back. But Fanuin said: “Nay, it is but the Music of the Ainur: for behold, who are we, Danuin, Ranuin, and Fanuin, Day and Month and Year, but the children of Aluin, of Time, who is the oldest of the Ainur, and is beyond, and subject to Ilúvatar; and thence came we, and thither go we now.” Then did those three vanish from Valinor; but of such is the framing of the moveless courses of the Sun and Moon, and the subjection of all things within the world to time and change.

But as for the Ships of Light themselves, behold! O Gilfanon and all that hearken, I will end the tale of Lindo and Vairë concerning the building of the Sun and Moon with that great foreboding that was spoken among the Gods when first the Door of Night was opened. For ’tis said that ere the Great End come Melko shall in some wise contrive a quarrel between Moon and Sun, and Ilinsor shall seek to follow Urwendi through the Gates, and when they are gone the Gates of both East and West will be destroyed, and Urwendi and Ilinsor shall be lost. So shall it be that Fionwë Úrion, son of Manwë, of love for Urwendi shall in the end be Melko’s bane, and shall destroy the world to destroy his foe, and so shall all things then be rolled away.’19

And thus ended Vairë, and the great tale fell silent in the room.

NOTES

1 ‘they’: original reading ‘the Solosimpi’.

2 The rejected draft text of the tale to this point is remarkably brief, and reads as follows (following on from Ailios’ remarks given on p. 197, note 20):

‘That is easy told,’ said Lindo; ‘for the murmurings that I have spoken of grew ever louder, and came to speech at that council which was now summoned to fix the courses of the Sun and Moon; and all the ancient grievance that had flamed before at Melko’s instigation concerning the freedom of the Elves—even that strife that ended in the Exile of the Noldoli—grew sore again. Yet were few now in pity of the Gnomes, and such of the Eldar whom the newlit world allured dared not for the power of Melko break from Valinor; wherefore in the end the enemies of the Gnomes, despite all that Ulmo might say or plead, and despite the clemency of Manwë, carried the counsels of the Gods—and so came that which stories name the [Closing >] Hiding of Valinor. And the Gods went not at that time forth to fight Melko, and their greatest opportunity for glory and eternal honour was let slip, [even as the Music of Ilúvatar had foreboded—and they little understood it—and who knows if the salvation of the world and the freeing of Men and Elves shall ever come from them again? Some there