The Book of Lost Tales, Part 1 - J. R. R. Tolkien [147]
Turgon was born to Nólemë.
Maidros, ‘chief son of Fëanor’, led a host against Angband, but was driven back with fire from its gates, and he was taken alive and tortured—according to C, repeating the story of the earlier outline, because he would not reveal the secret arts of jewel-making. (It is not said here that Maidros was freed and returned, but it is implied in the Oath of the Seven Sons that follows.)
The Seven Sons of Fëanor swore their terrible oath of hatred for ever against all, Gods or Elves or Men, who should hold the Silmarils; and the Children of Fëanor left the host of Nólemë and went back into Dor Lómin, where they became a mighty and a fierce race.
The hosts of Tareg the Ilkorin (see p. 237) found the Gnomes at the Feast of Reunion; and the Men of Ermon first saw the Gnomes. Then Nólemë’s host, swollen by that of Tareg and by the sons of Ermon, prepared for battle; and messengers were sent out North, South, East, and West. Tinwelint alone refused the summons, and he said: ‘Go not into the hills.’ Úrin and Egnor* marched with countless battalions.
Melko withdrew all his forces and Nólemë believed that he was afraid. The hosts of Elfinesse drew into the Tumbled Lands and encamped in the Vale of Fountains (Gorfalong), or as it was afterwards called the Valley of Weeping Waters.
(The outline D differs in its account of the events before the Battle of Unnumbered Tears from that in the earlier ones, here including C. In the earlier, the Gnomes fled from the camp by Sirion when Melko’s hosts approached, and retreated to Gorfalon, where the great host of Gnomes, Ilkorins, and Men was gathered, and arrayed in the Valley of the Fountains. In D, there is no mention of any retreat by Nólemë’s hosts: rather, it seems, they advanced from the camp by Sirion into the Vale of Fountains (Gorfalong). But from the nature of these outlines they cannot be too closely pressed. The outline C, which ends here, says that when the Gnomes first encountered Men at Gorfalon the Gnomes taught them crafts—and this was one of the starting-points, no doubt, of the later Elf-friends of Beleriand.)
Certain Men suborned by Melko went among the camp as minstrels and betrayed it. Melko fell upon them at early dawn in a grey rain, and the terrible Battle of Unnumbered Tears followed, of which no full tale is told, for no Gnome will ever speak of it. (In the margin here my father wrote: ‘Melko himself was there?’ In the earlier outline Melko himself entered the camp of his enemies.)
In the battle Nólemë was isolated and slain, and the Orcs cut out his heart; but Turgon rescued his body and his heart, and it became his emblem.11 Nearly half of all the Gnomes and Men who fought there were slain.
Men fled, and the sons of Úrin alone stood fast until they were slain; but Úrin was taken. Turgon was terrible in his wrath, and his great battalion hewed its way out of the fight by sheer prowess.
Melko sent his host of Balrogs after them, and Mablon the Ilkorin died to save them when pursued. Turgon fled south along Sirion, gathering women and children from the camps, and aided by the magic of the stream escaped into a secret place and was lost to Melko.
The Sons of Fëanor came up too late and found a stricken field: they slew the spoilers who were left, and burying Nólemë they built the greatest cairn in the world over him and the [?Gnomes]. It was called the Hill of Death.
There followed the Thraldom of the Noldoli. The Gnomes were filled with bitterness at the treachery of Men, and the ease with which Melko beguiled them. The outline concludes with references to ‘the Mines of Melko’ and ‘the Spell of Bottomless Dread’, and the statement that all the Men of the North were shut in Hisilómë.
The outline