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When naked elms entwine in branching lace

The Seven Stars, and through the boughs the eye

Stares down cold-gleaming in the high moon’s face.

100

O Elder Kindred, fair immortal folk!

You sing now ancient songs that once awoke

Under primeval stars before the Dawn;

You dance like shimmering shadows in the wind,

As once you danced upon the shining lawn

105

Of Elvenhome, before we were, before

You crossed wide seas unto this mortal shore.

Now are your trees, old grey Kortirion,

Through pallid mists seen rising tall and wan,

Like vessels vague that slowly drift afar

110

Out, out to empty seas beyond the bar

Of cloudy ports forlorn;

Leaving behind for ever havens loud,

Wherein their crews a while held feasting proud

In lordly ease, they now like windy ghosts

115

Are wafted by cold airs to friendless coasts,

And silent down the tide are borne.

Bare has your realm become, Kortirion,

Stripped of its raiment, and its splendour gone.

Like lighted tapers in a darkened fane

120

The funeral candles of the Silver Wain

Now flare above the fallen year.

Winter is come. Beneath the barren sky

The Elves are silent. But they do not die!

Here waiting they endure the winter fell

125

And silence. Here I too will dwell;

Kortirion, I will meet the winter here.

IV

Mettanyë*

I would not find the burning domes and sands

Where reigns the sun, nor dare the deadly snows,

Nor seek in mountains dark the hidden lands

130

Of men long lost to whom no pathway goes;

I heed no call of clamant bell that rings

Iron-tongued in the towers of earthly kings.

Here on the stones and trees there lies a spell

Of unforgotten loss, of memory more blest

135

Than mortal wealth. Here undefeated dwell

The Folk Immortal under withered elms,

Alalminórë once in ancient realms.

I conclude this commentary with a note on my father’s use of the word Gnomes for the Noldor, who in the Lost Tales are called Noldoli. He continued to use it for many years, and it still appeared in earlier editions of The Hobbit.†

In a draft for the final paragraph of Appendix F to The Lord of the Rings he wrote:

I have sometimes (not in this book) used ‘Gnomes’ for Noldor and ‘Gnomish’ for Noldorin. This I did, for whatever Paracelsus may have thought (if indeed he invented the name) to some ‘Gnome’ will still suggest knowledge.* Now the High-elven name of this people, Noldor, signifies Those who Know; for of the three kindreds of the Eldar from their beginning the Noldor were ever distinguished both by their knowledge of things that are and were in this world, and by their desire to know more. Yet they in no way resembled the Gnomes either of learned theory or popular fancy; and I have now abandoned this rendering as too misleading. For the Noldor belonged to a race high and beautiful, the elder Children of the world, who now are gone. Tall they were, fair-skinned and grey-eyed, and their locks were dark, save in the golden house of Finrod…

In the last paragraph of Appendix F as published the reference to ‘Gnomes’ was removed, and replaced by a passage explaining the use of the word Elves to translate Quendi and Eldar despite the diminishing of the English word. This passage—referring to the Quendi as a whole—continues however with the same words as in the draft: ‘They were a race high and beautiful, and among them the Eldar were as kings, who now are gone: the People of the Great Journey, the People of the Stars. They were tall, fair of skin and grey-eyed, though their locks were dark, save in the golden house of Finrod…’ Thus these words describing characters of face and hair were actually written of the Noldor only, and not of all the Eldar: indeed the Vanyar had golden hair, and it was from Finarfin’s Vanyarin mother Indis that he, and Finrod Felagund and Galadriel his children, had their golden hair that marked them out among the princes of the Noldor. But I am unable to determine how this extraordinary perversion of meaning arose.†

II