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(1) that the Teleri, Solosimpi, and Inwir had linguistic differences in the past;

(2) but that these dialects are now merged in the ‘tongue of the island Elves’

(3) that the tongue of the Noldoli (Gnomes) was deeply sundered through their departure into the Great Lands and their captivity under Melko;

(4) that those Noldoli who now dwell in Tol Eressëa have learnt the tongue of the island Elves; but others remain in the Great Lands. (When Rúmil spoke of ‘the lost bands that dwell wandering sadly in the Great Lands’ who ‘maybe speak very strangely now’ he seems to have been referring to remnants of the Noldorin exiles from Kôr who had not come to Tol Eressëa (as he himself had done), rather than to Elves who never went to Valinor.)*

In the Lost Tales the name given to the Sea-elves afterwards called the Teleri—the third of the three ‘tribes’—is Solosimpi (‘Shoreland Pipers’). It must now be explained that, confusingly enough, the first of the tribes, that led by King Inwë, were called the Teleri (the Vanyar of The Silmarillion). Who then were the Inwir? Eriol was told later by Meril-i-Turinqi (p. 115) that the Teleri were those that followed Inwë, ‘but his kindred and descendants are that royal folk the Inwir of whose blood I am.’ The Inwir were then a ‘royal’ clan within the Teleri; and the relation between the old conception and that of The Silmarillion can be shown thus:

Lost Tales .. .. .. .. The Silmarillion

I Teleri .. .. .. .. Vanyar

(including Inwir)

II Noldoli .. .. .. .. Noldor

(Gnomes)

III Solosimpi .. .. .. .. Teleri

In this link-passage Rümil seems to say that the ‘Eldar’ are distinct from the ‘Gnomes’—‘akin nonetheless be assuredly Gnome-speech and Elfin of the Eldar’ and ‘Eldar’ and ‘Noldoli’ are opposed in the prose preamble to Kortirion among the Trees (p. 25). Elsewhere ‘Elfin’, as a language, is used in opposition to ‘Gnomish’, and ‘Eldar’ is used of a word of form in contradistinction to ‘Gnomish’. It is in fact made quite explicit in the Lost Tales that the Gnomes were themselves Eldar—for instance, ‘the Noldoli, who were the sages of the Eldar’ (p. 8); but on the other hand we read that after the Flight of the Noldoli from Valinor Aulë ‘gave still his love to those few faithful Gnomes who remained still about his halls, yet did he name them thereafter “Eldar”’ (p. 176). This is not so purely contradictory as appears at first sight. It seems that (on the one hand) the opposition of ‘Eldar’ or ‘Elfin’ to ‘Gnomish’ arose because Gnomish had become a language apart; and while the Gnomes were certainly themselves Eldar, their language was not. But (on the other hand) the Gnomes had long ago left Kôr, and thus came to be seen as not ‘Koreldar’, and therefore not ‘Eldar’. The word Eldar had thus narrowed its meaning, but might at any moment be expanded again to the older sense in which the Noldoli were ‘Eldar’.

If this is so, the narrowed sense of Eldar reflects the situation in after days in Tol Eressëa; and indeed, in the tales that follow, where the narrative is concerned with the time before the rebellion of the Noldoli and their departure from Valinor, they are firmly ‘Eldar’. After the rebellion, in the passage cited above, Aulë would not call the Noldoli who remained in Valinor by that name—and, by implication, he would not call those who had departed ‘Eldar’.

The same ambiguity is present in the words Elves and Elfin. Rúmil here calls the language of the Eldar ‘Elfin’ in opposition to ‘Gnomish’ the teller of the Tale of Tinúviel says: ‘This is my tale, and ’tis a tale of the Gnomes, wherefore I beg that thou fill not Eriol’s ear with thy Elfin names’, and in the same passage ‘Elves’ are specifically opposed to ‘Gnomes’. But, again, in the tales that follow in this book, Elves and Eldar and Eldalië are used interchangeably of the Three Kindreds (see for instance the account of the debate of the Valar concerning the summoning of the Elves to Valinor, pp. 116–18). And finally, an apparently similar variation is seen in the word ‘fairy’ thus Tol Eressëa is the