The Book of Lost Tales, Part 1 - J. R. R. Tolkien [29]
It will be seen from Rúmil’s remarks that the ‘deep sundering’ of the speech of the Elves into two branches was at this time given an historical basis wholly different from that which afterwards caused the division. Here, Rúmil ascribes it to ‘the long wandering of the Noldoli about the Earth and the black ages of their thraldom while their kin dwelt yet in Valinor’—in later terms, ‘the Exile of the Noldor’. In The Silmarillion (see especially pp. 113, 129) the Noldor brought the Valinórean tongue to Middle-earth but abandoned it (save among themselves), and adopted instead the language of Beleriand, Sindarin of the Grey-elves, who had never been to Valinor: Quenya and Sindarin were of common origin, but their ‘deep sundering’ had been brought about through vast ages of separation. In the Lost Tales, on the other hand, the Noldor still brought the Elvish speech of Valinor to the Great Lands, but they retained it, and there it itself changed and became wholly different. In other words, in the original conception the ‘second tongue’ only split off from the parent speech through the departure of the Gnomes from Valinor into the Great Lands; whereas afterwards the ‘second tongue’ separated from the ‘first tongue’ near the very beginning of Elvish existence in the world. Nonetheless, Gnomish is Sindarin, in the sense that Gnomish is the actual language that ultimately, as the whole conception evolved, became that of the Grey-elves of Beleriand.
With Rúmil’s remarks about the secret tongue which the Valar use and in which the Eldar once wrote poetry and books of wisdom, but few of them now know it, cf. the following note found in the little Lost Tales pocket-book referred to on p. 23:
The Gods understood the language of the Elves but used it not among themselves. The wiser of the Elves learned much of the speech of the Gods and long treasured that knowledge among both Teleri and Noldoli, but by the time of the coming to Tol Eressëa none knew it save the Inwir, and now that knowledge is dead save in Meril’s house.
Some new persons appear in this passage. Ómar the Vala ‘who knows all tongues’ did not survive the Lost Tales; a little more is heard of him subsequently, but he is a divinity without much substance. Tuor and Bronweg appear from the tale of The Fall of Gondolin, which was already written; Bronweg is the Gnomish form of Voronwë, that same Voronwë who accompanied Tuor from Vinyamar to Gondolin in the later legend. Tevildo Prince of Cats was a demonic servant of Melko and the remote forerunner of Sauron; he is a principal actor in the original story of Beren and Tinúviel, which was also already written (the Tale of Tinúviel).
Littleheart the Gong-warden, son of Bronweg, now receives an Elvish name, Ilverin (an emendation from Elwenildo).
The Music of the Ainur
The original hastily pencilled and much emended draft text of The Music of the Ainur is still extant, on loose sheets placed inside the cover of the notebook that contains a fuller and much more finished text written in ink. This second version was however closely based on the first, and changed it chiefly by additions. The text given here is the second, but some passages where the two differ notably are annotated (few of the differences between the two texts are in my opinion of much significance). It will be seen from passages of the first draft given in the notes that the plural was originally Ainu, not Ainur, and that Ilúvatar was originally Ilu (but Ilúvatar also occurs in the draft).
Then said Rúmil:
‘Hear now things that have not been heard among Men, and the Elves speak seldom of them; yet did Manwë Súlimo, Lord of Elves and Men, whisper them to the fathers of my father in the deeps of time.1 Behold, Ilúvatar dwelt alone. Before all things he sang into being the Ainur first, and greatest is their power and glory of all his creatures within the world and without. Thereafter he fashioned