The Book of Lost Tales, Part 1 - J. R. R. Tolkien [49]
In this tale we meet the important cosmological idea of the Three Airs, Vaitya, Ilwë, and Vilna, and of the Outer Ocean, tideless, cold, and ‘thin’. It has been said in The Music of the Ainur (p. 58) that Ulmo dwells in the Outer Ocean and that he gave to Ossë and Onen ‘control of the waves and lesser seas’ he is there called ‘the ancient one of Vai’ (emended from Ulmonan). It is now seen that Ulmonan is the name of his halls in the Outer Ocean, and also that the ‘lesser seas’ controlled by Ossë and Ónen include the Great Sea (p. 68).
There exists a very early and very remarkable drawing, in which the world is seen in section, and is presented as a huge ‘Viking’ ship, with mast arising from the highest point of the Great Lands, single sail on which are the Sun and Moon, sailropes fastened to Taniquetil and to a great mountain in the extreme East, and curved prow (the black marks on the sail are an ink-blot). This drawing was done fairly rapidly in soft pencil on a small sheet; and it is closely associated with the cosmology of the Lost Tales.
I give here a list of the names and words written on the drawing with, so far as possible, their meanings (but without any etymological detail, for which see the Appendix on Names, where names and words occurring only on this drawing are given separate entries).
I Vene Kemen This is clearly the title of the drawing; it might mean ‘The Shape of the Earth’ or ‘The Vessel of the Earth’ (see the Appendix on Names, entry Glorvent).
Nme ‘West’.
Valinor; Taniquetil (The vast height of Taniquetil, even granting the formalisation of this drawing, is noteworthy: it is described in the tale as being so high that ‘the throngs about westward havens in the lands of Men could be seen therefrom’ (p. 68). Its fantastic height is conveyed in my father’s painting, dating from 1927–8 (Pictures by J. R. R. Tolkien, no. 31).)
Harmalin Earlier name of Arvalin (see p. 79).
i aldas ‘The Trees’ (standing to the west of Taniquetil).
Toros valinoriva Toros is obscure, but in any case the first letter of the first word, if it is a T, is a very uncharacteristic one. The reference seems to be to the Mountains of Valinor.
Tolli Kimpelear These must be the Twilit Isles, but I have found no other occurrence of Kimpelear or anything similar.
Tol Eressëa ‘The Lonely Isle’.
I Tolli Kuruvar ‘The Magic Isles’.
Haloisi Velike ‘The Great Sea’.
Ô ‘The Sea’. (What is the structure at the sea-bottom shown below the name Ô? It must surely be the dwelling of Ossë beneath the Great Sea that is referred to in the next tale (p. 106.)
I Nori Landar Probably means ‘The Great Lands’.
Koivienéni The precursor of Cuiviénen, the Waters of Awakening.
Palisor The land where the Elves awoke.
Sil ‘Moon’.
Ûr ‘Sun’.
Luvier ‘Clouds’.
Oronto ‘East’.
Vaitya, Ilwë, and Vilna appear in the three layers described in the tale (p. 65), and Vilna reappears in the bottom right-hand corner of the drawing. There is nothing said in the Lost Tales to explain this last feature, nor is it at all evident what is represented by the curled lines in the same place (see p. 86).
Ulmonan The halls of Ulmo.
Uin The Great Whale, who appears later in the Tales.
Vai The Outer Ocean.
Neni Erùmear ‘Outermost Waters’= Vai.
It is seen from the drawing that the world floats in and upon Vai. This is indeed how Ulmo himself describes it to the Valar in a later tale (p. 214):
Lo, there is but one Ocean, and that is Vai, for those that Ossë esteemeth as oceans are but seas, waters that lie in the hollows of the rock…In this vast water floateth the wide Earth upheld by the word of Ilúvatar…
In the same passage Ulmo speaks of the islands in the seas, and says that (‘save some few that swim still unfettered’) they ‘stand now like pinnacles from their weedy depths’, as is also well seen in the drawing.
It might seem a plausible idea that there was some connection (physical as well as etymological)