The Book of Lost Tales, Part 1 - J. R. R. Tolkien [58]
Then things began to grow there, fungus and strange growths heaved in damp places and lichens and mosses crept stealthily across the rocks and ate their faces, and they crumbled and made dust, and the creeping plants died in the dust, and there was mould, and ferns and warted plants grew in it silently, and strange creatures thrust their heads from crannies and crept over the stones. But Yavanna wept, for this was not the fair vigour that she had thought of—and thereupon Oromë came to her leaping in the dusk, but Tuivána would not leave the radiance of Kulullin nor Nessa the green swards of her dancing.
Then Oromë and Palúrien put forth all their might, and Oromë blew great blasts upon his horn as though he would awake the grey rocks to life and lustihead. Behold, at these blasts the great forest reared and moaned about the hills, and all the trees of dark leaf came to being, and the world was shaggy with a growth of pines and odorous with resinous trees, and firs and cedars hung their blue and olive draperies about the slopes, and yews began the centuries of their growth. Now was Oromë less gloomy and Palúrien was comforted, seeing the beauty of the first stars of Varda gleaming in the pale heavens through the shadows of the first trees’ boughs, and hearing the murmur of the dusky forests and the creaking of the branches when Manwë stirred the airs.
At that time did many strange spirits fare into the world, for there were pleasant places dark and quiet for them to dwell in. Some came from Mandos, aged spirits that journeyed from Ilúvatar with him who are older than the world and very gloomy and secret, and some from the fortresses of the North where Melko then dwelt in the deep dungeons of Utumna. Full of evil and unwholesome were they; luring and restlessness and horror they brought, turning the dark into an ill and fearful thing, which it was not before. But some few danced thither with gentle feet exuding evening scents, and these came from the gardens of Lórien.
Still is the world full of these in the days of light, lingering alone in shadowy hearts of primeval forests, calling secret things across a starry waste, and haunting caverns in the hills that few have found:—but the pinewoods are yet too full of these old unelfin and inhuman spirits for the quietude of Eldar or of Men.
When this great deed was done then Palúrien would fain rest from her long labours and return to taste the sweet fruits of Valinor, and be refreshed beneath the tree of Laurelin whose dew is light, and Oromë was for beechwoods on the plains of the great Gods; but Melko who long time had delved in fear because of the wrath of the Valar at his treacherous dealing with their lamps burst forth now into a great violence, for he had thought the world abandoned by the Gods to him and his. Beneath the very floors of Ossë he caused the Earth to quake and split and his lower fires to mingle with the sea. Vaporous storms and a great roaring of uncontrolled sea-motions burst upon the world, and the forests groaned and snapped. The sea leapt upon the land and tore it, and wide regions sank beneath its rage or were hewn into scattered islets, and the coast was dug into caverns. The mountains rocked and their hearts melted, and stone poured like liquid fire down their ashen sides and flowed even to the sea, and the noise of the great battles of the fiery beaches came roaring even through the Mountains of Valinor and drowned the singing of the Gods. Then rose Kémi Palúrien, even Yavanna that giveth fruits, and Aulë who loveth all her works and the substances of the earth, and they climbed to the halls of Manwë and spake to him, saying that all that goodliness was going utterly to wreck for the fiery evil of Melko’s untempered heart, and Yavanna pleaded that