The Book of Lost Tales, Part 1 - J. R. R. Tolkien [61]
But Melko might not thus easily forgo his sport. “Nay first,” said he, “wilt thou come Manwë and kneel before me, and after you all the Valar; but last shall come Tulkas and kiss my foot, for I have in mind something for which I owe Poldórëa no great love.” Now he purposed to spurn Tulkas in the mouth in payment of that buffet long ago, but the Valar had foreseen something of this and did but make play of humiliation that Melko might thereby be lured from his stronghold of Utumna. In sooth Manwë hoped even to the end for peace and amity, and the Gods would at his bidding indeed have received Melko into Valinor under truce and pledges of friendship, had not his pride been insatiate and his obstinacy in evil unconquerable. Now however was scant mercy left for him within their hearts, seeing that he abode in his demand that Manwë should do homage and Tulkas bend to those ruthless feet; nonetheless the Lord of Gods and Elves approaches now the chair of Melko and makes to kneel, for such was their plan the more to ensnare that evil one; but lo, so fiercely did wrath blaze up in the hearts of Tulkas and Aulë at that sight that Tulkas leapt across the hall at a bound despite Angaino, and Aulë was behind him and Oromë followed his father and the hall was full of tumult. Then Melko sprang to his feet shouting in a loud voice and his folk came through all those dismal passages to his aid. Then lashed he at Manwë with an iron flail he bore, but Manwë breathed gently upon it and its iron tassels were blown backward, and thereupon Tulkas smote Melko full in his teeth with his fist of iron, and he and Aulë grappled with him, and straight he was wrapped thirty times in the fathoms of Angaino.
Then said Oromë: “Would that he might be slain”—and it would have been well indeed, but the great Gods may not yet be slain.4 Now is Melko held in dire bondage and beaten to his knees, and he is constrained to command all his vassalage that they molest not the Valar—and indeed the most of these, affrighted at the binding of their lord, fled away to the darkest places.
Tulkas indeed dragged Melko out before the gates, and there Aulë set upon each wrist one of the Vorotemnar and upon each ankle twain of the Ilterendi, and tilkal went red at the touch of Melko, and those bands have never since been loosened from his hands and feet. Then the chain is smithied to each of these and Melko borne thus helpless away, while Tulkas and Ulmo break the gates of Utumna and pile hills of stone upon them. And the saps and cavernous places beneath the surface of the earth are full yet of the dark spirits that were prisoned that day when Melko was taken, and yet many are the ways whereby they find the outer world from time to time—from fissures where they shriek with the voices of the tide on rocky coasts, down dark water-ways that wind unseen for many leagues, or out of the blue arches where the glaciers of Melko find their end.
After these things did the Gods return to Valmar by long ways and dark, guarding Melko every moment, and he gnawed his consuming rage. His lip was split and his face has had a strange leer upon it since that buffet dealt him by Tulkas, who even of policy could not endure to see the majesty of Manwë bow before the accursed one.
Now is a court set upon the slopes of Taniquetil and Melko arraigned before all the Vali5 great and small, lying bound before the silver chair of Manwë. Against him speaketh Ossë, and Oromë, and Ulmo in deep ire, and Vána in abhorrence, proclaiming his deeds of cruelty and violence; yet