The Book of Lost Tales, Part 1 - J. R. R. Tolkien [63]
Three great fish luminous in the dark of the sunless days went ever with Ulmo, and the roof of Ossë’s dwelling beneath the Great Sea shone with phosphorescent scales. Behold that was a time of great peace and quiet, and life struck deep roots into the new-made soils of Earth, and seeds were sown that waited only for the light to come, and it is known and praised as the age of “Melko’s Chains”.’
NOTES
1 The following passage was added here, apparently very soon after the writing of the text, but was later firmly struck through:
The truth is that he is a son of Linwë Tinto King of the Pipers who was lost of old upon the great march from Palisor, and wandering in Hisilómë found the lonely twilight spirit (Tindriel) Wendelin dancing in a glade of beeches. Loving her he was content to leave his folk and dance for ever in the shadows, but his children Timpinen and Tinúviel long after joined the Eldar again, and tales there are concerning them both, though they are seldom told.
The name Tindriel stood alone in the manuscript as written, but it was then bracketed and Wendelin added in the margin. These are the first references in the consecutive narrative to Thingol (Linwë Tinto), Hithlum (Hisilómë), Melian (Tindriel, Wendelin), and Lúthien Tinúviel; but I postpone discussion of these allusions.
2 Cf. the explanation of the names Eriol and Angol as ‘ironcliffs’ referred to in the Appendix on Names (entry Eriol).
3 Associated with the story of the sojourn of Eriol (Ælfwine) in Tol Eressëa, and the ‘Lost Tales’ that he heard there, are two ‘schemes’ or synopses setting out the plan of the work. One of these is, for much of its length, a résumé of the Tales as they are extant; the other, certainly the later, is divergent. In this second scheme, in which the voyager is called Ælfwine, the tale on the second night by the Tale-fire is given to ‘Evromord the Door-ward’, though the narrative-content was to be the same (The Coming of the Gods; the World-fashioning and the Building of Valinor; the Planting of the Two Trees). After this is written (a later addition): ‘Ælfwine goes to beg limpë of Meril; she sends him back.’ The third night by the Tale-fire is thus described:
The Door-ward continues of the Primeval Twilight. The Furies of Melko. Melko’s Chains and the awakening of the Elves. (How Fankil and many dark shapes escape into the world.) [Given to Meril but to be placed as here and much abridged.]
It seems certain that this was a revision in intention only, never achieved. It is notable that in the actual text, as also in the first of these two ‘schemes’, Rúmil’s function in the house is that of door-ward—and Rúmil, not Evromord, was the name that was preserved long after as the recounter of The Music of the Ainur.
4 The text as originally written read: ‘but the great Gods may not be slain, though their children may and all those lesser people of the Vali, albeit only at the hands of some one of the Valar.’
5 Vali is an emendation from Valar. Cf. Rúmil’s words (p. 58): ‘they whom we now call the Valar (or Vali, it matters not).’
Commentary on
The Chaining of Melko
In the interlude between this tale and the last we encounter the figure of Timpinen or Tinfang. This being had existed in my father’s mind for some years, and there are two poems about him. The first is entitled Tinfang Warble; it is very brief, but exists in three versions. According to a note by my father the original was written at Oxford in 1914, and it was rewritten at Leeds in ‘1920–23’. It was finally published in 1927 in a further altered form, which I give here.*
Tinfang Warble
O the hoot! O the hoot!
How he trillups on his flute!
O the hoot of Tinfang Warble!
Dancing all alone,
Hopping on a stone,
Flitting like a fawn,
In the twilight on the lawn,
And his name is Tinfang Warble!
The first star has