The Book of Lost Tales, Part 1 - J. R. R. Tolkien [94]
In connection with the place of the banishment of the Noldoli, here called Sirnúmen (‘Western Stream’), it may be mentioned that in an isolated note found in the little book referred to on p. 23 it is stated: ‘The river of the second rocky dwelling of the Gnomes in Valinor was kelusindi and the spring at its source kapalinda.’
Very remarkable is the passage (p. 142) where Manwë is said to know that ‘the Elves were children of the world and must one day return to her bosom’. As I have noticed earlier (p. 82) ‘the world’ is often equated with the Great Lands, and this usage occurs repeatedly in the present tale, but it is not clear to me whether this sense is intended here. I incline to think that the meaning of the phrase is that at ‘the Great End’ the Eldar, being bound to the Earth, cannot return with the Valar and spirits that were ‘before the world’ (p. 66) to the regions whence they came (cf. the conclusion of the original Music of the Ainur, p. 60).
Coming to the account of the theft of the jewels, the structure of the narrative is again radically different from the later story, in that there Melkor’s attack on the Noldor of Formenos, the theft of the Silmarils and the slaying of Finwë, was accomplished after his meeting with Ungoliant in the South and the destruction of the Two Trees; Ungoliant was with him at Formenos. Nor in the earliest version is there any mention of Melko’s previous visit to Formenos (The Silmarillion pp. 71–2), after which he passed through the Calacirya and went northwards up the coast, returning later in secret to Avathar (Arvalin, Eruman) to seek out Ungoliant.
On the other hand the great festival was already the occasion for Melko’s theft of the Silmarils from the dwelling of the Noldoli, though the festival was wholly different in having a purely commemorative purpose (see The Silmarillion pp. 74–5), and it was a necessary part of that purpose that the Solosimpi should be present (in The Silmarillion ‘Only the Teleri beyond the mountains still sang upon the shores of the sea; for they recked little of seasons or times…’).
Of Melko’s dark accomplices out of Mandos (some of them said to be ‘aforetime children of Mandos’, p. 154) there is no trace later, nor of his theft of Oromë’s horses; and while Melko is here said to have wished to leave Valinor by passes over the northern mountains, but to have thought better of it (leading to a reflection on what might have been the fate of Valinor had he not), in the later story his movement northwards was a feint. But it is interesting to observe the germ of the one in the other, the underlying idea never lost of a northward and then a southward movement, even though it takes place at a different point in the narrative and has a different motivation.
Interesting also is the emergence of the idea that a close kinsman of Fëanor’s—only after much hesitation between brother and son becoming fixed on the father—was slain by Melkor in the dwelling of the Noldoli, Sirnúmen, precursor of Formenos; but the father had yet to be identified with the lord of the Noldoli.
In this passage there are some slight further geographical indications. The Two Trees stood to the north of the city of Valmar (p. 143), as they are shown on the map (see pp. 81–2); and, again in agreement with the map, the Great Lands and the Outer Lands came very close together in the far North (p. 146). Most notably, the gap in the Mountains of Valinor shown on the map and which I marked with the letter