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By Root 1098 0

slain by Melko. It would seem that my father was at least momentarily entertaining the idea that Fëanor would play no part in the story of the Noldoli in the Great Lands; but in outlines for a later tale (pp. 238–9) he died in Mithrim. In this passage is the first appearance of miruvor, defined in the early Qenya word-list as ‘nectar, drink of the Valar’ with this cf. The Road Goes Ever On, p. 61, where my father stated that it was the name given by the Valar to the drink poured at their festivals, and compared it to the nectar of the Olympian Gods (in the translation of Namárië he rendered miruvórë ‘nectar’, ibid. p. 58).

Most important of the differences in the tale is the immediate return of Ungoliont to her lair in the south, so that all the story in The Silmarillion (pp. 80–1) of ‘the Thieves’ Quarrel’, the rescue of Melkor by the Balrogs, and Ungoliant’s coming into Nan Dungortheb, is absent from the narrative in the Lost Tales; the surrender of the gems of the Noldoli to Ungoliont takes place in the early version at the time of her first meeting with Melko—in The Silmarillion he did not then possess them, for the attack on Formenos had not yet taken place.

VII

THE FLIGHT OF THE NOLDOLI

There is no break in Lindo’s narrative, which continues on in the same hastily-pencilled form (and near this point passes to another similar notebook, clearly with no break in composition), but I have thought it convenient to introduce a new chapter, or a new ‘Tale’, here, again taking the title from the cover of the book.

‘Nonetheless the Gods did not give up hope, but many a time would meet beneath the ruined tree of Laurelin and thence break and scour the land of Valinor once more unwearingly, desiring fiercely to avenge the hurts done to their fair realm; and now the Eldar at their summons aided in the chase that labours not only in the plain but toils both up and down the slopes of the mountains, for there is no escape from Valinor to west, where lie the cold waters of the Outer Seas.

But Fëanor standing in the square about Inwë’s house in topmost Kôr will not be silenced, and cries out that all the Noldoli shall gather about him and hearken, and many thousands of them come to hear his words bearing slender torches, so that that place is filled with a lurid light such as has never before shone on those white walls. Now when they are gathered there and Fëanor sees that far the most of the company is of the kin of the Noldor1 he exhorts them to seize now this darkness and confusion and the weariness of the Gods to cast off the yoke—for thus demented he called the days of bliss in Valinor—and get them hence carrying with them what they might or listed. “If all your hearts be too faint to follow, behold I Fëanor go now alone into the wide and magic world to seek the gems that are my own, and perchance many great and strange adventures will there befall me more worthy of a child of Ilúvatar than a servant of the Gods.”2

Then is there a great rush of those who will follow him at once, and though wise Nólemë speaks against this rashness they will not hear him, and ever the tumult groweth wilder. Again Nólemë pleads that at least they send an embassy to Manwë to take due farewell and maybe get his goodwill and counsel for their journeying, but Fëanor persuades them to cast away even such moderate wisdom, saying that to do so were but to court refusal, and that Manwë would forbid them and prevent them: “What is Valinor to us,” say they, “now that its light is come to little—as lief and liever would we have the untrammeled world.” Now then they arm themselves as best they may—for nor Elves nor Gods in those days bethought themselves overmuch of weapons—and store of jewels they took and stuffs of raiment; but all their books of their lore they left behind, and indeed there was not much therein that the wise men among them could not match from memory. But Nólemë seeing that his counsel prevailed not would not be separated from his folk, and went with them and aided them in all their preparations. Then did they get them down the