The Silmarillion - J. R. R. Tolkien [0]
QUENTA SILMARILLION
(The History of the Silmarils)
together with
AINULINDALË
(The Music of the Ainur)
and
VALAQUENTA
(Account of the Valar)
To which is appended
AKALLABÊTH
(The Downfall of Númenor)
and
OF THE RINGS OF POWER AND THE THIRD AGE
J.R.R. TOLKIEN
The Silmarillion
edited by
CHRISTOPHER TOLKIEN
Contents
J.R.R. TOLKIEN
TITLE PAGE
FOREWORD
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
FROM A LETTER BY J.R.R. TOLKIEN TO MILTON WALDMAN, 1951
AINULINDALË
VALAQUENTA
QUENTA SILMARILLION
CHAPTER 1: OF THE BEGINNING OF DAYS
CHAPTER 2: OF AULË AND YAVANNA
CHAPTER 3: OF THE COMING OF THE ELVES AND THE CAPTIVITY OF MELKOR
CHAPTER 4: OF THINGOL AND MELIAN
CHAPTER 5: OF ELDAMAR AND THE PRINCES OF THE ELDALIË
CHAPTER 6: OF FËANOR AND THE UNCHAINING OF MELKOR
CHAPTER 7: OF THE SILMARILS AND THE UNREST OF THE NOLDOR
CHAPTER 8: OF THE DARKENING OF VALINOR
CHAPTER 9: OF THE FLIGHT OF THE NOLDOR
CHAPTER 10: OF THE SINDAR
CHAPTER 11: OF THE SUN AND MOON AND THE HIDING OF VALINOR
CHAPTER 12: OF MEN
CHAPTER 13: OF THE RETURN OF THE NOLDOR
CHAPTER 14: OF BELERIAND AND ITS REALMS
CHAPTER 15: OF THE NOLDOR IN BELERIAND
CHAPTER 16: OF MAEGLIN
CHAPTER 17: OF THE COMING OF MEN INTO THE WEST
CHAPTER 18: OF THE RUIN OF BELERIAND AND THE FALL OF FINGOLFIN
CHAPTER 19: OF BEREN AND LÚTHIEN
CHAPTER 20: OF THE FIFTH BATTLE: NIRNAETH ARNOEDIAD
CHAPTER 21: OF TÚRIN TURAMBAR
CHAPTER 22: OF THE RUIN OF DORIATH
CHAPTER 23: OF TUOR AND THE FALL OF GONDOLIN
CHAPTER 24: OF THE VOYAGE OF EÄRENDIL AND THE WAR OF WRATH
AKALLABÊTH
OF THE RINGS OF POWER AND THE THIRD AGE
NOTE ON PRONUNCIATION
INDEX OF NAMES
APPENDIX
MAPS
WORKS BY J.R.R. TOLKIEN
COPYRIGHT PAGE
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
FOREWORD
The Silmarillion, now published four years after the death of its author, is an account of the Elder Days, or the First Age of the World. In The Lord of the Rings were narrated the great events at the end of the Third Age; but the tales of The Silmarillion are legends deriving from a much deeper past, when Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, dwelt in Middle-earth, and the High Elves made war upon him for the recovery of the Silmarils.
Not only, however, does The Silmarillion relate the events of a far earlier time than those of The Lord of the Rings; it is also, in all the essentials of its conception, far the earlier work. Indeed, although it was not then called The Silmarillion, it was already in being half a century ago; and in battered notebooks extending back to 1917 can still be read the earliest versions, often hastily pencilled, of the central stories of the mythology. But it was never published (though some indication of its content could be gleaned from The Lord of the Rings), and throughout my father’s long life he never abandoned it, nor ceased even in his last years to work on it. In all that time The Silmarillion, considered simply as a large narrative structure, underwent relatively little radical change; it became long ago a fixed tradition, and background to later writings. But it was far indeed from being a fixed text, and did not remain unchanged even in certain fundamental ideas concerning the nature of the world it portrays; while the same legends came to be retold in longer and shorter forms, and in different styles. As the years passed the changes and variants, both in detail and in larger perspectives, became so complex, so pervasive, and so many-layered that a final and definitive version seemed unattainable. Moreover the old legends (‘old’ now not only in their derivation from the remote First Age, but also in terms of my father’s life) became the vehicle and depository of his profoundest reflections. In his later writing mythology and poetry sank down behind his theological and philosophical preoccupations: from which arose incompatibilities of tone.
On my father’s death it fell to me to try to bring the work into publishable form. It became clear to me that to attempt to present, within the covers of a single book, the diversity of the materials – to show The Silmarillion as in truth