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By Root 1496 0

the courses of time. But Men were more frail, more easily slain by weapon or mischance, and less easily healed; subject to sickness and many ills; and they grew old and died. What may befall their spirits after death the Elves know not. Some say that they too go to the halls of Mandos; but their place of waiting there is not that of the Elves, and Mandos under Ilúvatar alone save Manwë knows whither they go after the time of recollection in those silent halls beside the Outer Sea. None have ever come back from the mansions of the dead, save only Beren son of Barahir, whose hand had touched a Silmaril; but he never spoke afterward to mortal Men. The fate of Men after death, maybe, is not in the hands of the Valar, nor was all foretold in the Music of the Ainur.

In after days, when because of the triumph of Morgoth Elves and Men became estranged, as he most wished, those of the Elven-race that lived still in Middle-earth waned and faded, and Men usurped the sunlight. Then the Quendi wandered in the lonely places of the great lands and the isles, and took to the moonlight and the starlight, and to the woods and caves, becoming as shadows and memories, save those who ever and anon set sail into the West and vanished from Middle-earth. But in the dawn of years Elves and Men were allies and held themselves akin, and there were some among Men that learned the wisdom of the Eldar, and became great and valiant among the captains of the Noldor. And in the glory and beauty of the Elves, and in their fate, full share had the offspring of elf and mortal, Eärendil, and Elwing, and Elrond their child.

CHAPTER 13

OF THE RETURN OF THE NOLDOR

It has been told that Fëanor and his sons came first of the Exiles to Middle-earth, and landed in the waste of Lammoth, the Great Echo, upon the outer shores of the Firth of Drengist. And even as the Noldor set foot upon the strand their cries were taken up into the hills and multiplied, so that a clamour as of countless mighty voices filled all the coasts of the North; and the noise of the burning of the ships at Losgar went down the winds of the sea as a tumult of great wrath, and far away all who heard that sound were filled with wonder.

Now the flames of that burning were seen not only by Fingolfin, whom Fëanor had deserted in Araman, but also by the Orcs and the watchers of Morgoth. No tale has told what Morgoth thought in his heart at the tidings that Fëanor, his bitterest foe, had brought a host out of the West. It may be that he feared him little, for he had as yet no proof of the swords of the Noldor; and soon it was seen that he purposed to drive them back into the sea.

Under the cold stars before the rising of the Moon the host of Fëanor went up the long Firth of Drengist that pierced the Echoing Hills of Ered Lómin, and passed thus from the shores into the great land of Hithlum; and they came at length to the long lake of Mithrim, and upon its northern shore made their encampment in the region that bore the same name. But the host of Morgoth, aroused by the tumult of Lammoth and the light of the burning at Losgar, came through the passes of Ered Wethrin, the Mountains of Shadow, and assailed Fëanor on a sudden, before his camp was full-wrought or put in defence; and there on the grey fields of Mithrim was fought the Second Battle in the Wars of Beleriand. Dagor-nuin-Giliath it is named, the Battle-under-Stars, for the Moon had not yet risen; and it is renowned in song. The Noldor, outnumbered and taken at unawares, were yet swiftly victorious; for the light of Aman was not yet dimmed in their eyes, and they were strong and swift, and deadly in anger, and their swords were long and terrible. The Orcs fled before them, and they were driven forth from Mithrim with great slaughter, and hunted over the Mountains of Shadow into the great plain of Ard-galen, that lay northward of Dorthonion. There the armies of Morgoth that had passed south into the Vale of Sirion and beleaguered Círdan in the Havens of the Falas came up to their aid, and were caught in their ruin. For Celegorm, Fëanor