Unfinished Tales - J. R. R. Tolkien [31]
‘Speak not ill-boding! If the messenger of the Lord of Waters go by that door, then all those who dwell here will follow him. Lord of the Fountains, hinder not the messenger of the Lord of Waters!’
Then Voronwë and all those who stood near looked again in wonder at Tuor, marvelling at his words and voice. And to Voronwë it seemed as if he heard a great voice, but as of one who called from afar off. But to Tuor it seemed that he listened to himself speaking, as if another spoke with his mouth.
For a while Ecthelion stood silent, looking at Tuor, and slowly awe filled his face, as if in the grey shadow of Tuor’s cloak he saw visions from far away. Then he bowed, and went to the fence and laid hands upon it, and gates opened inward on either side of the pillar of the Crown. Then Tuor passed through, and coming to a high sward that looked out over the valley beyond, he beheld a vision of Gondolin amid the white snow. And so entranced was he that for long he could look at nothing else; for he saw before him at last the vision of his desire out of dreams of longing.
Thus he stood and spoke no word. Silent upon either hand stood a host of the army of Gondolin; all of the seven kinds of the Seven Gates were there represented; but their captains and chieftains were upon horses, white and grey. Then even as they gazed on Tuor in wonder, his cloak fell down, and he stood there before them in the mighty livery of Nevrast. And many were there who had seen Turgon himself set these things upon the wall behind the High Seat of Vinyamar.
Then Ecthelion said at last: ‘Now no further proof is needed; and even the name he claims as son of Huor matters less than this clear truth, that he comes from Ulmo himself.’ 31
NOTES
1 In The Silmarillion p. 196 it is said that when the Havens of Brithombar and Eglarest were destroyed in the year after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad those of the Elves of the Falas that escaped went with Círdan to the Isle of Balar, ‘and they made a refuge for all that could come thither; for they kept a foothold also at the Mouths of Sirion, and there many light and swift ships lay hid in the creeks and waters where the reeds were dense as a forest’.
2 The blue-shining lamps of the Noldorin Elves are referred to elsewhere, though they do not appear in the published text of The Silmarillion. In earlier versions of the tale of Túrin, Gwindor, the Elf of Nargothrond who escaped from Angband and was found by Beleg in the forest of Taur-nu-Fuin, possessed one of these lamps (it can be seen in my father’s painting of that meeting, see Pictures by J. R. R. Tolkien, 1979, no. 37); and it was the overturning and uncovering of Gwindor’s lamp so that its light shone out that showed Túrin the face of Beleg whom he had killed. In a note on the story of Gwindor they are called ‘Fëanorian lamps’, of which the Noldor themselves did not know the secret; and they are there described as ‘crystals hung in a fine chain net, the crystals being ever shining with an inner blue radiance’.†
3 ‘The sun shall shine upon your path.’ – In the very much briefer story told in The Silmarillion, there is no account of how Tuor found the Gate of the Noldor, nor any mention of the Elves Gelmir and Arminas. They appear however in the tale of Túrin (The Silmarillion p. 212) as the messengers who brought Ulmo’s warning to Nargothrond; and there they are said to be of the people of Finarfin’s son Angrod, who after the Dagor Bragollach dwelt in the south with Círdan the Shipwright. In a longer version of the story of their coming to Nargothrond, Arminas, comparing Túrin unfavourably with his kinsman, speaks of having met Tuor ‘; in the wastes of Dor-lómin’; see p. 208.
4 In The Silmarillion pp. 80 – 1 it is told that when Morgoth and Ungoliant struggled in this region for possession of the Silmarils