The Book of Lost Tales 2. Christopher Tolkien

more dark than any that had yet come into his heart since he fled from Valinor.

      We are never told anything more explicit.

      Whether Melko’s words to Tinúviel, ‘Who art thou that flittest about my halls like a bat?’, and the description of her dancing ‘noiseless as a bat’, were the germ of her later bat-disguise cannot be said, though it seems possible.

The knife with which Beren cut the Silmaril from the Iron Crown has a quite different provenance in the Tale of Tinúviel, being a kitchen-knife that Beren took from Tevildo’s castle (pp. 29, 33); in The Silmarillion it was Angrist, the famous knife made by Telchar which Beren took from Curufin. The sleepers of Angamandi are here disturbed by the sound of the snapping of the knife-blade; in The Silmarillion it is the shard flying from the snapped knife and striking Morgoth’s cheek that makes him groan and stir.

      There is a minor difference in the accounts of the meeting with the wolf as Beren and Tinúviel fled out. In The Silmarillion ‘Lúthien was spent, and she had not time nor strength to quell the wolf’ in the tale it seems that she might have done so if Beren had not been precipitate. Much more important, there appears here for the first time the conception of the holy power of the Silmarils that burns unhallowed flesh.*

The escape of Tinúviel and Beren from Angamandi and their return to Artanor (pp. 34–6) is treated quite differently in the Tale of Tinúviel. In The Silmarillion (pp. 182–3) they were rescued by the Eagles and set down on the borders of Doriath; and far more is made of the healing of Beren’s wound, in which Huan plays a part. In the old story Huan comes to them later, after their long southward flight on foot. In both accounts there is a discussion between them as to whether or not they should return to her father’s hall, but it is quite differently conducted—in the tale it is she who persuades Beren to return, in The Silmarillion it is Beren who persuades her.

There is a curious feature in the story of the Wolf-hunt (pp. 38–9) which may be considered here (see p. 50, notes 12–15). At first, it was Tinúviel’s brother who took part in the hunt with Tinwelint, Beren, and Huan, and his name is here Tifanto, which was the name throughout the tale before its replacement by Dairon.* Subsequently ‘Tifanto’—without passing through the stage of ‘Dairon’—was replaced by ‘Mablung the heavy-handed, chief of the king’s thanes’, who here makes his first appearance, as the fourth member of the hunt. But earlier in the tale it is told that Tifanto > Dairon, leaving Artanor to seek Tinúviel, became utterly lost, ‘and came never back to Elfinesse’ (p. 21), and the loss of Tifanto > Dairon is referred to again when Beren and Tinúviel returned to Artanor (pp. 36–7).

      Thus on the one hand Tifanto was lost, and it is a grief to Tinúviel on her return to learn of it, but on the other he was present at the Wolf-hunt. Tifanto was then changed to Dairon throughout the tale, except in the story of the Wolf-hunt, where Tifanto was replaced by a new character, Mablung. This shows that Tifanto was removed from the hunt before the change of name to Dairon, but does not explain how, under the name Tifanto, he was both lost in the wilds and present at the hunt. Since there is nothing in the MS itself to explain this puzzle, I can only conclude that my father did, in fact, write at first that Tifanto was lost and never came back, and also that he took part in the Wolf-hunt; but observing this contradiction he introduced Mablung in the latter rôle (and probably did this even before the tale was completed, since at the last appearance of Mablung his name was written thus, not emended from Tifanto: see note 15). It was subsequent to this that Tifanto was emended, wherever it still stood, to Dairon.

In the tale the hunt is differently managed from the story in The Silmarillion (where, incidentally, Beleg Strongbow was present). It is curious that all (including, as it appears, Huan!) save Beren were asleep when Karkaras came on them (‘in Beren’s watch’, p. 39). In The Silmarillion Huan slew Carcharoth and was slain by him, whereas here Karkaras met his death from the king’s spear, and the boy Ausir tells at the end that Huan lived on to find Beren again at the time of ‘the great deeds of the Nauglafring’ (p. 41). Of Huan’s destiny, that he should not die ‘until he encountered the mightiest wolf that would ever walk the world’, and of his being permitted ‘thrice only ere his death to speak with words’ (The Silmarillion p. 173), there is nothing here.

The most remarkable feature of the Tale of Tinúviel remains the fact that in its earliest extant form Beren was an Elf; and in this connection very notable are the words of the boy at the end (p. 40):

      Yet said Mandos to those twain: ‘Lo, O Elves, it is not to any life of perfect joy that I dismiss you, for such may no longer be found in all the world where sits Melko of the evil heart—and know ye that ye will become mortal even as Men, and when ye fare hither again it will be for ever, unless the Gods summon you indeed to Valinor.’

      In the tale of The Coming of the Valar and the Building of Valinor there occurs the following passage (I. 76; commentary I. 90):

      Thither [i.e. to Mandos] in after days fared the Elves of all the clans who were by illhap slain with weapons or did die of grief for those that were slain—and only so might the Eldar die, and then it was only for a while. There Mandos spake their doom, and there they waited in the darkness, dreaming of their past deeds, until such time as he appointed when they might again be born into their children, and go forth to laugh and sing again.

      The same idea occurs in the tale of The Music of the Ainur (I. 59). The peculiar dispensation of Mandos in the case of Beren and Tinúviel as here conceived is therefore that their whole ‘natural’ destiny as Elves was changed: having died as Elves might die (from wounds or from grief) they were not reborn as new beings, but returned from Mandos in their own persons—yet now ‘mortal even as Men’. The earliest eschatology is too unclear to allow of a satisfactory interpretation of this ‘mortality’, and the passage in The Building of Valinor on the fates of Men (I. 77) is particularly hard to understand (see the commentary on it, I. 90ff.). But it seems possible that the words ‘even as Men’ in the address of Mandos to Beren and Tinúviel were included to stress the finality of whatever second deaths they might undergo; their departure would be as final as that of Men, there would be no second return in their own persons, and no reincarnation. They will remain in Mandos (‘when ye fare hither again it will be for ever’)—unless they are summoned by the Gods to dwell in Valinor. These last words should probably be related to the passage in The Building of Valinor concerning the fate of certain Men (I. 77):

      Few are they and happy indeed for whom at a season doth Nornorë the herald of the Gods set out. Then ride they with him in chariots or upon good horses down into the vale of Valinor and feast in the halls of Valmar, dwelling in the houses of the Gods until the Great End come.

      § 2. Places and peoples in the Tale of Tinúviel

To consider first what can be learned of the geography of the Great Lands from this tale: the early ‘dictionary’ of the Gnomish language makes it clear that the meaning of Artanor was ‘the Land Beyond’, as it is interpreted in the text (p. 9). Several passages in the Lost Tales cast light on this expression. In an outline for Gilfanon’s untold tale (I. 240) the Noldoli exiled from Valinor

      now fought for the first time with the Ores and captured the pass of the Bitter Hills; thus they escaped from the Land of Shadows…They entered the Forest of Artanor and