The Shaping of Middle-earth. Christopher Tolkien

not daring to go further into Valinor he builds a tower on an isle in the northern seas, ‘to which all the sea-birds of the world repair’. Bronweg is not further mentioned. Almost all of this, other than the statement that Eärendel did not dare venture further into Valinor, goes back to the outline C. The tower on the Isle of Seabirds, which survives in The Silmarillion (p. 250), is mentioned in an isolated note on the Eärendel story (II. 264, xvii).

      In the early outlines Eärendel now set out on his last voyage. In B, which is here very brief, his sailing to the Isle of Seabirds is followed by ‘his voyage to the firmament’. In C he sails with Voronwë to the halls of Mandos seeking for tidings of Tuor, Idril, and Elwing; he ‘reaches the bar at the margin of the world and sets sail on the oceans of the firmament in order to gaze over the Earth. The Moon mariner chases him for his brightness and he dives through the Door of Night.’ In the outline E (II. 260) ‘Elwing as a seamew comes to him. He sets sail over the margent of the world.’ In the early note associated with the poem ‘The Bidding of the Minstrel’ (II. 261) he ‘sails west again to the lip of the world, just as the Sun is diving into the sea’, and ‘sets sail upon the sky’; and in the preface to ‘The Shores of Faëry’ (II. 262) he

      sat long while in his old age upon the Isle of Seabirds in the Northern Waters ere he set forth upon a last voyage. He passed Taniquetil and even Valinor, and drew his bark over the bar at the margin of the world, and launched it on the Oceans of the Firmament. Of his ventures there no man has told, save that hunted by the orbed Moon he fled back to Valinor, and mounting the towers of Kôr upon the rocks of Eglamar he gazed back upon the Oceans of the World.

      The passage in S is different from all of these, in that here Eärendel’s voyage into the sky is achieved with the aid of the wings of seabirds, and it introduces the idea of his being scorched by the Sun as well as hunted by the Moon. I suggested (II. 259) that Eärendel originally sailed into the sky in continuing search for Elwing, and this is now corroborated.

18 and 19

      The story in S now leaves Eärendel, wandering the sky ‘as a fugitive star’, and comes to the march of Fionwë and the Last Battle (a term that is used in S both of the Last Battle in the mythological record, in which the hosts of Valinor overthrew Morgoth, and of the Last Battle of the world, declared in prophecy, when Morgoth will come back through the Door and Fionwë will fight him on the plains of Valinor). Almost all of this now enters the mythology for the first time; and almost all of what very little survives from the earliest period on the subject of the March of the Elves of Valinor (II. 278–80) has disappeared. There is no mention of Tulkas, of his battle with Melko, of Noldorin, of the hostility of Men; virtually the only point in common is that after the overthrow of Morgoth Elves depart into the West. In the old story the Silmarils play no part at the end (cf. the jotting ‘What became of the Silmarils after the capture of Melko?’ II. 259); but now in S there appear the lineaments of a story concerning their fate. Now also we have the first mention anywhere of the breaking of the Northwestern world in the struggle to overthrow Morgoth; and (in an addition to the text) the chain Angainor appears from the Lost Tales. (Angainor is not named in the earlier passage in S (§2) concerning the binding of Morgoth. It appears (later) in the Lay of Leithian, in a puzzling reference to ‘the chain Angainor that ere Doom/for Morgoth shall by Gods be wrought’; see III. 205, 209–10.)

      In the story of the fate of the Silmarils, Maglor says to Maidros that there are two sons of Fëanor now left, and two Silmarils. Does this imply that the Silmaril of Beren was lost when Elwing cast herself into the sea with the Nauglafring (unlike the later story)? The answer is certainly yes; the story in S is not comprehensible otherwise. Thus when Maglor casts himself (changed to casts the jewel) into the fiery pit, having stolen one of the Silmarils of the Iron Crown from Fionwë, ‘one Silmaril is now in the sea, and one in the earth’. The third was the Silmaril that remained in Fionwë’s keeping; and it was that one that was bound to Eärendel’s brow. We thus have a remarkable stage of transition, in which the Silmarils have at last achieved primary importance, but where the fate of each has not arrived at the final form; and the conclusion, seen to be inevitable once reached, that it was the Silmaril regained by Beren and Lúthien that became the Evening Star, has not been achieved. In S, Eärendel becomes a star before receiving the Silmaril; but originally, as I have said (II. 265), ‘there is no suggestion that the Valar hallowed his ship and set him in the sky, nor that his light was that of the Silmaril’. In this respect also S is transitional, for at the end the later story appears.

      The Elves of the Outer Lands (Great Lands), after the conquest of Morgoth, set sail from Lúthien (later emended to Leithien), explained as ‘Britain or England’. For the forms Luthany, Lúthien, Leithian, Leithien and the texts in which they occur see III. 154. It is remarkable that as S was originally written Lúthien is both the name of Thingol’s daughter and the name of England.

      It is further said in S that the Elves ‘ever still from time to time set sail [from Lúthien] leaving the world ere they fade’. ‘The Gnomes and many of the Ilkorins and Teleri and Qendi repeople the Lonely Isle. Some go back to live upon the shores of Faëry and in Valinor, but Côr and Tûn remain desolate.’ Some of this can be brought into relation with the old outlines (see II. 308–9), but how much more was retained in mind, beyond ‘The Elves retreated to Luthany’ and ‘Many of the Elves of Luthany sought back west over the sea and settled in Tol Eressëa’, cannot be determined. That even this much was retained is however very instructive. The peculiar relation of the Elves to England keeps a foothold, as it were, in the actual articulation of the narrative; as also the idea that if they remained in ‘the world’ they would fade (see II. 326).

      It is not made clear why ‘Côr and Tûn’ remained desolate, since some of the Elves ‘go back to live upon the shores of Faëry and in Valinor’. In the original conception (as I have argued its nature, II. 280) the Eldar of Valinor, when they returned from the Great Lands where they had gone against the will of the Valar, were forbidden to re-enter Valinor and therefore settled in Tol Eressëa, as ‘the Exiles of Kôr’ (although some did return in the end to Valinor, since Ingil son of Inwë, according to Meril-i-Turinqi (I. 129), ‘went back long ago to Valinor and is with Manwë’). But in the story as told in S the idea that the March of the Eldar was against the will of the Valar, and aroused them to wrath, has been abandoned, and ‘the sons of the Valar’ now lead the hosts out of the West; why then should the Elves of Tûn not return there? And we have the statement in S that Tol Eressëa was repeopled not only by Gnomes (and nothing at all is said of their pardon) and Ilkorins, but also by Qendi ( = the later Vanyar) and Teleri, Elves who came from Valinor for the assault on Morgoth. I cannot explain this; and must conclude that my father was only noting down the chief points of his developing conceptions, leaving much unwritten.

      There now appears the idea that the Gods thrust Morgoth through the Door of Night ‘into the outer dark beyond the Walls of the World’;* and there is the first reference to the escape of Thû (Sauron) in the Last Battle. There is also a prophecy concerning the ultimate battle, when the world is old and the Gods weary, and Morgoth will come back through the Door of Night; then Fionwë with Túrin beside him shall fight Morgoth on the plain of Valinor, and Túrin shall slay him with his black sword. The Silmarils shall be recovered, and their light released, the Trees rekindled, the Mountains of Valinor levelled so that the light goes out over all the world, and Gods and Elves shall grow young again. Into this final resolution of the evil in the world it would prove unprofitable, I think, to enquire too closely. References to it have appeared in print in Unfinished Tales, pp. 395–6, in the remarks on Gandalf: ‘Manwë will not descend from the Mountain until the Dagor Dagorath, and the coming of the End, when Melkor returns’, and in the alliterative poem accompanying this, ‘until Dagor Dagorath and the Doom cometh’. The earliest references are probably in the outline C (II. 282), where (when the Pine of Belaurin is cut down) ‘Melko is thus now out of the world – but one day he will find a way back, and the last great uproars will begin before the Great End’. In the Lost Tales there are many references to the Great End, most of which do not concern us here; but at the end of