The Lost Road and Other Writings. Christopher Tolkien

force of Men and Elves, and they assembled at Imladrist].

      Towards the end the text degenerates into a scribble and the final words are a bit doubtful. If the name Imladrist is correctly interpreted there is certainly a further letter after the s, which must be a t. Cf. The Tale of Years in The Lord of the Rings (Appendix B): Second Age 3431 ‘Gilgalad and Elendil march east to Imladris.’

      All this passage was in turn struck through, and not copied into the typescript. It will be seen that it brings in the new matter concerning Beleriand and Lindon which appeared in the first form of the revision of §8 but was then removed (pp. 31–2); and in addition many important new elements have entered. Gil-galad is the son of Felagund; it is now explicit that Elendil was one of the survivors of Númenor, and he has a brother named Valandil (the name of his father in The Lost Road); the river Lhûn appears, and its gulf, and the gap in the Blue Mountains through which it flowed; the Elves of Lindon built havens on the Gulf of Lhûn; Elendil established a kingdom in the North, east of the mountains, and Valandil, sailing up the Anduin, founded his realm of Ondor not far from Mordor.

      Now there is no question that the entire conception of Gondor arose in the course of the composition of The Lord of the Rings. Moreover my father pencilled the following notes (also struck through) at the end of the typescript:

      More of this is told in The Lord of the Rings

      Only alteration required is this:

       (1) Many Elves remained behind

       (2) Beleriand was all sunk except for a few islands = mountains, and part of Ossiriand (called Lindon) where Gil-galad dwelt.

       (3) Elrond remained with Gil-galad. Or else sailed back to Middle-earth. The Half-elven.

      The second of these is decisive, since the passage last given clearly contains a working-up of this note; and it is clear that all the rewritings of the second version of The Fall of Númenor considered here come from several years later. FN II represents the form of the work at the time when The Lord of the Rings was begun. On the other hand, these revisions come from a time when it was a long way from completion, as is seen by the form Ondor, and by the brothers Elendil and Valandil, founders of the Númenórean kingdoms in Middle-earth.

Apart from these major passages of revision there were few other changes made to the typescript copy of FN II, and those very minor, save for the substitution of Elros for Elrond at both occurrences in §2. This belongs to the pre-Lord of the Rings period, as is seen from the appearance of Elros in the conclusion of QS (see p. 337, commentary on §28).^*

      My father next wrote a fine new manuscript incorporating the changes made to the typescript of FN II – but now wholly omitting the concluding passage (§14) concerning Beleriand and the Last Alliance, and ending with the words ‘there were wars among the mighty of Middle-earth, of which only the echoes now remain.’ This version, improved and altered in detail, shows however very little further advance in narrative substance, and clearly belongs to the same period as the revisions studied in this section.

       III

       THE LOST ROAD

(i)

       The opening chapters

For the texts of The Lost Road and its relation to The Fall of Númenor see pp. 8–9. I give here the two completed chapters at the beginning of the work, following them with a brief commentary.

      Chapter I

       A Step Forward. Young Alboin ^*

      ‘Alboin! Alboin!’

      There was no answer. There was no one in the play-room.

      ‘Alboin!’ Oswin Errol stood at the door and called into the small high garden at the back of his house. At length a young voice answered, sounding distant and like the answer of someone asleep or just awakened.

      ‘Yes?’

      ‘Where are you?’

      ‘Here!’

      ‘Where is “here”?’

      ‘Here: up on the wall, father.’

      Oswin sprang down the steps from the door into the garden, and walked along the flower-bordered path. It led after a turn to a low stone wall, screened from the house by a hedge. Beyond the stone wall there was a brief space of turf, and then a cliff-edge, beyond which outstretched, and now shimmering in a calm evening, the western sea. Upon the wall Oswin found his son, a boy about twelve years old, lying gazing out to sea with his chin in his hands.

      ‘So there you are!’ he said. ‘You take a deal of calling. Didn’t you hear me?’

      ‘Not before the time when I answered,’ said Alboin.

      ‘Well, you must be deaf or dreaming,’ said his father. ‘Dreaming, it looks like. It is getting very near bed-time; so, if you want any story tonight, we shall have to begin at once.’

      ‘I am sorry, father, but I was thinking.’

      ‘What about?’

      ‘Oh, lots of things mixed up: the sea, and the world, and Alboin.’

      ‘Alboin?’

      ‘Yes. I wondered why Alboin. Why am I called Alboin? They often ask me “Why Alboin?” at school, and they call me All-bone. But I am not, am I?’

      ‘You look rather bony, boy; but you are not all bone, I am glad to say. I am afraid I called you Alboin, and that is why you are called it. I am sorry: I never meant it to be a nuisance to you.’

      ‘But it is a real name, isn’t it?’ said Alboin eagerly. ‘I mean, it means something, and men have been called it? It isn’t just invented?’

      ‘Of course not. It is just as real and just as good as Oswin; and it belongs to the same family, you might say. But no one ever bothered me about Oswin. Though I often used to get called Oswald by mistake. I remember how it used to annoy me, though I can’t think why. I was rather particular about my name.’

They remained talking on the wall overlooking the sea; and did not go back into the garden, or the house, until bed-time. Their talk, as often happened, drifted into story-telling; and Oswin told his son the tale of Alboin son of Audoin, the Lombard king; and of the great battle of the Lombards and the Gepids, remembered as terrible even in the grim sixth century; and of the kings Thurisind and Cunimund, and of Rosamunda. ‘Not a good story for near bed-time,’ he said, ending suddenly with Alboin’s drinking from the jewelled skull of Cunimund.

      ‘I don’t like that Alboin much,’ said the boy. ‘I like the Gepids better, and King Thurisind. I wish they had won. Why didn’t you call me Thurisind or Thurismod?’

      ‘Well, really mother had meant to call you Rosamund, only you turned up a boy. And she didn’t live to help me choose another name, you know. So I took one out of that story, because it seemed to fit. I mean, the name doesn’t belong only to that story, it is much older. Would you rather have been called Elf-friend? For that’s what the name means.’

      ‘No-o,’