The Lost Road and Other Writings. Christopher Tolkien

amid great lamentation of the Lombards. His tomb was opened in the time of Paul the Deacon by Gislbert dux Veronensium, who took away Alboin’s sword and other gear that was buried with him; ‘wherefore he used to boast to the ignorant with his usual vanity that he has seen Alboin face to face.’

      The fame of this formidable king was such that, in the words of Paul, ‘even down to our own day, among the Bavarians and the Saxons and other peoples of kindred speech, his open hand and renown, his success and courage in war, are celebrated in their songs.’ An extraordinary testimony to this is found in the ancient English poem Widsith, where occur the following lines:

      Swylce ic wæs on Eatule mid Ælfwine:

      se hæfde moncynnes mine gefræge

      leohteste hond lofes to wyrcenne,

      heortan unhneaweste hringa gedales,

      beorhta beaga, beam Eadwines.

      (I was in Italy with Alboin: of all men of whom I have heard he had the hand most ready for deeds of praise, the heart least niggard in the giving of rings, of shining armlets, the son of Audoin.)^*

In my father’s letter of 1964 (given on pp. 7–8) he wrote as if it had been his intention to find one of the earlier incarnations of the father and son in the Lombard story: ‘It started with a father-son affinity between Edwin and Elwin of the present, and was supposed to go back into legendary time by way of an Eädwine and Ælfwine of circa A.D. 918, and Audoin and Alboin of Lombardic legend …’ But there is no suggestion that at the time this was any more than a passing thought; see further pp. 77–8.

The two Englishmen named Ælfwine (p. 38). King Alfred’s youngest son was named Æthelweard, and it is recorded by the twelfth century historian William of Malmesbury that Æthelweard’s sons Ælfwine and Æthelwine both fell at the battle of Brunanburh in 937.

      Years later my father celebrated the Ælfwine who died at Maldon in The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth, where Torhthelm and Tídwald find his corpse among the slain: ‘And here’s Ælfwine: barely bearded, and his battle’s over.’

Oswin Errol’s reference to a ‘substratum’ (p. 40). Put very simply, the substratum theory attributes great importance, as an explanation of linguistic change, to the influence exerted on language when a people abandons their own former speech and adopts another; for such a people will retain their habitual modes of articulation and transfer them to the new language, thus creating a substratum underlying it. Different substrata acting upon a widespread language in different areas is therefore regarded as a fundamental cause of divergent phonetic change.

The Old English verses of Ælfwine Wídlást (p. 44). These verses, in identical form except for certain features of spelling, were used in the title-pages to the Quenta Silmarillion (p. 203); see also p. 103.

Names and words in the Elvish languages. Throughout, the term Eressëan was a replacement of Númenórean. Perhaps to be compared is FN II, §2: ‘Yet they [the Númenóreans] took on the speech of the Elves of the Blessed Realm, as it was and is in Eressëa.’ The term ‘Elf-latin’, applied by Alboin to ‘Eressëan’ (pp. 41, 43), is found in the Lhammas (p. 172). There it refers to the archaic speech of the First Kindred of the Elves (the Lindar), which ‘became early fixed … as a language of high speech and of writing, and as a common speech among all Elves; and all the folk of Valinor learned and knew this language.’ It was called Qenya, the Elvish tongue, tarquesta high-speech, and parmalambë the book-tongue. But it is not explained in The Lost Road why Alboin should have called the language that ‘came through’ to him by this term.

Amon-ereb (p. 38): the rough draft of this passage had Amon Gwareth, changed more than once and ending with Amon Thoros. Amon Ereb (the Lonely Hill) is found in the Annals of Beleriand (p. 143, annal 340) and in QS §113.

‘The shores of Beleriand’ (p. 38): the draft has here ‘the rocks of the Falassë.’ The form Falassë occurs on the Ambarkanta map IV (IV. 249).

‘Alda was a tree (a word I got a long time ago)’ (p. 41). Alda ‘tree’ is found in the very early ‘dictionary’ (I. 249), where also occurs the word lómë, which Alboin also refers to here, with the meanings ‘dusk, gloom, darkness’ (I. 255).

Anar, Isil, and Anor, Ithil (p. 41): in QS §75 the names of the Sun and Moon given by the Gods are Úrin and Isil, and by the Elves Anar and Rana (see the commentary on that passage).

The Eressëan fragment concerning the Downfall of Númenor and the Straight Road (p. 47) is slightly different in the draft text:

      Ar Sauron lende nūmenorenna… lantie nu huine… ohtakárie valannar… manwe ilu terhante. eari lantier kilyanna nūmenor atalante… malle tēra lende nūmenna, ilya si maller raikar. Turkildi rómenna… nuruhuine me lumna.

       And Sauron came to-Númenor… fell under Shadow… war-made on-Powers… ? ? broke. seas fell into-Chasm. Númenor down-fell. road straight went westward, all now roads bent. ? eastward. Death-shadow us is-heavy.

The name Tar-kalion is here not present, but Sauron is (see p. 9), and is interpreted as being a name. Most notably, this version has manwe (which Alboin could not interpret) for herunūmen ‘Lord-of-West’ of the later; on this see p. 75.

      On the name Herendil (= Audoin, Eadwine) see Etymologies, stem KHER.

(ii)

       The Númenórean chapters

      My father said in his letter of 1964 on the subject that ‘in my tale we were to come at last to Amandil and Elendil leaders of the loyal party in Númenor, when it fell under the domination of Sauron.’ It is nonetheless plain that he did not reach this conception until after the extant narrative had been mostly written, or even brought to the point where it was abandoned. At the end of Chapter II the Númenórean story is obviously just about to begin, and the Númenórean chapters were originally numbered continuously with the opening ones. On the other hand the decision to postpone Númenor and make it the conclusion and climax to the book had already been taken when The Lost Road went to Allen and Unwin in November 1937.

      Since the Númenórean episode was left unfinished, this is a convenient point to mention an interesting note that my father presumably wrote while it was in progress.