The Lost Road and Other Writings. Christopher Tolkien

such as set not sail unto the West and vanished from the world.

      This passage survived very little changed in QS (§87).

I believe that the story of the flying ships built by the exiled Númenóreans, found already in the preliminary draft (p. 12), is the sole introduction of aerial craft in all my father’s works. No hint is given of the means by which they rose and were propelled; and the passage did not survive into the later legend.

§13 It is a curious feature of the original story of Númenor that there is no mention of what befell Thû at the Downfall (cf. the Akallabêth p. 280); but he reappears here as a master of temples (cf. the Lay of Leithian lines 2064–7), dwelling in a fortress (§14), an object of hatred to those of the survivors of Númenor who retained something of the ancient knowledge.

§14 In the Quenta (IV. 160–1) it is told that in the Great Battle

      the Northern regions of the Western world were rent and riven, and the sea roared in through many chasms, and there was confusion and great noise; and the rivers perished or found new paths, and the valleys were upheaved and the hills trod down, and Sirion was no more. Then Men fled away … and long was it ere they came back over the mountains to where Beleriand once had been.

      The last words of the earliest Annals of Beleriand (IV. 310) are ‘So ended the First Age of the World and Beleriand was no more.’ It is also said in the Quenta (IV. 162) that after the War was ended ‘there was a mighty building of ships on the shores of the Western Sea, and especially upon the great isles, which in the disruption of the Northern world were fashioned of ancient Beleriand.’

In FN a rather different conception is suggested. Though Beleriand had been ‘changed and broken’, it is spoken of as ‘that land’, it was still called Beleriand, and it was peopled by Men and Elves, able to form an alliance against Thû. I would suggest (though hesitantly) that with the emergence, here first glimpsed, of a Second Age of Middle-earth consequent on the legend of Númenor, the utter devastation of Beleriand, suitable to the finality of the conclusion of the earlier conception, had been diminished.^* Moreover it seems that at this time my father did not conceive of any further destruction of Beleriand at the time of the Downfall of Númenor, as he would do later (see p. 32).

At this stage there is no mention of a first and founder king of Númenor. Elrond was still the only child of Eärendel and Elwing; his brother Elros has appeared only in late additions to the text of Q (IV. 155), which were inserted after the Númenórean legend had begun to develop. In the oldest conception in the Sketch of the Mythology (IV. 38) Elrond ‘bound by his mortal half elects to stay on earth’ (i.e. in the Great Lands), and in Q (IV. 158) he ‘elected to remain, being bound by his mortal blood in love to those of the younger race’; see my remarks on the Choice of the Half-elven, IV. 70. Elrond is here, as it seems, a leader of the Elves of Beleriand, in alliance with Amroth, predecessor of Elendil. The Last Alliance leading to the overthrow of Thû is seen as the last intervention of the Elves in the affairs of the World of Men, in itself hastening their inevitable fading. The ‘dark forest’ to which Thû fled (cf. the ‘Iron-forest’ in the original outline) is doubtless Mirkwood. In The Hobbit all that had been told of the Necromancer was that he dwelt in a dark tower in the south of Mirkwood.^†

(iii)

       The second version of The Fall of Númenor

      FN II is a clear manuscript, made by my father with FN I before him and probably soon after it. It has many emendations made in the act of composition, and none that seem to have been made after any significant interval, apart from the title, which was inserted later in pencil, and the rejection of a sentence in §7. In contrast to my father’s common tendency to begin a new text keeping close to the antecedent but then to diverge ever more strongly as he proceeded, in this case the earlier part is much changed and expanded whereas the latter is scarcely altered, other than in very minor improvements to the run of sentences, until the end is reached. To give the whole of FN II is therefore unnecessary. Retaining the paragraph numbering of FN I, I give §§1–5 and 14 in full, and of the remainder only such short passages as were significantly altered.

      THE LAST TALE: THE FALL OF NÚMENOR

§1 In the Great Battle when Fionwë son of Manwë overthrew Morgoth and rescued the Exiles, the three houses of the Men of Beleriand fought against Morgoth. But most Men were allies of the Enemy; and after the victory of the Lords of the West those that were not destroyed fled eastward into Middle-earth; and the servants of Morgoth that escaped came to them, and enslaved them. For the Gods forsook for a time the Men of Middle-earth, because they had disobeyed their summons and hearkened to the Enemy. And Men were troubled by many evil things that Morgoth had made in the days of his dominion: demons and dragons and monsters, and Orcs, that are mockeries of the creatures of Ilúvatar; and their lot was unhappy. But Manwë put forth Morgoth, and shut him beyond the world in the Void without; and he cannot return again into the world, present and visible, while the Lords are enthroned. Yet his Will remaineth, and guideth his servants; and it moveth them ever to seek the overthrow of the Gods and the hurt of those that obey them.

      But when Morgoth was thrust forth, the Gods held council. The Elves were summoned to return into the West, and such as obeyed dwelt again in Eressëa, the Lonely Island, which was renamed Avallon: for it is hard by Valinor. But Men of the three faithful houses and such as had joined with them were richly rewarded. For Fionwë son of Manwë came among them and taught them; and he gave them wisdom, power, and life stronger than any others have of the mortal race.

§2 And a great land was made for them to dwell in, neither part of Middle-earth nor wholly separate from it. It was raised by Ossë out of the depths of the Great Sea, and established by Aulë and enriched by Yavanna; and the Eldar brought thither flowers and fountains out of Avallon and wrought gardens there of great beauty, in which the Gods themselves at times would walk. That land was called by the Valar Andor, the Land of Gift, and by its own folk it was at first called Vinya, the Young; but in the days of its pride they named it Númenor, that is Westernesse, for it lay west of all lands inhabited by mortals; yet it was far from the true West, for that is Valinor, the land of the Gods. But its glory fell and its name perished; for after its ruin it was named in the legends of those that fled from it Atalantë, the Downfallen. Of old its chief city and haven was in the midst of its western coasts, and it was called Andúnië, because it faced the sunset. But the high place of its king was at Númenos in the heart of the land. It was built first by Elrond son of Eärendel, whom the Gods and Elves chose to be the lord of that land; for in him the blood of the houses of Hador and Bëor was mingled, and with it some part of that of the Eldar and Valar, which he drew from Idril and from Lúthien. But Elrond and all his folk were mortal; for the Valar may not withdraw the gift of death, which cometh to Men from Ilúvatar. Yet they took on the speech of the Elves of the Blessed Realm, as it was and is in Eressëa, and held converse with the Elves, and looked afar upon Valinor; for their ships were suffered to sail to Avallon and their mariners to dwell there for a while.

      §3 And in