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       The Drúedain

      Towards the end of his life my father revealed a good deal more about the Wild Men of the Drúadan Forest in Anórien and the statues of the Púkel-men on the road up to Dunharrow. The account given here, telling of the Drúedain in Beleriand in the First Age, and containing the story of ‘The Faithful Stone’, is drawn from a long, discursive, and unfinished essay concerned primarily with the interrelations of the languages of Middle-earth. As will be seen, the Drúedain were to be drawn back into the history of the earlier Ages; but of this there is necessarily no trace in the published Silmarillion.

      II

       The Istari

      It was proposed soon after the acceptance of The Lord of the Rings for publication that there should be an index at the end of the third volume, and it seems that my father began to work on it in the summer of 1954, after the first two volumes had gone to press. He wrote of the matter in a letter of 1956: ‘An index of names was to be produced, which by etymological interpretation would also provide quite a large Elvish vocabulary.... I worked at it for months, and indexed the first two volumes (it was the chief cause of the delay of Volume III), until it became clear that size and cost were ruinous.’

      In the event there was no index to The Lord of the Rings until the second edition of 1966, but my father’s original rough draft has been preserved. From it I derived the plan of my index to The Silmarillion, with translation of names and brief explanatory statements, and also, both there and in the index to this book, some of the translations and the wording of some of the ‘definitions’. From it comes also the ‘essay on the Istari’ with which this section of the book opens – an entry wholly uncharacteristic of the original index in its length, if characteristic of the way in which my father often worked.

      For the other citations in this section I have given in the text itself such indications of date as can be provided.

      III

       The Palantíri

      For the second edition of The Lord of the Rings (1966) my father made substantial emendations to a passage in The Two Towers, III 11 ‘The Palantír’ (three-volume hardback edition p. 203), and some others in the same connection in The Return of the King, V 7 ‘The Pyre of Denethor’ (edition cited p. 132), though these emendations were not incorporated in the text until the second impression of the revised edition (1967). This section of the present book is derived from writings on the palantíri associated with this revision; I have done no more than assemble them into a continuous essay.

       The Map of Middle-earth

      My first intention was to include in this book the map that accompanies The Lord of the Rings with the addition to it of further names; but it seemed to me on reflection that it would be better to copy my original map and take the opportunity to remedy some of its minor defects (to remedy the major ones being beyond my powers). I have therefore redrawn it fairly exactly, on a scale half as large again (that is to say, the new map as drawn is half as large again as the old map in its published dimensions). The area shown is smaller, but the only features lost are the Havens of Umbar and the Cape of Forochel. * This has allowed of a different and larger mode of lettering, and a great gain in clarity.

      All the more important place-names that occur in this book but not in The Lord of the Rings are included, such as Lond Daer, Drúwaith Iaur, Edhellond, the Undeeps, Greylin; and a few others that might have been, or should have been, shown on the original map, such as the rivers Harnen and Carnen, Annúminas, Eastfold, Westfold, the Mountains of Angmar. The mistaken inclusion of Rhudaur alone has been corrected by the addition of Cardolan and Arthedain, and I have shown the little island of Himling off the far north-western coast, which appears on one of my father’s sketch-maps and on my own first draft. Himling was the earlier form of Himring (the great hill on which Maedhros son of Fëanor had his fortress in The Silmarillion), and though the fact is nowhere referred to it is clear that Himring’s top rose above the waters that covered drowned Beleriand. Some way to the west of it was a larger island named Tol Fuin, which must be the highest part of Taur-nu-Fuin. In general, but not in all cases, I have preferred the Sindarin name (if known), but I have usually given the translated name as well when that is much used. It may be noted that ‘The Northern Waste’, marked at the head of my original map, seems in fact certainly to have been intended as an equivalent to Forodwaith. *

      I have thought it desirable to mark in the entire length of the Great Road linking Arnor and Gondor, although its course between Edoras and the Fords of Isen is conjectural (as also is the precise placing of Lond Daer and Edhellond).

      Lastly, I would emphasize that the exact preservation of the style and detail (other than nomenclature and lettering) of the map that I made in haste twenty-five years ago does not argue any belief in the excellence of its conception or execution. I have long regretted that my father never replaced it by one of his own making. However, as things turned out it became, for all its defects and oddities, ‘the Map’, and my father himself always used it as a basis afterwards (while frequently noticing its inadequacies). The various sketch-maps that he made, and from which mine was derived, are now a part of the history of the writing of The Lord of the Rings. I have thought it best therefore, so far as my own contribution to these matters extends, to let my original design stand, since it does at least represent the structure of my father’s conceptions with tolerable faithfulness.

       PART ONE

       THE FIRST AGE

       I

       OF TUOR AND HIS COMING TO GONDOLIN

      Rían, wife of Huor, dwelt with the people of the House of Hador; but when rumour came to Dor-lómin of the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, and yet she could hear no news of her lord, she became distraught and wandered forth into the wild alone. There she would have perished, but the Grey-elves came to her aid. For there was a dwelling of this people in the mountains westward of Lake Mithrim; and thither they led her, and she was there delivered of a son before the end of the Year of Lamentation.

      And Rían said to the Elves: ‘Let him be called Tuor, for that name his father chose, ere war came between us. And I beg of you to foster him, and to keep him hidden in your care; for I forebode that great good, for Elves and Men, shall come from him. But I must go in search of Huor, my lord.’

      Then the Elves pitied her; but one Annael, who alone of all that went to war from that people had returned from the Nirnaeth, said to her: ‘Alas, lady, it is known now that Huor fell at the side of Húrin his brother; and he lies, I deem, in the great hill of slain that the Orcs have raised upon the field of battle.’

      Therefore Rían arose and left the dwelling of the Elves, and she passed through the land of Mithrim and came at last to the Haudh-en-Ndengin in the waste of Anfauglith, and there she laid her down

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