style="font-size:15px;"> The Elves’ prophecy is that one day they will fare forth from Tol Eressëa and on arriving in the world will gather all their fading kindred who still live in the world and march towards Valinor … This they will only do with the help of Men. If Men aid them, the fairies will take Men to Valinor – those that wish to go – fight a great battle with Melko in Erumáni and open Valinor. Laurelin and Silpion will be rekindled, and the mountain wall being destroyed then soft radiance will spread over all the world, and the Sun and Moon will be recalled.
In the account of the Hiding of Valinor we move in S from the Lost Tales to The Silmarillion: I have observed (I. 223) the total absence in the latter of the bitter divisions among the Valar, of Manwë’s disgusted withdrawal, of Ulmo’s vain pleading for pity on the Noldor – and of my father’s explicit view in the tale of The Hiding of Valinor that the actions of the Valar at this time, and their failure to make war upon Morgoth, were a profound error arising from indolence and fear. The fear of Morgoth does indeed remain, and is the only motive offered in The Silmarillion for the Hiding of Valinor; but the author makes no comment on it. In S however the element of divine anger against the Noldoli is still present (though neither here nor later is there any reference to the peculiar anger of Aulë against them (see I. 176), save that in the Annals of Valinor (p. 267) when Finrod and others returned to Valinor after hearing the Doom of Mandos ‘Aulë their ancient friend smiled on them no more’).
There are differences and omissions in the later versions of the story of the Hiding of Valinor in relation to that in the tale which have been sufficiently discussed already (I. 223–4); but it may be noticed that in S no reason is given for keeping open the pass of Kôr, neither that in the tale nor that in The Silmarillion.
It is very clear that with the ‘Sketch’ the structure of the Valinórean part of the mythology, though not of course the detail, had quite largely reached the stage of development of the published version; and it can be understood why my father wrote on the envelope containing S the words Original ‘Silmarillion’. It is here that ‘The Silmarillion’ begins.
It will be seen that in this passage S has already the structure and some even of the phrases of the last three paragraphs of chapter 12 (‘Of Men’) in The Silmarillion.
The Fëanorian oath (ascribed here to the sons only) is embodied in the text as written, which probably shows that the interpolated passage, introducing the oath, in §5 (p. 19) was inserted while S was still in process of composition.
The words of S, ‘in the early days Eldar and Men were of nearly equal stature and power of body’, are echoed in The Silmarillion: ‘Elves and Men were of like stature and strength of body’; for statements on this matter in earlier writings see II. 326.
The ‘higher culture’ that my father came to ascribe to the Elves of Doriath (or more widely to the Grey-elves of Beleriand) is now established (‘Only in the realm of Doriath … did the Ilkorins equal the Koreldar’); contrast the description of the Ilkorins of Tinwelint’s following in the old Tale of Tinúviel (‘eerie they were and strange beings, knowing little of light or loveliness or of musics …’), concerning which I noted that Tinwelint’s people are there described in terms applicable rather to the wild Avari of The Silmarillion (see II. 9, 64). It is however said in this passage of the tale that ‘Different indeed did they become when the Sun arose.’
The ideas expressed here concerning the nature of the immortality of the Elves go back largely to the Lost Tales; cf. the description of the hall of Mandos in The Coming of the Valar (I. 76):
Thither in after days fared the Elves of all the clans who were by illhap slain with weapons or did die of grief for those that were slain – and only so might the Eldar die, and then it was only for a while. There Mandos spake their doom, and there they waited in the darkness, dreaming of their past deeds, until such time as he appointed when they might again be born into their children, and go forth to laugh and sing again.
Similarly in The Music of the Ainur (I. 59) it is said that ‘the Eldar dwell till the Great End unless they be slain or waste in grief (for to both of these deaths are they subject)’, and ‘dying they are reborn in their children, so that their number minishes not, nor grows’. But in the early texts death by sickness is not mentioned, and this appears for the first time in S: where by emendation there is a modification of the idea, from freedom from all sickness to freedom from death by sickness. Moreover in the early texts rebirth in their own children seems to be represented as the universal fate of the Eldar who die; whereas in S they are said to return from Mandos ‘to free life’. Rebirth is mentioned in S very briefly and only in a later interpolation.
In S my father’s conception of the fate of Men after death is seen evolving (for the extremely puzzling account in the Lost Tales see I. 77, 90–3). As he first wrote S, there was an explicit assertion that Men did not go to Mandos, did not pass to the western land: this was an idea derived from contact with the Eldar. But he changed this, and wrote instead that Men do indeed go to their own halls in Mandos, for a time; none know whither they go after, save Mandos himself.
On the ‘fading’ of the Elves who remained ‘in the world’ see II. 326.
Neither the brief outlines for what was to have been Gilfanon’s tale of The Travail of the Noldoli (I. 237–41) nor the subsequent abandoned narrative given on pp. 6–8 bear much relation to what came after. Enduring features were the camp by Asgon-Mithrim, the death of Fëanor, the first affray with the Orcs, the capture and maiming of Maidros; but these elements had different motivations and concomitants in the earliest writing, already discussed (I. 242–3). With the ‘Sketch’, however, most of the essentials of the later story appear fully-formed, and the distance travelled from the Lost Tales is here even more striking than hitherto.
The first battle of the Gnomes with the forces of Morgoth is not clearly placed in S (cf. Gilfanon’s Tale, I. 238, 240, where the battle was fought ‘in the foothills of the Iron Mountains’ or in ‘the pass of the Bitter Hills’) – but the idea is already present that the Orcs were aroused by the burning of the ships (cf. §5: ‘The same light also tells the Orcs of the landing’.)
There now emerge the death of Fëanor at the hand of Gothmog the Balrog, the parley with the enemy and the faithless intentions on both sides, the arrival of the second host, unfurling their blue and silver banners (see p. 9) under the first Sunrise, and the dismay of the Orcs at the new light, the hostile armies of the Gnomes encamped on opposite sides of Lake Mithrim, the ‘vast smokes and vapours’ rising from Angband. The only important structural element in the narrative that has yet to appear is that of Fingolfin’s march to Angband immediately on arrival in Middle-earth and his beating on the doors.
The earlier existence of the story of the rescue of Maidros by Finweg (Fingon) is implied by a reference in the Lay of the Children of Húrin (see III. 65, 86) – that in the Lay of Leithian is some two years later than S (III. 222). A curious point arises in the account in S: it seems that it was only at this juncture that Manwë brought into being the race of Eagles. In the tale of The Theft of Melko Sorontur (the ‘Elvish’ form of Gnomish Thorndor) had already played a part in the story before the departure of the Noldoli from Valinor: he was the emissary of the Valar to Melko before the destruction of the Trees, and because Melko tried to slay the Eagle
