References to it have appeared in print in Unfinished Tales, pp. 395–6, in the remarks on Gandalf: ‘Manwë will not descend from the Mountain until the Dagor Dagorath, and the coming of the End, when Melkor returns’, and in the alliterative poem accompanying this, ‘until Dagor Dagorath and the Doom cometh’. The earliest references are probably in the outline C (II. 282), where (when the Pine of Belaurin is cut down) ‘Melko is thus now out of the world – but one day he will find a way back, and the last great uproars will begin before the Great End’. In the Lost Tales there are many references to the Great End, most of which do not concern us here; but at the end of the tale of The Hiding of Valinor is told (I. 219) of ‘that great foreboding that was spoken among the Gods when first the Door of Night was opened’:
For ’tis said that ere the Great End come Melko shall in some wise contrive a quarrel between Moon and Sun, and Ilinsor shall seek to follow Urwendi through the Gates, and when they are gone the Gates of both East and West will be destroyed, and Urwendi and Ilinsor shall be lost. So shall it be that Fionwë Úrion, son of Manwë, of love for Urwendi shall in the end be Melko’s bane, and shall destroy the world to destroy his foe, and so shall all things then be rolled away.
(Cf. the outline C, II. 281: ‘Fionwë’s rage and grief [at the death of Urwendi]. In the end he will slay Melko.’) Whether any of this prophecy underlies the idea of the ultimate return of Morgoth through the Door of Night I cannot say. At the end of the Tale of Turambar, after the account of the ‘deification’ of Túrin and Nienor, there is a prophecy (II. 116) that
Turambar indeed shall stand beside Fionwë in the Great Wrack, and Melko and his drakes shall curse the sword of Mormakil.
But there is no indication in S of how ‘the spirit of Túrin’ will survive to slay Morgoth in the ultimate battle on the plain of Valinor.
That the Mountains of Valinor shall be levelled, so that the light of the rekindled Trees goes out over all the world, is also found in the earliest texts; cf. the isolated passage in C (II. 285) where is told the Elves’ prophecy of the (second) Faring Forth:
Laurelin and Silpion will be rekindled, and the mountain wall being destroyed then soft radiance will be spread over all the world, and the Sun and Moon will be recalled.
But this prophecy is associated with other conceptions that had clearly been abandoned.
At the end, with the aid of the Silmaril Elwing is found and restored, but there is no indication of how the Silmaril was used to this purpose. Elwing in this account sails with Eärendel, who bears the third Silmaril, and so he shall sail until he sees ‘the last battle gathering upon the plains of Valinor’.
On the reappearance of the name Eriol at the very end of S see II. 300.
I do not intend here to relate this version to that in the published work, but will conclude this long discussion of the concluding sections 17–19 with a brief summary. As I have said, S is here extremely condensed, and it is here even harder than elsewhere to know or guess what of the old material my father had suppressed and what was still ‘potentially’ present. But in any case nothing of the old layer that is not present in S was ever to reappear.
In the present version, Eärendel has still not come to his supreme function as the Messenger who spoke before the Powers on behalf of the Two Kindreds, though the birds of Gondolin have been abandoned as the bringers of tidings to Valinor, and Ulmo becomes the sole agent of the final assault on Morgoth out of the West. The voyages of Eärendel have been simplified: he now has the one great voyage–without Voronwë – in Wingelot, in which he slew Ungoliant, and the second voyage, with Voronwë, which takes him to Kôr – and the desertion of Kôr (Tûn) still depends on the March of the Eldar, which has already taken place when he comes there. His voyage into the sky is now achieved by the wings of birds; and the Silmaril still plays no part in his becoming a star, for the Silmaril of Beren and Lúthien was drowned with the Nauglafring at the Mouths of Sirion. But the Silmarils at last become central to the final acts of the mythological drama, and – unlike the later story – only one of the two Silmarils that remained in the Iron Crown is made away with by a son of Fëanor (Maglor); the second is given to Eärendel by the Gods, and the later story is visible at the end of S, where his boat ‘is drawn over Valinor to the Outer Seas’ and launched into the Outer Dark, where he sails with the Silmaril on his brow, keeping watch on Morgoth.
The destruction of the people of Sirion’s Mouths now becomes the final evil of the Oath of Fëanor. Elrond appears, with a remarkable reference to the choice given to him as half-elven. The coming of the hosts of the West to the overthrow of Morgoth is now an act of the Valar, and the hosts are led by the Sons of the Valar. England, as Lúthien (Leithien), remains as the land from which the Elves of the Great Lands set sail at the end for Tol Eressëa; but I suspect that virtually all the highly complex narrative which I attempted to reconstruct (II. 308–9) had gone – Eärendel and Ing(wë) and the hostility of Ossë, the Ingwaiwar, the seven invasions of Luthany.
The original ideas of the conclusion of the Elder Days (Melko’s climbing of the Pine of Belaurin, the cutting down of the Pine, the warding of the sky by Telimektar and Ingil (Orion and Sirius), II. 281–2) have disappeared; in S, Morgoth is thrust through the Door of Night, and Eärendel becomes its guardian and guarantee against Morgoth’s return, until the End. And lastly, and most pregnant for the future, Thû escapes the Last Battle when Morgoth was overcome, ‘and dwells still in dark places’.
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