The Book Of Lost Tales: Part I Part 16

Commentary on

The Tale of the Sun and Moon

The effect of the opening of this tale is undoubtedly to emphasize more strongly than in the later accounts the horror aroused by the deeds of the Noldoli (notable is Aul's bitterness against them, of which nothing is said afterwards), and also the finality and absoluteness of their exclusion from Valinor. But the idea that some Gnomes remained in Valinor (the Aulenoss, p. 176) survived; cf. The Silmarillion p. 84: And of all the Noldor in Valinor, who were grown now to a great people, but one t.i.the refused to take the road: some for the love that they bore to the Valar (and to Aul not least), some for the love of Tirion and the many things that they had made; none for fear of peril by the way.

Sorontur's mission and the tidings that he brought back were to be abandoned. Very striking is his account of the empty s.h.i.+ps drifting, of which 'some were burning with bright fires': the origin of Fanor's burning of the s.h.i.+ps of the Teleri at Losgar in The Silmarillion (p. 90), where however there is a more evident reason for doing so. That Melko's second dwelling-place in the Great Lands was distinct from Utumna is here expressly stated, as also that it was in the Iron Mountains (cf. p. 149, 158); the name Angamandi 'h.e.l.ls of Iron' has occurred once in the Lost Tales, in the very strange account of the fate of Men after death (p. 77). In later accounts Angband was built on the site of Utumno, but finally they were separated again, and in The Silmarillion Angband had existed from ancient days before the captivity of Melkor (p. 47). It is not explained in the present tale why 'never more will Utumna open to him' (p. 176), but doubtless it was because Tulkas and Ulmo broke its gates and piled hills of stone upon them (p. 104).

In the next part of the tale (p. 177 ff.) much light is cast on my father's early conception of the powers and limitations of the great Valar. Thus Yavanna and Manw (brought to this realization by Yavanna?) are shown to believe that the Valar have done ill, or at least failed to achieve the wider designs of Ilvatar ('I have it in mind that this [time of darkness] is not without the desire of Ilvatar'): the idea of 'selfish', inward-looking G.o.ds is plainly expressed, G.o.ds content to tend their gardens and devise their devisings behind their mountains, leaving 'the world' to shape itself as it may. And this realization is an essential element in their conceiving the making of the Sun and Moon, which are to be such bodies as may light not only 'the blessed realms' (an expression which occurs here for the first time, p. 182) but all the rest of the dark Earth. Of all this there is only a trace in The Silmarillion (p. 99): These things the Valar did, recalling in their twilight the darkness of the lands of Arda; and they resolved now to illumine Middle-earth and with light to hinder the deeds of Melkor.

Of much interest also is the 'theological' statement in the early narrative concerning the binding of the Valar to the World as the condition of their entering it (p. 182); cf. The Silmarillion p. 20: But this condition Ilvatar made, or it is the necessity of their love, that their power should thenceforward be contained and bounded in the World, to be within it for ever, until it is complete, so that they are its life and it is theirs.

In the tale this condition is an express physical limitation: none of the Valar, save Manw and Varda and their attendant spirits, could pa.s.s into the higher airs above Vilna, though they could move at great speed within the lowest air.

From the pa.s.sage on p. 178, where it is said that Ulmo, despite his love for the Solosimpi and grief at the Kinslaying, was yet not filled with anger against the Noldoli, for he 'was foreknowing more than all the G.o.ds, even than great Manw', it is seen that Ulmo's peculiar concern for the exiled Eldar-which plays such an important if mysterious part in the development of the story-was there from the beginning; as also was Yavanna's thought, expressed in The Silmarillion p. 78: Even for those who are mightiest under Ilvatar there is some work that they may accomplish once, and once only. The Light of the Trees I brought into being, and within E I can do so never again.

Yavanna's reference to the Magic Sun and its relighting (which has appeared in the toast drunk in the evening in the Cottage of Lost Play, p. 17, 65) is obviously intended to be obscure at this stage.

There is no later reference to the story of the wastage of light by Lrien and Vna, pouring it over the roots of the Trees unavailingly.

Turning to Lindo's account of the stars (p. 1812), Morwinyon has appeared in an earlier tale (p. 114), with the story that Varda dropped it 'as she fared in great haste back to Valinor', and that it 'blazes above the world's edge in the west' in the present tale Morwinyon (which according to both the Qenya and Gnomish word-lists is Arcturus) is again strangely represented as being a luminary always of the western sky. It is said here that while some of the stars were guided by the Mnir and the Sruli 'on mazy courses', others, including Morwinyon and Nielluin, 'abode where they hung and moved not'. Is the explanation of this that in the ancient myths of the Elves there was a time when the regular apparent movement of all the heavenly bodies from East to West had not yet begun? This movement is nowhere explained mythically in my father's cosmology.

Nielluin ('Blue Bee') is Sirius (in The Silmarillion called h.e.l.luin), and this star had a place in the legend of Telimektar son of Tulkas, though the story of his conversion into the constellation of Orion was never clearly told (cf. Telumehtar 'Orion' in The Lord of the Rings Appendix E, I). Nielluin was Inw's son Ingil, who followed Telimektar 'in the likeness of a great bee bearing honey of flame' (see the Appendix on Names under Ingil and Telimektar).

The course of the Sun and Moon between East and West (rather than in some other direction) is here given a rationale, and the reason for avoiding the South is Ungweliant's presence there. This seems to give Ungweliant a great importance and also a vast area subject to her power of absorbing light. It is not made clear in the tale of The Darkening of Valinor where her dwelling was. It is said (p. 151) that Melko wandered 'the dark plains of Eruman, and farther south than anyone yet had penetrated he found a region of the deepest gloom'-the region where he found the cavern of Ungweliant, which had 'a subterranean outlet on the sea' and after the destruction of the Trees Ungweliant 'gets her gone southward and over the mountains to her home' (p. 154). It is impossible to tell from the vague lines on the little map (p. 81) what was at this time the configuration of the southern lands and seas.

In comparison with the last part of the tale, concerning the last fruit of Laurelin and the last flower of Silpion, the making from them of the Sun and Moon, and the launching of their vessels (p. 18395), Chapter XI of The Silmarillion (const.i.tuted from two later versions not greatly dissimilar the one from the other) is extremely brief. Despite many differences the later versions read in places almost as summaries of the early story, but it is often hard to say whether the shortening depends rather on my father's feeling (certainly present, see p. 174) that the description was too long, was taking too large a place in the total structure, or an actual rejection of some of the ideas it contains, and a desire to diminish the extreme 'concreteness' of its images. Certainly there is here a revelling in materials of 'magic' property, gold, silver, crystal, gla.s.s, and above all light conceived as a liquid element, or as dew, as honey, an element that can be bathed in and gathered into vessels, that has quite largely disappeared from The Silmarillion (although, of course, the idea of light as liquid, dripping down, poured and h.o.a.rded, sucked up by Ungoliant, remained essential to the conception of the Trees, this idea becomes in the later writing less palpable and the divine operations are given less 'physical' explanation and justification).

As a result of this fullness and intensity of description, the origin of the Sun and Moon in the last fruit and last flower of the Trees has less of mystery than in the succinct and beautiful language of The Silmarillion; but also much is said here to emphasize the great size of the 'Fruit of Noon', and the increase in the heat and brilliance of the Suns.h.i.+p after its launching, so that the reflection rises less readily that if the Sun that brilliantly illumines the whole Earth was but one fruit of Laurelin then Valinor must have been painfully bright and hot in the days of the Trees. In the early story the last outpourings of life from the dying Trees are utterly strange and 'enormous', those of Laurelin portentous, even ominous; the Sun is astoundingly bright and hot even to the Valar, who are awestruck and disquieted by what has been done (the G.o.ds knew 'that they had done a greater thing than they at first knew', p. 190); and the anger and distress of certain of the Valar at the burning light of the Sun enforces the feeling that in the last fruit of Laurelin a terrible and unforeseen power has been released. This distress does indeed survive in The Silmarillion (p. 100), in the reference to 'the prayers of Lrien and Est, who said that sleep and rest had been banished from the Earth, and the stars were hidden' but in the tale the blasting power of the new Sun is intensely conveyed in the images of 'the heat dancing above the trees' in the gardens of Lrien, the silent nightingales, the withered poppies and the drooping evening flowers.

In the old story there is a mythical explanation of the Moon's phases (though not of eclipses), and of the markings on its face through the story of the breaking of the withered bough of Silpion and the fall of the Moonflower-a story altogether at variance with the explanation given in The Silmarillion (ibid.). In the tale the fruit of Laurelin also fell to the ground, when Aul stumbled and its weight was too great for Tulkas to bear alone: the significance of this event is not made perfectly clear, but it seems that, had the Fruit of Noon not burst asunder, Aul would not have understood its structure and conceived that of the Suns.h.i.+p.

To whatever extent the great differences between the versions in this part of the Mythology may be due to later compression, there remain a good many actual contradictions, of which I note here only some of the more important, in addition to that concerning the markings on the Moon already mentioned. Thus in The Silmarillion the Moon rose first, 'and was the elder of the new lights as was Telperion of the Trees' (ibid.); in the old story the reverse is true both of the Trees and of the new lights. Again, in The Silmarillion it is Varda who decides their motions, and she changes these from her first plan at the plea of Lrien and Est, whereas here it is Lrien's very distress at the coming of Sunlight that leads to the last blossoming of Silpion and the making of the Moon. The Valar indeed play different roles throughout; and here far greater importance attaches to the acts of Vna and Lrien, whose relations with the Sun and Moon are at once deeper and more explicit than they afterwards became, as they had been with the Trees (see p. 71); in The Silmarillion it was Nienna who watered the Trees with her tears (p. 98). In The Silmarillion the Sun and Moon move nearer to Arda than 'the ancient stars' (p. 99), but here they move at quite different levels in the firmament.

But a feature in which later compression can be certainly discerned is the elaborate description in the tale of the Moon as 'an island of pure gla.s.s', 'a s.h.i.+mmering isle', with little lakes of the light from Telimp bordered with s.h.i.+ning flowers and a crystalline cup amidmost in which was set the Moonflower; only from this is explicable the reference in The Silmarillion to Tilion's steering 'the island of the Moon'. The aged Elf Uol Kvion (whom 'some indeed have named the Man in the Moon') seems almost to have strayed in from another conception; his presence gives difficulty in any case, since we have just been told (p. 192) that Silmo could not sail in the Moons.h.i.+p because he was not of the children of the air and could not 'cleanse his being of its earthwardness'.-An isolated heading 'Uol and Erinti' in the little pocket-book used among things for suggestions of stories to be told (see p. 171) no doubt implies that a tale was preparing on the subject of Uol cf. the Tale of Qorinrmi concerning Urwendi and Erinti's brother Fionw (p. 215). No traces of these tales are to be found and they were presumably never written. Another note in the pocket-book calls Uol Mikmi (the earlier name of Uol Kvion, see p. 198) 'King of the Moon' and a third refers to a poem 'The Man in the Moon' which is to be sung by Eriol, 'who says he will sing them a song of a legend touching Uol Mikmi as Men have it'. My father wrote a poem about the Man in the Moon in March 1915, but if it was this that he was thinking of including it would have startled the company of Mar Vanwa Tyalieva-and he would have had to change its references to places in England which were not yet in existence. Although it is very probable that he had something quite different in mind, I think it may be of interest to give this poem in an early form (see p. 204).

As the mythology evolved and changed, the Making of the Sun and Moon became the element of greatest difficulty; and in the published Silmarillion this chapter does not seem of a piece with much of the rest of the work, and could not be made to be so. Towards the end of his life my father was indeed prepared to dismantle much of what he had built, in the attempt to solve what he undoubtedly felt to be a fundamental problem.

Note on the order of the Tales The development of the Lost Tales is here in fact extremely complex. After the concluding words of The Flight of the Noldoli, 'the story of the darkening of Valinor was at an end' (p. 169), my father wrote: 'See on beyond in other books', but in fact he added subsequently the short dialogue between Lindo and Eriol ('Great was the power of Melko for ill...') which is given at the end of The Flight of the Noldoli.

The page-numbering of the notebooks shows that the next tale was to be the Tale of Tinviel, which is written in another book. This long story (to be given in Part II), the oldest extant version of 'Beren and Lthien', begins with a long Link pa.s.sage; and the curious thing is that this Link begins with the very dialogue between Lindo and Eriol just referred to, in almost identical wording, and this can be seen to be its original place; but here it was struck through.

I have mentioned earlier (p. 45) that in a letter written by my father in 1964 he said that he wrote The Music of the Ainur while working in Oxford on the staff of the Dictionary, a post that he took up in November 1918 and relinquished in the spring of 1920. In the same letter he said that he wrote '"The Fall of Gondolin" during sick-leave from the army in 1917', and 'the original version of the "Tale of Lthien Tinviel and Beren" later in the same year'. There is nothing in the ma.n.u.scripts to suggest that the tales that follow The Music of the Ainur to the point we have now reached were not written consecutively and continuously from The Music, while my father was still in Oxford.

At first sight, then, there is a hopeless contradiction in the evidence: for the Link in question refers explicitly to the Darkening of Valinor, a tale written after his appointment in Oxford at the end of 1918, but is a link to the Tale of Tinviel, which he said that he wrote in 1917. But the Tale of Tinviel (and the Link that precedes it) is in fact a text in ink written over an erased pencilled original. It is, I think, certain that this rewriting of Tinviel was considerably later. It was linked to The Flight of the Noldoli by the speeches of Lindo and Eriol (the link-pa.s.sage is integral and continuous with the Tale of Tinviel that follows it, and was not added afterwards). At this stage my father must have felt that the Tales need not necessarily be told in the actual sequence of the narrative (for Tinviel belongs of course to the time after the making of the Sun and Moon).

The rewritten Tinviel was followed with no break by a first form of the 'interlude' introducing Gilfanon of Tavrobel as a guest in the house, and this led into the Tale of the Sun and Moon. But subsequently my father changed his mind, and so struck out the dialogue of Lindo and Eriol from the beginning of the Link to Tinviel, which was not now to follow The Flight of the Noldoli, and wrote it out again in the other book at the end of that tale. At the same time he rewrote the Gilfanon 'interlude' in an extended form, and placed it at the end of The Flight of the Noldoli. Thus: Flight of the Noldoli Words of Lindo and Eriol Tale of Tinviel Gilfanon 'interlude'

Tale of the Sun and Moon and the Hiding of Valinor Flight of the Noldoli Words of Lindo and Eriol Gilfanon 'interlude' (rewritten) Tale of the Sun and Moon and the Hiding of Valinor That the rewriting of Tinviel was one of the latest elements in the composition of the Lost Tales seems clear from the fact that it is followed by the first form of the Gilfanon 'interlude', written at the same time: for Gilfanon replaced Ailios, and Ailios, not Gilfanon, is the guest in the house in the earlier versions of the Tale of the Sun and Moon and The Hiding of Valinor, and is the teller of the Tale of the Nauglafring.

The poem about the Man in the Moon exists in many texts, and was published at Leeds in 1923;* long after and much changed it was included in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (1962). I give it here in a form close to the earlier published version, but with a few (mostly very minor) alterations made subsequently. The 1923 version was only a little retouched from the earliest workings-where it has the t.i.tle 'Why the Man in the Moon came down too soon: an East Anglian phantasy' in the first finished text the t.i.tle is 'A Farie: Why the Man in the Moon came down too soon', together with one in Old English: Se Mncyning.

Why the Man in the Moon

came down too soon

The Man in the Moon had silver shoon And his beard was of silver thread; He was girt with pale gold and inaureoled With gold about his head.

4.

Clad in silken robe in his great white globe He opened an ivory door With a crystal key, and in secrecy He stole o'er a shadowy floor;

8.

Down a filigree stair of spidery hair He slipped in gleaming haste, And laughing with glee to be merry and free He swiftly earthward raced.

12.

He was tired of his pearls and diamond twirls; Of his pallid minaret Dizzy and white at its lunar height In a world of silver set;

16.

And adventured this peril for ruby and beryl And emerald and sapphire, And all l.u.s.trous gems for new diadems, Or to blazon his pale attire.

20.

He was lonely too with nothing to do But to stare at the golden world, Or strain for the hum that would distantly come As it gaily past him whirled;

24.

And at plenilune in his argent moon He had wearily longed for Fire- Not the limpid lights of wan selenites, But a red terrestrial pyre

28.

With impurpurate glows of crimson and rose And leaping orange tongue; For great seas of blues and the pa.s.sionate hues When a dancing dawn is young;

32.

For the meadowy ways like chrysoprase By winding Yare and Nen.

How he longed for the mirth of the populous Earth And the sanguine blood of men;

36.

And coveted song and laughter long And viands hot and wine, Eating pearly cakes of light snowflakes And drinking thin moons.h.i.+ne.

40.

He twinkled his feet as he thought of the meat, Of the punch and the peppery brew, Till he tripped unaware on his slanting stair, And fell like meteors do;

44.

As the whickering sparks in splas.h.i.+ng arcs Of stars blown down like rain From his laddery path took a foaming bath In the Ocean of Almain;

48.

And began to think, lest he melt and stink, What in the moon to do, When a Yarmouth boat found him far afloat, To the mazement of the crew