The Lays of Beleriand (21 page)

Lastly, at line 812 a pencilled note against the name Taingwethil (Taniquetil) says 'English Tindbrenting'. This name is found in notes on the Old English forms of Elvish names (see p. 87), Tindbrenting pe pa Brega Taniquetil nemnad ('Tindbrenting which the Valar name Taniquetil'; Old English bregu 'king, lord, ruler' = 'Vala'). The name is perhaps to be derived from Old English tind 'projecting spike' (Modern English tine) and brenting (a derivative of brant 'steep, lofty'), here used in an unrecorded sense (brenting occurs only once in recorded Old English, in Beowulf, where it means 'ship').

*

Verses associated with The Children of Hurin.

There is a poem found in three manuscripts, all on 'Oxford' paper (see p. 81), in which my father developed elements in the passage lines 2082 - 2113 in The Children of Hurin to a short independent work. The first text has no title, and reads:

The high summer

waned to autumn, and western gales

the leaves loosened from labouring boughs.

The feet of the forest in fading gold

and burnished brown were buried deeply; 5

a restless rustle down the roofless aisles

sighed and whispered. The Silver Wherry,

the sailing moon with slender mast

was filled with fires as of furnace hot;

its hold hoarded the heats of summer, 10

its shrouds were shaped of shining flame

uprising ruddy o'er the rim of Evening

by the misty wharves on the margin of the world.

Then winter hastened and weathers hardened,

and sleet and snow and slanting rain 15

from glowering heaven, grey and sunless,

whistling whiplash whirled by tempest,

the lands forlorn lashed and tortured:

floods were loosened, the fallow waters

sweeping seaward, swollen, angry, 20

filled with flotsam, foaming, turbid

passed in tumult. The tempest failed:

frost descended from the far mountains,

steel-cold and still. Stony-glinting

icehung evening was opened wide, 25

a dome of crystal over deep silence,

the windless wastes, the woods standing

frozen phantoms under flickering stars.

Against deeply in line 5 is given thickly as an alternative reading, and against Wherry in line 7 is given vessel.

The first 13 lines of this are almost identical to 2082 - 94 in the Lay, with only a few slight changes (mostly for the common purpose in my father's revisions of his alliterative verse of making the lines more taut).

Then follow in lines 14 - 16 adaptations of 2102 - 4; 17 is a new line; 18

contains a part of 2119; 19 - 22a are based on 2106 - 9a; 22b) - 24 are new; and 25 - 8 are almost the same as 2110 - 13.

The second version of the poem bears the title Storm over Narog, and is much developed. This version as written retained lines 14 - 15 from the first, but they were changed and expanded to three; and the third text, entitled Winter comes to Nargothrond, is a copy of the second with this alteration and one or two other very slight changes. I give the third text here.

Winter comes to Nargothrond.

The summer slowly in the sad forest

waned and faded. In the west arose

winds that wandered over warring seas.

Leaves were loosened from labouring boughs:

fallow-gold they fell, and the feet buried 5

of trees standing tall and naked,

rustling restlessly down roofless aisles,

shifting and drifting.

The shining vessel

of the sailing moon with slender mast,

with shrouds shapen of shimmering flame, 10

uprose ruddy on the rim of Evening

by the misty wharves on the margin of the world.

With winding horns winter hunted

in the weeping woods, wild and ruthless;

sleet came slashing, and slanting hail 15

from glowering heaven grey and sunless,

whistling whiplash whirled by tempest.

The floods were freed and fallow waters

sweeping seaward, swollen, angry,

filled with flotsam, foaming, turbid, 20

passed in tumult. The tempest died.

Frost descended from far mountains

steel-cold and still. Stony-glinting

icehung evening was opened wide,

a dome of crystal over deep silence, 25

over windless wastes and woods standing

as frozen phantoms under flickering stars.

On the back of Winter comes to Nargothrond are written the following verses, which arose from lines 1554 - 70 of the Lay. The poem has no title.

With the seething sea Sirion's waters,

green streams gliding into grey furrows,

murmurous mingle. There mews gather,

seabirds assemble in solemn council,

whitewinged hosts whining sadly 5

with countless voices in a country of sand:

plains and mountains of pale yellow

sifting softly in salt breezes,

sere and sunbleached. At the sea's margin

a shingle lies, long and shining 10

with pebbles like pearl or pale marble:

when the foam of waves down the wind flieth

in spray they sparkle; splashed at evening

in the moon they glitter; moaning, grinding,

in the dark they tumble; drawing and rolling, 15

when strongbreasted storm the streams driveth in a war of waters to the walls of land.

When the Lord of Ocean his loud trumpets

in the abyss bloweth to battle sounding,

longhaired legions on lathered horses 20

with backs like whales, bridles spuming,

charge there snorting, champing seaweed;

hurled with thunder of a hundred drums

they leap the bulwarks, burst the leaguer,

through the sandmountains sweeping madly 25

up the river roaring roll in fury.

The last three lines were later placed within brackets.

It may be mentioned here that there exists a poem in rhyming couplets entitled The Children of Hurin. This extends only to 170 lines and breaks off abruptly, after a short prologue based on the opening of the later version of the alliterative Lay and an incomplete second section titled 'The Battle of Unnumbered Tears and Morgoth's Curse'. This poem comes however from a rather later period - approximately the time of the abandonment of the Lay of Leithian in the same metre, in the early 1930s, and I do not give it here.

II.

POEMS EARLY ABANDONED.

During his time at the University of Leeds my father embarked on five distinct poetical works concerned with the matter of the mythology; but three of these went no further than the openings. This chapter treats each of them in turn.

(i) The Flight of the Noldoli.

There do not seem to be any certain indications of the date of this brief poem in alliterative verse in relation to The Children of Hurin (though it is worth noticing that already in the earliest of the three texts of The Flight of the Noldoli Feanor's son Cranthir is so named, whereas this form only arose by emendation of Cranthor in the typescript text of the Lay (line 1719)). However, both from its general air and from various details it can be seen that it comes from the same time; and since it seems unlikely that (on the one hand) my father would have embarked on a new poem in alliterative verse unless he had laid the other aside, or that (on the other) he would have returned to this mode once he was fully engaged on a long poem in rhyming couplets, I think it very probable that The Flight of the Noldoli comes from the earlier part of 1925 (see PP. 3, 81).

Each of the three manuscripts of the poem (A, B, and C) is differently titled: A has The Flight of the Gnomes as sung in the Halls of Thingol; B (pencilled in later) Flight of the Gnomes; C The Flight of the Noldoli from Valinor. A has emendations that are taken up in the text of B, and B has emendations taken up in C; almost all are characteristic metrical/verbal rearrangements, as for example in line 17: A in anguish mourning, emended to the reading of B; B and in anguish mourn, emended to the reading of C; C mourning in anguish.

As generally in this book, earlier variants that have no bearing on names or story are not cited. Each text ends at the same point, but three further lines are roughly written in the margin of A (see note to line 146).

I give now the text of the third version, C.

THE FLIGHT OF THE NOLDOLI

FROM VALINOR.

A! the Trees of Light, tall and shapely,

gold and silver, more glorious than the sun,

than the moon more magical, o'er the meads of the Gods their fragrant frith and flowerladen

gardens gleaming, once gladly shone. 5

In death they are darkened, they drop their leaves from blackened branches bled by Morgoth

and Ungoliant the grim the Gloomweaver.

In spider's form despair and shadow

a shuddering fear and shapeless night 10

she weaves in a web of winding venom

that is black and breathless. Their branches fail, the light and laughter of their leaves are quenched.

Mirk goes marching, mists of blackness,

through the halls of the Mighty hushed and empty, 15

the gates of the Gods are in gloom mantled.

Lo! the Elves murmur mourning in anguish,

but no more shall be kindled the mirth of Cor in the winding ways of their walled city,

towercrowned Tun, whose twinkling lamps 20

are drowned in darkness. The dim fingers

of fog come floating from the formless waste

and sunless seas. The sound of horns,

of horses' hooves hastening wildly

in hopeless hunt, they hear afar, 25

where the Gods in wrath those guilty ones

through mournful shadow, now mounting as a tide o'er the Blissful Realm, in blind dismay

pursue unceasing. The city of the Elves

is thickly thronged. On threadlike stairs 30

carven of crystal countless torches

stare and twinkle, stain the twilight

and gleaming balusters of green beryl.

A vague rumour of rushing voices,

as myriads mount the marble paths, 35

there fills and troubles those fair places

wide ways of Tun and walls of pearl.

Of the Three Kindreds to that clamorous throng are none but the Gnomes in numbers drawn.

The Elves of Ing to the ancient halls 40

and starry gardens that stand and gleam

upon Timbrenting towering mountain

that day had climbed to the cloudy-domed

mansions of Manwe for mirth and song.

There Bredhil the Blessed the bluemantled, 45

the Lady of the heights as lovely as the snow in lights gleaming of the legions of the stars, the cold immortal Queen of mountains,

too fair and terrible too far and high

for mortal eyes, in Manwe's court 50

sat silently as they sang to her.

The Foam-riders, folk of waters,

Elves of the endless echoing beaches,

of the bays and grottoes and the blue lagoons, of silver sands sown with moonlit, 55

starlit, sunlit, stones of crystal,

paleburning gems pearls and opals,

on their shining shingle, where now shadows groping clutched their laughter, quenched in mourning their mirth and wonder, in amaze wandered 60

under cliffs grown cold calling dimly,

or in shrouded ships shuddering waited

for the light no more should be lit for ever.

But the Gnomes were numbered by name and kin, marshalled and ordered in the mighty square 65

upon the crown of Cor. There cried aloud

the fierce son of Finn. Flaming torches

he held and whirled in his hands aloft,

those hands whose craft the hidden secret

knew, that none Gnome or mortal 70

hath matched or mastered in magic or in skill.

'Lo! slain is my' sire by the sword of fiends, his death he has drunk at the doors of his hall and deep fastness, where darkly hidden

the Three were guarded, the things unmatched 75

that Gnome and Elf and the Nine Valar

can never remake or renew on earth,

recarve or rekindle by craft or magic,

not Feanor Finn's son who fashioned them of yore -

the light is lost whence he lit them first, 80

the fate of Faerie hath found its hour

Thus the witless wisdom its reward hath earned of the Gods' jealousy, who guard us here

to serve them, sing to them in our sweet cages, to contrive them gems and jewelled trinkets, 85

their leisure to please with our loveliness,

while they waste and squander work of ages,

nor can Morgoth master in their mansions sitting at countless councils. Now come ye all,

who have courage and hope! My call harken 90

to flight, to freedom in far places!

The woods of the world whose wide mansions

yet in darkness dream drowned in slumber,

the pathless plains and perilous shores

no moon yet shines on nor mounting dawn 95

in dew and daylight hath drenched for ever,

far better were these for bold footsteps

than gardens of the Gods gloom-encircled

with idleness filled and empty days.

Yea! though the light lit them and the loveliness 100

beyond heart's desire that hath held us slaves here long and long. But that light is dead.