The Lays of Beleriand (23 page)

and songs unfolded, but say I further...

and the concluding lines refer to the sojourn of the fugitives in the Land of Willows. But at the end of the text my father wrote several times in different scripts 'Earendel', 'Earendel son of Fengel', 'Earendel Fengelsson'; and I think it extremely likely, even almost certain, that this poem was to be a Lay of Earendel. (On Fengel see the next section.) The text is in the first stage of composition and is exceedingly rough, but it contains one line of the utmost interest for the history of Earendel.

It is written on examination paper from the University of Leeds and clearly belongs in time with The Lay of the Children of Hurin and The Flight of the Noldoli: more than that seems impossible to say.

Lo! the flame of fire and fierce hatred

engulfed Gondolin and its glory fell,

its tapering towers and its tall rooftops

were laid all low, and its leaping fountains

made no music more on the mount of Gwareth, 5

and its whitehewn walls were whispering ash.

But Wade of the Helsings wearyhearted )

Tur the earthborn was tried in battle

from the wrack and ruin a remnant led

women and children and wailing maidens

and wounded men of the withered folk 10

down the path unproven that pierced the hillside, neath Tumladin he led them to the leaguer of hills that rose up rugged as ranged pinnacles

to the north of the vale. There the narrow way of Cristhorn was cloven, the Cleft of Eagles, IS

through the midmost mountains. And more is told in lays and in legend and lore of others

of that weary way of the wandering folk;

how the waifs of Gondolin outwitted Melko,

vanished o'er the vale and vanquished the hills, 20

how Glorfindel the golden in the gap of the Eagles battled with the Balrog and both were slain:

one like flash of fire from fanged rock,

one like bolted thunder black was smitten

to the dreadful deep digged by Thornsir. 25

Of the thirst and hunger of the thirty moons

when they sought for Sirion and were sore bestead by plague and peril; of the Pools of Twilight and Land of Willows; when their lamentation

was heard in the halls where the high Gods sate 30

veiled in Valinor .. the Vanished Isles;

all this have others in ancient stories

and songs unfolded, but say I further

how their lot was lightened, how they laid them down in long grasses of the Land of Willows. 35

There sun was softer, ... the sweet breezes

and whispering winds, there wells of slumber

and the dew enchanted

*

NOTES.

The next lines are

where stony-voiced that stream of Eagles

runs o'er the rocky

but the second of these is struck out and the first left without continuation.

31. The second half-line was written in the Vanished Isles, but in was struck out and replaced by a word that I cannot interpret.

36. The second half-line was written and the sweet breezes, but and was struck out and replaced by some other word, possibly then.

Commentary.

For the form Tur see I I. 148, 260.

In the tale of The Fall of Gondolin Cristhorn, the Eagles' Cleft, was in the Encircling Mountains south of Gondolin, and the secret tunnel led southwards from the city (II. 167 - 8 etc.); but from line 14 of this fragment it is seen that the change to the north had already entered the legend.

Lines 26 - 7 (the thirty moons when they sought for Sirion) go back to the Fall of Gondolin, where it is said that the fugitives wandered

'a year and more' in the wastes (see II. 195, 214).

The reading of line 7 as first written (it was not struck out, but Tur the earthborn was tried in battle was added in the margins): But Wade of the Helsings wearyhearted

is remarkable. It is taken directly from the very early Old English poem Widsith, where occurs the line Wada Haelsingum, sc. Wada [weold]

Haelsingum, 'Wada ruled the Haelsingas'. One may well wonder why the mysterious figure of Wade should appear here in Tuor's place, and indeed I cannot explain it: but whatever the reason, the association of Wade with Tuor is not casual. Of the original story of Wade almost nothing is known; but he survived in popular recollection through the Middle Ages and later - he is mentioned by Malory as a mighty being, and Chaucer refers to 'Wade's boat' in The Merchant's Tale; in Troilus and Crisyede Pandare told a 'tale of Wade'. R. W. Chambers (Widsith, Cambridge 1912, p. 95) said that Wade was perhaps 'originally a sea-giant, dreaded and honoured by the coast tribes of the North Sea and the Baltic'; and the tribe of the Haelsingas over which he is said to have ruled in Widsith is supposed to have left its name in Helsingor (Elsinore) in Denmark and in Helsingfors in Finland. Chambers summed up what few generalities he thought might be made from the scattered references in English and German as follows:

We find these common characteristics, which we may assume belonged to their ancient prototype, Wada of the Haelsingas: (1) Power over the sea.

(2) Extraordinary strength - often typified by superhuman stature.

(3) The use of these powers to help those whom Wade favours.

... Probably he grew out of the figure, not of a historic chief, but of a -

supernatural power, who had no story all his own, and who interested mortal men only when he interfered in their concerns. Hence he is essentially a helper in time of need; and we may be fairly confident that already in the oldest lays he possessed this character.

Most interesting, however, is the fact that in Speght's annotations to Chaucer (1598) he said:

Concerning Wade and his bote Guingelot, as also his strange exploits in the same, because the matter is long and fabulous, I passe it over.

The likeness of Guingelot to Wingelot is sufficiently striking; but when we place together the facts that Wingelot was Earendel's ship,* that Earendel was Tuor's son, that Tuor was peculiarly associated with the sea, and that here 'Wade of the Helsings' stands in the place of Tuor, coincidence is ruled out. Wingelot was derived from Wade's boat, Guingelot as certainly, I think, as was Earendel from the Old English figure (this latter being a fact expressly stated by my father, II. 309).

Why my father should have intruded 'Wade of the Helsings' into the, verses at this point is another question. It may conceivably have been unintentional - the words Wada Haelsingum were running in his mind (though in that case one might expect that he would have struck the line out and not merely written another line against it as an alternative): but at any rate the reason why they were running in his mind is clear, and this possibility in no way diminishes the demonstrative value of the line that Wingelot was derived from Guingelot, and that there was a connection of greater significance than the mere taking over of a name- just as in the case of Earendel.

*

(iii) The Lay of the Fall of Condolin.

This was the title that late in his life my father wrote on the bundle of papers constituting the abandoned beginning of this poem; but it seems that it was not conceived on a large scale, since the narrative had reached In which he undertook 'fabulous exploits'. It is conceivable that there was some connection between Earendel's great world-girdling voyage and the travels of Wade as described by the twelfth-century English writer Walter Map, who tells how Gado (sc. Wade) journeyed in his boat to the furthest Indies.

the dragon-fire arising over the northern heights already within 130 lines.

That he composed it while at the University of Leeds is certain, but I strongly suspect that it was the first versification of matter from the Lost Tales undertaken, before he turned to the alliterative line. The story, so far as it goes, has undergone virtually no development from the prose tale of The Fall of Condolin, and the closeness of the Lay to the Tale can be seen from this comparison (though the passage is exceptional): (Tale, II. 158)

Rejoice that ye have found it, for behold before you the City of Seven Names where all who war with Melko may find hope.'

Then said Tuor: 'What be those names?' And the chief of the Guard made answer: "Tis said and 'tis sung: "Gondobar am I called and Gondothlimbar, City of Stone and City of the Dwellers in Stone, &c.

(Lay) Rejoice that ye have found it and rest from endless war, For the seven-named city 'tis that stands upon the hill, Where all who strive with Morgoth find hope and valour still.'

'What be those names,' said Tuor, 'for I come from long afar?'

"Tis said and 'tis sung,' one answered, '"My name is Gondobar And Gondothlimbar also, the City hewn of Stone, The fortress of the Gnome-folk who dwell in Halls of Stone, &c.

I do not give this poem in extenso here, since it does not, so far as the main narrative is concerned, add anything to the Tale; and my father found, as I think, the metrical form unsuitable to the purpose. There are,

: however, several passages of interest for the study of the larger development of the legends.

In the Tale, Tuor was the son of Peleg (who was the son of Indor, II. 160), but here he is the son of Fengel; while on a scrap of paper giving rough workings of the passage cited above* Tuor himself is called Fengel

- cf. 'Earendel son of Fengel' at the end of the fragment of an Earendel Lay, p. 141. Long afterwards Fengel was the name of the fifteenth King of Rohan in the Third Age, grandfather of Theoden, and there it is the

, 'Old English noun fengel 'king, prince'.

There are some puzzling statements made concerning Fingolfin, whose appearance here, I feel certain, is earlier than those in the alliterative poems; and the passage in which he appears introduces also the story of Isfin and Eol.

(* This is the page referred to in Unfinished Tales p. 4: some lines of verse in which appear the Seven Names of Gondolin are scribbled on the back of a piece of paper setting out "the chain of responsibility in a battalion".' Not knowing at that time where this isolated scrap came from I took this as an indication of very carly date, but this is certainly mistaken: the paper must have survived and been used years later for rough writing.) Lo, that prince of Gondobar [Meglin]

dark Eol's son whom Isfin, in a mountain dale afar in the gloom of Doriath's forest, the white-limbed maiden bare, the daughter of Fingolfin, Gelmir's mighty heir.

'Twas the bent blades of the Glamhoth that drank Fingolfin's life as he stood alone by Feanor; but his maiden and his wife were wildered as they sought him in the forests of the night, in the pathless woods of Doriath, so dark that as a light of palely mirrored moonsheen were their slender elfin limbs straying among the black holes where only the dim bat skims from Thu's dark-delved caverns. There Eol saw that sheen and he caught the white-limbed Isfin, that she ever since hath been his mate in Doriath's forest, where she weepeth in the gloam; for the Dark Elves were his kindred that wander without home.

Meglin she sent to Gondolin, and his honour there was high as the latest seed of Fingolfin, whose glory shall not die; a lordship he won of the Gnome-folk who quarry deep in the earth, seeking their ancient jewels; but little was his mirth, and dark he was and secret and his hair as the strands of night that are tangled in Taur Fuin* the forest without light.

In the Lost Tales Finwe Noleme, first Lord of the Noldoli, was the '

father of Turgon (and so of Isfin, who was Turgon's sister), I. 115; '

Finwe Noleme was slain in the Battle of Unnumbered Tears and his -'

heart cut out by Orcs, but Turgon rescued the body and heart of his father, and the Scarlet Heart became his grim emblem (I. 241, II. 172).

Finwe Noleme is also called Fingolma (I. 238 - 9, II. 220).

In the alliterative poems Fingolfin is the son of Finwe (Finweg) and the father of Turgon, and also of Finweg (> Fingon), as he was to remain, (see p. 137). Thus:

Lost Tales.

Finwe Noleme (Fingolma)

(slain in the Battle of

Unnumbered Tean).

Turgon. Isfin.

Alliterative Poems.

Finwe.

Fingolfin.

Turgon. Finweg (> Fingon):

(slain in the Battle

of Unnumbered Tears).

But whereas in the Lay of the Fall of Condolin Fingolfin has (* Taur Fuin is the form in the Lost Tales; it was here emended later to Taur-na-Fuin, which is the form from the first in The Children of IIurin.) emerged and stepped into Finwe's place as the father of Turgon and Isfin, he is not here the son of Finwe but of one Gelmir: Gelmir.

Turgon Isfin.

In an early prose text - one of the very few scraps (to be given in the next volume) that bridge the gap in the prose history between the Lost Tales and the 'Sketch of the Mythology' - Gelmir appears as the King of the Noldoli at the time of the flight from Valinor, and one of his sons is there named Golfin.

There is too little evidence extant (if there ever was any more written down) to penetrate with certainty the earliest evolution of the Noldorin kings. The simplest explanation is that this Gelmir, father of Golfin/

Fingolfin = Fingolma/Finwe Noleme, father of Fingolfin. But it is also said in this passage that Fingolfin was slain by the Glamhoth 'as he stood alone by Feanor', and whatever story lies behind this is now vanished (for the earliest, very obscure, references to the death of Feanor see I. 238 - 9).

This passage from the Lay of the Fall of Gondolin contains the first account of the story of Eol the Dark Elf, Isfin sister of Turgon, and their son Meglin (for a very primitive form of the legend see II. 220). In the prose tale of The Fall of Gondolin the story is dismissed in the words