PART THREE.
THE DROWNING
OF ANADUNE.
With the Third Version of
THE FALL OF NUMENOR,
And Lowdham's Report on
THE ADUNAIC LANGUAGE.
THE DROWNING OF ANADUNE
(i) The third version of The Fall of Numenor
Before coming to The Drowning of Anadune it is necessary to turn
first to the original narrative of the legend of Numenor, which arose in
close association with The Lost Road (see V.9). This, The Fall of
Numenor, is extant (in addition to an initial sketch) in two versions,
given in V.13 ff., which I called FN I and FN II, the second being
closely similar to the first for the greater part of its length. Some
subsequent work was done on this text during the period of the
writing of The Lord of the Rings, including a rewriting of the passage
describing 'the World Made Round' and a development of the
concluding section concerning Beleriand and the Last Alliance (see
V.31 ff.); but since the name Ondor appears in the latter passage it
can be dated before February 1942, when Ondor became Gondor
(VII.423); at that time my father was working on Book III of The Lord
of the Rings.
Now there is a further text of The Fall of Numenor in fine
manuscript, which I referred to but did not print in Vol.V; I noted
there that 'this version, improved and altered in detail, shows however
very little further advance in narrative substance,' and concluded there-
fore that it belongs to the same period as the revisions just referred to,
i.e. to a relatively early stage in the writing of The Lord of the Rings.
Since The Drowning of Anadune shows such an extraordinary depar-
ture from The Fall of Numenor I give the third version of the latter
in full here, calling it 'FN III', to make comparison of the two works
easier. I have again introduced the paragraph numbers that I inserted
in the earlier versions; and various alterations that were made to FN III
subsequently are shown as such.
The Last Tales.
1. The Fall of Numenor.
$1 In the Great Battle, when Fionwe son of Manwe over-
threw Morgoth, the three houses of the Men of Beleriand were
friends and allies of the Elves, and they wrought many deeds of
valour. But men of other kindreds turned to evil and fought for
Morgoth, and after the victory of the Lords of the West those
that were not destroyed fled back east into Middle-earth. There
many of their race wandered still in the unharvested lands, wild
and lawless, refusing the summons alike of Fionwe and of
Morgoth to aid them in their war. And the evil men who had
served Morgoth became their masters; and the creatures of
Morgoth that escaped from the ruin of Thangorodrim came
among them and cast over them a shadow of fear. For the gods
[> Valar] forsook for a time the Men of Middle-earth who had
refused their summons and had taken the friends of Morgoth to
be their lords; and men were troubled by many evil things that
Morgoth had devised in the days of his dominion: demons, and
dragons and ill-shapen beasts, and the unclean orcs, that are
mockeries of the creatures of Iluvatar; and the lot of men was
unhappy.
But Manwe put forth Morgoth, and shut him beyond the
World in the Void that is without; and he cannot [> could not]
return again into the World, present and visible, while the Lords
are [> the Lords of the West were] enthroned. Yet his will
remaineth, and guideth [> remained, and guided) his servants;
and it moveth [> moved] them ever to seek the overthrow of the
gods [> Valar] and the hurt of those that obey [> obeyed] them.
When Morgoth was thrust forth, the gods [> Valar] held council.
The Elves [> Eldar] were summoned to return into the West;
and those that obeyed dwelt once more in Eressea, the Lonely
Isle; and that land was named anew Avallon: for it is hard by
Valinor and within sight of the Blessed Realm. But to men of the
three faithful houses rich reward was given. Fionwe son of
Manwe came among them and taught them; and he gave them
wisdom, and power, and life stronger than any others have of
mortal race. [Added: and the span of their years, being un-
assailed by sickness, was thrice that of Men of Middle-earth,
and to the descendants of Hurin the Steadfast even longer years
were granted, I even to three hundreds [> as is later told].](1)
$2 A land was made for them to dwell in, neither part of
Middle-earth, nor of Valinor; for it was sundered from either by
a wide sea, yet it was nearer to Valinor. It was raised by Osse
out of the depths of the Great Water, and it was established by
Aule and enriched by Yavanna; and the Eldar brought thither
flowers and fountains out of Avallon, and they wrought gardens
there of great beauty, in which at times the children of the Gods
[> Valar] would walk. That land the Valar called Andor, the
Land of Gift; and by its own folk it was at first called Vinya, the
Young; but in the days of its pride they named it Numenor, that
is Westernesse, for it lay west of all lands inhabited by mortals;
yet it was far from the true West, for that is Valinor, the land
of the Gods. But the glory of Numenor was thrown down [>
overthrown] and its name perished; and after its ruin it was
named in the legends of those that fled from it Atalante, the
Downfallen.
Of old the chief city and haven of that land was in the midst
of its western coasts, and it was called Undunie [> Andunie],(2)
because it faced the sunset. But the high place of the king was at
Numenos in the heart of the land, the tower and citadel that was
built by Elros son of Earendel [>Earendil], whom the gods and
elves and men chose to be the lord [> who (was) appointed to
be the first lord] of the Numenoreans. He was descended from
the line of both Hador and Beor, fathers of Men, and in part
also from both the Eldar and the Valar, for Idril and Luthien
were his foremothers. But Elros and all his folk were mortal;
for the Valar may not withdraw the gift of death, which cometh
to men from Iluvatar. [This passage, from 'He was descended
...; was struck out and replaced by the following rider: 'Now
Elrond, and Elros his brother, were descended from the line of
both Hador and of Beor, fathers of Men, and in part also both
from the Eldar and the Valar, for Idril and Luthien daughter of
Melian were their foremothers. None others among Men of the
Elder Days had kinship with the Elves, and therefore they were
called Halfelven. The Valar indeed may not withdraw the gift of
death, which cometh to Men from Iluvatar, but in the matter
of the Halfelven Iluvatar gave them judgement. And this they
judged: choice should be given to the brethren. And Elrond
chose to remain with the Firstborn, and to him the life of the
Firstborn was given, and yet a grace was added, that choice was
never annulled, and while the world lasted he might return, if he
would, to mortal men, and die. But to Elros, who chose to be a
king of men, still a great span of years was granted, seven times
that of mortal men; and all his line, the kings and lords of the
royal house of Numenor, [added: being descended from Hurin,]
had long life even according to the span of the Numenoreans,
for some of the kings that sat at Numenos lived four hundred
years. But Elros lived five hundred years, and ruled the Nume-
noreans four hundred years and ten. Thus, though long in life
and assailed by no sickness, the men of Numenor were mortal
still.] Yet the speech of Numenor was the speech of the Eldar of
the Blessed Realm, and the Numenoreans conversed with the
Elves, and were permitted to look upon Valinor from afar; for
their ships went often to Avallon, and there their mariners were
suffered to dwell for a while.
$3 In the wearing of time the people of Numenor grew great
and glorious, in all things more like to the Firstborn than any
other of the kindreds of Men; yet they were less fair and less
wise than the Elves, though greater in stature. For the Numenor-
eans were exceedingly tall, taller than the tallest of the sons
of men in Middle-earth. Above all arts they nourished ship-
building and sea-craft, and became mariners whose like shall
never be again, since the world has been diminished. They
ranged from Eressea in the West to the shores of Middle-earth,
and came even into the inner seas; and they sailed about the
North and the South and glimpsed from their high prows
the Gates of Morning in the East. And they appeared among the
wild men and filled them with wonder and dismay; for men in
the shadows of the world deemed that they were gods or the
sons of gods out of the West. Here and there the Numenoreans
sowed good seed in the waste-lands, and they taught to the wild
men such lore and wisdom as they could comprehend; but for
the most part the men of Middle-earth feared them and fled; for
they were under the sway of Sauron and the lies of Morgoth and
they believed that the gods were terrible and cruel. Wherefore
out of that far time are descended the echoes of legends both
bright and dark; but the shadow lay heavy upon men, for the
Numenoreans came only seldom among them and they tarried
never long in any place. Upon all the waters of the world they
sailed, seeking they knew not what, yet their hearts were set
westward; and they began to hunger for the undying bliss of
Valinor, and ever their desire and unquiet increased as their
power and glory grew.
$4 The gods forbade them to sail beyond the Lonely Isle
and would not permit them to land in Valinor; for the
Numenoreans were mortal, and though the Lords of the West
had rewarded them with long life, they could not take from
them the weariness of the world that cometh at last, and they
died, even their kings of the seed of Earendel, and their span was
brief in the eyes of the Elves. And they began to murmur against
this decree, and a great discontent grew among them. Their
masters of knowledge sought unceasingly for secrets that should
prolong their lives; and they sent spies to seek hidden lore in
Avallon; and the gods were angered.
$5 Now it came to pass [added: in the days of Tar-kalion,
and twelve kings had ruled that land before him,](3) that Sauron,
servant of Morgoth, grew strong in Middle-earth; and he
learned of the power and splendour of the Numenoreans, and of
their allegiance to the gods; and he feared lest they should come
and wrest from him the dominion of the East and rescue the
men of Middle-earth from the Shadow. And the king from his
mariners heard also rumour of Sauron, and it was reported that
he would make himself a king, greater even than the king of
Numenor. Wherefore, taking no counsel of the gods or of the
Elves, Tar-kalion the king sent his messengers to Sauron and
commanded him to come and do homage. And Sauron, being
filled with malice and cunning, humbled himself and came; and
he beguiled the Numenoreans with signs and wonders. Little by
little Sauron turned their hearts towards Morgoth, his master;
and he prophesied to them, and lied, saying that Morgoth
would come again into the world. And Sauron spake to
Tar-kalion, and to Tar-ilien his queen, and promised them life
unending and the dominion of the earth, if they would turn unto
Morgoth. And they believed him, and fell under the Shadow,
and the greater part of their people followed them. And
Tar-kalion raised a great temple to Morgoth upon the Moun-
tain of Iluvatar in the midst of the land; and Sauron dwelt there,
and all Numenor was under his vigilance. [This passage, from
'upon the Mountain of Iluvatar ...', was struck out and
replaced by the following: in the midst of the city of Numenos,(4)
and its dome rose like a black hill glowering over the land; and
smokes issued from it, for in that temple the Numenoreans
made hideous sacrifice to Morgoth, beseeching the Lord of
Darkness to deliver them from Death. But the hallowed place of
Iluvatar was upon the summit of the Mountain Menelmin,
Pillar of Heaven, in the midst of the land, and thither men had
been wont to climb to offer thanksgiving. There only in all
Numenor Sauron dared never to set his foot, and he forbade
[any] to go there under pain of death. Few dared to disobey him,
even if they so wished, for Sauron had many eyes and all the
ways of the land were under his vigilance. But some there were
;:, who remained faithful, and did not bow to him, and of these the
chief were Elendil the fair, and his sons Anarion and Isildur, and
they were of the royal blood of Earendel, though not of the line
direct.]
$6 But in the passing of the years Tar-kalion felt the
oncoming of old age, and he was troubled; but Sauron said that
the bounty of Morgoth was withheld by the gods, and that to
obtain plentitude of power and freedom from death the king
must be master of the West. And the fear of death was heavy
upon Tar-kalion. Therefore at his command the Numenoreans
made a great armament; and their might and skill had grown
exceedingly in those days, for they had in these matters the aid
of Sauron. The fleets of the Numenoreans were like a land of
many islands, and their masts were like a forest of mountain-
trees, and their banners like the streamers of a thunderstorm,
and their sails were scarlet and black. And they moved slowly
into the West, for all the winds were stilled, and all the world
was silent in the fear of that time. And they encompassed
Avallon; and it is said that the Elves mourned and sickness came
upon them, for the light of Valinor was cut off by the cloud
of the Numenoreans. Then Tar-kalion assailed the shores of
Valinor, and he cast forth bolts of thunder, and fire came upon
Tuna, and flame and smoke rose about Taniquetil.
$7 But the gods made no answer. Then the vanguard of the
Numenoreans set foot upon the forbidden shores, and they
encamped in might upon the borders of Valinor. But the heart
of Manwe was sorrowful and dismayed, and he called upon
Iluvatar, and took power and counsel from the Maker; and the
fate and fashion of the world was changed. The silence of the
gods was broken and their power made manifest; and Valinor
was sundered from the earth, and a rift appeared in the midst of
the Great Sea, east of Avallon.
Into this chasm the Great Sea plunged, and the noise of the
falling waters filled all the earth, and the smoke of the cataracts
rose above the tops of the everlasting mountains. But all the
ships of Numenor that were west of Avallon were drawn down
into the abyss, and they were drowned; and Tar-kalion the
golden and bright llien his queen fell like stars into the dark, and
they perished out of all knowledge. But the mortal warriors that
had set foot upon the Land of the Gods were buried under fallen
hills; there it is said they lie imprisoned in the Caves of the
Forgotten until the day of Doom and the Last Battle.
$8 Then Iluvatar cast back the Great Seas west of Middle-
earth and the Empty Lands east of it, and new lands and new
seas were made; and the world was diminished, for Valinor and
Eressea were taken from it into the realm of hidden things. And
thereafter, however a man might sail, he could never again
reach the True West, but would come back weary at last to the
place of his beginning; for all lands and seas were equally
distant from the centre of the earth. There was flood and great
confusion of waters in that time, and sea covered much that in
the Elder Days had been dry, both in the West and East of
Middle-earth.
$9 Numenor, being nigh to the east of the great rift, was
utterly thrown down, and overwhelmed in the sea, and its glory
perished, and only a remnant of all its people escaped the ruin of
those days. Some by the command of Tar-kalion, and some of
their own will (because they still revered the gods and would not
go with war into the West) had remained behind when the fleets
set sail, and they sat in their ships upon the east coast of the
land, lest the issue of war should be evil. Therefore, being
protected for a while by the wall of their land, they avoided the
draught of the sea; and many fled into the East, and came at
length to the shores of Middle-earth.
Small remnant of all the mighty people that had perished
were those that came up out of the devouring sea upon the
wings of the winds of wrath, and shorn were they of their pride
and power of old. But to those that looked out from the
seaward hills and beheld their coming, riding upon the storm
out of the mist and the darkness and the rumour of water, their
black sails against the falling sun, terrible and strong they
seemed, and the fear of the tall kings came into lands far from
the sea.
$10 For lords and kings of men the Numenoreans became,
and nigh to the western shores of Middle-earth they established
realms and strong places. Some few were indeed evil, being of
those who had hearkened to Sauron and still did not forsake
him in their hearts; but the most were those of good will who
had revered the gods and remembered the wisdom of old. Yet
all alike were filled with the desire of long life upon earth, and
the thought of death was heavy upon them. Their fate had cast
them east upon Middle-earth, but their hearts still were west-
ward. And they built mightier houses for their dead than for
their living, and endowed their buried kings with unavailing
treasure; for their wise men hoped still to discover the secret of
prolonging life, and maybe of recalling it. Yet it is said that the
span of their lives, which had of old been thrice that of lesser
men, dwindled slowly; and they achieved only the art of
preserving incorrupt the dead flesh of men. Wherefore the
kingdoms of the western world became a place of tombs and
were filled with ghosts. And in the fantasy of their hearts, amid
the confusion of legends concerning half-forgotten things that
once had been, they imagined in their thought a land of shades,
filled with the wraiths of the things that are upon the mortal
earth; and many deemed that this land was in the West and
ruled by the gods, and that in shadow the dead should come
there, bearing with them the shadows of their possessions, who
could in the body find the True West no more. Therefore in after
days many would bury their dead in ships, setting them forth in
pomp upon the sea by the west coasts of the ancient world.
$11 Now the blood of the Numenoreans remained most
among men of those western lands and shores; and the memory
of the primeval world abode most strongly there, where the old
paths to the West had aforetime set out from Middle-earth. For
the ancient line of the world remained in the mind of Iluvatar,
and in the thought of the gods, and in the memory of the world,
as a shape and plan that has been changed and yet endureth.
And it has been likened to a plain of air, or to a straight vision
that bendeth not to the curving of the earth, or to a level bridge
that rises slowly above the heavy air. Of old many of the exiles
of Numenor could still see, some clearly and some more faintly,
the paths to the True West; and they believed that at times from
a high place they could descry the peaks of Taniquetil at the end
of the Straight Road, high above the world. Therefore they built
very high towers in those days, and their holy places were upon
the tops of mountains, for they would climb, if it might be,
above the mists of Middle-earth into the clearer air that doth
not veil the vision of things far off.
$12 But ever the number of those that had the ancient sight
dwindled, and those that had it not and could not conceive it in
their thought scorned the builders of towers, and trusted to
ships that sailed upon the water. But they came only to the lands
of the new world, and found them like to those of the old and
subject to death; and they reported that the world was round.
For upon the Straight Road only the gods could walk, and only
the ships of the Elves could journey; for being straight that road
passed through the air of breath and flight and rose above it,
and traversed Ilmen in which no mortal flesh can endure;
whereas the surface of the earth was bent, and bent were the
seas that lay upon it, and bent also were the heavy airs that were
above them. Yet it is said that even of those Numenoreans of
old who had the straight vision there were some who did not
comprehend this, and they were busy to contrive ships that
should rise above the waters of the world and hold to the
imagined seas. But they achieved only ships that would sail in
the air of breath. And these ships, flying, came also to the lands
of the new world, and to the East of the old world; and they
reported that the world was round. Therefore many abandoned
the gods and put them out of their legends. But men of Middle-
earth looked up with fear and wonder seeing the Numenoreans
that descended out of the sky; and they took these mariners of
the air to be gods, and some of the Numenoreans were content
that this should be so.
$13 Yet not all the hearts of the Numenoreans were
crooked; and knowledge of the days before the Downfall and of
the wisdom descended from the Elf-friends, their fathers, was
long preserved among them. And the wisest among them taught
that the fate of Men was not bounded by the round path, nor set
for ever upon the straight. For the round has no end, but no
escape; and the straight is true, but has an end within the world,
and that is the fate of the Elves. But the fate of Men, they said, is
neither round nor ended, and is not complete within the world.
But even the wisdom of the wise was filled with sorrow and
regret; and they remembered bitterly how the ruin was brought
about and the cutting off of Men from their portion of the
Straight Path. Therefore they avoided the shadow of Morgoth
according to their power, and Sauron they held in hatred. And
they assailed his temples and their servants, and there were wars
among the mighty of Middle-earth, of which only the echoes
now remain.
The concluding section ($14) of the earlier versions of The Fall of
Numenor concerning Beleriand (see p. 331) was omitted in FN III.
Accepting the conclusion (see p. 331) that the version just given,
as it was originally written, comes from a much earlier stage in the
writing of The Lord of the Rings than do The Notion Club Papers,
it seems almost certain that the alterations and additions made to it
belong to the period of the Papers and The Drowning of Anadune.
The chief evidence for this (5) lies in the addition to $5 stating that
Tar-kalion was the thirteenth king of Numenor, and in the correction
in $5 of the description of the temple: it was not on the Mountain of
Iluvatar, but 'in the midst of the city of Numenos' (see notes 3 and 4).
The most remarkable, and indeed astonishing, feature of these later
additions to FN III is the statement in $2 that while 'the life of the
Firstborn' was given to Elrond in accordance with his choice, 'yet a
grace was added, that choice was never annulled, and while the world
lasted he might return, if he would, to mortal men, and die.' To my
present knowledge no such thing is said elsewhere of the Choice of
Elrond; and contrast Appendix A (I, i) to The Lord of the Rings: 'At
the end of the First Age the Valar gave to the Half-elven an irrevocable
choice to which kindred they would belong.' This passage in FN III
concerning Elrond and Elros reappeared years later in the Akallabeth,
but with this sentence removed (The Silmarillion, p. 261).
NOTES.
1. On the threefold span of the Numenoreans see p. 378, $13. - The
descendants of Hurin the Steadfast: presumably an inadvertence,
for Huor, father of Tuor, father of Earendil; but Hurin is repeated
in the addition to $2. Cf. the note given in VII.6, 'Trotter is a man
of Elrond's race descendant of Turin', where Turin is presumably
a slip for Tuor.
2. Undunie': Andunie' is the form in FN II, but on the amanuensis
typescript made from FN II (V.31) the form was changed to
Undunie'.
3. Tar-kalion became the fourteenth (not the thirteenth) king of
Numenor by correction of the second text of The Drowning of
Anadune (see p. 381, $20).
4. On uncertainty with regard to the site of the temple see p. 384,
$32.
5. On the back of the slip carrying the long addition to $2 concerning
Elrond and Elros are rough notes in which there is a reference to
the Adunaic language; but these are not dateable.
(ii) The original text of The Drowning of Anadune.
It will become very evident that The Drowning of Anadune was as
closely associated with Part Two of The Notion Club Papers as was
the original Fall of Numenor with The Lost Road. I shall give first the
original draft, and postpone observations about it to the conclusion.
The draft is a typescript of extreme roughness, with a great many
typing errors, and I have little doubt that my father, for some reason,
and for the first time, composed a primary draft entirely ab initio on a
typewriter, typing at speed. Certainly there is no trace among all this
great collection of texts and notes of any still more 'primary' narrative
(although there are preliminary sketches which are given later, pp. 397
ff.). I print it here essentially as it was typed, correcting the obvious
errors and here and there inserting punctuation, but ignoring subse-
quent correction. Such correction is largely confined to the opening
paragraphs, after which it ceases: it looks as if my father saw that it
would be impossible to carry out a wholesale rewriting on a single-
spaced typescript with narrow margins. In any case these corrections
were taken up into the second text, which I also give in full. One name
that was consistently changed, however, is Balai > Avalai, as far as
$16, where Avalai appears in the typescript as typed. I have extended
the marks of length over vowels throughout the text: my father's
typewriter having no such marks, he inserted them in pencil, and often
omitted them.
The numbered paragraphs have of course no manuscript warrant: I
have inserted them to make subsequent reference and comparison
easier. This first text has in fact little division into paragraphs, and my
divisions are made largely on the basis of the following version.
I shall refer to this text subsequently as 'DA I'. It had no title as
typed, but The Drowning of Numenor was pencilled in afterwards.
$1 Before the coming of Men there were many Powers that
governed Earth, and they were Eru-beni, servants of God, and
in the earliest recorded tongue they were called Balai. Some
were lesser and some greater. The mightiest and the chieftain of
them all was Meleko.
$2 But long ago, even in the making of Earth, he pondered
evil; he became a rebel against Eru, desiring the whole world for
his own and to have none above him. Therefore Manawe his
brother endeavoured to rule the earth and the Powers according
to the will of Eru; and Manawe dwelt in the West. But Meleko
remained, dwelling in hiding in the North, and he worked evil,
and he had the greater power, and the Great Lands were
darkened.
$3 And at the appointed time Men were born into the
world, and they came in a time of war; and they fell swiftly
under the domination of Meleko. And he now came forth and
appeared as a Great King and as a god, and his rule was evil,
and his worship unclean; and Men were estranged from Eru and
from the Balai, his servants.
$4 But there were some of the fathers of Men who repented,
seeing the evil of King Meleko, and their houses returned with
sorrow to the allegiance of Eru, and they were befriended by the
Balai, and they were called the Eruhil, the children of God. And
the Balai and the Eruhil made war on Meleko, and for that time
they destroyed his kingdom and threw down his black throne.
But Meleko was not destroyed and he went again for a while in
hiding, unseen by Men. But his evil was still ever at work, and
cruel kings and evil temples arose ever in the world, and the
most part of Mankind were their servants; and they made war
on the Eruhil.
$5 And the Balai in grief withdrew ever further west (or if
they did not so they faded and became secret voices and
shadows of the days of old); and the most part of the Eruhil
followed them. Though it is said that some of these good men,
simple folk, shepherds and the like, dwelt in the heart of the
Great Lands.
$6 But all the nobler of the Eruhil and those closest in the
friendship of the Balai, who had helped most in the war on the
Black Throne, wandered away until they came to the last shores
of the Great Seas. There they halted and were filled with dread
and longing; for the Balai for the most part passed over the sea
seeking the realm of Manawe. And there instructed by the Balai
men learned the craft of ship-building and of sailing in the wind;
and they built many small ships. But they did not dare to essay
the deep waters, and journeyed mostly up and down the coasts
and among the nearer isles.
$7 And it was by their ships that they were saved. For evil
men multiplied in those days and pursued the Eruhil with
hatred; and evil men inspired by the evil spirit of Meleko grew
cunning and cruel in the arts of war and the making of many
weapons; and the Eruhil were hard to put to it to maintain any
land in which to dwell.
$8 And in those dark days of fear and war there arose a
man among the Eruhil and his name was Earendil the Sea-
friend, for his daring upon the sea was great. And it came into
his heart that he would build a ship greater than any that had
yet been built, and that he would sail out into the deep water
and come maybe to the land of Manawe and there get help for
his kinsfolk. And he let build a great ship and he called it
Wingalote,(1) the Foam-flower.
$9 And when it was all ready he said farewell to his sons
and his wife and all his kin; for he was minded to sail alone.
And he said: 'It is likely that you will see me never again, and if
you do not, then continue your war, and endure until the end.
But if I do not fail of my errand, then also you may not see me
again, but a sign you will see, and then have hope.'
$10 But Earendel (2) passed over the Great Sea and came to
the Blessed Realm and spoke to Manawe.
$11 [Rejected at once: And Manawe said that he had not
now the power to war against Meleko, who moreover was the
rightful governor of Earth, though his right might seem to have
been destroyed by his rebellion; and that the governance of the
earth was now in the hands of] And Manawe said that Eru had
forbidden the Balai to make war by force; and that the earth
was now in the hands of Men, to make or to mar. But because
of their repentance and their fidelity he would give, as was
permitted to him, a land for the Eruhil to dwell in if they would.
And that land was a mighty island in the midst of the sea. But
Manawe would not permit Earendil to return again amongst
Men, since he had set foot in the Blessed Realm, where as yet no
Death had come. And he took the ship of Earendil and filled it
with silver flame and raised it above the world to sail in the sky,
a marvel to behold.
$12 And the Eruhil on the shores of the sea beheld the light
of it; and they knew that it was the sign of Earendil. And hope
and courage was born in their hearts; and they gathered their
ships, small and great, and all their goods, and set sail upon the
deep waters, following the star. And there was a great calm in
those days and all the winds were stilled. And the Eruhil came to
the land that had been set for them, and they found it fair and
fruitful, and they were glad. And they called that land Andore,(3)
the land of Gift, though afterward it was mostly named
Numenore, Westernesse.
$13 But not so did the Eruhil escape the doom of death that
had been pronounced upon all Mankind; and they were mortal
still; though for their fidelity they were rewarded by a threefold
span, and their years were long and blissful and untroubled with
sickness, so long as they remained true. And the Numenoreans
grew wise and fair and glorious, the mightiest of men that have
been; but their number was not great, for their children were
few.
$14 And they were under the tutelage of the Balai, and they
took the language of the Balai and forsook their own; and they
wrote many things of lore and beauty in that tongue in the high
tide of their realm, of which but little is now remembered. And
they became mighty in all crafts, so that if they had had the
mind they might easily have surpassed the evil kings of Middle-
earth in the making of weapons and of war; but they were as yet
men of peace; and of all arts they were most eager in the craft of
ship-building, and in voyaging was the chief feat and delight of
their younger men.
$15 But the Balai as yet forbade them to sail westward out
of sight of the western shores of Numenor; and the Numenor-
eans were as yet content, though they did not fully understand
the purpose of this ban. But the purpose was that the Eruhil
should not be tempted to come to the Blessed Realm and there
learn discontent, becoming enamoured of the immortality of the
Balai, and the deathlessness of all things in their land.
$16 For as yet the Balai were permitted by Eru to maintain
upon earth upon some isle or shore of the western lands still
untrodden (it is not known for certain where; for Earendel
alone of Men came ever thither and never again returned) an
abiding place, an earthly paradise and a memorial of that which
might have been, had not men turned to Meleko. And the
Numenoreans named that land Avallonde the Haven of the
Gods, for at times when all the air was clear and the sun was in
the east they could descry, as them seemed, a city white-shining
on a distant shore and great harbours and a tower; but only so
when their own western haven, Andunie of Numenor, was low
upon the skyline, and they dared not break the ban and sail
further west. But to Numenor the Avalai came ever and anon,
the children and the lesser ones of the Deathless Folk, some-
times in oarless boats, sometimes as birds flying, sometimes in
other fair shapes; and they loved the Numenoreans.
$17 And so it was that the voyages of the men of Western-
esse in those days went east and not west from the darkness of
the North to the heats of the South and beyond to the nether
darkness. And the Eruhil came often to the shores of the Great
Lands, and they took pity on the forsaken world of Middle-
earth; and the young princes of the Numenoreans would come
among the men of the Dark Ages, and they taught them
language (for the native tongues of men of Middle-earth were
yet rude and unshapen) and song, and many arts, such as they
could compass, and they brought them corn and wine.
$18 And the men of Middle-earth were comforted, and in
some places shook off somewhat the yoke of the offspring of
Meleko; and they revered the memory of the Men out of the Sea
and called them Gods, for in that time the Numenoreans did not
settle or dwell in Middle-earth for long. For though their feet
were set eastward their hearts were ever westward.
$19 Yet in the end all this bliss and betterment turned to
evil again, and men fell, as it is said, a second time. For there
arose a second manifestation of the power of darkness upon
earth, and whether that was but a form of the Ancient or one of
his old servants that waxed to new strength, is not known. And
this evil thing was called by many names, but the Eruhil named
him Sauron, and men of Middle-earth (when they dared to
speak his name at all) named him mostly Zigur the Great. And
he made himself a great king in the midst of the earth, and was
at first well-seeming and just and his rule was of benefit to all
men in their needs of the body; for he made them rich, whoso
would serve him. But those who would not were driven out into
the waste places. Yet Zigur desired, as Meleko before, to be
both a king over all kings and as a god to men. And slowly his
power moved north and south, and ever westward; and he
heard of the coming of the Eruhil and he was wroth. And he
plotted in his heart how he might destroy Numenor.
$20 And news came also to Numenor and to Tarkalion the
king, Earendel's heir (for this title had all the kings of Numenor,
and they were indeed descended in unbroken line from Elros the
son of Earendel), of Zigur the Great, and how he purposed to
become master of all Middle-earth and after of the whole world.
And Tarkalion was angered, for the kings of Numenor had
grown very glorious and proud in that time.
$21 And in the meanwhile evil, of which once long ago their
fathers had tasted, albeit they had after repented, awoke again
in the hearts of the Eruhil; for the desire of everlasting life and
the escape from death grew ever stronger upon them as their lot
in the land of Numenor grew more blissful. And they began to
murmur in their hearts (and anon more openly) against the
doom of men; and especially against that ban which forbade
them to sail west or to visit the Blessed Realm.
$22 'For why should the Avalai sit in peace unending there,'
said they, 'while we must die and go we know not whither,
leaving our own home; for the fault was not ours in the
beginning; and is not the author of evil Meleko himself one of
the Avalai?'
$23 And the Avalai knowing what was said, and seeing the
cloud of evil grow, were grieved, and they came less often to
Numenor; and those that came spoke earnestly to the Eruhil;
and tried to teach them of the fashion and fate of the world,
saying that the world was round, and that if they sailed into the
utmost West, yet would they but come back again to the East
and so to the places of their setting out, and the world would
seem to them but a prison.
$24 'And so it is to those of your strange race,' said the
Avalai. 'And Eru does not punish without benefit; nor are his
mercies without sternness. For we (you say) are unpunished and
dwell ever in bliss; and so it is that we do not die, but we cannot
escape, and we are bound to this world, never again to leave it,
till all is changed. And you (you murmur) are punished, and so
it is that ye die, but ye escape and leave the world and are
not bound thereto. Which therefore of us should envy the
other?
$25 'Ye us maybe, for of you is required the greater trust,
knowing not what lies before you in a little while. But whereas
we know nothing of the mind of Eru in this (for he has not
revealed anything of his purpose with you unto the Avalai), we
say to you that that trust, if you give it, will not be despised; and
though it take many ages of Men, and is yet beyond the sight of
the Avalai, that Iluvatar the Father will not let those perish
for ever who love him and who love the world that He has
made.'
$26 But only a few of the Numenoreans harkened to this
counsel. For it seemed hard to them, and they wished to escape
from Death in their own day, and they became estranged from
the Avalai, and these came now no more to Numenor save
seldom and in secret, visiting those few of the faithful. Of whom
the chief was one Amardil and his son Elendil (who was called
also Earendil for his love of the sea, and for his father, though
not of the elder line which sat upon the throne of Numenor, was
also of the blood of Earendil of old).
$27 But Tarkalion the king fell into evil mood, and the
worship of Eru upon the high place the mountain of Meneltyula
in the midst of the land was neglected in those days.
$28 But Tarkalion hearing of Sauron determined, without
counsel of the Avalai, to demand his allegiance and homage; for
he thought that no king so mighty [could] ever arise as to vie
with the lords of Numenor; and he began in that time to smithy
great hoard of weapons of war, and he let build great ships; and
he sailed into the east and landed upon Middle-earth, and bade
Sauron come and do homage to him. And Sauron came, for he
saw not his time yet to work his will with Numenor, and he was
maybe not a little astonied at the majesty of the kings of men;
and he was crafty. And he humbled himself and seemed in all
things fair and wise.
$29 And it came into the heart of Tarkalion the King that
for the better keeping of Sauron and his new promises of fealty
he should be brought to Numenor as his own hostage. And to
this Sauron assented willingly, for it chimed with his own desire.
And Sauron looking upon Numenor in the days of its glory was
indeed astonied; but his heart within was all the more filled with
hatred.
$30 Such was his craft and cunning that ere long he became
closest to the counsels of the King; and slowly a change came
over the land, and the hearts of the Faithful, the Avaltiri, were
darkened.
$31 For with subtle arguments Sauron gainsaid all that the
Avalai had taught. And he bade them think that the world was
not a closed circle; and that therein there were many lands yet
for their winning, wherein was wealth uncounted; and even yet,
when they came to the end thereof, there was the Dark without,
out of which came all things. 'And Dark is the Realm of the
Lord of All, Meleko the Great, who made this world out of the
primeval darkness. And only Darkness is truly holy,' said he.
$32 And Tarkalion the King turned to the worship of the
Dark and of Meleko the Lord thereof. And the Meneltyula was
deserted in those days and none might ascend it under pain of
death, not even those of the faithful who yet kept Eru in their
hearts. But Sauron let build on a hill in the midst of the city of the
Numenoreans, Antirion the Golden, a great temple; and it was
in the form of a circle at the ground, and its walls were fifty feet
thick, and they rose five hundred feet, and they were crowned
with a mighty dome, and it was wrought all of silver, but the
silver was black. And this was the mightiest of the works of the
Numenoreans, and the most evil, and men were afraid of its
shadow. And from the topmost of the dome, where was an
opening or great louver, there issued ever and anon smoke, and
ever the more often as the evil of Sauron grew. For there men
sacrificed to Meleko with spilling of blood and torment and
great wickedness; and ofttimes it was those of the faithful that
were chosen as victims. But never openly on the charge that they
would not worship Meleko; rather was cause sought against
them that they hated the King or falsely that they plotted against
their kin and devised lies and poisons.
$33 And for all this Death did not depart from the land.
Rather it came sooner and more often and in dreadful guise. For
Whereas aforetime men had grown slowly old, and laid them
down as to sleep in the end when they were weary at last of this
world, now madness and sickness assailed them, and yet they
were afraid to die and go out into the dark, the realm of the lord
they had taken. And men made weapons in those days and slew
one another for little cause.
$34 Nonetheless it seemed that they prospered. For their
wealth increased mightily with the help of Sauron, and they built
ever greater ships. And they sailed to the Middle-earth to get
them new wealth; but they came no longer as the bringers of
gifts, but as men of war. And they hunted the men of Middle-
earth and enslaved them and took their goods; but they built
fortresses and great tombs upon the western shores in those
days. And men feared them, and the memory of the kindly kings
of the Elder Days faded in the world and was overlaid with
many a dread legend.
$35 Thus waxed Tarkalion the King to the mightiest tyrant
that had yet been seen in the world since the rule of Meleko;
and yet nonetheless he felt the shadow of death approach as his
days lengthened. And he was filled with anger and with fear.
And now came the hour that Sauron had planned. For he spoke
now to the King saying evil of Eru, that he was but a phantom, a
lie devised by the Avalai to justify their own idleness and greed;
and that the Avalai withheld the gift of everlasting life out of
avarice and fear lest the kings of men should wrest the rule .
of the world and the Blessed Realm from them. 'And though
doubtless the gift of everlasting life is not for all, and only for
such as are worthy, being men of might and pride and great
lineage, still,' said Sauron, 'it is against all justice that this gift,
which is his least due, should be withheld from Tarkalion the
King, mightiest of the sons of Earth. To whom only Manawe
can compare, if even he.' And Tarkalion being besotted and also
under the shadow of Death, for his span was drawing to an end,
harkened to him, and devised war against the Avalai. Long
was he in pondering this design, and it could not be hidden
from all.
$36 And in those days Amardil, who was of the royal house
as has been told, and faithful, and yet so noble and so well-
beloved of all save the most besotted of the people, that even in
the days of Sauron the King dared lay no hand on him as yet,
he learned of the secret counsels of the King, and his heart was
filled with sorrow and great dread. For he knew that Men could
not vanquish the Avalai in war, and that great ruin must come
upon the world, if this war were not stayed. Therefore he called
his son Elendil Earendil and he said to him: 'Behold, the days
are dark and desperate; therefore I am minded to try that rede
which our forefather Earendil took: to sail into the West (be
there ban or no ban) and speak to the Avalai, yea even to
Manawe himself if may be, and beseech his aid ere all is lost.'
'Would you then bewray the King?' said Elendil.
'For that very thing do I purpose to go,' said Amardil.
'And what then, think you, is like to befall those of your
house whom you leave behind, when your deed becometh
known?'
$37 'It must not become known,' said Amardil. 'I will
prepare it in secret and I will set sail at first into the East,
whither many ships daily set out, and then round about. But
you and your folk, I counsel that you should prepare yourself
ships and put on board all such things as your heart cannot bear
to part with, and lie ready. But you should hold your ships in
the eastern havens; and give out among men that you purpose,
maybe, when all is ready to follow me into the East. And I think
not that your going will be letted; for the house of Amardil is no
longer so dear to our kinsman on the throne of Earendil that he
will grieve over much if we seek to depart. But do not take many
men with you, or he may become troubled because of the war
that he now plots, for which he will need all the force that he
hath. Do not take many, and only such as you may be sure that
they are faithful. Even so open not your design to any.'
$38 'And what design is this that you make for me?'
'Until I return I cannot say. But to be sure it is like to be flight
far from fair Andore that is now so defiled, and from our
people; east or west the Avalai alone shall say. But it is likely
enough that you shall see me never again, and that I shall show
you no sign such as Earendil our sire showed of old. But hold
you ever in readiness, for the end of the world that we have
known is at hand.'
$39 And it is said that Amardil set sail at night and went
east and then about, and he took three servants with him, dear
to his heart, and never again were they heard of by word or sign
in this world; nor is there any tale or guess of their fate. But this
much may be seen, that men could not be a second time saved
by any such embassy; and for the treason of Numenor there was
no easy assoiling. But Elendil abode in the east of the land and
held him secret and meddled not in the deeds of those days; and
looked ever for the sign that came not. At whiles he would
journey to the western shores of the land and gaze out at the sea,
and sorrow and yearning was upon him, for he had loved his
father - but further he was not suffered to go; for Tarkalion was
now gathering his fleets in the havens of the west.
$40 Now aforetime in the isle of Numenor the weather was
ever fair, or leastways apt to the liking and needs of men, rain in
due seasons and in measure, and sunshine, now warm now
cooler, and winds from over the sea; and when the wind was in
the west it seemed to many that it was filled with a fragrance,
fleeting but sweet, heart-stirring, as of flowers that bloom for
ever in undying meads and have no names on mortal shores. But
now that too was changed. For the sky itself was darkened and
there were storms of rain and hail in those days, and ever and
anon the great ships of the Numenoreans would founder
and return not to haven. And out of the West there would come
at whiles a great cloud, shaped as it were an eagle with pinions
spread to the North and to the South; and slowly it would creep
up blotting out the sunset - for at that hour mostly was it seen;
and then uttermost night would fall on Numenor. And soon
under the pinions of the eagles was lightning borne, and thunder
rolled in the heaven, such a sound as men of that land had not
before heard.
$41 Then men were afraid. 'Behold the Eagles of the Lords
of the West coming over Numenor!' they cried, and they fell
upon their faces. And some would repent, but others hardened
their hearts and shook their fists at heaven, and said: 'The Lords
of the West have made the war. They strike the first blow, the
next shall be ours.' And these words were spoken by the King
and devised by Sauron.
$42 But the lightnings increased and slew men upon the
hills and in the meads, and ever the darts of greatest fury smote
at the dome of the Temple. But it stood firm.
$43 And now the fleets of the Numenoreans darkened the
sea upon the west of the land, like an archipelago of mighty
isles, and their masts were as forests, and their banners red as
the dying sun in a great storm and as black as the night that
cometh after. But the Eagles of the Lords of the West came up
now out of the dayfall, in a long line one behind the other, as if
in array of battle, and as they came their wings spread ever
wider, until they embraced the heavens.
$44 But Tarkalion hardened his heart, and he went aboard
his mighty ship Andaloke and let spread his standard, and he
gave the order for the raising of anchors.
$45 And so the fleet of the Numenoreans set forth into the
teeth of the storm, and they rowed resolutely into the West; for
they had many slaves. And when the storm had abated the sky
cleared, and a wind came up out of the East (by the arts of
Sauron, some have said), and there was a false peace over all the
seas and land while the world waited what should betide. And
the fleets of the Numenoreans sailed out of sight of Andunie and
broke the ban, and held on through three nights and days; and
they passed out of the sight of all watchers.
$46 And none can tell the tale of their fate, for none ever
returned. And whether they came ever in truth to that haven
which of old men thought that they could descry; or whether
they found it not or came to some other land and there assailed
the Avalai, who shall say, for none know. For the world was
changed in that time, and the memory of all that went before is
become dim and unsure.
$47 But those that are wisest in discernment aver that the
fleets of the Numenoreans came indeed to Avallonde and
encompassed it about, but that the Avalai made no sign. But
Manawe being grieved sought the counsel at the last of Eru, and
the Avalai laid down their governance of Earth. And Eru
overthrew its shape, and a great chasm was opened in the sea
between Numenor and Avallonde and the seas poured in, and
into that abyss fell all the fleets of the Numenoreans and were
swallowed in oblivion. But Avallonde and Numenore that stood
on either side of the great rent were also destroyed; and they
foundered and are no more. And the Avalai thereafter had no
local habitation on earth, nor is there any place more where
memory of an earth without evil is preserved; and the Avalai
dwell in secret or have faded to shadows, and their power is
minished.
$48 But Numenor went down into the sea, and all its
children and fair maidens and its ladies, and even Tar-Ilien the
Queen, and all its gardens and halls and towers and riches, its
jewels and its webs and its things painted and carven, and its
laughter and its mirth and its music and its wisdom and
its speech, vanished for ever.
$49 Save only the very top of Meneltyula, for that was a
holy place and never defiled, and that maybe is still above the
waves, as a lonely isle somewhere in the great waters, if haply a
mariner should come upon it. And many indeed after sought it,
because it was said among the remnant of Numenor that those
with holy sight had been able from the top of Meneltyula to see
the haven of Avallonde, which otherwise only those could see
who sailed far westward. And the hearts of the Numenoreans
even after their ruin were still set westward.
$50 And though they knew that Numenor and Avallonde
were no more they said: 'Avallonde is no more and Numenor is
not; yet they were, and not in this present darkness; yet they
were, and therefore still are in true being and in the whole shape
of the world.' And the Numenoreans held that men so blessed
might look upon other times than those of their body's life, and
they longed ever to escape from the darkness of exile and see in
some fashion the light that was of old. 'But all the ways are now
crooked,' they said, 'that once were straight.'
$51 And in this way it came to pass that any were spared
from the downfall of Numenore; and maybe that was the
answer to the errand of Amardil. For those that were spared
were all of his house and kin. For Elendil had remained behind,
refusing the King's summons when he set out to war, and he
went aboard ship, and abode there riding out the storm in the
shelter of the eastern shore. And being protected by the land
from the great draught of the sea that drew all down into the
abyss, he escaped from death in that time. And a mighty wind
arose such as had not before been, and it came out of the West,
and it blew the sea into great hills; and fleeing before it Elendil
and his sons in seven ships were carried far away, borne up on
the crests of great waves like mountains of Middle-earth, and
they were cast at length up far inland in Middle-earth.
$52 But all the coasts and seaward lands of Middle-earth
suffered great ruin and change in that time. For the earth was
sorely shaken, and the seas climbed over the lands and shores
foundered, and ancient isles were drowned and new were
uplifted, and hills crumbled and rivers were turned to strange
courses.
$53 And here ends the tale to speak of Elendil and his sons
who after founded many kingdoms in Middle-earth, and though
their lore and craft was but an echo of that which had been ere
Sauron came to Numenor, yet did it seem very great to the men
of the wild.
$54 And it is said that Sauron himself was filled with terror
at the fury of the wrath of the Avalai and the doom of Eru, for it
was greater far than any that he had looked for, hoping only for
the death of the Numenoreans and the defeat of their proud
king. But he himself sitting in his black seat in the midst of his
temple laughed when he heard the trumpets of Tarkalion sound
for battle; and he laughed yet again when he heard afar the
noise of the thunder; and a third time even as he laughed at his
own thought (thinking what he would do now in Middle-earth,
being rid of the Eruhil for ever) he was caught in the midst of his
mirth, and his temple and his seat fell into the abyss.
$55 [Rejected at once: It was long before he appeared in
visible form upon the earth again] But Sauron was not of mortal
flesh, and though he was robbed of that form in which he had
wrought evil for so long, as Zigur the great, yet ere long he
devised another; and he came back unto Middle-earth and
troubled the sons of Elendil and all men beside. But that cometh
not into the tale of the Downfall of Numenor, Atalante the
downfallen, as the exiles ever after named her whom they had
lost, the land of Gift in the midst of the Sea.
There are two definitive clues to the date of this text. One is that at
the foot of one of its pages are typed the words 'Ramer discusses the
feeling of lost significance' (see pp. 183, 189); and the other is that the
name of the Pillar of Heaven in Numenor is Meneltyula, which
appears as a pencilled correction of the original name Menelminda in
the manuscript E of Part Two of The Notion Club Papers (p. 302),
while the next text of the Papers (the typescript F 1) has Menel-tubel,
changed to Menel-tubil. It is thus certain that this first draft of The
Drowning of Anadune was written in the course of work on Part Two
of The Notion Club Papers, and can indeed be placed, presumably,
precisely between the manuscript E and the typescript F 1.
Comparison with the text of the third version of The Fall of
Numenor (FN III) given on pp. 331 ff. will show that this is an entirely
new work, an altogether richer conception, and with many remark-
able differences. But comparison with the much later Akallabeth (in
the published Silmarillion, pp. 259 - 82) will also show that it is the
direct ancestor of that work, to a much greater extent than The Fall of
Numenor, although that also was used in the Akallabeth.
One of the most extraordinary features of this text lies in the
conception of the Balai, whom I shall call rather the Avalai, since this
name superseded the other before the typing of DA I was completed.
At the beginning ($1) this is a name, 'in the earliest recorded tongue',
of the Eru-beni, 'servants of God', who 'governed Earth'; 'some were
lesser and some greater', and 'the mightiest and the chieftain of them
all was Meleko, brother of Manawe (see V.164, note 4). In $4 it is
told that certain of the fathers of Men who repented, and who were
named Eruhil 'Children of God', made war on Meleko in concert with
the Avalai and cast him down; but ($5) in grief at the evil works of
Men the Avalai withdrew ever westwards ('or if they did not so they
faded and became secret voices and shadows of the days of old'), and
the most part of the Eruhil followed them. And when they came to the
shores of the Great Sea ($6) the Avalai 'for the most part passed over
the sea seeking the realm of Manawe', but the Eruhil of the western
coasts were taught by the Avalai the craft of ship-building.
After the coming of the Eruhil to Numenor 'they took the language
of the Avalai and forsook their own' ($14); and the Avalai 'forbade
them to sail westward out of sight of the western shores of Numenor'
($15). The Avalai dwelt somewhere in the West unknown to Men,
who called that land Avallonde, translated 'the Haven of the Gods',
for at times they could see a distant city far off in the West; and 'to
Numenor the Avalai came ever and anon, the children and the lesser
ones of the Deathless Folk, sometimes in oarless boats, sometimes as
birds flying, sometimes in other fair shapes' ($16). Avalai came to
Numenor and attempted to persuade the Eruhil of the error of their
thoughts ($$23 - 5); and when the fleets of Numenor came to Aval-
londe the Avalai 'laid down their governance of Earth' ($47). At the
Cataclysm Avallonde and Numenore were overwhelmed and swal-
lowed up, 'and the Avalai thereafter had no local habitation on earth
... and [they] dwell in secret or have faded to shadows, and their
power is minished' ($47).
Who then are the Avalai? Looking no further than the present text,
the name must be said to represent the whole 'order' of deathless
beings who, before the coming of Men, were empowered to govern the
world within a great range or hierarchy of powers and purposes.
Looking at it in relation to the earlier narrative, The Fall of Numenor,
the distinction between 'Gods' and 'Elves' is here lost. In that work,
after the Great Battle in which Morgoth was overthrown, 'the Elves
were summoned to return into the West; and those that obeyed dwelt
once more in Eressea, the Lonely Isle; and that land was named anew
Avallon: for it is hard by Valinor ...' (FN III $1, p. 332); and 'the
speech of Numenor was the speech of the Eldar of the Blessed Realm,
and the Numenoreans conversed with the Elves, and were permitted to
look upon Valinor from afar; for their ships went often to Avallon,
and there their mariners were suffered to dwell for a while' (FN III $2,
p. 333). The Fall of Numenor was a vital and far-reaching extension of
the legends embodied in the Quenta Silmarillion, but it was congruent
with them. This earliest text of The Drowning of Anadune, in which
the Elves are not distinctly represented, and Valinor and Eressea are
confused, is not.
Even more startling perhaps is the loss in this narrative of the
conception that the world was made round at the Downfall of
Numenor. Here, the Avalai, coming to Numenor and attempting to
teach the Eruhil 'of the fashion and fate of the world', declared to
them 'that the world was round, and that if they sailed into the utmost
West, yet would they but come back again to the East and so to the
places of their setting out, and the world would seem to them but a
prison' ($23); but when Sauron came to Numenor he 'gainsaid all that
the Avalai had taught. And he bade them think that the world was not
a closed circle' ($31). Most striking is a hastily pencilled passage
written alongside $$49 - 50, which was not taken up in the following
text: 'For they believed still the lies of Sauron that the world was plain
['flat'; see footnote to p. 392], until their fleets had encompassed all
he world seeking for Meneltyula, and they knew that it was round.
Then they said that the world was bent, and that the road to
Avallonde could not be found, for it led straight on.' No direction is
given for the insertion of this; but I think that it was intended to
replace the sentence at the end of $50: '"But all the ways are
now crooked," they said, "that once were straight." '
In this connection the earlier version of the Old English text (the
single preserved leaf of Edwin Lowdham's book) that accompanied
the manuscript E of The Notion Club Papers (pp. 313 - 15) is interest-
ing. In the Old English it was the Eldar who forbade the Numenoreans
to land on Eresse (whereas in The Fall of Numenor it was the Gods
who imposed the ban on sailing beyond Tol Eressea, $4), because they
were mortal, although it was 'the Powers' (Wealdend) who had
granted them long life; and very remarkably Sauron declared to
Tarkalion that 'the Eldar refused to him the gift of everlasting life'.
The Numenoreans are here said to have 'sent out in secret spies to
Avallon to explore the hidden knowledge of the Eldar' (a reminiscence
of FN $4: 'they sent spies to seek hidden lore in Avallon'). The
reference of Avallon is not explained in the Old English text, but it is
surely the same as Eresse (in FN $1 Eressea was renamed Avallon); yet
Tarkalion determined to invade Avallon, because Sauron said that the
Eldar had denied him everlasting life (whereas in FN $6 the fleets of
'the Numenoreans, having 'encompassed Avallon', 'assailed the shores
of Valinor').
This Old English version came in point of composition between the
completion of manuscript E of the Papers and the writing of DA 1.(4)
There is thus a development from a text in which both 'the Powers'
and 'the Eldar' appear, but in which the Eldar have powers far greater
and of a different order than could properly be ascribed to them, to a
text (DA I) in which 'the Powers' (Valar) and 'the Eldar' are confused
under the single term Avalai; and in the Old English the name Avallon
seems to be used confusedly (in contrast to the earlier Fall of
Numenor), while in DA I Avallonde is a vague term, related to the
vagueness of the name Avalai.
The further development and the significance of these extraordinary
departures is discussed later: see pp. 391 ff. and 405 ff.
In this text DA I there are many other important developments in
the legend of Numenor which were retained in the later story. The Ban
now becomes more severe, for the Numenoreans are not permitted 'to
sail westward out of sight of the western shores of Numenor' ($15);
the importance of the eastward voyages emerges, the coming of 'the
Men out of the Sea' at first as teachers and enlighteners of the men of
Middle-earth ($17), but afterwards as oppressors and enslavers ($34);
and the 'Avalai' are remembered as coming out of the West to
Numenor, and attempting to avert the growing hostility to the Ban.
The temple is now built, not on the Mountain sacred to Iluvatar, but
'in the midst of the city of the Numenoreans, Antirion the Golden'
($32), and ascent of the Mountain is forbidden under pain of death.
The 'Faithful' (named Avaltiri, $30) are referred to, and the story of
Amardil (for later Amandil) and his son Elendil is told, with the
statement that although Amardil was not of the elder line from which
came the kings of Numenor, he also was descended from Earendil
($$26, 36, 38). These are only the most striking new developments in
the narrative, and moreover comparison with the Akallabeth will
show that some of the prose itself remained unchanged into the final
form.
It seems that in DA I Adunaic was at the point of emergence, with
Eru-bent, Avalai, and Zigur (said to be the name of Sauron among the
men of Middle-earth, $19).
NOTES.
1. Wingalote: in the Quenta (Index to Vol.IV) the form was Wingelot
> Vingelot, in the Quenta Silmarillion (Index to Vol. V) Vingelot.
Wingalote was subsequently corrected to Vingalote on this type-
script (see p. 377, $8).
2. The form Earendel occurs also in $$16, 20, but it was clearly no
more than a casual reversion. Already in the manuscript E of Part
Two of the Papers Wilfrid Jeremy notes that the name that he saw
in his 'dream-manuscript' was Earendil, not Earendel.
3. Andore: Andor in The Fall of Numenor ($2) and The Lost Road
(V.65).
4. The matter of 'Edwin Lowdham's page' was inserted into manu-
script E of the Papers after the manuscript was completed so far as
it went (see p. 291 note 70), and the name of the Pillar of Heaven
in the accompanying Old English text was already Meneltyula
(p. 314; for earlier Menelminda in E), as in DA I, so that this name is
not here indicative of relative date. On the other hand, in the Old
English text Sauron built the great temple on the Meneltyula itself,
not in the midst of the city, which is good evidence that it was the
earlier composition. So also, the ban upon landing on Eressea in the
Old English text (p. 313) was clearly a development from the original
story in The Fall of Numenor ($4), that the Numenoreans must not
sail beyond Eressea, towards that in DA I that they must not sail
beyond sight of the western coasts of Numenor.
(iii) The second text of The Drowning of Anadune.
This text, 'DA II', is a typescript typed with care and almost free of error.
A paper folded round it, in my father's writing, bears my name and the
words 'Fair copy Anadune'. DA II represents so great an advance on
and elaboration of DA I that (since it is almost free of alterations or
hesitations during the original typing) it is hard to believe that no drafting
intervened between the two, although there is no trace now of anything of
the sort; but I do not think that I typed DA II (see p. 389, $28).
The title is The Drowning of Anadune. A fair number of alterations
were pencilled on the typescript, and in addition several passages were
rewritten or extended on typewritten slips attached to the body of the
text. These are ignored in the text printed, but all changes of any
substance are recorded in the commentary on DA II, pp. 376 ff.
I give the text in full, although this involves a certain amount of
repetition especially in the latter part of the narrative, for the sake of
clarity in the commentary and in making comparison with the
Akallabeth. The paragraphs are numbered to provide convenient
reference to DA I. In DA II both long marks and circumflex accents are
used (inserted in pencil); the circumflex superseded the long mark, as is
seen from the fact that it is found chiefly in corrected or added passages
and on corrected names, and only here and there in the original text. The
third text of The Drowning of Anadune uses the circumflex exclusively,
and it is more convenient to do the same here.
THE DROWNING OF ANADUNE.
$1 Before the coming of Men there were many Powers that
governed the Earth, and these were the Eru-beni, servants of God.
Many were their ranks and their offices; but some there were
among them that were mighty lords, the Avaloi, whom Men
remembered as gods, and at the beginning the greatest of these was
the Lord Arun.
$2 But it is said that long ago, even in the making of the Earth,
the Lord Arun turned to evil and became a rebel against Eru,
desiring the whole world for his own and to have none above him.
Therefore his brother Aman endeavoured to rule the Earth and the
Powers according to the will of Eru; and Aman dwelt in the West.
But Arun remained on Earth, dwelling in hiding in the North, and
he worked evil, and he had the greater power. And the Earth was
darkened in that time, so that to Arun a new name was given, and
he was called Mulkher, the Lord of Darkness; and there was war
between Mulkher and the Avaloi.
$3 At the appointed hour Men were born into the world, and
they were called the Eru-hin, the children of God; but they
came in a time of war and shadow, and they fell swiftly under the
domination of Mulkher, and they served him. And he now came
forth and appeared as a Great King and as a god; and his rule
was evil, and his worship unclean, and Men were estranged
from Eru and from his servants.
$4 But some there were of the fathers of Men who repented,
seeing the evil of the Lord Mulkher and that his shadow grew
ever longer on the Earth; and they and their sons returned with
sorrow to the allegiance of Eru, and they were befriended by the
Avaloi, and received again their ancient name, Eruhin, children
of God. And the Avaloi and the Eruhin made war on the
servants of Mulkher; and for that time they destroyed his
kingdom and threw down his temples. But Mulkher fled and
brooded in the darkness without, for him the Powers could not
destroy. And the evil that he had begun still sprouted like a dark
seed in Middle-earth, bearing bitter grain, which though it were
ever reaped and burned, was never at an end. And still cruel
kings and unholy temples arose in the world, and the most part
of Mankind were their servants; for Men were corrupt and still
hankered in their hearts for the Kingdom of Arun, and they
made war on the Eruhin and pursued them with hatred,
wheresoever they might dwell.
$5 Therefore the hearts of the Eruhin were turned west-
ward, where was the land of Aman, as they believed, and an
abiding peace. And it is said that of old there was a fair folk
dwelling yet in Middle-earth, and Men knew not whence they
came. But some said that they were the children of the Avaloi
and did not die, for their home was in the Blessed Realm far
away, whither they still might go, and whence they came,
working the will of Aman in all the lesser deeds and labours of
the world. The Eledai they were named in their own tongue of
old, but by the Eruhin they were called Nimri, the Shining Ones,
for they were exceeding fair to look upon, and fair were all the
works of their tongues and hands. And the Nimri became
sorrowful in the darkness of the days and withdrew ever
westward; and never again was grass so green, nor flower so
fair, nor water so filled with light when they had gone. And the
Eruhin for the most part followed them, though some there
were that remained in the Great Lands, free men, serving no evil
lord; and they were shepherds and dwelt far from the towers
and cities of the kings.
$6 But those of the Eruhin who were mightiest and most
fair, closest in friendship with the Nimri, most beloved by the
Servants of God, turned their faces to the light of the West; and
these were the children of the fathers that had been most valiant
in the war upon Mulkher. And at the end of journeys beyond
memory they came at last to the shores of the Great Seas. There
they halted and were filled with great dread, and with longing;
for the Nimri passed ever over the waters, seeking the land of
Aman, and the Eruhin could not follow them.
Then such of the Nimri as remained in the west of the world
took pity on the Eruhin, and instructed them in many arts; and
the Eruhin became wiser in mind, more skilled in hand and
?tongue, and they made for themselves many things that had not
before been seen. In this way the dwellers on the shore learned
the craft of ship-building and of sailing in the wind; and they
built many fair ships. But their vessels were small, and they did
not dare to essay the deep waters; for though their desire was to
the unseen shores, they had not as yet the heart for the wastes of
the Sea, and they sailed only about the coasts and among the
hither isles.
$7 Yet it was by their ships that they were saved and were
not brought to nought. For evil men multiplied in those days,
and pursued the Eruhin with hatred; and the men of Middle-
earth, being filled with the spirit of Mulkher, grew cunning and
cruel in the arts of war and the making of many weapons, so
that the Eruhin were hard put to it to maintain any land in
which to dwell, and their numbers were diminished.
$8 In those dark days of fear there arose a man, and his
daring upon the Sea was greater than that of all other men; and
the Nimri gave him a name and called him Earendil, the Friend
of the Sea, Azrabel in the language of the Eruhin. And it came
into the heart of Azrabel that he would build a ship, fairer and
more swift than any that men had yet made; and that he would
sail out over deep water and come, maybe, to the land of Aman,
and there get help for his kinsfolk. And with the help of the
Nimri he let build a ship, fair and valiant; white were its
timbers, and its sails were white, and its prow was carven in the
light of a silver bird; and at its launching he gave it a name and
called it Rothinzil, Flower of the Foam, but the Nimri blessed it
and named it also in their own tongue, Vingalote. This was the
first of all the ships of Men to bear a name.
$9 When at last his ship was ready, then Azrabel said
farewell to his wife and to his sons and all his kin; for he was
minded to sail alone. And he said to them: 'It is likely that ye
will see me never again; and if ye do not, then harden your
hearts, and cease not from war, but endure until the end. But if I
do not fail of my errand, then also ye may not see me again; but
a sign you will see, and new hope shall be given to you.'
$10 And it was at the time of evening that Azrabel set forth,
and he sailed into the setting sun and passed out of the sight of
men. But the winds bore him over the waves, and the Nimri
guided him, and he went through the Seas of sunlight, and
through the Seas of shadow, and he came at last to the Blessed
Realm and the land of Aman and spoke unto the Avaloi.
$11 But Aman said that Eru had forbidden the Avaloi to
make war again by force upon the kingdoms of Mulkher; for
the Earth was now in the hands of Men, to make or to mar. Yet
it was permitted to him, because of their fidelity and the
repentance of their fathers, to give to the Eruhin a land to dwell
in, if they would. And that land was a mighty island in the midst
of the sea, upon which no foot had yet been set. But Aman
would not permit Azrabel to return again among Men, since he
had walked in the Blessed Realm where yet no death had come.
Therefore he took the ship Rothinzil and filled it with a silver
flame, and raised it above the world to sail in the sky, a marvel
to behold.
$12 Then the Eruhin upon the shores of the Sea beheld the
new light rising in the West as it were a mighty star, and they
knew that it was the sign of Azrabel. And hope and courage
were kindled in their hearts; and they gathered all their ships,
great and small, and their wives and their children, and all the
wealth that they could bear away, and they set sail upon the
deep waters, following the star. And there was a great calm in
those days and all the winds were stilled. So bright was
Rothinzil that even at morning men could see it glimmering in
the West; and in the cloudless night it shone alone, for no other
star might come beside it. And setting their course towards it the
Eruhin came at last to the land that had been prepared for them,
and they found it fair and fruitful, and they were glad. And they
called that land Amatthane the Land of Gift, and Anadune,
which is Westernesse, Numenore in the Nimrian tongue.
$13 But not so did the Eruhin escape the doom of death that
had been pronounced upon all Mankind, and they were mortal
still, although for their faithfulness they were rewarded by life
of threefold span, and their years were full and glad and they
knew no grief nor sickness, so long as they remained still true.
Therefore the Adunai, the Men of Westernesse, grew wise and
fair and glorious; but their numbers increased only slowly in the
land, for though sons and daughters were born to them fairer
than their fathers, and they loved their children dearly, yet their
children were few.
$14 Thus the years passed, and the Adunai dwelt under the
protection of the Avaloi, and in the friendship of the Nimri; and
the kings and princes learned the Nimrian tongue, in which
much lore and song was preserved from the beginning of the
world. And they made letters and scrolls and books and wrote
in them many things of wisdom and wonder in the high tide of
their realm, of which all is now forgot. And they became mighty
in all other crafts, so that if they had had the mind, they would
easily have surpassed the evil kings of Middle-earth in the
making of war and the forging of weapons; but they were
become men of peace. In ship-building still was their chief
delight, and this craft they followed more eagerly than all
others; and voyaging upon the wide seas was the chief feat and
adventure of their younger men.
$15 But the Avaloi forbade them to sail so far westward
that the coasts of Anadune could no longer be seen; and the
Adunai were as yet content, though they did not fully under-
stand the purpose of this ban. But the purpose of Aman was that
the Eruhin should not be tempted to seek for the Blessed Realm,
nor desire to overpass the limits set to their bliss, becoming
enamoured of the immortality of the Avaloi and the land where
all things endure.
$16 For as yet Eru permitted the Avaloi to maintain upon
Earth, upon some isle or shore of the western lands (Men know
not where), an abiding place, an earthly memorial of that which
might have been, if Mulkher had not bent his ways nor Men
followed him. And that land the Adunai named Avalloni, the
Haven of the Gods; for at times when all the air was clear and
the sun was in the east they could descry, as them seemed, a city
white-shining on a distant shore, and great harbours, and a
tower. But this only from the topmost peak of their island could
the far-sighted see, or from some ship that lay at anchor off their
western shores, as far as it was lawful for any mariner to go. For
they did not dare to break the ban. And some held that it was a
vision of the Blessed Realm that men saw, but others said that it
was only a further isle where the Nimri dwelt and the little ones
that do not die; for mayhap the Avaloi had no visible dwelling
upon Earth.
And certain it is that the Nimri had some dwelling nigh unto
Anadune, for thither they came ever and anon, the children of
the Deathless Folk, sometimes in oarless boats, sometimes as
birds flying, sometimes by paths that none could see; for they
loved the Adunai.
$17 Thus it was that the voyages of the Adunai in those
days went ever eastward and not west, from the darkness of the
North to the heats of the South, and beyond the South to the
Nether Darkness. And the Eruhin came often to the shores of
the Great Lands, and they took pity on the forsaken world of
Middle-earth. And the princes of the Adunai set foot again upon
the western shores in the Dark Years of Men, and none now
dared withstand them; for most of the peoples of that age that
sat under the shadow were now grown weak and fearful. And
coming among them the sons of the Adunai taught them many
things. Language they taught them, for the tongues of men on
Middle-earth were fallen into brutishness, and they cried like
harsh birds or snarled like the savage beasts. And corn and wine
the Adunai brought, and they instructed men in the sowing of
seed and the grinding of grain, in the shaping of wood and the
hewing of stone, and in the ordering of life, such as it might be
in the lands of little bliss.
$18 Then the men of Middle-earth were comforted, and
here and there upon the western shores the houseless woods
drew back, and men shook off the yoke of the offspring of
Mulkher, and unlearned their terror of the dark. And they
revered the memory of the tall Sea-kings, and when they had
departed called them gods, hoping for their return; for at that
time the Adunai dwelt never long in Middle-earth nor made any
habitation of their own: eastward they must sail, but ever west
their hearts returned.
$19 Thus came the lightening of the shadow upon the Earth
and the beginning of betterment, of which the songs of men
preserve still the distant memory like an echo of the Sea. And yet
in the end new good turned again to evil, and Men fell, as it is
said, a second time. For there arose a second manifestation of
the power of darkness upon Earth: a new shape of the Ancient
Shadow, it may be, or one of its servants that drew power from
it and waxed strong and fell. And this evil thing was called by
many names; but its own name that it took in the arising of its
power was Zigur, Zigur the Great. And Zigur made himself a
mighty king in the midst of the Earth; and well-seeming he was
at first, and just, and his rule was of benefit to all men in the
needs of the body. For he made them rich, whoso would serve
him; but those who would not he drove out into the waste
places. Yet it was the purpose of Zigur, as of Mulkher before
him, to make himself a king over all kings, and to be the god of
Men. And slowly his power moved north and south, and ever
westward; and he heard of the coming of the Eruhin, and he
was wroth, and he plotted in his heart how he might destroy
Anadune.
$20 And tidings of Zigur came also to Anadune, to Ar-
Pharazon the king, heir of Azrabel; for this title had all the kings
of Amatthane, being descended indeed in unbroken line from
Indilzar son of Azrabel, and seven kings had ruled the Adunai
between Indilzar and Ar-Pharazon, and slept now in their deep
tombs under the mount of Menel-Tubal, lying upon beds of
gold. For high and glorious had grown the kings of Amatthane;
and great and proud was Ar-Pharazon, sitting upon his carven
throne in the city of Ar-Minaleth in the noontide of his realm.
And to him came the masters of ships and men returning out of
the East, and they spoke of Zigur, how he named himself the
Great, and purposed to become master of all Middle-earth, and
indeed of the whole world, if that might be. Great was the anger
of Ar-Pharazon when he heard these things, and he sat long in
thought, and his mood darkened.
$21 For it must be told that evil, of which once long ago
their fathers had partaken, albeit they had after repented, was
not banished wholly from the hearts of the Eruhin, and now
again was stirring. For the desire of everlasting life, to escape
from death and the ending of delight, grew ever stronger upon
them as their lot in the land of Amatthane grew more full of
bliss. And the Adunai began to murmur, at first in their hearts
and anon in words, against the doom of Men; and most of all
against that ban which forbade them to sail into the West or to
seek for the land of Aman and the Blessed Realm.
$22 And they said among themselves: Why do the Avaloi
sit in peace unending there, while we must die and go we know
not whither, leaving our own home and all that we have made?
For the fault was not ours in the beginning, seeing that Mulkher
was stronger and wiser than our fathers; and was not he, even
the Lord Arun, author of this evil, one of the Avaloi?'
$23 And the Nimri reported these words to the Avaloi, and
the Avaloi were grieved, seeing the clouds gather on the noon-
tide of Amatthane. And they sent messengers to the Adunai,
who spoke earnestly to the king and to all who would listen to
them, teaching them concerning the fashion and fate of the
world.
'The doom of the world,' they said, 'One alone can change,
who made it. And were you so to voyage that, escaping all
deceits and snares, you came indeed to the Blessed Realm, little
good would it do to you. For it is not the land of Aman that
maketh its people deathless, but the dwellers therein do hallow
the land; and there you should rather wither the sooner, as
moths in a flame too bright and hot.'
But Ar-Pharazon said: And doth not Azrubel [sic] my father
live? Or is he not in the land of Aman?'
To which it was answered: 'Nay, he is not there; though
maybe he liveth. But of such things we cannot speak unto you.
And behold! the fashion of the Earth is such that a girdle may
be set about it. Or as an apple it hangeth on the branches of
Heaven, and it is round and fair, and the seas and lands are but
the rind of the fruit, which shall abide upon the tree until the
ripening that Eru hath appointed. And though you sought for
ever, yet mayhap you would not find where Aman dwelleth, but
journeying on beyond the towers of Nimroth would pass into
the uttermost West. So would you but come at the last back to
the places of your setting out: and then the whole world would
seem shrunken, and you would deem that it was a prison.
$24 'And a prison, maybe, it hath indeed become to all those
of your race, and you cannot rest anywhere content within. But
the punishments of Eru are for healing, and his mercies may be
stern. For the Avaloi, you say, are unpunished, and so it is that
they do not die; but they cannot escape and are bound to this
world, never again to leave it, till all is changed. And you, you
say, are punished, and so it is that you die; but you escape, and
leave the world, and are not bound thereto. Which of us
therefore should envy the other?'
$25 And the Adunai answered: 'Why should we not envy
the Avaloi, or even the least of the deathless? For of us is
required the greater trust, knowing not what lieth before us in
a little while. And yet we too love the world and would not
lose it.'
And the messengers answered: 'Indeed the mind of Eru
concerning you is not known to the Avaloi, and he hath not yet
revealed it. But earnestly they bid you not to withhold again
that trust to which you are commanded and your fathers
returned in sorrow. Hope rather that in the end even the least of
your desires shall have fruit. For the love of this Earth was set in
your hearts by Eru, who made both it and you; and Eru doth
not plant to no purpose. Yet many ages of men unborn may
pass ere that purpose is made known.'
$26 But few only of the Adunai gave heed to this counsel.
For it seemed hard to them and full of doubt, and they wished to
escape from Death in their own day, not waiting upon hope;
and they became estranged from the Avaloi, and would no
longer receive their messengers. And these came now no more to
Anadune, save seldom and in secret, visiting those few that
remained faithful in heart.
Of these the chief was one Arbazan, and his son Nimruzan,
great captains of ships; and they were of the line of Indilzar
Azrabelo, though not of the elder house, to whom belonged the
crown and throne in the city of Arminaleth.
$27 But he Ar-Pharazon the king fell into doubt, and in his
day the offering of the first-fruits was neglected; and men went
seldom to the hallow in the high place upon Mount Menel-
Tubal that was in the midst of the land; and they turned the
more to works of handicraft, and to the gathering of wealth in
their ships that sailed to Middle-earth, and they drank and they
feasted and they clad themselves in silver and gold.
And on a time Ar-Pharazon sat with his counsellors in his
high house, and he debated the words of the messengers, saying
that the shape of the Earth was such that a girdle might be set
about it. 'For if we shall believe this,' he said, 'that one who
goeth west shall return out of the East, then shall it not also be
that one who goeth ever east shall come up at last behind the
West, and yet break no ban?'
But Arbazan said: 'It may be so. Yet nought was said of how
long the girdle might be. And mayhap, the width of the world
is such that a man would wear the whole of his life, or ever he
encompassed it. And I deem it for a truth that we have been set
for our health and protection most westward of all mortal men,
where the land of those that do not die lies upon the very edge of
sight; so that he that would go round about from Anadune must
needs traverse well nigh the whole girdle of the Earth. And even
so it may be that there is no road by sea.' And it has been said
that at that time he guessed aright, and that ere the shape of
things was changed, eastward of Anadune the land stretched in
truth from the North even into the uttermost South, where are
ices impassable.
But the king said: 'Nonetheless we may give thought to
this road, if it may be discovered.' And he pondered in his
secret thought the building of ships of great draught and
burden, and the setting up of outposts of his power upon far
shores.
$28 Thus it was that his anger was the greater, when he
heard those tidings of Zigur the Mighty and of his enmity to the
Adunai. And he determined, without counsel of the Avaloi or of
any wisdom but his own, that he would demand the allegiance
and homage of this lord: for in his pride he thought that no king
could ever arise so mighty as to vie with the heir of Azrabel.
Therefore he began in that time to smithy great hoard of
weapons of war, and he let build great ships and stored them
with arms; and when all was ready he himself set sail into the
East, and he landed upon Middle-earth; and he commanded
Zigur to come to him and to swear him fealty. And Zigur came.
For he saw not his time yet to work his will with Anadune; and
he was maybe for the time astounded by the power and majesty
of the kings of men, which surpassed all rumour of them. And
he was crafty, well skilled to gain what he would by subtlety
when force might not avail. Therefore he humbled himself
before Ar-Pharazon, and smoothed his tongue, and seemed in
all things fair and wise.
$29 And it came into the heart of Ar-Pharazon the king that,
for the better keeping of Zigur and his oaths of fealty, he should
be brought to Anadune, and dwell there as a hostage for himself
and all his servants. And to this Zigur assented willingly, for it
chimed with his desire. And Zigur coming looked upon Anadune
and the city of Ar-Minaleth in the days of its glory, and he was
indeed astounded; but his heart within was filled the more with
envy and with hate.
$30 Yet such was his cunning that ere three years were past
he had become closest to the secret counsels of the king; for
flattery sweet as honey was ever on his tongue, and knowledge
he had of many hidden things; and all the counsellors, save
Arbazan alone, began to fawn upon him. Then slowly a change
came over the land, and the hearts of the Faithful grew full of
fear.
$31 For now, having the ear of men, Zigur with many
arguments gainsaid all that the Avaloi had taught. And he bade
men think that the world was not a circle closed, but there lay
many seas and lands for their winning, wherein was wealth
uncounted. And still, should they at the last come to the end
thereof, beyond all lay the Ancient Darkness. 'And that is the
Realm of the Lord of All, Arun the Greatest, who made this
world out of the primeval Darkness; and other worlds he yet
may make and give them in gift to those that serve him. And
Darkness alone is truly holy,' he said and lied.
$32 Then Ar-Pharazon the king turned back to the worship
of the Dark, and of Arun-Mulkher the Lord thereof; and the
Menel-tubal was utterly deserted in those days, and no man
might ascend to the high place, not even those of the Faithful
who kept Eru in their hearts. But Zigur let build upon a hill in
the midst of the city of the Eruhin, Ar-Minaleth the Golden, a
mighty temple; and it was in the form of a circle at the base, and
there the walls were fifty feet in thickness, and the width of their
base was five hundred feet across the centre, and they rose from
the ground five hundred feet, and they were crowned with a
mighty dome; and it was wrought all of silver, but the silver was
turned black. And from the topmost of the dome, where was an
opening or great louver, there issued smoke; and ever the more
often as the evil power of Zigur grew. For there men would
sacrifice to Mulkher with spilling of blood and torment and
great wickedness, that he should release them from Death. And
ofttimes it was those of the Faithful that were chosen as victims;
but never openly on the charge that they would not worship
Mulkher, rather was cause sought against them that they hated
the king and were his rebels, or that they plotted against their
kin, devising lies and poisons. And these charges were for the
most part false, save that wickedness breeds wickedness, and
oppression brings forth murder.
$33 But for all this Death did not depart from the land.
Rather it came sooner and more often and in dreadful guise. For
whereas aforetime men had grown slowly old and laid them
down in the end to sleep, when they were weary at last of the
world, now madness and sickness assailed them; and yet they
were afraid to die and go out into the dark, the realm of the lord
that they had taken; and they cursed themselves in their agony.
And men took weapons in those days and slew one another for
little cause, for they were become quick to anger; and Zigur, or
those whom he had bound unto himself, went about the land
setting man against man, so that the people murmured against
the king and the lords and any that had aught that they had not,
and the men of power took hard revenge.
$34 Nonetheless for long it seemed to the Adunai that they
prospered, and if they were not increased in happiness yet they
grew more strong and their rich men ever richer. For with the
aid of Zigur they multiplied their wealth and they devised many
engines, and they built ever greater ships. And they sailed with
power and armoury to Middle-earth, and they came no longer
as the bringers of gifts, but as men of war. And they hunted the
men of Middle-earth and took their goods and enslaved them,
and many they slew cruelly upon their altars. For they built
fortresses and temples and great tombs upon the western shores
in those days; and men feared them, and the memory of the
kindly kings of the Elder Days faded in the world and was
darkened by many a tale of dread.
$35 Thus Ar-Pharazon the King of the land of the Star of
Azrabel grew to the mightiest tyrant that had yet been seen in
the world since the reign of Mulkher, though in truth Zigur
ruled all from behind the throne. And the years passed, and
lo! the king felt the shadow of Death approach as his days
lengthened; and he was filled with rage and fear. And now came
the hour that Zigur had planned and long awaited. And Zigur
spoke to the king, saying evil of Eru, that he was but a phantom,
a lie devised by the Avaloi to justify their own idleness and
greed.
'For the Avaloi,' said he, 'withhold the gift of everlasting life
out of avarice and fear, lest the kings of Men should wrest from
them the rule of the world and take for themselves the Blessed
Realm. And though, doubtless, the gift of everlasting life is not
for all, but only for such as are worthy, being men of might and
pride and great lineage, yet against all justice is it done, that this
gift, which is his least due, should be withheld from the King,
pe-Pharazon, mightiest of the sons of Earth, to whom Aman
alone can be compared, if even he.' And Ar-Pharazon, being
besotted, and walking under the shadow of Death, for his span
was drawing to an end, harkened to Zigur; and he began to
ponder in his heart how he might make war upon the Avaloi.
Long was he in preparing this design, and he spoke of it to few;
yet it could not be hidden from all for ever.
$36 Now there dwelt still in the east of Anadune, nigh to
the city of Ar-Minaleth, Arbazan, who was of the royal house,
as has been told, and he was faithful; and yet so noble had he
been and so mighty a captain of the sea that still he was
honoured by all save the most besotted of the people, and
though he had the hatred of Zigur, neither king nor counsellor
dared lay hand on him as yet. And Arbazan learned of the secret
counsels of the king, and his heart was filled with grief and great
dread; for he knew that Men could not vanquish the Avaloi in
war, and that great ruin must come upon the world, if this war
were not stayed. Therefore he called his son Nimruzan, and he
said to him: 'Behold! the days are dark and desperate. Therefore
I am minded to try that rede which our forefather Azrabel took
of old: to sail into the West (be there ban or no ban), and to
speak to the Avaloi, yea, even to Aman himself, if may be, and
beseech his aid ere all is lost.'
'Would you then bewray the King?' said Nimruzan.
'For that very thing do I purpose to go,' said Arbazan.
'And what then, think you, is like to befall those of your
house whom you leave behind, when your deed becometh
known?'
$37 'It must not become known,' said Arbazan. 'I will
prepare my going in secret, and I will set sail into the East,
whither daily many ships depart from our havens, and there-
after, as wind and chance may allow, I will go about through
south or north back into the West, and seek what I may find.
'But you and your folk, my son, I counsel that you should
prepare yourself other ships, and put aboard all such things as
your hearts cannot bear to part with, and when the ships are
ready you should take up your abode therein, keeping a
sleepless watch. And you should lie in the eastern havens, and
give out among men that you purpose, when you see your time,
to set sail and follow me into the East. Arbazan is no longer so
dear to our kinsman upon the throne that he will grieve over
much, if we seek to depart for a season or for good. But let it not
be seen that you intend to take many men, or he may become
troubled because of the war that he now plots, for which he will
need all the force that he may gather. Seek out rather the
Faithful that are known to you, and let them lie ashore at call, if
they are willing to go with you. But even to these men do not tell
more of your design than is needful.'
$38 'And what shall that design be, that you make for me?*
said Nimruzan.
'Until I return, I cannot say,' his father answered. 'But to be
sure most like is it that you must fly from fair Amatthane that is
now defiled, and lose what you have loved, foretasting death in
life, seeking a lesser land elsewhere. East or West, the Avaloi
alone can say.
'And it may well prove that you shall see me never again, and
that I shall show you no such sign as Azrabel showed of old. But
hold you ever in readiness, for the end of the world that we have
known is now at hand.'
$39 And it is said that Arbazan set sail in a small ship at
night, and steered first eastward and then went about and
passed into the West. And he took three servants with him, dear
to his heart, and never again were they heard of by word or sign
in this world; nor is there any tale or guess of their fate. But this
much may be seen that Men could not a second time be saved by
any such embassy, and for the treason of Anadune there was no
easy assoiling. But Nimruzan did all that his father had bidden,
and his ships lay off the east coast of the land, and he held
himself secret and did not meddle with the deeds of those days.
At whiles he would journey to the western shores and gaze out
upon the sea, for sorrow and yearning were upon him, for
he had greatly loved his father; but nought could he descry
but the fleets of Ar-Pharazon gathering in the havens of the
west.
$40 Now aforetime in the isle of Anadune the weather was
ever apt to the liking and the needs of men: rain in due seasons
and ever in measure, and sunshine, now warm now cooler, and
winds from over the sea; and when the wind was in the West,
it seemed to many that it was filled with a fragrance, fleeting
but sweet, heart-stirring, as of flowers that bloom for ever in
undying meads and have no names on mortal shores. But all this
was now changed. For the sky itself was darkened, and there
were storms of rain and hail in those days, and violent winds;
and ever and anon a great ship of the Adunai would founder
and return not to haven, though never had such a grief betid
before since the rising of the Star. And out of the West there
would come at whiles a great cloud, shaped as it were an eagle,
with pinions spread to the North and to the South; and slowly it
would loom up, blotting out the sunset (for at that hour mostly
was it seen), and then uttermost night would fall on Anadune.
And anon under the pinions of the eagles lightning was borne,
and thunder rolled in heaven, such a sound as men of that land
had not heard before.
$41 Then men grew afraid. 'Behold the Eagles of the Lords
of the West! ' they cried; 'the Eagles of Aman are over Anadune! '
and they fell upon their faces. And some few would repent, but
the others hardened their hearts and shook their fists at heaven,
and said: 'The Lords of the West have desired this war. They
strike first; the next blow shall be ours.' And these words the
king himself spoke, but Zigur devised them.
$42 Then the lightnings increased and slew men upon the
hills, and in the fields, and in the streets of the city; and a fiery
bolt smote the dome of the Temple and it was wreathed in
flame. But the Temple was unshaken; for Zigur himself stood
upon the pinnacle and defied the lightnings; and in that hour
men called him a god and did all that he would. When therefore
the last portent came they heeded it little; for the land shook
under them, and a groaning as of thunder underground was
mingled with the roaring of the sea; and smoke appeared upon
the top of Menil-Tubal [sic]. But still Ar-Pharazon pressed on
with his designs.
$43 And now the fleets of the Adunai darkened the sea upon
the west of the land, and they were like an archipelago of a
thousand isles; their masts were as a forest upon the mountains,
and their sails were like a brooding cloud; and their banners
were black and golden like stars upon the fields of night. And all
things now waited upon the word of Ar-Pharazon; and Zigur
withdrew into the inmost circle of the Temple, and men brought
him victims to be burned. Then the Eagles of the Lords of the
West came up out of the dayfall, and they were arrayed as for
battle, one after another in an endless line; and as they came
their wings spread ever wider, grasping all the sky; but the West
burned red behind them, and they glowed like living blood
beneath, so that Anadune was illumined as with a dying fire,
and men looked upon the faces of their fellows, and it seemed to
them that they were filled with wrath.
$44 Then Ar-Pharazon hardened his heart, and he went
aboard his mighty ship, Aglarrama, castle of the sea; many-
oared it was and many-masted, golden and sable, and upon it
the throne of Ar-Pharazon was set. Then he put on his panoply
and his crown, and let raise his standard, and he gave the signal
for the weighing of the anchors; and in that hour the trumpets
of Anadune outrang the thunder.
$45 And so the fleets of the Adunai moved against the
menace of the West; and there was little wind, but they had
many oars, and many strong slaves to row beneath the lash. The
sun went down, and there came a silence; and over the land and
all the seas a dark stillness fell, while the world waited for what
should betide. Slowly the fleets passed out of the sight of the
watchers in the havens, and their lights faded upon the sea, and
night took them; and in the morning they were gone. For at
middle night a wind arose in the East (by Zigur's art, it is said),
and it wafted them away; and they broke the ban of the Avaloi,
and sailed into forbidden seas, going up with war against the
Deathless Folk, to wrest from them life everlasting in the circle
of the world.
$46 And who shall tell the tale of their fate? For neither ship
nor man of all that host returned ever to the lands of living men.
And whether they came in truth to that harbour which of old
the Adunai could descry from Menel-Tubal; or whether they
found it not, or came to some other land and there assailed the
Avaloi, it is not known. For the world was changed in that time,
and the memory of all that went before is unsure and dim.
$47 Among the Nimri only was word preserved of the
things that were; of whom the wisest in lore of old have learned
this tale. And they say that the fleets of the Adunai came indeed
to Avalloni in the deeps of the sea, and they encompassed it
about; and still all was silent, and doom hung upon a thread.
For Ar-Pharazon wavered at the end, and almost he turned
back; but pride was his master, and at last he left his ship and
strode upon the shore. Then Aman called upon Eru, and in that
hour the Avaloi laid down the governance of the Earth. But Eru
showed forth his power, and he changed the fashion of the
world; and a great chasm opened in the sea between Anadune
and the Deathless Land, and the waters flowed down into it,
and the noise and the smoke of those cataracts went up to
heaven, and the world was shaken. And into the abyss fell all
the fleets of the Adunai and were swallowed in oblivion. But the
land of Aman and the land of his gift, standing upon either side
of the great chasm in the seas, were also destroyed; for their
roots were loosened, and they fell and foundered, and they are
no more. And the Avaloi thereafter had no habitation on Earth,
nor is there any place more where a memory of a world without
evil is preserved; and the Avaloi dwell in secret, or have become
as shadows and their power has waned.
$48 In an hour unlooked-for this doom befell, on the
seventh evening since the passing of the fleets. Then suddenly
there was a mighty wind and a tumult of the Earth, and the sky
reeled and the hills slid, and Anadune went down into the sea
with all its children, and its wives, and its maidens, and its ladies
proud; and all its gardens and its halls and its towers, its riches
and its jewels and its webs and its things painted and carven,
and its laughter and its mirth and its music and its wisdom, and
its speech, they vanished for ever. And last of all the mounting
wave, green and cold and plumed with foam, took to its bosom
Ar-Zimrahil the Queen, fairer than silver or ivory or pearls; too
late she strove to climb the steep ways of Menel-Tubal to the
holy place, for the waters overtook her, and her cry was lost in
the roaring of the wind.
$49 But indeed the summit of the Mountain, the Pillar of
Heaven, in the midst of the land was a hallowed place, nor had
it ever been defiled. Therefore some have thought that it was not
drowned for ever, but rose again above the waves, a lonely
island lost in the great waters, if haply a mariner should come
upon it. And many there were that after sought for it, because it
was said among the remnant of the Adunai that the far-sighted
men of old could see from Menel-Tubal's top the glimmer of
the Deathless Land. For even after their ruin the hearts of the
Adunai were still set westward.
$50 And though they knew that the land of Aman and the
isle of Anadune were no more, they said: 'Avalloni is vanished
from the Earth, and the Land of Gift is taken away, and in the
world of this present darkness they cannot be found; yet they
were, and therefore they still are in true being and in the whole
shape of the world.' And the Adunai held that men so blessed
might look upon other times than those of the body's life; and
they longed ever to escape from the shadows of their exile and
to see in some fashion the light that was of old. Therefore some
among them would still search the empty seas,. but all the ways
are crooked that once were straight,' they said.
$51 And in this way it came to pass that any were spared
from the downfall of Anadune; and maybe this was the answer
to the errand of Arbazan. For those that were spared were all
of his house and kin, or faithful followers of his son. Now
Nimruzan had remained behind, refusing the king's summons
when he set out to war; and avoiding the soldiers of Zigur that
came to seize him and drag him to the fires of the Temple, he
went aboard ship and stood out a little from the shore, waiting
on the hour. There he was protected by the land from the great
draught of the sea that drew all down into the abyss, and
afterward from the first fury of the storm and the great wave
that rolled outwards when the chasm was closed and the
foundations of the sea were rocked.
But when the land of Anadune toppled to its fall, then at last
he fled, rather for the saving of the lives of those that followed
him than of his own; for he deemed that no death could be more
bitter than the ruin of that day. But the wind out of the West
blew still more wild than any wind that men had known; and it
tore away sail and threw down mast and hunted the unhappy
men like straws upon the water. And the sea rose into great
hills; and Nimruzan, and his sons and people, fleeing before the
black gale from twilight into night were borne up upon the
crests of waves like mountains moving, and after many days
they were cast away far inland upon Middle-earth.
$52 And all the coasts and seaward regions of the world
suffered great ruin and change in that time; for the Earth was
sorely shaken, and the seas climbed over the lands, and shores
foundered, and ancient isles were drowned, and new isles were
uplifted; and hills crumbled, and rivers were turned into strange
courses.
$53 And here ends the tale to speak of Nimruzan and his
sons who after founded many kingdoms in Middle-earth; and
though their lore and craft was but an echo of that which had
been ere Zigur came to Anadune, yet did it seem very great to
the wild men of the world.
$54 And it is said that Zigur himself was filled with dread at
the fury of the wrath of the Avaloi and the doom that Eru
wrought; for it was greater far than aught that he had looked
for, hoping only for the death of the Adunai and the defeat of
their proud king. And Zigur sitting in his black seat in the midst
of his temple laughed when he heard the trumpets of Ar-
pharazon sounding for battle; and again he laughed when he
heard the thunder of the storm; and a third time, even as he
laughed at his own thought (thinking what he would now do in
the world, being rid of the Eruhin for ever), he was taken in the
midst of his mirth and his seat and his temple fell into the abyss.
$55 But Zigur was not of mortal flesh, and though he was
robbed of that shape in which he had wrought so great an evil,
yet ere long he devised another; and he came back also to
Middle-earth and troubled the sons of Nimruzan and all men
beside. But that comes not into the tale of the Drowning of
Anadune, of which all is now told. For the name of that land
perished, and that which was aforetime the Land of Gift in the
midst of the sea was lost, and the exiles on the shores of the
world, if they turned to the West, spoke of Akallabe that was
whelmed in the waves, the Downfallen, Atalante in the Nimrian
tongue.
*
I have shown (p. 353) that the original text of The Drowning of
Anadune (DA I) can be placed between the composition of the
manuscript (E) of Part Two of The Notion Club Papers and the
rejected section F 1 of the typescript, on the evidence of the name of
the Pillar of Heaven: Meneltyula in DA I (appearing as an emendation
in E) but Menel-tubel (>-tubil) in F 1 (from here onwards, in
comparative passages, I use the circumflex accent on all forms
whatever the usage in the text cited). On the same basis the present
text DA II belongs with F 1, since the Pillar of Heaven is here
Menel-Tubal, whereas the replacement section F 2 of the typescript of
the Papers has Minul-Tarik. Similarly DA II and F 1 agree in Avaloi,
Adunai for F 2 Avaloim, Adunaim (for the different forms of Adunaic
names in F 1 and F 2 see pp. 240 - 1, 305).
On the other hand, DA II has Anadune, as does F 2, whereas F 1 has
Anadun; and F 1 had the Adunaic name of Earendil as Pharazir,
changed on the typescript to Azrubel, while DA II has Azrabel from
the first. In DA II appears the name Amatthane of 'the Land of Gift',
which supplanted the name in F 1, Athanati (see p. 378, $12); F 2 has
the final name, Yozayan.
From this comparison it is clear that the writing of DA II fell
between the original and rewritten forms (F 1 and F 2) of Lowdham's
account of Adunaic in Night 66 of The Notion Club Papers.
This greatly extended version of The Drowning of Anadune serves,
looking further on, as an extraordinarily clear exemplification of my
father's method of 'composition by expansion'. Separated by years
and many further texts from the published Akallabeth, in DA II (most
especially in the latter part of it) a very great deal of the actual wording
of the Akallabeth was already present. The opening of DA II is totally
distinct (for here the Akallabeth was expanded from The Fall of
Numenor); but beginning with $12 (the sailing to Anadune following
the Star) I calculate that no less than three-fifths of the precise wording
of DA II was preserved in the Akallabeth. This is the more striking
when one looks at it in reverse: for I find that, beginning at the same
point in the Akallabeth (p. 260), only three-eighths of the latter (again,
in precisely the same wording) are present in DA II. In other words,
very much more than half of what my father wrote at this time was
exactly retained in the Akallabeth; but very much less than half the
Akallabeth was an exact retention from DA II.
A good deal of this expansion came about through the insertion (at
different stages in the textual history) of phrases or brief passages into
the body of the original text (and a small part of this belongs to the
further textual history of The Drowning of Anadune). To a much
greater extent the old narrative was transformed by the introduction
of long sections of new writing. There were also significant alterations
of structure.
There follows here a commentary, by paragraphs, on DA II, which
includes all alterations of significance made to the text after it was
typed, and also indications of the later expansions found in the
Akallabeth.
Commentary on the second version.
$1. In DA II the ambiguity of the term Avalai in DA I is removed,
and the Avaloi are 'mighty lords, whom Men remembered as
gods', the Valar; while in $5 appear the Nimri (Eldar). The
phrase 'whom Men remembered as gods' was changed to 'who
were before the world was made, and do not die'.
This opening paragraph had been very roughtly rewritten on
DA I nearly to its form in DA II, but for 'the Lord Arun' the
name was 'the Lord Kheru'.
$2. his brother Aman (DA I Manawe). In all the texts of The
Drowning of Anadune Manwe is named Aman, and this is the
sole reference of the name. Aman was one of the names that my
father listed as 'Alterations in last revision [of The Silmarillion]
in 1951' (see p. 312), and there seems good reason to suppose
that Aman actually made its first appearance here, as the
Adunaic name of Manwe.
$5. some said that they were the children of the Avaloi and did not
die. In $16 the Nimri are called, without any qualification of
'some said', 'the children of the Deathless Folk'. Cf. the opening
of the Quenta Silmarillion (V.204, $2):
These spirits the Elves name the Valar, which is the Powers,
and Men have often called them Gods. Many lesser spirits of
their own kind they brought in their train, both great and
small; and some of these Men have confused with the Elves,
but wrongly, for they were made before the World, whereas
Elves and Men awoke first in the World, after the coming of
the Valar.
Though not mentioned in this passage, the conception of 'the
Children of the Valar' is frequently encountered in the Quenta
Silmarillion; and cf. especially The Later Annals of Valinor
(V.110): 'With these great ones came many lesser spirits, beings
of their own kind but of smaller might... And with them also
were later numbered their children...' (see commentary on this,
V.120 - 1).
Eledai: this name is found elsewhere; see pp. 397 ff.
$7 and were not brought to nought: changed to 'and did not perish
wholly from the Earth.'
$8 At the end of the opening sentence, '... than that of all other
men', the following was added in:
for often he would launch his boat into the loud winds, or
would sail alone far from the sight even of the mountains of
his land, and return again hungry from the sea after many
days.
Azrabel: cf. the rejected section F 1 of the typescript of Part
Two of the Papers (p. 305): 'Azrubel, made of azar "sea" and
the stem bel-'. The form Azrabel became Azrubel in the course
of typing the third text DA III; but there is a single occurrence of
Azrubel, as typed, in DA II ($23). On the significance of the two
forms see p. 429.
Rothinzil: this name is found in the Akallabeth (pp. 259 - 60).
Vingalote: in DA I Wingalote; becoming Wingalote in DA III,
and reverting to Vingalote in the final text DA IV.
$11 The concluding passage, beginning 'But Aman would not permit
Azrabel...', was changed to read:
Azrubel did not return to bear these tidings to his kindred,
whether of his own will, for he could not endure to depart
again living from the Blessed Realm where no death had
come; or by the command of Aman, that report of it should
not trouble the hearts of the Eruhin, upon whom Eru himself
had set the doom of death. But Aman took the ship Rothinzil
and filled it with a silver flame, and set therein mariners of the
Nimir, and raised it above the world to sail in the sky, a
marvel to behold.
The form Mimir, for Nimri, appears in the third text DA III.
$12 The name Amatthane ('the Land of Gift') was typed in subse-
quently over an erasure, but the erased form can be seen to have
had eight letters, beginning with A and probably ending with e.
In the text F 1 of Part II of the Papers the Land of Gift was
Athanati (p. 305), and Athanate occurs in an earlier form of
Lowdham's fragment II, p. 312; thus the erased name here was
obviously Athanate. Subsequently the name Amatthane appears
in DA III as typed.
To this paragraph a typewritten slip was attached, changing
the passage following the words 'they set sail upon the deep
waters, following the star':
And the Avaloi laid a peace on the sea for many days, and
sent sunlight and a sailing wind, so that the waters glittered
before the eyes of the Eruhin like rippling glass, and the foam
flew like shining snow before the stems of their ships. But so
bright was Rothinzil that even at morning men could see it
glimmering in the West, and in the cloudless night it shone
alone, for no other star might come beside it. And setting their
course towards it, the Eruhin came at last over leagues of sea
and saw afar the land that was prepared for them, Zenn'abar
the Land of Gift, shimmering in a golden haze. Then they
went up out of the sea and found a country fair and fruitful,
and they were glad. And they called that land Gimlad, which
is Starwards, and Anadune, which is Westernesse, Numenore
in the Nimrian tongue.
This is virtually the text in the Akallabeth (pp. 260 - 1), apart of
course from the names. Zenn'abar was subsequently changed to
Zen'nabar, and then to Abarzayan (which was the form in the
third text DA III). The name Amatthane was not lost, however:
see p. 388, $23.
$13 The statement here and in DA I that the Eruhin were rewarded
by a life of threefold span goes back to a change made to FN II,
$10 (V.28); cf. also Aragorn's words 'I have still twice the span
of other men', p. 57, and the statement in Appendix A (I,i) to
The Lord of the Rings: the Numenoreans were granted a span
of life 'in the beginning thrice that of lesser Men'. For an account
of my father's views on the longevity of the Numenoreans see
Unfinished Tales pp. 224 - 5.
Between $13 and $14 there is a long passage in the Akal-
labeth in which Andunie, the Meneltarma, Armenelos, and the
tombs of the kings are referred to, and then the ancestry and
choices of Elrond and Elros (this being closely derived from a
long insertion to FN III $2: see pp. 333, 339 - 40).
$14 The opening sentence was changed to read:
Thus the years passed, and while Middle-earth went back-
ward and light and wisdom failed there, the Adunai dwelt
under the protection of the Avaloi, and in the friendship of
the Nimri, and increased in stature both of body and of mind.
With 'the kings and princes learned the Nimrian tongue, in
which much lore and song was preserved from the beginning of
the world' cf. FN III $2 (p. 333): 'the speech of Numenor was
the speech of the Eldar of the Blessed Realm'. In the Akallabeth
the linguistic conception is more complex (p. 262): the Nume-
noreans still used their own speech, but 'their kings and lords
knew and spoke also the Elven tongue [Sindarin], which they
had learned in the days of their alliance, and thus they held
converse still with the Eldar, whether of Eressea or of the west-
lands of Middle-earth. And the loremasters among them learned
also the High Eldarin tongue of the Blessed Realm, in which
much story and song was preserved from the beginning of the
world ...' See note 19 to Aldarion and Erendis in Unfinished
Tales, p. 215.
$15 On the progressive restrictiveness of the Ban see p. 356 note 4.
$16 The vagueness of knowledge concerning the dwelling of the
Avaloi ('upon some isle or shore of the western lands (Men
know not where)') is retained from DA I, and the Adunai still
name it 'the Haven of the Gods', Avalloni, for Avallonde in DA
I. (In FN $1 the name Avallon was given to Tol Eressea, 'for it is
hard by Valinor'. In both versions of Lowdham's exemplifica-
tion of Numenorean names in The Notion Club Papers, pp.
241, 305, he refers to the place-name Avalloni without suggest-
ing where or what it might be; and in the second version F 2 he
adds that although it is a name of his Language B, Adunaic, 'it is
with it, oddly enough, that I associate Language A', Quenya. In
both versions he calls Language A 'Avallonian'.) The Adunai
named the land of the Avaloi 'the Haven of the Gods', Avalloni,
'for at times ... they could descry ... a city white-shining on a
distant shore, and great harbours, and a tower.' But there now
enters in The Drowning of Anadune the idea of divergent
opinions concerning this vision of a land to the west: 'And some
held that it was a vision of the Blessed Realm that men saw, but
others said that it was only a further isle where the Nimri dwelt
... for mayhap the Avaloi had no visible dwelling upon Earth.'
The latter opinion is supported by the author of The Drowning
of Anadune, since 'certain it is that the Nimri had some dwelling
nigh unto Anadune, for thither they came ever and anon, the
children of the Deathless Folk...'
This was retained through the two further texts of The
Drowning of Anadune without any significant change save the
loss of the words 'the children of the Deathless Folk' (see
the note on $5 above). In the Akallabeth the true nature of the
distant city is asserted: 'But the wise among them knew that this
distant land was not indeed the Blessed Realm of Valinor, but
was Avallone, the haven of the Eldar upon Eressea, easternmost
of the Undying Lands' (pp. 262 - 3). See further the commentary
on $47 below.
Before 'the Blessed Realm' the name Zen'naman was pen-
cilled on the typescript, and again in $23; in both cases this was
struck through. See the commentary on $47.
The reference to 'their own western haven, Andunie of
Numenor' in DA I is now lost. Andunie had appeared in FN ($2,
p. 333): Of old the chief city and haven of that land was in the
midst of its western coasts, and it was called Andunie, because it
faced the sunset'; this reappears in the Akallabeth, p. 261.
$17 In none now dared withstand them 'now' was changed to 'yet';
this is the reading of the Akallabeth, p. 263.
The whole of $$17 - 18 was retained in the Akallabeth, with
the exception of the reference to the brutish speech of the men of
Middle-earth (repeated in the following texts of The Drowning
of Anadune). In the Akallabeth there appears here a reference to
the far eastern voyages of the Numenoreans: 'and they came
even into the inner seas, and sailed about Middle-earth and
glimpsed from their high prows the Gates of Morning in the
East'; this was derived from FN $3 (p. 334; see V.20, commen-
tary on $3). With this cf. the opinion expressed in $27, that
there was no sea-passage into the East.
$19 of which the songs of men preserve still the distant memory like
an echo of the Sea. The song of King Sheave is doubtless to be
understood as such an echo.
In the Akallabeth the first mention of the emergence of
Sauron is postponed to a much later point in the narrative, and
it is not until $21 that the old version begins to be used again,
with the murmurings of the Numenoreans against the Doom of
Men and the ban on their westward sailing.
In DA I Zigur is the name which the men of Middle-earth
gave to Sauron; it is not said that it was the name that he took
for himself.
$20 Amatthane: at the first occurrence in this paragraph the name
was left to stand, but at the second (and again in $21) it was
changed to Zen'nabar (see under $12 above).
Indilzar: Elros, first King of Numenor. The name was
changed to Gimilzor (and so appears in the subsequent texts).
In the later development of the Numenorean legend the name
(Ar-) Gimilzor is given to the twenty-third king (father of Tar-
Palantir who repented of the ways of the kings and grand-
father of Ar-Pharazon; Unfinished Tales p. 223, Akallabeth
p.269).
seven kings: here Ar-Pharazon becomes the ninth king, since
it is expressly said that 'seven kings had ruled between Indilzar
[Elros] and Ar-Pharazon'. Seven was changed to twelve, and this
remains into the final text of DA; he thus becomes the four-
teenth king. In his long exposition of the 'cycles' of his legends
to Milton Waldman in 1951 (Letters no. 131, p. 155) my father
wrote of 'the thirteenth king of the line of Elros, Tar-Calion the
Golden'. It may be that he was counting the kings 'of the line of
Elros' and excluding Elros himself; but on the other hand, in
an addition to FN III $5 (p. 335) it is said that 'twelve kings
had ruled before him', which would make Ar-Pharazon the
thirteenth king including Elros. See further p. 433, Footnote 6.
Menel-Tubal: see p. 375.
Ar-Minaleth replaces the name of the city in DA I ($32),
Antirion the Golden; spelt Arminaleth, it occurs in the final
form of the Old English text of 'Edwin Lowdham's page', pp.
257 - 8. Arminaleth remained into the earlier texts of the
Akallabeth, with a footnote: 'This was its name in the Numen-
orean tongue; for by that name it was chiefly known. Tar
Kalimos it was called in the Eldarin tongue.'
$23 The words 'the Avaloi were grieved' were changed to 'Aman
was grieved'; so also the Akallabeth has 'Manwe' here (p. 264).
Amatthane was not changed here (see under $20 above).
Azrubel: see under $8 above.
In the Akallabeth the words of the 'messengers' of Manwe to
the Numenoreans are still described as 'concerning the fate and
fashion of the world', but the word fashion referred originally to
their instruction as to its physical shape. In DA I the Avalai said
baldly 'that the world was round, and that if they sailed into the
utmost West, yet would they but come back again to the East
and so to the places of their setting out'; but now there enters (and
this was retained in the following texts of DA) the conception of
the Earth (which is 'such that a girdle may be set about it') as 'an
apple [that] hangeth on the branches of Heaven', whose seas
and lands are as 'the rind of the fruit, which shall abide upon the
tree until the ripening that Eru hath appointed.' Nothing of this
is left in the later work.
the towers of Nimroth: Nimroth was changed to Nimrun,
and so appears in the following texts; neither name is found
elsewhere.
$24 The words 'till all is changed' were altered to 'for its life is
theirs'.
$25 After 'For of us is required the greater trust' was added: 'and
hope without assurance'; and 'he hath not yet revealed it' was
changed to 'he hath not yet revealed all things that he hath in
store'. Following this a further passage was added on a type-
written slip:
But this we hold to be true that your home is not here, neither
in the land of Aman, nor anywhere else within the girdle of
the Earth; for the Doom of Men was not [added: at first]
devised as a punishment. If pain it hath become unto you, as
you say (though this we do not clearly understand), then is
that not only because you must now depart at a time set and
not of your own choosing? But this is the will of Eru, which
may not be gainsaid; and the Avaloi do most earnestly bid
you ...'
At the end of the words of the messengers was added: 'and to
you it will be revealed and not to the Avaloim' (the plural
ending -m in Adunaim, Avaloim appears in the next text, DA
III; see p. 375).
$26 From the refusal of all but a few of the Numenoreans to give
heed to the counsel of the messengers the Akallabeth diverges
altogether from The Drowning of Anadune, with the introduc-
tion of a very long passage (pp. 265 - 270) in which the history
of Numenor was vastly extended. Here it was also to the
thirteenth king (but including Elros as the first: see Unfinished
Tales pp. 218 ff., and under $20 above) that the messengers
came, but he was Tar-Atanamir, and many kings would follow
him before Ar-Pharazon. There follows an account of the
decadence of the Numenoreans in that age as their wealth and
power increased, of their growing horror of death, and of their
expansion into Middle-earth. The brief phrases of the opening
of $27 are embedded in this. Then in the Akallabeth comes the
arising of Sauron, told in entirely different terms from the story
in the old version, with mention of Barad-dur, of the One Ring,
and of the Ringwraiths; and all the history of the division of
the Numenoreans, the persecution of the Faithful under Ar-
Gimilzor and the banning of the Elvish tongue, and of the line of
the Lords of Andunie and the repentance of Tar-Palantir, the
last king before Ar-Pharazon.
Arbazan and his son Nimruzan: Amandil (in the Akallabeth)
and Elendil. In DA I Elendil's father is Amardil; but the Elvish
names do not appear again in The Drowning of Anadune.
Indilzar Azrabelo was changed to Indilzar Azrabelohin, and
then to Gimilzor (see under $20 above).
$27 Menel-Tubal was here changed to Menil-Tubal, and subse-
quently.
Of the debate of Ar-Pharazon with Arbazan on the possibility
of sailing east and so coming upon the land of Aman from the
west, retained in the following texts, there is no vestige in the
Akallabeth. On Arbazan's surmise that there might be no
eastern passage by sea see under $17 above. It is perhaps
possible that an idea of the geographical conception here can be
gained from the two maps accompanying the Ambarkanta in
IV.249, 251: for in the first of these there is very emphatically
no sea-passage, and in the North and South there are 'ices
impassable', while in the second there are straits by which ships
might come into the furthest East. But even if this were so it
could of course have no more than a 'pictorial' relevance, for the
second map exhibits the convulsions after the breaking of
Utumno and the chaining of Melkor in the First Battle of the
Gods (Quenta Silmarillion $21, V.213).
$28 The story of Ar-Pharazon's expedition into Middle-earth and
the submission of Sauron is much enlarged in the Akallabeth,
but this enlargement entered already in the third text DA III (see
p. 389, $28).
$31 For 'he bade men think that the world was not a circle closed,
but there lay many seas and lands for their winning' (retained in
the following texts) the Akallabeth (p. 271) has: 'he bade men
think that in the world, in the east and even in the west, there lay
yet many seas and many lands for their winning'.
The concluding passage of $31, 'And that is the Realm of the
Lord of All...', was replaced by the following on a typewritten
slip:
'And out of it the world was made; and the Lord thereof may
yet make other worlds to be gifts to those who serve him, so
that the increase of their power shall find no end.'
'And who is the lord of Darkness?' quoth Ar-Pharazon.
And behind locked doors Zigur spoke, and he lied, saying:
'It is he whose name is not now spoken, for the Avaloim have
deceived you concerning him, putting forward the name of
Eru, a phantom devised in the wickedness [) folly] of their
hearts, seeking to chain Men in servitude to themselves. For
they are the oracle of this Eru, which speaketh only what they
will. But he that is their master and shall yet prevail will
deliver you from this phantom; and his name is Arun, Lord of
All.'
Apart from names, this is almost the text of the Akallabeth.
$32 After the statement that Ar-Pharazon 'turned back to the
worship of the Dark' and that most of the people followed him,
there enters in the Akallabeth (p. 272) the first mention of
Amandil and Elendil, taking up the words of DA $26 and the
opening sentences of $36 and greatly expanding them, with an
account of the friendship of Ar-Pharazon and Amandil in their
youth, of Sauron's hatred of Amandil, and of his withdrawal to
the haven of Romenna.
The sentence 'and no man might ascend to the high place' was
changed to 'for though not even Zigur dared defile the high
place, yet the king would let no man, upon pain of death, ascend
to it'. The revised form appears in the Akallabeth, after which
there is a long passage (pp. 272 - 3) concerning the White Tree of
Numenor: of the king's reluctance to fell the Tree at Sauron's
bidding, of Isildur's circumventing the guards about Nimloth
and taking a fruit, narrowly escaping with many wounds, and of
the king's then yielding to Sauron's demand. Then follows the
description of the temple, not greatly changed from that in DA
II, but with the addition that the first fire made on the altar was
kindled with the wood of Nimloth. Of the White Tree of
Numenor there is no mention in the texts of The Drowning of
Anadune.
A puzzling reference to the site of the temple may be noticed
here. This is in the final version of Edwin Lowdham's page in
Old English, that appearing the typescript F 2 of Part Two of
The Notion Club Papers. In the earlier Old English version (pp.
314 - 15) the temple was built 'on that high mountain that was
called Meneltyula (that is to say the Pillar of Heaven), which
before was undefiled'. In the final version (pp. 257 - 8; certainly
later than DA II, p. 375) it was built 'in the midst of the town of
Arminaleth on the high hill which before was undefiled but now
became a heathen fane'. Since the same words are used in both
Old English texts the second version suggests a halfway stage, in
which the temple was still built on the Pillar of Heaven (on daem
hean munte), until now undefiled (unawidlod), but the Pillar of
Heaven was in the midst of the city of Arminaleth. But this can
scarcely be so, for already in DA I the story is present that the
Meneltyula was deserted, and that the temple was built on a hill
in the midst of the city (Antirion).
In DA II both references to Mulkher were changed to Arun,
but Arun-Mulkher was retained.
$35 For the passage following the words 'And Zigur spoke to the
king' the following (retained almost exactly in the Akallabeth)
was substituted on a typewritten slip:
saying that his might was now so great that he might think to
have his will in all things and be subject to no command or
ban. 'For behold! the Avaloim have possessed themselves
of the land where there is no death; and they lie to you
concerning it, hiding it as best they may, because of their
avarice and their fear lest the kings of Men should wrest from
them the Blessed Realm, and rule the world in their stead.
And though, doubtless...
$38 Amatthane was here changed to Anadune (see under $$20, 23
above).
$39 In the Akallabeth (p. 276) there enters at this point an account
of the treasures that were put aboad the ships at Romenna, with
the Seven Stones ('the gift of the Eldar') and the scion of
Nimloth the White Tree.
$43 their banners were black and golden: in DA I the banners were
'red as the dying sun in a great storm and as black as the night
that cometh after.' So in the manuscript E of Part Two of the
Papers the sails of the Numenorean ships were 'scarlet and
black', but 'golden and black' in the typescript F (p. 290 note
63; 'scarlet and black' also in FN III $6, 'bloodred and black' in
the earlier Old English text, pp. 314 - 15).
$44 Aglarrama, castle of the sea: in the Akallabeth the name of the
great ship of Ar-Pharazon is Alcarondas, with the same mean-
ing.
$47 The radically different conception of the Cataclysm (from both
The Fall of Numenor and the Akallabeth), here derived from the
Nimri but in DA I attributed merely to 'the wisest in discern-
ment', in which the Land of Aman itself foundered, remained in
the following texts: 'the fleets of the Adunai came indeed to
Avalloni in the deeps of the sea, and they encompassed it about',
and 'a great chasm opened in the sea between Anadune and the
Deathless Land... But the land of Aman and the land of his gift,
standing upon either side of the great chasm [) rift] in the seas,
u ere also destroyed...'
Against the name Avalloni is pencilled Zen'naman, and this
name appears written beside 'the Blessed Realm' in $$16, 23,
though there struck out. At the end of $47 is written, but struck
out, Zen'naman and Zen'nabar, i.e. 'Land of Aman' and 'Land
of Gift' (for Zen'nabar see under $12 above). The references to
Avalloni seem to amount to this: the distant city glimpsed across
the sea was named by the Adunai Avalloni 'Haven of the Gods'
(Avaloi) because they thought that it was a vision of the Blessed
Realm ($16). Some said that this was not so: it was only an isle
on which the Nimri dwelt that they could see. The question is
not resolved; but the name Avalloni was nonetheless used in
$47 to refer to the Land of Aman. The statement that Avalloni
was 'encompassed' by the fleets of the Adunai is possibly to be
associated with the words of $16, that the Avaloi dwelt 'upon
some isle or shore of the western lands'.
Apart from the opinion held by some in Anadune that the
land that they could see was an isle where the Nimri dwelt, and
the certainty that the Nimri must have some dwelling near to
Anadune, since they came there, Tol Eressea is never referred to
in The Drowning of Anadune.
The relation of the Akallabeth (pp. 278 - 9) to the earlier
works in this passage is curious and characteristic. Just as in DA
it is said that the fleets of Ar-Pharazon 'came indeed to Avalloni
... and they encompassed it about', so in the Akallabeth they
'encompassed Avallone'; but in the latter Avallone' is the eastern
haven of Tol Eressea, and the text continues: 'and all the isle of
Eressea, and the Eldar mourned, for the light of the setting sun
was cut off by the cloud of the Numenoreans.' My father was in
fact turning back to The Fall of Numenor ($6, p. 336), which is
almost the same here - but which has 'they encompassed
Avallon', and lacks the words 'and all the isle of Eressea': for in
FN Avallon was the name of Eressea itself.
The description of the 'changing of the fashion of the world'
in the Akallabeth is almost exactly as in The Drowning of
Anadune:
... and a great chasm opened in the sea between Numenor
and the Deathless Lands, and the waters flowed down into it,
and the noise and smoke of the cataracts went up to heaven,
and the world was shaken. And all the fleets of the Numen-
oreans were drawn down into the abyss, and they were
drowned and swallowed up for ever.
But whereas in The Drowning of Anadune this is followed by
the statement that not only Anadune but the Land of Aman also
disappeared into the great rift, in the Akallabeth my father again
turned to The Fall of Numenor ($$7 - 8), telling that the king
and his warriors who had set foot in the Blessed Realm were
'buried under falling hills' and 'lie imprisoned in the Caves of
the Forgotten, until the Last Battle and the Day of Doom'; and
then, that 'Iluvatar cast back the Great Seas west of Middle-
earth... and the world was diminished, for Valinor and Eresse'a
were taken from it into the realm of hidden things.' Thus the
radical difference in the conception of the loss of the True West
between The Drowning of Anadune and the Akallabeth was a
reversion to that of The Fall of Numenor.
The passage 'Iluvatar cast back the Great Seas ...' was a
revision (see V.32) of the original form of The Fall of Numenor
(V.16; the second text FN II is virtually the same), in which the
World Made Round was more unequivocally expressed: the
Gods 'bent back the edges of the Middle-earth, and they made it
into a globe ... Thus New Lands came into being beneath the
Old World, and all were equally distant from the centre of the
round earth...'
This subject is further discussed on pp. 391 ff.
In the concluding sentence of $47 in DA II, 'and the Avaloi
dwell in secret, or have become as shadows and their power has
waned', my father was following DA I, where the name Avalai
is ambiguously used; in the next text DA III the sentence was
changed (p. 391, $$46 - 7).
$48 Ar-Zimrahil: Tar-Ilien in DA I and in FN ($$5, 7); afterwards
Tar-Miriel, whose Adunaic name was Ar-Zimraphel (Un-
finished Tales p. 224, Akallabeth pp. 269 - 70).
$$49 - 50 This passage, despite many small changes in the expression,
does not differ at all in its content from that in DA I, except for
the addition at the end of $50 of 'Therefore some among them
would still search the empty seas'. See further pp. 391 ff.
$51 After 'Nimruzan, and his sons and people' the words 'in their
seven ships' were added - presumably they had been omitted
unintentionally, since 'in seven ships' is present in DA I. In the
Akallabeth there were nine ships, 'four for Elendil, and for
Isildur three, and for Anarion two'. The sons of Elendil are not
named, nor their number given, in The Drowning of Anadune.
(iv) The final form of The Drowning of Anadune.
The extensive alterations to the text of DA II detailed in the preceding
commentary were taken up into the third text, DA III, which was
typed on the same machine and the same paper as DA II. More
changes entered in DA III, and the completed typescript was then
further altered. Finally another typescript, DA IV, was made, identical
in appearance to the two preceding; in this the changes made to DA III
were taken up, but the completed text was scarcely emended. With DA
IV this phase in the development of the Numenorean legend comes to
an end.
There follows here an account, paragraph by paragraph, of the
alterations made between DA II, as emended, and the final form,
excluding only very minor changes (such as 'appointed time' for
'appointed hour' in $3). In general I do not distinguish between those
that entered in DA III and those that were made to it subsequently,
appearing in DA IV as typed.
$1 Avaloi became Avaloim throughout; this is the form in the final
text F 2 of Part Two of The Notion Club Papers (see p. 375).
Eru (Eru-beni, Eruhin) became Eru throughout. In the earlier
form of Lowdham's fragments the name has a short vowel
(p. 311), but in the final form a long (p. 247).
$5 The opening sentence was changed to read: 'And out of the
sorrows of the world the hearts of the Eruhin were turned
westward, for there, as they believed, was the land of Aman and
abiding peace.'
Nimri became Nimir throughout.
$6 'filled with great dread, and with longing' > 'filled with longing'
$8 Azrabel became Azrubel throughout, at first by emendation of
Azrabel on DA III, and then as typed; see p. 377, $8.
Vingalote > Wingalote > Vingalote, see p. 377, $8.
$12 The Adunaic name of 'the Land of Gift' in DA III was
Abarzayan (see p. 378, $12), changed to the final form Yozayan,
which appears in DA IV and in the final text F 2 of The Notion
Club Papers (pp. 241, 247). It is thus seen that DA III preceded
F2.
$13 'so long as they remained still true' was omitted.
Adunai became Adunaim throughout (cf. the note on Avaloi,
Avaloim, $1 above).
$16 'to break the ban' > 'to break the ban of Aman'
'(a vision of the Blessed Realm) that men saw' > 'that men
saw by grace'
'the children of the Deathless Folk' was omitted.
$19 'And yet in the end new good turned again to evil, and Men fell,
as it is said, a second time' was omitted, the following sentence
beginning 'But after an age there arose a second manifestation
'(he heard of the coming) of the Eruhin' > 'of the Sea-kings
out of the deeps'
$20 The name Minul-Tarik of the Pillar of Heaven, replacing
Menel-Tubal (subsequently Menil-Tubal) of DA II, first appears
in DA III (see p. 375).
$21 'and now again was stirring' ) 'and now the deep-planted seeds
were stirring once again'
$23 For Amatthane in DA II $$21, 23 (where it refers to 'the Land of
Gift') the following texts have Anadune; but for the Blessed
Realm in DA II $23 they have Amatthani, the Blessed Realm.
Thus Amatthane, replaced in its application to Anadune in turn
by Zen'nabar, Abarzayan, Yozayan, now reappears in the form
Amatthani as the name of Valinor; but Avalloni is retained in
$$16, 47, 50. The etymology of Amatthani is given in Lowd-
ham's 'Report on Adunaic', p. 435.
$25 To the text of the typewritten rider attached to DA II and given
on p. 382 the following was added in DA III after the words 'nor
anywhere else within the girdle of the Earth': 'for it was not the
Avaloim that named you in the beginning Eruhin, the children
of God.'
'who made both it and you' was omitted.
$26 Arbazan became Aphanuzir, and Nimruzan became Nimruzir,
in DA III. Jeremy calls Lowdham Nimruzir in The Notion Club
Papers, pp. 250, 252, and the name appears in Lowdham's
fragment I (B), p. 247, 'seven ships of Nimruzir eastward'.
$27 After the words of Aphanuzir (Arbazan) 'It may be so' he
observes of the fraudulent argument of Ar-Pharazon: 'Yet to go
behind a command is not to keep it'; and in the passage
following his speech the words 'where are ices impassable', first
changed to '... is ice...', were omitted.
$28 The story of the expedition of Ar-Pharazon to Middle-earth was
much enlarged on a typewritten page inserted into DA III. The
new text is very close to that in the Akallabeth (p. 270), but
lacks the reference to the Havens of Umbar:
... and when all was ready he himself set sail into the East.
And men saw his sails coming up out of the sunset, dyed as
with scarlet and gleaming with red gold, and fear fell on them
and they fled far away. Empty and silent under the pale moon
was the land when the King of Anadune [> Yozayan] set foot
on the shore. For seven days he marched with banner and
trumpet, and he came to a hill, and he went up and set there
his pavilion and his throne; and he sat him down in the midst
of the land, and the tents of his host were laid all about him
like a field of proud flowers [) ranged all about him, blue,
golden, and white, as a field of tall flowers]. Then he sent
forth heralds and commanded Zigur to come before him and
swear to him fealty.
A recollection of mine in connection with this passage is perhaps
worth mentioning. I remember my father, in his study in the
house in North Oxford, reading me The Drowning of Anadune
on a summer's evening: this was in 1946, for my parents left that
house in March 1947. Of this reading I recall with clarity that
the tents of Ar-Pharazon were as a field of tall flowers of many
colours. Since the passage only entered with the text DA III, and
the naming of the colours of the flowers, 'blue, golden, and
white', was pencilled onto the typescript, appearing in the final
text DA IV as typed, my father was reading from DA III or DA
IV. I have the strong impression that the Adunaic names were
strange to me, and that my father read The Drowning of
Anadune as a new thing that he had written. This seems to
support the suggestion I made earlier (p. 147) that the emerg-
ence of Adunaic and the evolution of a new form of the legend
of the Downfall belong to the first half of 1946.
$30 This paragraph was rewritten to read:
Yet such was the cunning of his mind, and the strength of
his hidden will, that ere three years were passed he had
become closest to the secret counsels of the King; for flattery
sweet as honey was ever on his tongue, and knowledge he had
of many things yet unrevealed to Men. And seeing the favour
that he had of their lord, all the counsellors, save Aphanuzir
alone, began to fawn upon him. Then slowly a change came
over the land, and the hearts of the Faithful were sorely
troubled.
$31 At the end of the text on the replacement slip in DA II given on
p. 383, $31, after 'his name is Arun, Lord of All', was added:
'Giver of Freedom, and he shall make you stronger than they.'
$32 The description of the temple was changed on a retyped page of
DA III by the alteration of the sentences following 'a mighty
dome':
And that dome was wrought all of silver and rose glittering in
the sun, so that the light of it could be seen afar off; but soon
the light was darkened and the silver became black. For in the
topmost of the dome there was a wide opening or louver, and
thence there issued a great smoke...
To the second reference to Mulkher (> Arun) in DA II was
added 'Giver of Freedom' (cf. $31 above).
The final sentence of the paragraph became: 'These charges
were for the most part false; yet those were bitter days, and
wickedness begets wickedness.'
$36 The reply of Aphanuzir (Arbazan) to Nimruzir's question
'Would you then bewray the King?' was expanded to a form
approaching that in the Akallabeth (p. 275):
'Yea, verily that I would,' said Aphanuzir, 'if I thought that
Aman needed such a messenger. For there is but one loyalty
from which no man can be absolved in heart for any cause.
And as for the ban, I will suffer in myself alone the penalty,
lest all the Eruhin become guilty.'
$38 'you must fly from fair Amatthane that is now defiled, and lose
what you have loved' > 'you must fly from the land of the Star
with no other star to guide you; for that land is defiled. Then
you shall lose what you have loved'
$39 'But this much can be seen that' was omitted.
$41 '(the Eagles of Aman) are over Anadune! ' > 'overshadow
Anadune! '
$43 'one after another in an endless line' > 'advancing in a line the
end of which could not be seen'
$$46-7 This passage in DA II was closely preserved in the final form,
including the reference to the fleets of the Adunaim coming to
'Avalloni in the deeps of the sea', apart from an insertion and
alteration following 'For Ar-Pharazon wavered at the end and
almost he turned back' in $47:
His heart misgave him when he looked upon the soundless
shores and saw the Mountain of Aman shining, whiter than
snow, colder than Death, silent, alone, immutable, terrible as
the shadow of the light of God. But pride was now his master,
and at last he left his ship, and strode upon the shore,
claiming that land for his own, if none should do battle for it.
This passage was retained in the Akallabeth (p. 278), with
Taniquetil for the Mountain of Aman and Iluvatar for God.
Following 'the land of Aman and the land of his gift' (near
the end of $47) was added 'Amatthani and Yozayan' (see under
$23 above).
The final sentence of $47 was changed to read: 'And the
Avaloim thereafter had no habitation on Earth, and they dwell
invisible; nor is there any place more where a memory of a
world without evil is preserved.' See p. 387 ($47, at end).
$$49-50
This crucial passage was at first retained in DA III in exactly
the form that it had in DA II (pp. 373 - 4) with one difference
(apart from Minul-Tarik for Menil-Tubal): the end of $50 was
changed to read: 'Therefore some among them would still
search the empty seas, hoping to come upon the Lonely Isle. But
they found it not: "for all the ways are crooked that once were
straight," they said.' Already in $49 as it appears in DA I the
summit of the Pillar of Heaven is called 'a lonely isle somewhere
in the great waters', if it were to be found rising above the
surface of the sea.
Since apart from the statements in $16 that the Nimir must
have dwelt near Anadune, and that some said that it was the
island of the Nimir that could be seen, Tol Eressea is otherwise
conspicuous by its absence from The Drowning of Anadune,
and Avalloni is a name of the Blessed Realm, it is clear that my
father used the name Lonely Isle of the summit of the Pillar of
Heaven on Anadune with a deliberate intention of ambiguity.
Additional typewritten pages were substituted for the conclu-
sion ($$49 - 55) of the narrative in DA III, and $50 was extended
($$49-50)
in a very remarkable way. The text was not further changed
subsequently, and this is the final form of $$49 - 50 in The
Drowning of Anadune (I give the passage in full for ease of
comparison with the conclusion of the Akallabeth that follows):
Now the summit of Mount Minul-Tarik, the Pillar of
Heaven, in the midst of the land was a hallowed place, for
there the Adunaim had been wont to give thanks to Eru, and
to adore him; and even in the days of Zigur it had not been
defiled. Therefore many men believed that it was not drowned
for ever, but rose again above the waves, a lonely island lost
in the great waters, if haply a mariner should come upon it.
And many there were that after sought for it, because it was
said among the remnant of the Adunaim that the far-sighted
men of old could see from the Minul-Tarik the glimmer of the
Deathless Land. For even after their ruin the hearts of the
Adunaim were still set westward; [$50] and though they
knew that the world was changed, they said: 'Avalloni is
vanished from the Earth, and the Land of Gift is taken away,
and in the world of this present darkness they cannot be
found; yet once they were, and therefore they still are in true
being and in the whole shape of the world.' And the Adunaim
held that men so blessed might look upon other times than
those of the body's life; and they longed ever to escape from
the shadows of their exile and to see in some fashion the light
that was of old. Therefore some among them would still
search the empty seas, hoping to come upon the Lonely Isle,
and there to see a vision of things that were.
But they found it not, and they said: 'All the ways are bent
that once were straight.' For in the youth of the world it was a
hard saying to men that the Earth was not plain * as it seemed
to be, and few even of the Faithful of Anadune had believed in
their hearts this teaching; and when in after days, what by
star-craft, what by the voyages of ships that sought out all the
ways and waters of the Earth, the Kings of Men knew that the
world was indeed round, then the belief arose among them
that it had so been made only in the time of the great
Downfall, and was not thus before. Therefore they thought
that, while the new world fell away, the old road and the path
of the memory of the Earth went on towards heaven, as it
were a mighty bridge invisible. And many were the rumours
and tales among them concerning mariners and men forlorn
upon the sea, who by some grace or fate had entered in upon
(* plain is used in the lost sense 'flat'; but cf. the later spelling plane of the
same word, and the noun plain.)
($$49-50)
the ancient way and seen the face of the world sink below
them, and so had come to the Lonely Isle, or verily to the
Land of Aman that was, and had looked upon the White
Mountain, dreadful and beautiful, ere they died.
In the Akallabeth a good deal of this passage was retained, but
given new bearings. I cite it here as it is printed in The
Silmarillion, pp. 281 - 2 (some editorial alteration at the begin-
ning and end does not affect the sense of the passage).
Among the Exiles many believed that the summit of the
Meneltarma, the Pillar of Heaven, was not drowned for ever,
but rose again above the waves, a lonely island lost in the
great waters; for it had been a hallowed place, and even in the
days of Sauron none had defiled it. And some there were of
the seed of Earendil that afterwards sought for it, because it
was said among loremasters that the farsighted men of old
could see from the Meneltarma a glimmer of the Deathless
Land. For even after the ruin the hearts of the Dunedain were
still set westwards; and though they knew indeed that the
world was changed, they said: 'Avallone is vanished from the
Earth and the Land of Aman is taken away, and in the world
of this present darkness they cannot be found. Yet once they
were, and therefore they still are, in true being and in the
whole shape of the world as at first it was devised.'
For the Dunedain held that even mortal Men, if so blessed,
might look upon other times than those of their bodies' life;
and they longed ever to escape from the shadows of their exile
and to see in some fashion the light that dies not; for the
sorrow of the thought of death had pursued them over the
deeps of the sea. Thus it was that great mariners among them
would still search the empty seas, hoping to come upon the
Isle of Meneltarma, and there to see a vision of things that
were. But they found it not. And those that sailed far came
only to the new lands, and found them like to the old lands,
and subject to death. And those that sailed furthest set but a
girdle about the Earth and returned weary at last to the place
of their beginning; and they said: 'All roads are now bent.'
Thus in after days, what by the voyages of ships, what by
lore and star-craft, the kings of Men knew that the world was
indeed made round, and yet the Eldar were permitted still to
depart and to come to the Ancient West and to Avallone, if
they would. Therefore the loremasters of Men said that a
Straight Road must still be, for those that were permitted to
find it. And they taught that, while the new world fell away,
($$49-50)
the old road and the path of the memory of the West still went
on, as it were a mighty bridge invisible that passed through
the air of breath and of flight (which were bent now as the
world was bent), and traversed Ilmen which flesh unaided
cannot endure, until it came to Tol Eressea, the Lonely Isle,
and maybe even beyond, to Valinor, where the Valar still
dwell and watch the unfolding of the story of the world. And
tales and rumours arose along the shores of the sea concern-
ing mariners and men forlorn upon the water who, by some
fate or grace or favour of the Valar, had entered in upon the
Straight Way and seen the face of the world sink below them,
and so had come to the lamplit quays of Avallone, or verily to
the last beaches on the margin of Aman, and there had looked
upon the White Mountain, dreadful and beautiful, before
they died.
It will be seen that $49 and the first part of $50 (as far as 'But
they found it not') in DA was largely retained in the Akallabeth
(where however all this passage concerning the speculations of
the Exiles was removed to the end of the work). But where DA
has 'Avalloni is vanished from the Earth, and the Land of Gift is
taken away' the Akallabeth has 'Avallone is vanished from the
Earth and the Land of Aman is taken away'. In DA Avalloni is
the Land of Aman; in the Akallabeth it is the haven in Tol
Eressea (see p. 386). In DA those who searched the empty seas
hoped to come upon 'the Lonely Isle', which is the summit of the
Pillar of Heaven; in the Akallabeth they hoped to come upon
'the Isle of Meneltarma'.
In both versions the mariners who sailed west from Middle-
earth seeking for the summit of Minul-Tarik or Meneltarma
discovered by their voyaging that the world was round; but in
DA the words are 'that the world was indeed round', whereas in
the Akallabeth they are 'that the world was indeed made round'.
In The Fall of Numenor it was explicit, the kernel of the
legend of the Cataclysm, that the world was made round at the
time of the Downfall (see pp. 386 - 7): this was the story, and
within the story the rounding of the world at that time is a fact,
unqualified. In The Drowning of Anadune the Nimir (Eldar) had
come to the Adunaim and expressly taught that the world was
of its nature round ('as an apple it hangeth on the branches of
heaven', $23), but Zigur coming had gainsaid it ('The world
was not a circle closed', $31). In this work the author knows that
the world is of its nature a globe; but very few of the Adunaim
had believed this teaching until the voyages of the survivors of
the Downfall taught them that it was true (cf. the passage
($$49-50)
written on the original text DA I, p. 355: 'For they believed still
the lies of Sauron that the world was plain, until their fleets had
encompassed all the world seeking for Meneltyula, and they
knew that it was round'). And so (as he recounts the tradition),
rather than accept the true nature of the Round World, 'the
belief arose among them that it had so been made only in the
time of the great Downfall, and was not thus before.' So it was
that the survivors of Anadune in the West of Middle-earth came
to the conception of the Straight Road: 'Therefore they thought
that, while the new world fell away, the old road and the path of
the memory of the Earth went on towards heaven, as it were a
mighty bridge invisible.'
This is radically distinct from The Fall of Numenor (FN III
$11, p. 338): For the ancient line of the world remained in the
mind of Iluvatar, and in the thought of the gods, and in the
memory of the world, as a shape and plan that has been changed
and yet endureth.' The author of The Fall of Numenor knows
that 'of old many of the exiles of Numenor could still see, some
clearly and some more faintly, the paths to the True West'; but
for the rationalising author (as he may seem to be) of The
Drowning of Anadune the Straight Road was a belief born of
desire and regret.
The author of the Akallabeth had both works before him, and
in this passage he made use of them both. I give again here the
concluding passage of the Akallabeth with the sources shown
(necessarily somewhat approximately): The Drowning of Ana-
dune in italic, The Fall of Numenor (FN III $$8, 12) in roman
between asterisks, and passages not found in either source in
roman within brackets.
But they found it not. (And those that sailed far)* came only
to the new lands, and found them like to the old lands, and
subject to death.* (And those that sailed furthest set but a
girdle about the Earth and returned)* weary at last to the
place of their beginning;* and they said: 'All roads are now
bent.'
Thus in after days, what by the voyages of ships, what by
(lore and) star-craft, the kings of Men knew that the world
was indeed (made) round, (and yet the Eldar were permitted
still to depart and to come to the Ancient West and to
Avallone, if they would.) Therefore (the loremasters of Men
said that a Straight Road must still be, for those that were
permitted to find it. And they taught) that, while the new
world fell away, the old road and the path of the memory of
the (West still) went on, as it were a mighty bridge invisible
(that) * passed through the air of breath and of flight *((which
($$49-50)
were bent now as the world was bent),)* and traversed Ilmen
which flesh unaided cannot endure,* (until it came to Tol
Eressea, the Lonely Isle, and maybe even beyond, to Valinor,
where the Valar still dwell and watch the unfolding of the
story of the world.) And tales and rumours (arose along the
shores of the sea) concerning mariners and men forlorn upon
the water who, by some fate or grace (or favour of the Valar,)
had entered in upon the (Straight) Way and seen the face of
the world sink below them, and so had come to (the lamplit
quays of Avallone, or verily to the last beaches on the margin
of) Aman, and there had looked upon the White Mountain,
dreadful and beautiful, before they died.
The intention that lay behind these aspects of The Drowning of
Anadune is discussed in the next section (v).
$51 The description of the gale that followed the Cataclysm was
rewritten in DA III to a form close to that in the Akallabeth
(p. 280), but still retaining the seven ships (see p. 387, $51):
But when the land of Anadune toppled to its fall, then he
[Nimruzir] would have been drawn down and perished, and
deemed it the lesser grief, for no wrench of death could be
more bitter than the ruin of that day; but the wind took him,
for it blew still from the West more wild than any wind that
Men had known; and it tore away the sails, and snapped the
masts, and hunted the unhappy men like straws upon the
water; and the deeps rose up in towering anger.
Then the seven ships of Nimruzir fled before the black gale
out of the twilight of doom into the darkness of the world;
and waves like moving mountains capped with snow bore
them up amid the clouds, and after many days cast them away
far inland upon Middle-earth.
On the text of DA IV seven was altered in a hastily scribbled
change to twelve.
$55 At first the conclusion in DA III retained the form in DA II, but
it was replaced by the following (with pencilled corrections as
shown, appearing in DA IV as typed):
And the name of that land has perished; for neither did men
speak of Gimlad, nor of Abarzayan [> Yozayan] the Gift that
was taken away, nor of Anadune upon the confines of the
world; but the exiles on the shores of the Sea, if they turned
towards the West, spoke of Akallabe [> Akallabeth] that was
whelmed in the waves, the Downfallen, Atalante in the
Nimrian tongue.
Akallabeth is the form in Lowdham's fragments (pp. 247, 312).
*
I have shown (p. 353) that the composition of the original draft DA
I of The Drowning of Anadune fell between that of the sole manu-
script E of Part Two of The Notion Club Papers and the first
typescript F 1 of Night 66 in the Papers. The second text DA II fell
between F 1 and the replacement F 2 (p. 375), as also did the third text
DA III (p. 388, $12). The final text DA IV is the first in which the
Adunaic name of 'the Land of Gift' is Yozayan, the form in F 2; it
cannot be seen which of these two texts preceded the other, but this
seems to be of slight importance. What is significant about these
details, of course, is that they make it certain that the composition of
The Drowning of Anadune was intertwined with and was completed
within the same period as the further development of Part Two of The
Notion Club Papers.
(v) The theory of the work.
I turn now to the fundamental question, what is the significance of the
extraordinary transformations of, and omissions from, the existing
legends in the development of The Drowning of Anadune? I have
headed this section The theory of the work because my father used the
word in this connection, and because I believe and hope to show that
there was a 'theory' behind it.
Before attempting to formulate an answer, there are three extremely
curious texts to be considered. All three were written at great speed,
dashed down in careless expression as words came to mind, and
probably one after the other. Very obviously preceding the emergence
of Adunaic, they are a series of sketches of the rapidly evolving
conceptions that would underlie the new version of the Numenorean
legend that my father was contemplating: the first of them is in fact
headed The theory of this version.
This first essay, which I will call 'Sketch I', exceedingly rough and
disjointed, led on to a second ('Sketch II') which followed I for some
distance, enlarging and expanding it, but was then abandoned. It is
convenient to give Sketch II first so far as it goes, and then the
remainder of I.
Notes on this section will be found on pp. 410 ff.
Evil reincarnates itself from time to time - reiterating, as it were,
the Fall.
There were 'Enkeladim' once on earth, but that was not their
name in this world: it was Eledai (in Numenorean Eldar).(1) After the
First Fall they tried to befriend Men, and teach them to love the
Earth and all things that grow in it. But evil also was ever at work.
There were false Eldar: counterfeits and deceits made by evil, ghosts
and goblins, but not always evil to look at. They terrified Men, or
else deceived and betrayed them, and hence arose the fear of Men
for all the spirits of the Earth.
Men 'awoke' first in the midst of the Great Middle Earth (Europe
and Asia), and Asia was first thinly inhabited, before the Dark Ages
of great cold. Even before that time Men had spread westward (and
eastward) as far as the shores of the Sea. The [Enkeladim >] Eledai
withdrew into waste places or retreated westward.(2)
The Men who journeyed westward were in general those who
remained in closest touch with the true Eledai, and for the most part
they were drawn west by the rumour of a land in or beyond the
Western Sea which was beautiful, and was the home of the Eledai
where all things were fair and ordered to beauty. This was so for
there was a great island in the Ocean where the Eledai had first
'awakened' when the world was made: that is complete and ready
for their operations.
Thus it is that the more beautiful legends (containing truths)
arose, of oreads, dryads, and nymphs; and of the Ljos-alfar.(3)
At length Men reached the western shores of the Great Lands,
and were halted on the shores of the Sea. The shock and awe and
longing of that meeting has remained in their descendants ever
since, and the Great Sea and the setting sun has been to them the
most moving symbol of Death and of Hope for Escape.
In the margin of the text of this page, which ends at this point, my
father wrote: 'The Almighty even after the Fall allowed an earthly
paradise to be maintained for a while; but the Eledai were bidden to
withdraw thither as men spread - if they would remain as they had
been: otherwise they would fade and diminish.'(4)
In times remote, when Men, though they had now wandered for
many many lives upon the face of the Earth, were yet young and
untutored (save such few kindreds as had become knit in friendship
with the western Eledai, and their language had become enriched,
and they knew verse and song and other arts), evil once again took
visible shape. A great tyrant arose, first as the war-lord of a tribe,
but he grew slowly to a mighty king, magician, and finally a god. In
the midst [written above: North?] of the Great Lands was the seat of
this terrible dominion, and all about men became enslaved to him.
In that time Darkness became terrible. The black power slowly
extended westward; for Meleko (5) knew that there lingered the most
powerful and beneficent of the Eledai, and that their friendship with
Men was the greatest obstacle to his complete dominion.
Those among Men of the West who were most filled with
sea-hunger began to make boats, aided and inspired (as in much
else) by the Eledai, and they began to essay the waters, at first with
fear, but with growing mastery of wind and tide, and of themselves.
But now war broke out, for the forces of Meleko threatened the
lands of the west marches of the sea. The Men of the West were
strong, and free, and the Easterlings of Meleko were driven back
again and again. But this was only a respite, for the Easterlings were
innumerable, and the attack was ever renewed with greater force;
and Meleko sent phantoms and demons and spirits of evil into the
western lands, so that these also might become intolerable and a
time of dread, when men cowered in their houses and looked no
more on the stars.
The Eledai had long disappeared. Some said they had died, or
faded into nothing; some that they had never been, and were but the
inventions of old-time tales; some few that they had passed over the
Sea to their land in the West.
A mariner arose in that time who was called Earendel, and he was
king of Men upon the west shore of the Great Sea in the North of
the world. He reported that once taken by a great wind he had been
borne far out of his course and had indeed seen many islands in the
regions of the setting sun - and one most remote from which there
came a scent as of gardens of fair flowers. And it came to pass that
all the Men of the West who had not died or fallen or fled into waste
places were now hemmed in a narrow land, a large island some say,
and they were assailed by Meleko, but only because their land was
an isle, divided by a narrow water from the Great Lands, were they
able still to hold out. Then Earendel took his ship and said farewell
to his people. For he said it was his purpose to sail into the West and
find the Eledai and ask for their help. 'But I shall not return,' he said.
'If I fail then the sea will have me, but if I succeed then a new star
will arise in heaven.'
And what deeds Earendel did upon his last voyage is not known
for certain, for he was not seen again among living Men. But after
some years a new star did indeed arise in the West, and it was very
bright; and then many men began to look for the return of the
Eledai to their aid; but they were hard pressed by evil.
Here Sketch II ends as a continuously written text, but my father
added some scribbled and disjointed notes at the end, which include
this passage:
Meleko was defeated with the aid of the Eledai and of the Powers,
but many Men had seceded to him. The Powers (under orders of
Iluvatar) withdrew the Eledai to the Isle of Eresse, whose chief
haven was westward, Avallon(de).(6) Those that remained in Middle-
earth withered and faded. But faithful men of the Eruhildi (Turkildi)
were also given an isle, between Eresse and Middle-earth.
Sketch I (written at extreme speed in soft pencil on small slips) was
essentially the same as Sketch II, though much briefer, to the point
where Earendel enters in the latter. In Sketch I, however, there was no
reference to Earendel, and all that is told is that when there came a
respite in the war with 'the tyrant' (who is not named in this text) 'and
his Easterlings' the Men of the West set sail, having been instructed in
the art of ship-building by 'the last lingering Enkeladim' and they
landed 'on a large island in the midst of the Great Sea'. At the head of
the page my father noted: 'The first to set sail was Earendel. He was
never seen again.' Then follows (in very slightly edited form):
But there is another smaller isle out of sight to the West - and
beyond that rumour of a Great Land [?uninhabited] in the West.
This island is called Westernesse Numenor, the other Eressea.
The religion of the Numenoreans was simple. A belief in a
Creator of All, Iluvatar. But he is very remote. Still they offered
bloodless sacrifice. His temple was the Pillar of Heaven, a high
mountain in the centre of the island. They believed Iluvatar to dwell
outside the world altogether; but symbolized that by saying he
dwelt in High Heaven.
[Added: But they believe he has under him Powers (Valar), some
at his special command, some residing in the world for its immedi-
ate government. These though good and servants of God are
inexorable, and....... hostile in a sense. They do not pray to them
but they fear and obey them (if ever any contact occur). Some are
Valandili (Lovers of the Powers).]
But they believe the world flat, and that 'the Lords of the West'
(Gods) dwell beyond the great barrier of cloud hills - where there is
no death and the Sun is renewed and passes under the world to rise
again.
[Struck out: His servants for the governance of the world were
Enkeladim and other greater spirits. Added: There were lesser
beings - especially associated with living things and with making...
- called Eldar.] These they asked for assistance in need. Some still
sailed to Eressea. [In margin: Elendili] But the most did not, and
except among the wise the theory arose that the great spirits or
Gods (not Iluvatar) dwelt in the West in a Great Land beyond the
sun. [Bracketed: The Enkeladim told them that the world was
round, but that was a hard saying to them.] Some of their great
mariners tried to find out.
They lived to a great age, 200 years or more, but all the more
longed for longer life. They envied the Enkeladim. They grew
mighty in ship-building, and began to adventure to sea. Some try to
reach the West beyond Eressea but fail to return.
The Pillar of Heaven in neglected by all but a few. The kings build
great houses. The custom of sending their bodies adrift to sea in an
east wind grows up. The east wind begins to symbolize Death.(7)
Some sail back to the Dark Lands. There they are greeted with
awe, for they are very tall ............ They teach true religion but
are treated as gods.
Sauron comes into being.
He cannot prevail in arms against the Numenoreans who now
have many fortresses in the West.
The text ends with a very rough sketch of the coming of Sauron and
the Downfall. 'Sauron is brought to Numenor to do allegiance to
Tarkalion'. He 'preaches a great sermon', teaching that Iluvatar does
not exist, but that the world is ruled by the Gods, who have shut
themselves in the West, hating Men and denying them life. The one
good God has been thrust out of the world into the Void; but he will
return. In an added passage (but no doubt belonging to the time of the
writing of the text) it is told, remarkably, that 'Sauron says the world
is round. There is nothing outside but Night - and other worlds.'(8)
Sauron has 'a great domed temple' built on the Pillar of Heaven (see
p. 384), and there human sacrifice takes place, the purpose of which is
'to add the lives of the slain to the chosen living'. The Faithful are
persecuted, and chosen for the sacrifice; 'a few fly to Eressea asking for
help - but the Eresseans have departed or hidden themselves.' A vast
fleet is prepared 'to assault Eressea and go on to take the West Land
from the Gods'; and the text ends with the bare statements that the
fleet was sucked into the great chasm that opened, and that 'only those
Numenoreans who had withdrawn east of the isle and refused to....
war were saved.' This is followed by a morass of names, including
'Elendil son of Valandil and his sons Arundil and Firiel', from which
emerges 'Elendil and his sons Isildur and Anarion'. Finally there are
some further notes: 'Sauron flees East also. The Pillar of Heaven is
volcanic.(9) Sauron builds a great temple on a hill near where he had
landed. The Pillar of Heaven also begins to smoke and he calls it a
sign; and most believe him.'
The third text ( Sketch III ) begins with a note on names: Iluve Ilu:
Heaven, the universe, all that is (with and without the Earth); menel:
the heavens, the firmament.'(10) Then follows:
In the beginning was Eru the One God (Iluvatar the Allfather,
Sanavaldo the Almighty). He appointed powers (Valar) to rule and
order the Earth (Arda). One Meleko, the chief, became evil. There
were also two kindreds of lesser beings, Elves: Eldar (* Eledai), and
Men (Hildi = sons, or followers). The Eledai came first, as soon as
Arda became habitable by living things, to govern there, to perfect
the arts of using and ordering the material of the Earth to perfection
and beauty in detail, and to prepare the way for Men. Men (the
Followers or Second Kindred) came second, but it is guessed that in
the first design of God they were destined (after tutelage) to take on
the governance of all the Earth, and ultimately to become Valar, to
'enrich Heaven', Iluve. But Evil (incarnate in Meleko) seduced them,
and they fell. They became immediately estranged from the Eldar
and Valar. For Meleko represented their tutelage as usurpation by
Eldar and Valar of Men's rightful heritage. God forbade the Powers
to interfere by violence or might. But they sent many messages to
Men, and the Eldar constantly tried to befriend Men and to teach
them. But the power of Meleko increased, and the Valar retreated to
the isle of Eresse in the Great Seas far west of the Great Lands
(Kemen) - where they had always had as it were a habitation and
centre in their early strife with Meleko.(11)
Meleko now (because evil decreased him, or to further his
designs, or both) took visible shape as a Tyrant King, and his seat
was in the North. He made many counterfeits of the Eledai who
were evil (but did not always so appear), and who cozened and
betrayed Men, and so increased their fear and suspicion of the true
Eldar.
There was war between the Powers and Meleko (the second war:
the first had, been in the making of the world, before Elves and Men
were). Though all Men had 'fallen', not all remained enslaved. Some
repented, rebelled against Meleko, and made friends of the Eldar,
and tried to be loyal to God. They had no worship but to offer
firstfruits to Eru on high places. They were not wholly happy, as Eru
seemed far off, and they dared not pray to him direct; and so they
regarded the Valar as gods, and so were often corrupted and
deceived by Meleko, taking him or his servants (or phantoms) for
'gods'. But in the war against the seats of Meleko in the North there
were three kindreds of good men (sons of God, Eruhildi) who were
wholly faithful and never sided with Meleko. Among these there
was Earendel, and he was alone of Men partly of the kindred of the
Eledai, and he became the first of Men to sail upon the Sea. In the
days of the Second War when Men and the remaining Eledai were
hard pressed he set sail West. He said: 'I shall not return. If I fail you
will hear no more of me. If I do not fail a new star will arise in the
West.' He came to Eresse and spoke the embassy of the Two
Kindreds before the Chief of the Valar, and they were moved. But
Earendel was not suffered to return among living men, and his
vessel was set to rise in the sky as a sign that his message was
accepted. And Elves and Men saw it, and believed help would come,
and were enheartened. And the Powers came and aided Elves and
Men to overthrow Meleko, and his bodily shape was destroyed, and
his spirit banished.
But the Powers now withdrew the Eldar to Eresse (where they had
themselves dwelled, but now they had no longer any local habita-
tion on earth, and seldom took shape visible to Elves or Men).
Those who lingered in Kemen were doomed to fade and wither. But
in Eresse was long maintained an earthly paradise filled with all
beauties of growth and art (without excesses), the dwelling of the
Eldar, a memorial of what Earth 'might have been' but for Evil. But
the Men (Eruhildi) of the Faithful Houses were allowed (if they
would) to go and dwell in another isle (greater but less fair) between
Eresse and Middle-earth. Elros son of Earendel was their first king,
in the land of Andor also called Numenor: so that the kings of the
Numenoreans were called 'Heirs of Earendel'. Earendel was not
only partly of Elf-kin but he was an Elf-friend (Elendil), whence the
Kings of Numenor were also called Elendilli (AElfwinas). [Marginal
addition: Elrond his other son elected to remain in Kemen and dwell
with Men and the Elves that yet [?abode] in the West of Middle-
earth.]
In that time the world was very forlorn and forsaken, for only
fading Elves dwelt in the West of Middle-earth, and the best of Men
(save others of the Eruhildi far away in the midst of Kemen) had
gone westward. But even the Eruhildi of Numenor were mortal. For
the Powers were not allowed to abrogate that decree of God after
the fall (that Men should die and should leave the world not at their
own will but by fate and unwilling); but they were permitted to
grant the Numenoreans a threefold span (over 200 years).
And in Numenor the Eruhildi became wise and fair and glorious,
the mightiest of Men, but not very numerous (for their children
were not many). Under the tutelage of the Eresseans - whose
language they adopted (though in course of time they altered it
much) - they had song and poesy, music, and all crafts; but in no
craft did they have such skill and delight as in ship-building, and
they sailed on many seas. In those days they were permitted, or such
of their kings and wise men who were favoured and called
Elf-friends (Elendilli), to voyage to Eresse; but there they might
come only to the haven of Avallon(de) on the east side of the isle and
the city of [Tuna >] Tirion on the hill behind, there to stay but a
short while.(12) Though often the Elendilli craved to abide in Eresse
this was not permitted to them by command of the Powers (received
from God); for the Eruhildi remained mortal and doomed at the last
to grow weary of the world and to die, even their high-kings the
heirs of Earendel. And they were not suffered to sail beyond Eresse
westward, where they heard rumour of a New Land, for the Powers
were not willing that that land should as yet be occupied by Men.
But the hearts of the Eruhildi felt pity for the forsaken world of
Middle-earth, and often they sailed there, and wise men or princes
of the Numenoreans would at times come among men in the Dark
Ages and teach them language, and song, and arts, and bring to
them corn and wine; and men of Middle-earth revered their
memory as gods. And in one or two places nigh to the sea men of the
western race made settlements and became kings and the fathers of
kings. But at last all this bliss turned to evil, and men fell a second
time.
For there arose a second manifestation of Evil upon Ear&,
whether the spirit of Meleko himself took new (though lesser) form,
or whether it were one of Meleko's servants that had lurked in the
dark and now received the [? counsel] of Meleko out of the Void
and waxed great and wicked, tales differ. But this evil thing was
called by many names, and the Eruhildi called him Sauron, and he
sought to be both king over all kings, and to Men both king and
god. His seat was southward and eastward in Kemen, and his power
over Men (especially east and south) grew ever greater and moved
westward, driving away the lingering Eledai and subjugating more
and more of the kindred of the Eruhildi who had not gone to
Numenor. And Sauron learned of Numenor and its power and
glory; and to Numenor in the days of Tarkalion the Golden (the
[21st >] tenth in the line from Earendel)(13) news came of Sauron and
his power, and that he purposed to take the dominion of all Kemen,
and of all the Earth after.
But in the meanwhile evil had been at work [?already] in the
hearts of the Numenoreans; for the desire of everlasting life and to
escape death grew ever stronger upon them; and they murmured
against the prohibition that excluded them from Eresse, and the
Powers were displeased with them. And they forbade them now
even to land upon the island. At this time of estrangement from
Eledai and Valai Tarkalion hearing of Sauron determined without
counsel of Eldar or Valar to demand the allegiance and homage of
Sauron.... [sic]
Numenor cast down.
Eresse and the Eledai removed from the world save in memory
and the world delivered to Men. Men of Numenorean blood could
still see Eresse as a mirage [?on] a straight road leading thither.
The ancient Numenoreans knew (being taught by the Eledai) that
the Earth was round; but Sauron taught them that it was a disc and
flat, and beyond was nothing, where his master ruled. But he said
that beyond Eresse was a land in the [?utter] West where the Gods
dwelt in bliss, and usurped the good things of the Earth.(14) And that
it was his mission to bring Men to that promised land, and
overthrow the greedy and idle Powers. And Tarkalion believed him,
being hungry for life undying.
And the Numenoreans after the downfall still spoke of the
Straight Road that ran on when the Earth was bent. But the good
ones - those that fled from Numenor and took no part in the war on
Eresse - used this only in symbol. For by 'that which is beyond
Eresse' they meant the world of eternity and the spirit, in the region
of Iluvatar.(15)
Here this text ends, with lines drawn showing that it was completed.
All the concluding passage (from 'The ancient Numenoreans knew
...'), concerning the shape of the world and the meaning of the
Straight Road, was struck through, the only part of the text so treated.
It will be seen that in the latter part of Sketch III appear a number of
phrases that survived into The Drowning of Anadune (such as 'men
fell a second time', 'there arose a second manifestation (of Evil) upon
Earth', 'this evil thing was called by many names').
It seems to me that there are broadly speaking two possible lines of
explanation of my father's thinking at this time. On the one hand,
many years had passed since the progressive development of 'The
Silmarillion' had been disrupted, and during all that time the actual
narrative manuscripts had lain untouched; but it cannot be thought
that he had put it altogether out of mind, that it had not continued to
evolve unseen. Above all, the relation between the self-contained
mythology of 'The Silmarillion' and the story of The Lord of the Rings
boded problems of a profound nature. This work had now been at a
standstill for more than a year; but The Notion Club Papers was
leading to the re-emergence of Numenor as an increasingly important
element in the whole, even as the Numenorean kingdoms in Middle-
earth had grown so greatly in significance in The Lord of the Rings.
It might seem at least arguable, therefore, that the departures from
the 'received tradition' (not a line of which had been published, as
must always be borne in mind) seen in my father's writing at this time
represent the emergence of new ideas, even to the extent of an actual
dismantling and transformation of certain deeply embedded concep-
tions. Chief among these are the nature of the 'dwelling' of the Valar
in Arda and the interrelated question of 'the shape of the world'; and
the Fall of Men, seduced in their beginning by Meleko, but
followed by the repentance of some and their rebellion against him.
On the other hand, it may be argued that these developments were
inspired by a specific purpose in respect only of The Drowning of
Anadune. Essentially this is the view that I myself take; but the other is
not thereby excluded radically or at all points, for ideas that here first
appear would have repercussions at a later time.
It will be seen that the 'sketches' just given are remarkably dissimilar
in many points, although it is true that their haste and brevity, a
certain vagueness of language, and my father's characteristic way of
omitting some features and enlarging on others in successive 'outlines',
make it often difficult to decide whether differences are more apparent
than real. But I shall not in any case embark on any comparative
analysis, for I think it will be agreed without further discussion that
these 'sketches', taken with the opening texts of The Drowning of
Anadune, give a strong impression of uncertainty on my father's part:
they are like a kaleidoscopic succession of different patternings, as he
sought for a comprehensive conception that would satisfy his aim.
But what was that aim? The key, I think, is to be found in the
treatment of the Elves (Enkeladim, Eledai, Eldar, Nimri or Nimir).
For beyond a few very generalised ideas nothing is known of them: of
their origin and history, of the Great March, of the rebellion of the
Noldor, of their cities in Beleriand, of the long war against Morgoth.
In the first text of The Drowning of Anadune this ignorance is
extended beyond that of the 'sketches' to a total obscuration of the
distinction between Valar and Eldar (see pp. 353 - 4), although in the
second text the Eldar appear under the Adunaic name Nimri. In
the 'sketches' the isle of Eressea (Eresse) appears, yet confusedly, for
(in Sketch III) the Valar dwelt on Eresse, and it was to Eresse that
Earendel came and spoke before 'the Chief of the Valar'; while in The
Drowning of Anadune Tol Eressea has virtually disappeared.
Where could such ignorance of the Elves be found but in the minds
of Men of a later time? This, I believe, is what my father was
concerned to portray: a tradition of Men, through long ages become
dim and confused. At this time, perhaps, in the context of The Notion
Club Papers and of the vast enlargement of his great story that was
coming into being in The Lord of the Rings, he began to be concerned
with questions of 'tradition' and the vagaries of tradition, the losses,
confusions, simplifications and amplifications in the evolution of
legend, as they might apply to his own - within the always enlarging
compass of Middle-earth. This is speculation; it would have been
helpful indeed if he had at this time left any record or note, however
brief, of his reflections. But many years later he did write such a note,
though brief indeed, on the envelope that contains the texts of The
Drowning of Anadune:
Contains very old version (in Adunaic) which is good - in so far as it
is just as much different (in inclusion and omission and emphasis) as
would be probable in the supposed case:
(a) Mannish tradition
(b) Elvish tradition
(c) Mixed Dunedanic tradition
The handwriting and the use of a ball-point pen suggest a relatively
late date, and were there no other evidence I would guess it to be some
time in the 1960s. But it is certain that what appears to have been
the final phase of my father's work on Numenor (A Description
of Numenor, Aldarion and Erendis) dates from the mid-1960s
(Unfinished Tales pp. 7 - 8); and it may be that the Akallabeth derives
from that period also.
At any rate, there is here unequivocal evidence of how, long
afterwards, he perceived his intention in The Drowning of Anadune: it
was, specifically, 'Mannish tradition'. It could well be that - while the
'sketches' preceded the emergence of Adunaic - the conception of such
a work was an important factor in the appearance of the new language
at this time.
It seems to me likely that by 'Elvish tradition' he meant The Fall of
Numenor; and since 'Mixed Dunedanic tradition' presumably means
a mixture of Elvish and Numenorean tradition, he was in this surely
referring to the Akallabeth, in which both The Fall of Numenor and
The Drowning of Anadune were used (see pp. 376, 395 - 6).
I conclude therefore that the marked differences in the preliminary
sketches reflect my father's shifting ideas of what the 'Mannish
tradition' might be, and how to present it: he was sketching rapidly
possible modes in which the memory, and the forgetfulness, of Men in
Middle-earth, descendants of the Exiles of Numenor, might have
transformed their early history.(16)
In The Drowning of Anadune the confusions and obscurities of the
'Mannish tradition' were in fact deepened, in relation to the prelimin-
ary sketches: in the submergence of the Elves under the general term
Avalai in DA I, and in the virtual disappearance of Tol Eressea, with
the name 'Lonely Isle' given to the summit of the Pillar of Heaven
sought by seafarers after the Downfall. It is seen too in the treatment
of 'Avallon(de)': for in the sketches (see note 12) this name appears
already in the final application, the eastward haven in Tol Eressea,
while in DA I the reference of Avallonde is obscure, and in the
subsequent texts Avalloni is used of the Blessed Realm (see pp. 379
$16, 385 $47). My father seems not to have finally resolved how to
present the Blessed Realm in this tradition; or, more probably, he
chose to leave it as a matter 'unsure and dim'. In Sketch III it is told
that after the banishment of Meleko from the world the Powers 'had
no longer any local habitation on earth', and the Land of the Gods in
the far West seems to be presented as a lie of Sauron's (see note 14). In
The Drowning of Anadune ($16) those in Anadune who argued that
the distant city seen over the water was an isle where the Nimri
(Nimir) dwelt held also that 'mayhap the Avaloi(m) had no visible
dwelling upon Earth'; yet later it is recounted ($47, and still more
explicitly in the revision made to this passage, p. 391) that Ar-
Pharazon set foot on the Land of Aman, and after the Land of Aman
was swallowed in the abyss 'the Avaloi(m) thereafter had no habita-
tion on Earth'.
The attempt to analyse and order these shifting and fugitive
conceptions will perhaps yield in the end no more than an understand-
ing of what the problems were that my father was revolving in his
mind. But since there is no reason to think that he turned to the subject
of Numenor again, after he had forced himself to return to the plight
of Sam Gamgee at the subterranean door of the Tower of Kirith
Ungol, until many years had passed, it is interesting to see what he
wrote of it in his long letter to Milton Waldman in 1951 (Letters no.
131): and I reprint two extracts from that letter here.
Thus, as the Second Age draws on, we have a great Kingdom and
evil theocracy (for Sauron is also the god of his slaves) growing up in
Middle-earth. In the West - actually the North-West is the only part
clearly envisaged in these tales - lie the precarious refuges of thy
Elves, while Men in those parts remains more or less uncorrupted if
ignorant. The better and nobler sort of Men are in fact the kin of
those that had departed to Numenor, but remain in a simple
'Homeric' state of patriarchal and tribal life.
Meanwhile Numenor has grown in wealth, wisdom, and glory,
under its line of great kings of long life, directly descended from
Elros, Earendil's son, brother of Elrond. The Downfall of Numenor,
the Second Fall of Man (or Man rehabilitated but still mortal),
brings on the catastrophic end, not only of the Second Age, but of
the Old World, the primeval world of legend (envisaged as flat and
bounded). After which the Third Age began, a Twilight Age, a
Medium Aevum, the first of the broken and changed world; the last
of the lingering dominion of visible fully incarnate Elves, and the
last also in which Evil assumes a single dominant incarnate shape.
The Downfall is partly the result of an inner weakness in Men -
consequent, if you will, upon the first Fall (unrecorded in these
tales), repented but not finally healed. Reward on earth is more
dangerous for men than punishment! The Fall is achieved by the
cunning of Sauron in exploiting this weakness. Its central theme is
(inevitably, I think, in a story of Men) a Ban, or Prohibition.
The Numenoreans dwell within far sight of the easternmost
'immortal' land, Eressea; and as the only men to speak an Elvish
tongue (learned in the days of their Alliance) they are in constant
communication with their ancient friends and allies, either in the
bliss of Eressea, or in the kingdom of Gilgalad on the shores of
Middle-earth. They became thus in appearance, and even in powers
of mind, hardly distinguishable from the Elves - but they remained
mortal, even though rewarded by a triple, or more than a triple,
span of years. Their reward is their undoing - or the means of their
temptation. Their long life aids their achievements in art and
wisdom, but breeds a possessive attitude to these things, and desire
awakes for more time for their enjoyment. Foreseeing this in part,
the gods laid a Ban on the Numenoreans from the beginning: they
must never sail to Eressea, nor westward out of sight of their own
land. In all other directions they could go as they would. They must
not set foot on 'immortal' lands, and so become enamoured of an
immortality (within the world), which was against their law, the
special doom or gift of Iluvatar (God), and which their nature could
not in fact endure.
. . .
But at last Sauron's plot comes to fulfilment. Tar-Calion feels
old age and death approaching, and he listens to the last prompting
of Sauron, and building the greatest of all armadas, he sets sail into
the West, breaking the Ban, and going up with war to wrest from
the gods 'everlasting life within the circles of the world'. Faced by
this rebellion, of appalling folly and blasphemy, and also real peril
(since the Numenoreans directed by Sauron could have wrought
ruin in Valinor itself) the Valar lay down their delegated power and
appeal to God, and receive the power and permission to deal with
the situation; the old world is broken and changed. A chasm is
opened in the sea and Tar-Calion and his armada is engulfed.
Numenor itself on the edge of the rift topples and vanishes for ever
with all its glory into the abyss. Thereafter there is no visible
dwelling of the divine or immortal on earth. Valinor (or Paradise)
and even Eressea are removed, remaining only in the memory of the
earth. Men may sail now West, if they will, as far as they may, and
come no nearer to Valinor or the Blessed Realm, but return only
into the east and so back again; for the world is round, and finite,
and a circle inescapable - save by death. Only the 'immortals', the
lingering Elves, may still if they will, wearying of the circle of the
world, take ship and find the 'straight way', and come to the ancient
or True West, and be at peace.
Three years later my father said in a letter to Hugh Brogan (18
September 1954, Letters no. 151):
Middle-earth is just archaic English for {q oixovpivq}, the inhabited
world of men. It lay then as it does. In fact just as it does, round and
inescapable. That is partly the point. The new situation, established
at the beginning of the Third Age, leads on eventually and inevitably
to ordinary History, and we here see the process culminating. If you
or I or any of the mortal men (or hobbits) of Frodo's day had set out
over sea, west, we should, as now, eventually have come back (as
now) to our starting point. Gone was the 'mythological' time when
Valinor (or Valimar), the Land of the Valar (gods if you will) existed
physically in the Uttermost West, or the Eldaic (Elvish) immortal
Isle of Eressea; or the Great Isle of Westernesse (Numenor-Atlantis).
After the Downfall of Numenor, and its destruction, all this was
removed from the 'physical' world, and not reachable by material
means. Only the Eldar (or High-Elves) could still sail thither,
forsaking time and mortality, but never returning.
A week later he wrote to Naomi Mitchison (25 September 1954,
Letters no. 154):
Actually in the imagination of this story we are now living on a
physically round Earth. But the whole 'legendarium' contains a
transition from a flat world (or at least an {osxovpivq} with borders all
about it) to a globe: an inevitable transition, I suppose, to a modern
'myth-maker' with a mind subjected to the same 'appearances' as
ancient men, and partly fed on their myths, but taught that the
Earth was round from the earliest years. So deep was the impression
made by 'astronomy' on me that I do not think I could deal with or
imaginatively conceive a flat world, though a world of static Earth
with a Sun going round it seems easier (to fancy if not to reason).
The particular 'myth' which lies behind this tale, and the mood
both of Men and Elves at this time, is the Downfall of Numenor: a
special variety of the Atlantis tradition.
I have written an account of the Downfall, which you might
be interested to see. But the immediate point is that before the
Downfall there lay beyond the sea and the west-shores of Middle-
earth an earthly Elvish paradise Eressea, and Valinor the land of the
Valar (the Powers, the Lords of the West), places that could be
reached physically by ordinary sailing-ships, though the Seas were
perilous. But after the rebellion of the Numenoreans, the Kings of
Men, who dwelt in a land most westerly of all mortal lands, and
eventually in the height of their pride attempted to occupy Eressea
and Valinor by force, Numenor was destroyed, and Eressea and
Valinor removed from the physically attainable Earth: the way west
was open, but led nowhere but back again - for mortals.
NOTES.
1. The name Eledai occurs in DA II (and subsequent texts) $5, as the
name of the Nimri (Nimir) in their own language. On Michael
Ramer's Enkeladim see pp. 199, 206 and note 65, 303.
2. Sketch I has here: 'The Great Central Land, Europe and Asia, was
first inhabited. Men awoke in Mesopotamia. Their fates as they
spread were very various. But the Enkeladim withdrew ever
west.'
3. Ljos-alfar: Old Norse, 'Light-elves', mentioned in the 'Prose
Edda' of Snorri Sturluson.
4. Cf. DA II (and subsequent texts) $16: For as yet Eru permitted
the Avaloi to maintain upon Earth... an abiding place' (DA I 'an
abiding place, an earthly paradise').
In my father's exposition of his work to Milton Waldman in
1951 there is a passage of interest in relation to the opening of
this sketch (Letters no. 131, pp. 147 - 8):
In the cosmogony there is a fall: a fall of Angels we should
say. Though quite different in form, of course, to that of the
Christian myth. These tales are 'new', they are not directly
derived from other myths and legends, but they must inevitably
contain a large measure of ancient wide-spread motives or
elements. After all, I believe that legends and myths are largely
made of 'truth', and indeed present aspects of it that can only
be received in this mode; and long ago certain truths and
modes of this kind were discovered and must always reappear.
There cannot be any 'story' without a fall - all stories are
ultimately about the fall - at least not for human minds as we
know them and have them.
So, proceeding, the Elves have a fall, before their 'history'
can become storial. (The first fall of Man, for reasons ex-
plained, nowhere appears - Men do not come on the stage
until all that is long past, and there is only a rumour that for a
while they fell under the domination of the Enemy and that
some repented.) The main body of the tale, the Silmarillion
proper, is about the fall of the most gifted kindred of the
Elves...
Notable here is my father's reference to 'a rumour that for a while
[Men] fell under the domination of the Enemy and that some
repented', and see also the further citation from this letter on
p. 408; with this cf. DA II (and subsequent texts) $$3-4:
At the appointed hour Men were born into the world, and they
were called the Eru-hin, the children of God; but they came in a
time of war and shadow, and they fell swiftly under the
domination of Mulkher, and they served him.... But some
there were of the fathers of Men who repented, seeing the evil
of the Lord Mulkher and that his shadow grew ever longer on
the Earth; and they and their sons returned with sorrow to the
allegiance of Eru, and they were befriended by the Avaloi, and
received again their ancient name, Eruhin, children of God.
Of this there is no suggestion in the Quenta Silmarillion (V.274 -
6); cf. however the suggestions in Chapter 17 of the published
Silmarillion ('that a darkness lay upon the hearts of Men (as the
shadow of the Kinslaying and the Doom of Mandos lay upon the
Noldor) [the Eldar] perceived clearly even in the people of the
Elf-friends whom they first knew').
At the head of the following page of the text is a very rough
and disjointed note in which are named the Eruhildi, sons of
God, descended from Shem or Japheth (sons of Noah).
5. Meleko: a footnote to the text states: 'He had many names in
different tongues, but such was his name among the Numenor-
eans, which means Tyrant.' This is the form of the name in DA I,
but with long first vowel: Meleko.
6. Eresse is the form in the earlier version of Edwin Lowdham's Old
English text, pp. 313 - 14. - On the haven of Avallon(de) see note
12. In 'whose chief haven was westward' read 'eastward'.
7. In The Fall of Numenor ($10) ship-burial came to be practised by
the Exiles on the western coasts of Middle-earth.
8. This (presumably) contradicts the earlier, bracketed, statement in
this same text (p. 400): The Enkeladim told them that the world
was round, but that was a hard saying to them.' The statement
here is of course the opposite of the story in The Drowning of
Anadune ($$23, 31), where Sauron taught that the world was
flat, contradicting the instruction of the messengers of the
Avaloi(m). In Sketch III (p. 404) 'The ancient Numenoreans
knew (being taught by the Eledai) that the Earth was round; but
Sauron taught them that it was a disc and flat, and beyond was
nothing, where his master ruled.'
9. The Pillar of Heaven is volcanic: cf. Lowdham's comment on
Frankley's poem (p. 265): 'Your Volcano is... apparently a last
peak of some Atlantis.'
10. On Ilu, Iluve, see IV.241, V.47, 63, and the Etymologies, stem
IL, V.361. The word menel first occurs here or in the manuscript
E of Part Two of The Notion Club Papers, in the name
Menelminda of the Pillar of Heaven (p. 302).
11. The first occurrence of the word kemen in the texts, but cf. the
added entry stem KEM - in the Etymologies, V.363.
u here they had always had as it were a habitation and centre in
their early strife with Meleko: the legend that the isle on which
the Valar dwelt before Morgoth overthrew the Lamps was also
that on which Ulmo ferried the Elves to Valinor, and which Osse
anchored to the sea-bottom far out in the ocean, so that it was
named 'the Lonely Isle'. The original form of the story is found in
The Book of Lost Tales ('The Coming of the Elves', I.118 ff.) and
then in the successive versions of 'The Silmarillion': the 'Sketch of
the Mythology' from the 1920s (IV.12, 14, 45), the Quenta
Noldorinwa (IV.80, 86), and the Quenta Silmarillion (V.208,
221 - 2).
12. In the earlier version of the Old English text of the surviving page
of Edwin Lowdham's manuscript (pp. 313 - 14) the Numenoreans
were forbidden to land on Eresse. Here they may visit the isle, but
only briefly, and only the haven of Avallon(de) and the city of
[Tuna >] Tirion 'on the hill behind'; subsequently the Powers, in
their displeasure, transmuted this into a prohibition against
landing on Eresse at all (p. 404). On the reference to 'the city of
[Tuna >] Tirion on the hill behind' see note 16.
In notes added to Sketch II (p. 399), as well as in the present
passage, 'Avallon(de)' appears as the name of the haven in Eresse,
and this is where the final application of the name (later
Avallone') first appears (in FN III Avallon was still the name of the
Lonely Isle, as it remained in the earlier Old English text referred
to above).
13. tenth in the line from Earendel: this can be equated with the
statement in DA II $20 (see the commentary, p. 381) if Earendel
is himself numbered, as the first in the line though not the first
king of Numenor.
14. This presumably implies that the idea of a land in the far West
where the Gods dwelt was a lie of Sauron's. Earlier in the text
(p. 402) it has been told that the Gods had dwelt in Eresse, but
after the final overthrow of Meleko 'they had no longer any local
habitation on earth' (cf. also Sketch I, p. 400: 'except among the
wise the theory arose that the great spirits or Gods ... dwelt in
the West in a Great Land beyond the sun'). See further p. 407.
15. Cf. VIII.164 and note 37.
16. A curious case is presented by the statement in Sketch III, p. 403,
that 'the city of [Tuna )] Tirion' was 'on the hill behind the
haven of Avallon(de)'; for Tun(a), Tirion was of course the city of
the Elves in Valinor. One might suppose that Homer nodded
here; but in the earliest draft of an Old English text for 'Edwin
Lowdham's page' (p. 316), which closely followed The Fall of
Numenor $6, it is told that the Numenoreans, landing in Valinor,
set fire to the city of Tuna. The statement in Sketch III is therefore
more probably to be taken as intentional, an example of a famous
name handed down in tradition but with its true application
forgotten.
(vi) Lowdham's Report on the Adunaic Language.
This is a typescript made by my father that ends at the bottom of
its seventeenth page, at which point he abandoned it (there is no
reason to suppose that further pages existed but were lost). That it
belongs with the final texts DA III and DA IV of The Drowning of
Anadune is readily seen from various names and name-forms, as
Nimir, Azrubel, Adunaim, Minul-Tarik, Amatthani (see p. 388,
$$5, 8, 13, 20, 23).
In printing 'Lowdham's Report' I have followed my father's text
very closely indeed, retaining his use of capitals, italics, marks of
length, etc. despite some apparent inconsistency, except where correc-
tions are obvious and necessary. The only point in which I have altered
his presentation is in the matter of the notes. These (as became his
usual practice in essays of this sort) he simply interspersed in the body
of the text as he composed it; but as some of them are very substantial
I have thought it best to collect them together at the end. I have added
no commentary of my own.
It may be noted that the 'we' of Lowdham's introduction refers to
himself and Jeremy; cf. Footnotes 2 and 6 on pp. 432 - 3.
ADUNAIC.
It is difficult, of course, to say anything about the pre-history of
a language which, as far as my knowledge goes, has no close
relations with any other tongue. The other contemporary
language that came through together with Adunaic in my earlier
'hearings', and which I have called Avallonian, appears to be
distinct and unrelated, at least not 'cognate'. But I guess that
originally, or far back beyond these records, Avallonian and
Adunaic were in some way related. It is in fact clear now that
Avallonian is the Nimriye or 'Nimrian tongue' referred to in the
very early Exilic text that we have managed to get concerning
the Downfall. In that case it must be the language of the Nimir,
or a western form of it, and so be the ultimate source of the
languages of Men in the west of the Old World. Perhaps I
should rather say that the glimpses of the 'Nimrian tongue' that
we have received show us a language, itself doubtless much
changed, that is directly descended from the primeval Nimrian.
From that Nimrian in a later stage, but still older than the
Avallonian, the ancestor of Adunaic was partly derived.
But Adunaic must then for a long time have developed quite
independently. Also I think it came under some different
influence. This influence I call Khazadian; because I have
received a good many echoes of a curious tongue, also con-
nected with what we should call the West of the Old World,
that is associated with the name Khazad. Now this resembles
Adunaic phonetically, and it seems also in some points of
vocabulary and structure; but it is precisely at the points where
Adunaic most differs from Avallonian that it approaches
nearest to Khazadian.
However, Adunaic evidently again later came into close
contact with Avallonian, so that there is, as it were, a new layer of
later resemblances between the two tongues: Adunaic for
instance somewhat softened its harder phonetic character; while
it also shows a fairly large number of words that are the same as
the Avallonian words, or very similar to them. Of course, it
cannot always be determined in such cases whether we are
dealing with a primitive community of vocabulary, or with a
later borrowing of Avallonian terms. Thus I am inclined to think
that the Adunaic Base MINIL 'heaven, sky' is a primitive word,
cognate with the Nimrian Base MENEL and not borrowed from it
at a later time; although certainly, if Menel had been so
borrowed, it would probably have acquired the form Minil
[struck out: and the actual Adunaic noun Minal could be
explained as an alteration to fit Minil into the Adunaic declen-
sional system]. On the other hand it seems plain that the Adunaic
word lomi 'night' is an Avallonian loan; both because of its sense
(it appears to mean 'fair night, a night of stars', with no
connotations of gloom or fear), but also because it is quite
isolated in Adunaic. According to Adunaic structure, as I shall try
to exhibit it, lomi would require either a biconsonantal Base LUM,
or more probably a triconsonantal Base LAW M; but neither of
these exist in our material, whereas in Avallonian lome (stem
lomi-) is a normal formation from an Avallonian biconsonantal
Base LOM.
I will try now and sketch the structure and grammar of
Adunaic, as far as the material that we have received allows this
to be done. The language envisaged is the language about the
period of the Downfall, that is more or less during the end of
the reign of King Ar-Pharazon. From that period most of the
records come. There are only occasional glimpses of earlier
stages, or of the later (Exilic) forms of the language among the
descendants of the survivors. Some of our chief texts, notably
The Drowning, are in point of time of composition Exilic: that
is they must have been put together at some time later than the
reign of Ar-Pharazon; but they are in a language virtually
identical with the 'classical' Adunaic. This is probably due to
two causes: their drawing on older material; and the continued
use of the older language for higher purposes. For the actual
daily speeches of the Exiles seem in fact to have changed and
diverged quickly on the western shores. Of these changed and
divergent forms we have only a few echoes, but they sometimes
help in elucidating the forms and history of the older tongue.
*
General Structure.
The majority of the word-bases of Adunaic were triconsonan-
tal. This structure is somewhat reminiscent of Semitic; and in
this point Adunaic shows affinity with Khazadian rather than
with Nimrian. For though Nimrian has many triconsonantal
stems (other than the products of normal suffixion), such as the
stem MENEL cited above, these are rarer in Nimrian, and are
mostly the stems of nouns.
The vocalic arrangements within the base, however, do not
much resemble Semitic; neither does Adunaic show anything
strictly comparable to the 'gradations' of languages familiar to
us, such as the e/o variation in the Indo-European group. In an
Adunaic Base there is a Characteristic Vowel (CV) which shares
with the consonants in characterizing or identifying the Base.
Thus KARAB and KIRIB are distinct Bases and may have wholly
unrelated meanings. The CV may, however, be modified in
certain recognized ways (described below under the Vowels)
which can produce effects not unlike those of gradation.
In addition to the triconsonantal Bases, there existed also in
Adunaic a large number of biconsonantal Bases. Many of these
are clearly ancient, though some may have been borrowed from
Avallonian, where the biconsonantal Base is normal. These
ancient biconsonantal Bases are probably an indication that the
longer forms are in fact historically a later development. A
few of the commonest verbal notions are expressed by bi-
consonantal forms, though the verb form of Adunaic is usually
triconsonantal: thus NAKH 'come, approach', BITH 'say', con-
trasted with SAPHAD 'understand', NIMIR 'shine', KALAB 'fall',
etc. [Footnote 1]
A number of ancient elements also exist: affixes, pronominal
and numeral stems, prepositional stems, and so on, that only
show one consonant. When, however, a 'full word', a noun for
instance, has a uniconsonantal form, it must usually be sus-
pected that an older second consonant has disappeared. Thus pa
'hand' is probably derived from a Base PA3.
Consonants.
The following is a table of the Consonants which Adunaic
appears originally (or at an earlier stage) to have possessed:
[Footnote 2]
(a) (b) (d) (d)
p-series t-series c-series k-series
STOPS
1. Voiceless: P. T. C. K.
2. Voiced: B. D. J. G.
3. Voiceless aspirated: Ph. Th. Ch. Kh.
CONTINUANTS
4. Voiceless: - S. 2. H.
5. Voiced (weak): W. L, R, Z. Y. 3. ?.
6. Voiced: Nasals: M. N. - 9.
[Footnote 3]
The sounds of the c-series: c, J, Ch, z were front or palatal
consonants originally; that is roughly consonants of the K-series
made in the extreme forward or y-position, and they might be
so represented, but the above notation has been adopted,
because their later development was to simple consonants. The
sign 2 represents a voiceless hissed v, that is the German
ich-laut, or a rather stronger form of the voiceless v often heard
initially in such an English word as huge.
It will be noted that the T-series is the most rich, and
possessed three voiced continuants. The T-series is probably the
most frequently employed in Ease-formation; and is certainly
the most used in pronominal and formative elements (especially
those of uniconsonantal form). The P-series is the poorest and
possesses no voiceless hiss; but it is very probable that one
anciently existed, a voiceless w (as English wh), but became H
prehistorically.
H represents the voiceless back hissing sound, the ch of
Welsh, Gaelic, and German (as in acht). 3 is the corresponding
voiced spirant, or 'open' G.
Adunaic employs affixion in word-formation, though more
sparingly than Avallonian; and in contrast to Avallonian em-
ploys prefixion more frequently than suffixion: the latter is
sparingly used in forming stems (where the two elements
become merged), but is more frequent in inflexion (where the
two elements usually remain distinct). The primitive Adunaic
combinations of consonants, in consequence, are due mainly to
the contact of the basic consonants, and are predominantly of
the form 'Continuant + some other consonant', or vice versa.
This is so, because the predominant (but not exclusive) form of
the Adunaic Bases, when triconsonantal, is X + Continuant +
X; or X + X + Continuant, where X = any consonant.
A much employed method of derivation, however, is the
lengthening or 'doubling' of one of the basic consonants. The
consonant doubled is usually either the medial or final con-
sonant of the Base, though in certain formations the initial may
be doubled (only one of the basic consonants is so treated in any
one word).
Similar to this method, and so to some extent competing wit-h
it in functions, is the infixion of an homorganic nasal before the
final, or less frequently the medial, basic consonant: thus s to
MB; D to ND; G to NG. This method cannot, of course, be
distinguished from doubling in the case of the Nasals. It is
doubtful if it originally occurred before the other continuants:
the apparent cases of NZ may be due to * NJ, which became NZ,
or to the analogy of such cases. [Footnote 4]
Adunaic, like Avallonian, does not tolerate more than a single
basic consonant initially in any word (note that Ph, Th, Kh,
are simple consonants). Unlike Avallonian it tolerates a large
number of combinations medially, and there consonants in
contact are very sparingly assimilated. Finally, in the 'classical'
period Adunaic did not possess consonant-combinations, since
affixes always ended in a vowel or a single consonant; while
basic stems were always arranged in the following forms:
ATLA, TAr.(A) in the case of biconsonantal bases; AK(A)LAB(A),
(A)KALBA in the case of triconsonantals. But the omission of
short final A (not I or U), both in speech and writing, was
already usual before the end of the classical period, with the
consequence that a large number of consonant combinations
became final.
The following list will show the normal development of the
more primitive consonants in later Adunaic. The consonants are
here set out in the order of the former table, and not according
to the phonetic classification.
(a) (b) (c) (d)
1. P. T. S. K.
2. B. D. Z. G.
3. Ph. Th. S. Kh.
4. - S. S. H.
5. W. L,R,Z. Y. - (G). -.
6. M. N. - (N) [Footnote 5]
It will be observed that the consonants have not suffered any
very material change except in the case of the c-series, which
has become dental (apart from v, which remains unchanged).
With the development of c, ch, 2 to s may be compared the
development of Latin fronted c in part of the Romance area;
and the development of Indo-European K to s in Slavonic.
Similarly the development of J (fronted c) to z may be
compared with the change of Indo-European fronted c and Gh
to z in Iranian and Slavonic. The assumption of a primitive
c-series is based partly on scraps of internal evidence (such as
the presence of an infixion NZ, whereas infixion of Nasal does
not occur before the genuine consonants); partly on early forms,
especially some scraps of an early inscription, [Footnote 6]
which shows two different s-letters and z-letters. The treatment
of Avallonian loans is also significant; in early loans the
Avallonian Ty and Hy (approximately equivalent to the English t
in tune and h in huge) both become s in Adunaic: as for instance
Adunaic sulum 'mast', sula 'trump' from Nimrian kyuluma,
hyola, Avallonian tyulma, hyola.
In the earlier language Ph, Th, Kh had plainly been aspirated
stops, as in ancient Greek. This is most clearly seen when these
sounds came into contact with others (see below). But it appears
from various signs in the spelling, from the later developments
in Exilic, and from the actual pronunciations of words coming
through in audible form, that before the Downfall these aspi-
rates had become strong spirants: F (bilabial), p (as English
voiceless th), and x (the ach-sound originally belonging to H,
with which Kh now coalesced in cases where H had not gone on
to the breath-H). At the same time the combinations PPh, TTh,
KKh became the 'affricates' PF, TP, KX, and then the long or
double spirants FF, pp, XX. PTh and KTh appear to have become
Fp> Xp).
H was originally, as noted above, the voiceless back-spirant;
but in the classical language it had usually become the breath H.
So, always initially, and medially between vowels. It never,
however, becomes silent in these positions. [Footnote 7] The
spirantal sound of H was retained before s [added: and where
long or doubled HH] (where it later therefore coalesced with Kh);
and in some 'hearings' it seems to occur before T and Th, though
usually before consonants it is heard as a breathless puff, having
the timbre of the preceding vowel. On the development of H in
other contacts, see below.
The original consonants w and Y were weak (consonantal
forms of the vowels v and i). Medially they disappeared
prehistorically before the vowels v and I respectively. But
initially they were strengthened, becoming more spirantal
(though w remained bilabial); so that the initial combinations
WU and YI remained. The same strengthening occurred between
vowels (where w and v had not been lost). After consonants
both w and Y remained weaker, like English w and Y. Before
consonants and finally they were vocalized and usually com-
bined with the preceding vowels to form diphthongs (see the
Vowels). [Footnote 8]
The sound > [see Footnote 1] had no sign in Adunaic script,
except in the archaic inscription referred to above [page 418
and Footnote 6]. Presumably it disappeared very early. It cannot
be determined whether it had ever been used medially as a
base-forming consonant. Probably not.
3 became weakened, until in the classical period (parallel with
the softening of the voiceless equivalent H to the breath-H) it
merged with the adjacent vowels. This softening of the back
spirants may be ascribed to Avallonian influence.
Initially 3 disappeared. Medially between vowels it dis-
appeared also, and contractions often resulted (always in the
case of like vowels, A3A to A); U3 + vowels became UW-, and 13
+ vowel became n-. Finally, or before a consonant, 3 became
merged with the preceding vowel, which if short was conse-
quently lengthened; as A3DA to ADA.
Assimilations in contact.
As noted above, these were only sparingly made, owing to the
strong consciousness of the basic consonantal pattern in Adu-
naic. And even those assimilations most commonly made in
actual speech are seldom represented in writing, except in the
comparatively rare cases where the structure of the word was no
longer recognized.
The nasals offer, however, a surprising exception to this
conservative tendency, both in writing and speech. This is all the
more remarkable, since the combinations MP, NT, NK seem not
only easy to us, but are highly favoured in Avallonian. They
were disliked in Adunaic, and tended to be changed even at the
contact point of distinct words in composition: as Amatthani
from AMAN + THANI 'the realm of Aman'.
The dental nasal N was in speech assimilated in position to
following consonants of other series. It thus became M before P,
Ph, B, and M; though notably NW remained unchanged (NW is a
favoured combination in Avallonian); and 9 before K, Kh, c, H, 3.
Where the nasal still remained a nasal, as in MB, NG, this change
of position is often disregarded in writing.
After these changes in position the combinations of Nasal +
Voiceless consonant all suffered change. In the combinations
MP, MPh, NT, NTh, NK, NKh the nasal was first unvoiced, and then
denasalized, the resulting combinations being PP, PPh, TT, TTh,
KK, KKh. These changes were recognized as a rule in writing,
though a diacritic was usually placed above the I, T, or x that
resulted from a nasal; the evidence of the audible forms seems to
show that this sign was etymological and grammatical, not
phonetic. In old formations N + H became 9H and then HH
(phonetically XX, long back voiceless spirant); but in contacts
made after the weakening of H to breath-H, or remodelled after
the event, NH remained and is heard as a voiceless NN with
breath off-glide. NS became TS.
Since M did not become assimilated in position to following
consonants there were the combinations MT, MTh, MK, MKh, MS,
and MH. Parallel with the development described above these
became PT, PTh, PK, PKh, PS, but no example of P-H for M-H is
found. In the few cases of contact of M + H MH is written, and
(as in the case of NH) a voiceless MM is heard.
Where the following consonant was voiced the changes are
few (other than the changes in position described above). 3 after
N or the infixed homorganic 9 does not disappear but becomes
nasalized yielding 99, which became NG (phonetically 9G). NR, NL
tended to become RR, LL, but usually with the retention of
nasality (transferred to the preceding vowel), in speech; the
change is not as a rule represented in writing, though such
spellings as NRR, NLL are found. M3 became, in accordance with
the general tendency of 3 to be assimilated to a preceding voiced
sound, MM. MW became in speech MM (colloquially a preceding
labial usually absorbs a following w), but this change is usually
not shown in spelling.
Other assimilations are rarer and less remarkable. In speech
there was a tendency for consonants in contact to be assimilated
in the matter of voice; but this tendency is less strong than in,
say, English, and is mostly disregarded in writing. Thus we
usually find Sapda from Base SAPAD, and Asdi from Base ASAD,
where sabda and azda may be spoken (though the z in such a
form is only partly voiced and is not the same as the strongly
buzzed sound of a basic z).
The aspirates Ph, Th, Kh have naturally a strong unvoicing
tendency on the sounds that follow, and transfer their aspira-
tion or audible breath off-glide to the end of the group. Thus Ph
+ n, or T, or Th became PTh (or strictly PhTh). Thus from Base
SAPHAD is derived * saphdan 'wise-man, wizard', becoming later
sapthan (phonetically, as described above, safpan). But such
combinations are not very common, and in perspicuous forms
(such, for example, as arise in verbal or noun inflexion, or in
casual composition) were liable to be remodelled, especially
after the change of the aspirates to spirants; thus usaphda 'he
understood' for usaptha.
The continuants W, Y; L, R, Z are pronounced voiceless after
the aspirates, but otherwise suffer no change. They are also
unvoiced after s and H. Before H and s the continuants L, R, Z
were unvoiced, but w and v had already become vowels (U and
I). M, N were unvoiced after the aspirates (while these remained
as such), but not after other sounds; after the later developed
spirants F, p, X the unvoicing of M, N was only partial.
After voiceless sounds 3 while it still remained an audible
consonant became H. After voiced sounds it was assimilated to
these, so that for instance B3, D3 became BB, DD. As noted above
N3, 93, became 99 and then NG.
After voiced sounds H was not voiced but tended to unvoice
the preceding consonant. Similarly where it preceded a voiced
continuant (as in HR, HM, HZ, etc.); but before B, D, G it tended
to become voiced, that is to become the same as 3, and so to
disappear, being merged in the preceding vowel.
The Adunaic Vowels.
Adunaic originally possessed only the three primary vowels:
A, I, U; and the two basic diphthongs AI, AU.
Each Base possessed one of these vowels: A, t, v as one of its
essential components; this I call the CV (Characteristic Vowel).
The normal place of the CV was between the first and second
basic consonant: thus NAK-, KUL B.
The 2-consonant Bases could also add the CV at the end; and
the 3-consonant Bases could add it before the last radical: NAKA,
KULUB. These forms with two basic vowels may be called the
Full forms of the Base.
Various other forms or modifications occurred.
(i) Prefixion of the CV: ANAK, UKULB, IGIML.
(ii) Suffixion of the CV in 3-consonant Bases: KULBU, GIMLI.
(iii) Suppression of the CV in its normal place, in which case it
must be present in some other place: -NKA, -KLUB, -GMIL.
This 'suppression' of the normal CV can only occur in
2-consonant Bases where it is also suffixed. It also requires that
the CV shall be prefixed: ANKA, UKLUB, IGMIL; or (more rarely)
that some other formative prefix ending in a vowel shall be
present: DA-NKA, DA-KLUB DA-GMIL.
These modifications are seldom combined: that is, a basic
form does not usually have the CV repeated more than twice (as
UKULBU, KULUBU); though such a form as UKULB could not
originally stand in Adunaic as a word, some other vowel than
the CV was taken as the ending (as UKULBA).
One of the vowels of a basic stem must be either the CV or
one of its normal modifications (described below); but the
second vowel of the 'Full form' need not be the CV, but may be
any one of the primary vowels (or their modification). Thus
NAKA - NAKI, NAKU; KULUB - KULAB, KULIB. The prefixed
vowel (as distinct from a separate formative prefix) must always
be the CV; but the suffixed vowel may also vary: so KULBA,
KULBI; GIMLA, GIMLU. [Footnote 9]
Every primary vowel A, t, v can show one of the following
modifications:
(i) Lengthening: A, I, U.
(ii) Fortification or A-infixion: A, AI, AU.
(iii) N-infixion: AN, IN, UN. [Footnote 10]
In the older language over-long vowels were recognized, and
marked with a special sign, in my transcription represented by ".
These occurred: (i) as an actual basic modification: chiefly in
2-consonant Bases, and in any case only before the last basic
consonant; (ii) as the product of the contraction of vowels,
where one of the merged vowels was already long. Thus Base
ZIR 'love, desire' produces both zir and zir; and also zaira and
zair 'yearning'.
Similar forms were sometimes produced by Bases with medial
W, Y and lengthened CV: as Base DAWAR produces * daw'r and
so daur 'gloom'; zayan 'land' produces plural * zayin and so
zain.
Except in the oldest texts and 'heard' forms the diphthongs
ai, au have become monophthongized to long (open) e and o
respectively. The long diphthongs remained unchanged, and are
usually heard, whatever their origin, as diphthongs with a long
vowel as the first element, and a shorter one (always t or u) as
the second element; though this second element is rather longer
and clearer than in a normal diphthong: the intonation is
'rising-falling'.
The only source of e, o in Adunaic is the older diphthongs ai,
au. The language consequently possesses no short e or o.
Avallonian e and o are usually represented by i and u, respec-
tively; though sometimes (especially in unstressed syllables
before r, or where the Adunaic system favours it) both appear as
a. In the earlier loans from Avallonian, presumably before the
monophthongization of ai, au, Avallonian e and o appear as t
and u respectively; but later they appear as e and o.
Contact of vowels.
This can be produced (i) by the loss of a medial consonant,
especially 3; (ii) in suffixion, especially in the addition of the
inflexional elements: i, u, a, at, im, etc.
If one or both of the components is long then the product is a
long diphthong or an over-long vowel.
v contracts with U; I with I; and A with A.
After v a glide consonant w is developed (so u - a, u - t to
uwa, uwi), as described above. Similarly after t a Y is developed
(soi-a,i-u to iya, iyu)
Earlier Adunaic also possessed the long diphthongs: OI, OU,
and EI, EU. These were all contraction products, and EU was
rare. In the classical period OI (and EU) remained; but OU
became the over-long simple vowel o, and similarly h became E.
These diphthongs were mainly found in inflexional syllables,
where they appear to be produced by adding such inflexional
elements as -i, -u direct to the uninflected form (come to
be regarded as the stem) instead of to the etymological stem.
Thus the plural of mano 'spirit', from * manaw-, or * manau, is
manoi.
But similar forms can also be produced basically. Thus a Base
KUY can produce by 'fortification' kauy- to koy, koi. A Base KIW
can produce by 'fortification' kaiw- to kew, keu. It is possible
that the inflexional forms are also, at least partly, of similar
origin. If the plural inflexion was in fact originally YI not I (as it
seems to be, because Y was lost before I medially) then the
development would be so: manaw, manau + yi to manoyi to
manoi; and similarly izray, izrai + yi to izreyi to izrei to izre.
By the processes (i) of N-infixion, and consonant doubling;
and (ii) of varying the position of the CV, and modifying it; and
varying the vowels of the subordinate syllables, the Adunaic
Bases, and especially those of 3-consonant form, were capable
of an enormous number of derivative forms, without recourse
to prefixion or suffixion. Naturally no single Base shows more
than a few of the possible variations. In any case, any given
derivative never shows two of the one kind of variation at the
same time; for this purpose w-infixion and consonant doubling
count as one kind of process; and Lengthening and A-forti-
fication count as another. Alteration in the position of the CV,
and variation of the subordinate vowels, can be combined with
any other derivative process.
Even with these limitations such Bases as KULUB and GIMIL
can for example develop the following variants (among other
possible forms):
KULBU, -A -I; KULAB, KULIB, KULUB; UKLUB - Kulbo, -a, -e,
-u, -F; kolab, kolib, kolub, kulob, kuleb, kulab, kulub, kulib;
uklob, uklub
Kullub, -ib, -ab (with variants showing -ub, ib, ab, eb, ob);
kulubba, kulubbi, kulabbu, kulabba, kulabbi, kulibbu, kulibbi,
kulibba; kulumba (also kulimba, kulamba, etc., though
N-infixion is usually found with the CV preceding the nasal);
uklumba; etc.
GIMLI, -A, -U; GIMAL GIMIL, GIMUL; IGMIL with parallel
variations, such as GEMIL, GIMEL, IGMEL, GIMMIL, GIMILLA, etc.
The apparent gradations produced by these changes are:
Basic A: a - a - a
Basic I: i - i - i; e - ai
Basic U: u - u - u; o - au.
Declension of nouns.
Nouns can be divided into two main classes: Strong and
Weak. Strong nouns form the Plural, and in some cases certain
other forms, by modification of the last vowel of the Stem.
Weak nouns add inflexions in all cases.
The stems of strong nouns were doubtless originally all Basic
stems in one or other of the fuller forms: as NAKA, GIMIL, AZRA;
but the strong type of inflexion had spread to most nouns whose
stem ended in a short vowel followed by a single consonant. No
nouns with a monosyllabic stem are strong.
The stems of Weak nouns were either monosyllabic, or they
ended in a lengthened or strengthened syllable (such as -a, -an,
-u, -on, -ur, etc.), or they were formed with a suffix or added
element.
It is convenient also to divide nouns into Masculine, Femi-
nine, Common, and Neuter nouns; though there is not strictly
speaking any 'gender' in Adunaic (there is no m. f. or n. form of
adjectives, for example). But the subjective case, as it may be
called, differs in the four named varieties in the singular; and is
formed differently in the plural neuter from the method em-
ployed in the m. f. and c. This arises because the subjective was
originally made with pronominal affixes, and Adunaic disting-
uishes gender (or rather sex) in the pronouns of the third
person.
All nouns are Neuter, except (i) Proper names of persons, and
personifications; (ii) Nouns denoting male or female functions;
and male or female animals, where these are specifically char-
acterized: as 'master, mistress, smith, nurse, mother, son'; or
'stallion, bitch'.
Masculine or Feminine are the personifications of natural
objects, especially lands and cities, which may have a neuter and
a personalized form side by side. Often the 'personification' is
simply the means of making a proper name from a common
noun or adjective: thus anaduni 'western', Anadune f. 'Wester-
nesse'. Abstractions may also be 'personified', and regarded as
agents: so Agan m. 'Death', agan n. 'death'. In such cases,
however, as nilo n. 'moon', and ure n. 'sun', beside the
personalized forms Nilu m. and Uri f., we have not so much
mere personification but the naming of real persons, or what the
Adunaim regarded as real persons: the guardian spirits of the
Moon and the Sun, in fact 'The Man in the Moon' and 'The
Lady of the Sun'.
Common are the noun ana 'homo, human being'; the names
of all animals when not specially characterized; and the names
of peoples (especially in the plural, as Adunaim). [Footnote 11]
The stems of nouns can end in any single basic consonant, or
in a vowel. It must be noted, however, that the original basic
consonants w, Y, 3 have become vocalized finally, and that these
final forms tend to become regarded as the actual stems. So pa
hand probably from * pa놹, pl. pai,. khau and kho crow from
* khaw and * khaw; pls. khawi(m) and khoi (the latter should
historically be khawi).
Long consonants or combinations of consonants do not occur
finally in classical Adunaic. [Footnote 12] The stems of nouns
consequently can end only in one (or no) consonant. Suffixal
elements usually end in a vowel, or in dental stops: t, th, d; or in
continuants, especially s, z, l, r, the nasals n and m; less
commonly in consonants of the other series such as h, g, p, ph,
b, though k is not uncommon.
Where, however, a noun has a basic stem there is no
limitation. Thus puh 'breath'; rukh 'shout'; niph 'fool'; urug
'bear'; pharaz 'gold'. Such 'basic' forms are not very common,
except as neuters; and they are very rare as feminines (since
specifically feminine words are usually made with the suffixes -t,
-e from the masculine or common stem). The only frequent f.
noun of this type is nithil 'girl'. The word mith 'baby girl,
maid-child' appears to be of this type, but is probably made
with an affix -th (often met in feminines) from a base MIYI
'small'; cf. the m. form mik, and the dual miyat '(infant) twins'.
In compound nouns and names, however, a bare stem (often
containing a lengthened or fortified vowel) is very frequent as a
final element. In such formations, whatever the function of the
stem used as a simplex, this final element very frequently has an
agental force, and so requires the objective form in the preced-
ing element (on the objective form see below). So izindu-beth
'true-sayer, prophet'; Azrubel p.n. 'Sea-lover'. Contrast the
simplex beth 'expression, saying, word'.
Masculine nouns usually have o, u, or a in the final syllable.
If they have affixed elements they end in -o, or -u; or in the
favoured 'masculine' consonants k, r, n, d preceded by o, u, or a.
Feminines usually have e, f, or a in the final syllable; and
if they have affixed elements (as is usual) they end in -e or -f; or
in the favoured 'feminine' consonants th, l, s, z preceded by e, t,
or a.
Common nouns have 'neuter' stem forms, or favour the
ending -a or -a in the final syllable.
Neuter nouns do not show F, or u, in the last syllable of their
stems, nor do they employ suffixes that contain u, o, or s, e, as
these are signs of the masculine and feminine respectively.
[Footnote 13]
Nouns distinguish three numbers: Singular, Plural, and Dual.
In most cases the Singular is the normal form, and the others are
derived from it. There are, however, a good number of words
with a more or less plural significance that are 'singular' (that is
uninflected) in form, while the corresponding singulars are
derived from them, or show a less simple form of the base. Thus
gimil 'stars', beside the sg. gimli or igmil (the latter usually
meaning a star-shaped figure, not a star in the sky). These
plural-singulars are really collectives and usually refer to all the
objects of their kind (either all there are in the world, or all there
are in any specific place that is being thought or spoken of).
Thus gimil means 'the stars of heaven, all the stars to be seen', as
in such a sentence as 'I went out last night to look at the stars';
the plural of the singulars gimli, igmil - gimli, igmil - mean
'stars, several stars, some stars', and will in consequence be the
only forms to be used with a specific numeral, as gimli hazid
'seven stars'. Similarly in the title of the Avale or 'goddess'
Avradi: Gimilnitir 'Star-kindler', the reference is to a myth,
apparently, of her kindling all the stars of heaven; gimlu-nitir
would mean 'kindler of a (particular) star'.
The Duals are collectives or pairs, and mean 'both' or 'the
two'. Hence they never require the article. They are made with a
suffix -at. The Dual is only normally used of things that go in
natural or customary pairs: as shoes, arms, eyes. For the
expression of, say, two separate shoes not making a pair
Adunaic would use the singular noun with the numeral 'two'
following. But in the older language things only belonging
casually, where we should say 'the two', are sometimes
into the dual.
The chief use in classical Adunaic of the Dual was to make
pair-nouns when (a) two objects are generally associated, as
'ears'; or sometimes (b) when they are generally contrasted or
opposed, 'day and night'. The first case gives no difficulty: so
huzun 'ear', huznat 'the two ears (of one person)'. In the second
case, if the two objects are sufficiently different to have separate
, then either (a) the two stems can be compounded and
inflexion added at the end; or occasionally (b) one only
of the stems is used, the other being understood, or added
separately in the singular. Thus for 'sun and moon' are found
uriyat, urinil(uw)at, and uriyat nilo.
Nouns distinguish two forms or 'cases' in each number: 1.
Normal 2. Subjective. In addition in the singular only there is
an Objective form.
The Normal (N) shows no inflexion for 'case'.
It is used in all places where Subjective (S) or Objective (0)
are not obligatory. Thus: (i) as the object of a verb. It never
immediately precedes a verb of which it is the object. (ii) Before
another noun it is either (a) in apposition to it, or (b) in an
adjectival or possessive genitive relation. The first noun is the
one in the genitive in Adunaic (adjectives normally precede
nouns). For that reason cardinal numerals, which are (except
'one') all nouns, follow their noun: gimli hazid = 7 of stars. The
two functions: apposition, and genitival adjective, were normal-
ly distinguished by stress and intonation. [Footnote 14] (iii)
Predicatively: Ar-Pharazonun Bar 'nAnadune 'King Pharazon is
Lord of Anadune'. (iv) As subject when it immediately precedes
a fully inflected verb. In that case the verb must contain the
requisite pronominal prefixes. If the subjective is used the verb
need not have any such prefixes. Thus bar ukallaba 'the lord
fell', or barun (u)kallaba; the latter is rather to be rendered 'it
was the lord who fell', especially where both subjective and
pronominal prefix are used. (v) As the base to which certain
adverbial 'prepositional' affixes are added; such as o 'from', ad,
ada 'to, towards', ma 'with', ze 'at'.
The Subjective (S) is used as the subject of a verb. As shown
above the subjective need not be used immediately before a verb
with pronominal prefixes; an object noun is never placed in this
position. The S. also represents the verb 'to be' as copula; cf. (iii)
above. When two or more nouns in apposition are juxtaposed
in Adunaic only the last of the series receives the subjective
inflexion: thus Ar-Pharazon kathuphazganun = 'King Ar-
Pharazon the Conqueror'. Contrast Ar-Pharazonun kathuphaz-
gan = 'King Ar-Pharazon is (was) a Conqueror'.
The Objective form (0) is only used in compound expres-
sions, or actual compounds. Before a verb-noun, or verb-
adjective (participle), or any words that can be held to have such
a sense, it is then in an objective-genitive sense. Thus Minul-
Tarik 'Pillar of Heaven', the name of a mountain. Here minul is
the O. form of minal 'heaven', since tarik 'pillar' here means
'that which supports'. minal-tarik would mean 'heavenly pillar',
sc. a pillar in the sky, or made of cloud. Contrast Azru-bel
(where azru shows the O. form of azra 'sea') 'Sea-lover', with
azra-zain.
Plural nouns are seldom (and Dual nouns never) placed in
such a position. When a plural noun is so used it always stands
in object and not adjectival or possessive relation to the noun
that follows, so that the plural nouns need no special objective
form. The genitive of a plural noun can only be expressed with
the prefix an- described in the note above [see Footnote 14];
thus Aru'nAdunai 'King of the Anadunians'.
Plurality is expressed in Adunaic either by F as the last vowel
of the stem before the final consonant (in strong nouns), or by
the suffixion of the element -s. It is suggested above that the
suffix originally had the form -yt [see page 424].
Duality is expressed by the suffix -at. There are no 'strong'
forms.
The Subjective: in Neuter nouns this is expressed by
a-fortification of the last vowel of the stem, in the case of strong
nouns: as zadan with the S. form zadan; in weak nouns the
suffix -a is used. In Masculine nouns, strong or weak, the suffix
-un is used; in Feminines the suffix -in; in Common nouns the
suffix -an, or -n. In plurals it has the suffix -a in Neuters, and in
all other nouns the suffix -im.
The Objective has either the vowel u in the last syllable of the
stem, or else the suffix -u.
Examples of Declension
Nouns may be divided as noted above [see page 425] into
Strong and Weak. In Strong nouns the cases and plural stems
are formed partly by alterations of the last vowel of the stem
(originally the variable vowel of the second syllable of basic
stems), partly by suffixes; in the Weak nouns the inflexions are
entirely suffixal.
The Strong nouns may again be divided into Strong I, and
Strong II. In I the variable vowel occurs before the last
consonant (Base form KULUB); in II the variable vowel is final
(Base forms NAKA, KULBA).
Neuter Nouns
Strong I
Examples: zadan, house; khibil, spring; huzun, ear.
Singular N. zadan khibil huzun
S. zadan khibel huzon
O. zadun khibul huzun, huznu [Footnote 15]
Dual N. zadnat khiblat huznat
S. zadnat khiblat huznat
Plural N. zadin khibil huzin
S. zadina khibila huzina
The Dual usually shows, as in the above examples, suppression
of the final vowel before the suffix -at; but the final vowel of the
N. form is often retained, especially where suppression would
lead to the accumulation of more than two consonants, or
where the preceding vowel is long: so usually tarikat 'two
pillars'.
In all nouns the N. and S. of Duals was only distinguished in
earlier texts. Before the Exilic periods the ending -at was used
for both N. and S. This doubtless was due to the coalescence of
N. and S. in the very numerous class Strong II.
Strong II
Examples: azra, sea; gimli, star; nilu, moon.
Singular N. azra gimli nilu
S. azra gimle nilo
O. azru gimlu nilu
Dual N. azrat, -at gimlat, -iyat nilat, -uwat
S. azrat gimlat, -iyat nilat, -uwat
Plural N. azri gimli nili
S. azriya gimliya niliya
Beside the normal plural gimli there exists, as noted above [see
page 427], also the plural with singular form gimil (declined like
khibil, only with no plural or dual forms), in the sense 'the stars,
all the stars' or 'stars' in general propositions. Other plurals of
this type are not uncommon: such as kulub 'roots, edible
vegetables that are roots not fruits', contrasted with kulbi
'roots' (a definite number of roots of plants).
The dual forms N. azrat; N. gimlat, S. gimlat; N. nilat, S.
nilat are archaic, but in accordance with the basic system of
Adunaic, and show a parallel suppression of the variable vowel
to that seen in zadnat, etc. The later forms are due to the growth
of the feeling that the final vowels of the N. forms azra, gimli,
nilu are suffixal and invariable, so that -at was added to the N.
form without suppression, producing azrat, gimilyat, niluwat.
Later forms show -at in both N. and S. owing to the predomi-
nance numerically of the nouns with final -a.
Weak.
Here belong monosyllabic nouns; and disyllabic nouns with
a long vowel or diphthong in the final syllable, such as puh,
breath; abar, strength, endurance, fidelity; batan, road, path.
Singular N. puh abar batan
S. puha abara batana
O. puhu abaru batanu
Dual N. puhat abarat batanat
S. puhat abarat batanat
Plural N. puhi abari batani [Footnote 16]
S. puhiya abariya bataniya
Masculine, Feminine, and Common Nouns
M., F., and C. nouns only differ in the Singular Subjective,
where the suffix -n is usually differentiated by the insertion of
the sex or gender signs u, i, a. In later, but still pre-exilic, texts
the Feminine Objective often takes the vowel i (so nithli for
nithlu) owing to the association of the vowel u with the
masculine. Feminine nouns are seldom of 'basic' form, that is
few belong to Strong declension Ia, since specifically feminine
words are usually formed from the M[asculine]
Here Lowdham's 'Report' breaks off at the foot of a page (see p.
436). The 'footnotes' to the text now follow.
Footnote 1.
In reckoning the number of consonants in a Base it must be
observed that many bases originally began with weak con-
sonants that later disappeared, notably the 'clear beginning' (or
possibly the 'glottal stop') for which I have used the symbol ?.
Thus Base ?IR 'one, alone', from which is derived a number of
words (e.g. Eru 'God'), is a biconsonantal base.
Footnote 2.
In so far as this table differs from the list of the actual
consonants of our records, it is arrived at by deduction from the
observable changes occurring in word-formation, from varia-
tions in spelling in the written documents 'seen' by Jeremy, from
the treatment of Avallonian loan-words, and from the alteration
of the older forms that have been occasionally noted.
Footnote 3.
Adunaic did not possess, as independent Base-forming ele-
ments, nasals of the c- or K-series. The latter (here symbolized
by 9), the sound of ng in English sing, occurs, however, as the
form taken (a) by an 'infixed' nasal before consonants of the
K-series, and (b) by the dental nasal N (not M) when it comes
in contact with a consonant of the K-series in the process
of word-formation. On 'infixion' see below [see p. 417 and
Footnote 4]. Doubtless Adunaic originally possessed similarly a
nasal of the c-series, but as these all became dentals, except Y, if
it occurred at all, it could only occur in NY. In this combination,
however, the Adunaim appear to have used the same sign as for
dental x.
Footnote 4.
Nasal-infixion is of considerable importance in Avallonian;
but does not seem to occur at all in Khazadian; so that this
element in Adunaic structure may be due to Avallonian in-
fluence in the prehistoric period.
Footnote 5.
This sound only occurs in the combination NG, for which
Adunaic employed a single letter.
Footnote 6.
Jeremy could not see this very clearly; it was perhaps already
very old and partly illegible at the period to which his 'sight'
was directed. We believe it to have been on some monument
marking the first landing of Gimilzor, son of Azrubel, on the
east coast of Anadune. It cannot have been quite contemporary,
since the texts seem to speak of the Adunaic script as being only
invented after they had dwelt some little time in the island. It is
likely, nonetheless, to date from a time at least 500 years, and
quite possibly 1000 years, before the time of Ar-Pharazon. This
is borne out both by the letter-forms and by the archaism of
the linguistic forms. The length of the period during which the
Adunaim dwelt in Anadune cannot of course be computed at all
accurately from our scrappy material; but the texts seem to
show that (a) Gimilzor was young at the time of the landing; (b)
Ar-Pharazon was old at the time of the Downfall; (c) there were
twelve kings in between: that is practically 14 reigns [see p. 381,
$20]. But members of the royal house seem often to have lived
to be close on 300; while kings seem normally to have been
succeeded by the grandsons (their sons were as a rule as old as
200 or even 250 before the king 'fell asleep', and passed on the
crown to their own sons, so that as long and unbroken a reign
as possible might be maintained, and because they themselves
had become engrossed in some branch of art or learning). This
means that the realm of Anadune may have lasted well over
2000 years.
Footnote 7.
Apparent cases, such as the variation between pronominal
u- and hu-, are due to the existence of two stems, one beginning
with a weak consonant (3 or ?), the other with the intensified
H-form.
Footnote 8.
In composition or inflexion a 'glide' w was developed
between u and a following vowel (other than v), and this
developed into a full consonant in Adunaic. Similarly a v was
developed between i and a following vowel (other than i). The
best representation of Adunaic w in English letters is probably
w; but I have used v in the Anglicizing of Adunaic names.
Footnote 9.
Note that these variations are only permitted where the CV is
in normal position; such forms as AN'KU, UKLIB are not
permitted.
Footnote 10.
These modifications are not held to change the identity of the
CV, so that they can occur together with vowel-variation in
subordinate syllables: thus from Base GIM'L a form GAIMAL is
possible.
N-infixion, though not strictly a vocalic change, is included
here because it plays a similar part in grammar and derivation
to Lengthening. It only occurs before a medial or final radical
(never as in Avallonian before the initial), and there is limited
to occurrence before the Stops and z (on which see above
[p. 417]).
Footnote 11.
Common nouns can be converted into M. or F. when
required by appropriate modifications or affixes; or, naturally,
separate words can be used. Thus karab 'horse', pl. karib,
beside karbu m. 'stallion', karbi 'mare'; raba 'dog', rabo m. and
rabe f. 'bitch'. ana 'human being', anu 'a male, man', ant 'a
female'; beside naru 'man', kali 'woman'. nuphar 'parent' (dual
nuphrat 'father and mother' as a pair), beside ammi, amme,
'mother'; attu, atto 'father'.
Footnote 12.
In most of our records from approximately the time of the
Downfall final -a was in fact often omitted in speech, not only
before the vocalic beginning of another word, but also (especi-
ally) finally (i.e. at the end of a sentence or phrase) and in other
cases; so that the spoken language could have various final
consonant combinations.
Footnote 13.
This use of u and i (and of o from au, e from ai) as m. and f.
signs runs through all Adunaic grammar. u and i are the bases of
pronominal stems for 'he' and 'she'. The use of the affixed
elements -u and -F finally to mark gender (or sex): as in karbu
'stallion', or urgi 'female bear', is in fact probably a close
parallel to such modern English formations as 'he-goat', 'she-
bear'.
Footnote 14.
In apposition each noun was separate and had an indepen-
dent accent. In the genitive function the preceding or adjectival
noun received a louder stress and higher tone, the second noun
being subordinated. These combinations are virtual com-
pounds. They are often in Adunaic script joined with a mark
like a hyphen ( - ) or (=), or are actually compounded. Even
when they are not conjoined the end of one noun is often
assimilated to the following, as in Aman-thani to Amat-thani,
Amatthani 'Land of Aman'. Adunaic has another way of
expressing the genitive, where the nexus is not quite so close: by
the adjectival prefix -an. Though this resembles the function of
English 'of', it is not a preposition (Adunaic prepositions are in
fact usually 'postpositions' following their noun); it is the
equivalent of an inflexion or suffix. Thus thani an Aman, usually
thani 'nAman 'Land of Aman'. The same prefix occurs in adun
'west, westward', aduni 'the West', anaduni 'western'. Other
examples of the adjectival use are: kadar-lai 'city folk',
azra-zain 'sea-lands, sc. maritime regions', Ar-Pharazon 'King
Pharazon'.
Footnote 15.
The O. form huznu, borrowed from the nouns of Strong II
and Weak, is frequently found in nouns whose final vowel is u.
It occurs also in nouns with other final vowels (as zadnu), but
less frequently.
Footnote 16.
Dissyllabic nouns with a long final syllable (containing a)
sometimes, especially in the older texts, make a strong plural by
change of a to i, but not other strong forms: so batin, batina
'roads'.
*
Of further material on Adunaic in addition to 'Lowdham's Report'
there is not a great deal, and what there is consists almost entirely of
preliminary working, much of it very rough, for the text given above.
From the point where it breaks off (at the beginning of the section on
Masculine, Feminine, and Common Nouns, p. 432), however, draft-
ing in manuscript is found for its continuation. The complexities of the
passage of these nouns from 'strong' to 'weak' declension are rather
obscurely arranged and presented, and there are illegibilities. I have
been in two minds whether to print this draft; but on the whole it
seems a pity to omit it. The form given here is somewhat edited, by
removal of repetition, small clarifications of wording, omission of a
few obscure notes, and the use of the macron throughout in place of
the confusing mixture of macron and circumflex in the manuscript.
Masculine, Feminine, and Common nouns only differ in the
Singular Subjective, where the suffix is M. -un, F. -in, C. -(a)n.
Feminines also are very rarely 'basic', being nearly always
formed with suffix from a masculine or common noun [see
p. 426].
M. and F. nouns also have mainly become weak, since as
a rule they show lengthening in the stem (final syllable) as a
formative not an inflexional device.
Therefore corresponding to Neuter Strong I we have a small
class I(a) as tamar 'smith', and a diminishing variety I(b) as
phazan 'prince, king's son'. Corresponding to Neuter Strong II
there is a small class II(a) of mainly common nouns as raba
'dog', and II(b) of nouns ending in u (masc.), i (fem.), a
(common); to which are joined nouns ending in o (masc.) and e
(fem.) [on which see below]. These have usually become weak.
Strong I(a).
Examples: tamar, m. smith,- nithil, f. girl ., nimir, c. Elf .,
uruk, c. 'goblin, orc.'
Singular N. tamar nithil nimir uruk
S. tamrun nithlin nimran urkan
O. tamur- nithul- nimur- uruk-
(tamru-) (nithlu-) (nimru-) (urku-)
Dual tamrat nithlat nimrat urkat
Plural N. tamir nithil nimir urik
S. tamrim nithlim nimrim urkim
I(b).
Examples: phazan 'prince'; banath 'wife'; zigur 'wizard'.
Singular N. phazan banath zigur
S. phazanun banathin zigurun
O. (phazun-) (banuth-) (zigur-)
phazanu- banathu- ziguru
Dual phazanat banathat zigurat
Plural N. phazin banith zigir
S. phazinim banithim zigirim
Here belong only masculines with a, u in final syllables and
feminines with a. And these may all be declined weak: plural
phazani, -im, banathi, ziguri, etc.
II(a).
There are very few M., F., C. nouns here since such have
normally long final stems and have become weak. Here belong
chiefly archaic naru 'male', zini 'female' (beside naru, zini), and
nouns denoting animals, as raba 'dog'.
Singular N. naru zini raba
S. narun zinin raban
O. naru- zinu- rabu-
Dual narat zinat rabat
Plural N. nari zini rabi
S. narim zinim rabim
Nouns corresponding to II(b) have all become weak except
ana 'human being', which makes plural ani beside weak anai.
Singular N. ana Dual anat Plural N. ani
S. anan S. anim
O. anu-
Weak (a).
Here belong nouns ending in a consonant. These are seldom
'basic' (except as described above in compounds).
Examples: bar 'lord'; mith 'little girl'; nuph 'fool' [but niph p.
426].
Singular N. bar mith nuph
S. barun mithin nuphan (or m.f. nuphun, -in)
O. baru- (mithu-) nuphu- (f. nuphi-)
mithi-
Dual barat mithat nuphat
Plural N. bari mithi nuphi
S. barim mithim nuphim
Weak (b).
Here belong (i) masculines and feminines ending in u and t and
common nouns in a. Also (ii) a new class, masculines in o,
feminines in e. These are not quite clear in origin. They appear
to derive (a) from basic stems in aw, ay; (b) from -aw, -ay used
as m. f. suffixes as variants of u, i; (c) from common nouns in a
+ m. u, f. i, instead of varying vowel. So raba > rabau > rabo.
These are specially used in f., since rabi would appear the same
as the common plural.
Examples: nardu 'soldier'; zori 'nurse'; mano 'spirit'; izre
'sweetheart, beloved'; ana 'human'. To this class (especially in
plural) belong many names of peoples as Adunai.
Singular N. nardu zori mano izre
S. nardun zorin manon izren
O. nardu- zori- (arch. mano- izre (izrayu)
zoriyu)
Dual narduwat zoriyat manot izret (izrayat)
(manawat)
Plural N. narduwi zori manoi (izre) izreni
S. narduwim zorim manoim (izrem) izrenim
Other rough pages are interesting as showing that a major change in
my father's conception of the structure entered as the work pro-
gressed: for the Adunaic noun at first distinguished five cases, Normal,
Subjective, Gentitive, Dative, and Instrumental. To give a single
example, in masculine nouns the genitival inflexion was o (plural om);
the dative -s, -se (plural -sim); and the instrumental -ma (plural -main),
this being in origin an agglutinated post-position meaning 'with', and
expressing an instrumental or comitative relation. At this stage the
masculine bar 'lord' showed the following inflexional system (if I
interpret it correctly):
Singular N. bar Dual barut Plural bari
S. barun barut barim
G. baro barot bariyom
D. barus barusit barisim
I. baruma barumat barumain
Of notes on other aspects of Adunaic grammar there is scarcely a
trace: a few very rough jottings on the verb system are too illegible to
make much of. It can be made out however that there were three
classes of verbs: I Biconsonantal, as kan 'hold'; II Triconsonantal, as
kalab 'fall down'; III Derivatives, as azgara- 'wage war', ugruda-
'overshadow'. There were four tenses: (1) aorist ('corresponding to
English "present", but used more often than that as historic present or
past in narrative'); (2) continuative (present); (3) continuative (past);
(4) the past tense ('often used as pluperfect when aorist is used = past,
or as future perfect when aorist = future'). The future, subjunctive,
and optative were represented by auxiliaries; and the passive was
rendered by the impersonal verb forms 'with subject in accusative'.
I have remarked before on the altogether unmanageable difficulty
that much of my father's philological writing presents: I wrote in The
Lost Road and Other Writings (V.342):
It will be seen then that the philological component in the
evolution of Middle-earth can scarcely be analysed, and most
certainly cannot be presented, as can the literary texts. In any case,
my father was perhaps more interested in the processes of change
than he was in displaying the structure and use of the languages at
any given time - though this is no doubt due to some extent to his so
often starting again at the beginning with the primordial sounds of
the Quendian languages, embarking on a grand design that could
not be sustained (it seems indeed that the very attempt to write a
definitive account produced immediate dissatisfaction and the desire
for new constructions: so the most beautiful manuscripts were soon
treated with disdain).
'Lowdham's Report' is thus remarkable in that it was allowed to
stand, with virtually no subsequent alteration; and the reason for this
is that my father abandoned the further development of Adunaic and
never returned to it. This is emphatically not to suggest, of course, that
at the moment of its abandonment he had not projected - and
probably quite fully projected - the structure of Adunaic grammar as a
whole; only that (to the best of my knowledge) he wrote down no
more of it. Why this should have been must remain unknown; but it
may well be that his work was interrupted by the pressure of other
concerns at the point where 'Lowdham's Report' ends, and that when
he had leisure to return to it he forced himself to turn again to The
Lord of the Rings.
In the years that followed he turned into different paths; but had he
returned to the development of Adunaic, 'Lowdham's Report' as we
have it would doubtless have been reduced to a wreck, as new
conceptions caused shifts and upheavals in the structure. More than
likely, he would have begun again, refining the historical phonology -
and perhaps never yet reaching the Verb. For 'completion', the
achievement of a fixed Grammar and Lexicon, was not, in my belief,
the over-riding aim. Delight lay in the creation itself, the creation of
new linguistic form evolving within the compass of an imagined time.
'Incompletion' and unceasing change, often frustrating to those who
study these languages, was inherent in this art. But in the case of
Adunaic, as things turned out, a stability was achieved, though
incomplete: a substantial account of one of the great languages of
Arda, thanks to the strange powers of Wilfrid Jeremy and Arundel
Lowdham.
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