The Fall of Gondolin. J. R. R. Tolkien

       PROLOGUE

      I will begin this book by returning to the quotation that I used to open Beren and Lúthien: a letter written by my father in 1964, in which he said that ‘out of my head’ he wrote The Fall of Gondolin ‘during sick-leave from the army in 1917’, and the original version of Beren and Lúthien in the same year.

      There is some doubt about the year, arising from other references made by my father. In a letter of June 1955 he wrote ‘The Fall of Gondolin (and the birth of Eärendil) was written in hospital and on leave after surviving the Battle of the Somme in 1916’; and in a letter to W.H. Auden of the same year he dated it to ‘sick-leave at the end of 1916’. The earliest reference of his that I know of was in a letter to me of 30 April 1944, commiserating with me on my experiences of that time. ‘I first began’ (he said) ‘to write The History of the Gnomes¹ in army huts, crowded, filled with the noise of gramophones’. This does not sound like sick-leave: but it may be that he began the writing before he went on leave.

      Very important, however, in the context of this book, was what he said of The Fall of Gondolin in his letter to W.H. Auden of 1955: it was ‘the first real story of this imaginary world.’

      My father’s treatment of the original text of The Fall of Gondolin was unlike that of The Tale of Tinúviel, where he erased the first, pencilled manuscript and wrote a new version in its place. In this case he did indeed extensively revise the first draft of the Tale, but rather than erase it he wrote a revised text in ink on the pencilled original, increasing the multiplicity of change as he progressed. It can be seen from passages where the underlying text is legible that he was following the first version fairly closely.

      On this basis my mother made a fair copy, notably exact in view of the difficulties now presented by the text. Subsequently my father made many changes to this copy, by no means all at the same time. Since it is not my purpose in this book to enter into the textual complexities that all but invariably accompany the study of his works, the text that I give here is my mother’s, including the changes made to it.

      It must however be mentioned in this connection that many of the changes to the original text had been made before my father, in the spring of 1920, read the Tale to the Essay Club of Exeter College at Oxford. In his introductory and apologetic words, explaining his choice of this work in place of an ‘Essay’, he said of it: ‘It has of course never seen the light before. A complete cycle of events in an Elfinesse of my own imagining has for some time past grown up (rather, has been constructed) in my mind. Some of the episodes have been scribbled down. This tale is not the best of them, but it is the only one that has so far been revised at all and that, insufficient as that revision has been, I dare read aloud.’

      The original title of the tale was Tuor and the Exiles of Gondolin, but my father always later called it The Fall of Gondolin, and I have done the same. In the manuscript the title is followed by the words ‘which bringeth in the Great Tale of Eärendel’. The teller of the tale in the Lonely Isle, on which see Beren and Lúthien here–here, was Littleheart (Ilfiniol), son of that Bronweg (Voronwë) who plays an important part in the Tale.

      It is in the nature of this, the third of the ‘Great Tales’ of the Elder Days, that the massive change in the world of Gods and Elves that had taken place should bear upon the immediate narrative of the Fall of Gondolin – and is indeed a part of it. A brief account of those events is needed; and rather than write one myself I think it far better to use my father’s own condensed, and characteristic, work. This is found in the ‘Original Silmarillion’ (also ‘A Sketch of the Mythology’), as he himself called it, which can be dated to 1926, and subsequently revised. I used this work in Beren and Lúthien, and again in this book as an element in the evolution of the tale of The Fall of Gondolin; but I use it here for the purpose of providing a concise account of the history before Gondolin came into being: it also has the advantage of itself deriving from a very early period.

      In view of the purpose of its inclusion I have omitted passages that are not here relevant, and here and there made other minor modifications and additions for the sake of clarity. My text opens at the point where the original ‘Sketch’ begins.

      After the despatch of the Nine Valar for the governance of the world Morgoth (Demon of Dark) rebels against the overlordship of Manwë, overthrows the lamps set up to illumine the world, and floods the isle of Almaren where the Valar (or Gods) dwelt. He fortifies a palace of dungeons in the North. The Valar remove to the uttermost West, bordered by the Outer Seas and the final Wall, and eastward by the towering Mountains of Valinor which the Gods built. In Valinor they gather all light and beautiful things, and build their mansions, gardens, and city, but Manwë and his wife Varda have halls upon the highest mountain (Taniquetil) whence they can see across the world to the dark East. Yavanna Palúrien plants the Two Trees in the middle of the plain of Valinor outside the gates of the city of Valmar. They grow under her songs, and one has dark green leaves with shining silver beneath, and white blossoms like the cherry from which a dew of silver light falls; the other has golden-edged leaves of young green like the beech and yellow blossom like the hanging blossoms of laburnum which give out heat and blazing light. Each tree waxes for seven hours to full glory and then wanes for seven; twice a day therefore comes a time of softer light when each tree is faint and their light is mingled.

      The Outer Lands [Middle-earth] are in darkness. The growth of things was checked when Morgoth quenched the lamps. There are forests of darkness, of yew and fir and ivy. There Oromë sometimes hunts, but in the North Morgoth and his demonic broods (Balrogs) and the Orcs (Goblins, also called Glamhoth or people of hate) hold sway. Varda looks on the darkness and is moved, and taking all the hoarded light of Silpion, the White Tree, she makes and strews the stars.

      At the making of the stars the children of Earth awake – the Eldar (or Elves). They are found by Oromë dwelling by the star-lit pool, Cuiviénen, Water of Awakening, in the East. He rides home to Valinor filled with their beauty and tells the Valar, who are reminded of their duty to the Earth, since they came thither knowing that their office was to govern it for the two races of Earth who should after come each in appointed time. There follows an expedition to the fortress of the North (Angband, Iron-hell), but this is now