Unfinished Tales. J. R. R. Tolkien

did not cross the Sirion by the Ford of Brithiach, but reached the river several leagues to the north of it. ‘They trod a toilsome path to the brink of the river, and there Voronwë cried: “See a wonder! Both good and ill does it forebode. Sirion is frozen, though no tale tells of the like since the coming of the Eldar out of the East. Thus we may pass and save many weary miles, too long for our strength. Yet thus also others may have passed, or may follow.” ’ They crossed the river on the ice unhindered, and ‘thus did the counsels of Ulmo turn the malice of the Enemy to avail, for the way was shortened, and at the end of their hope and strength Tuor and Voronwë came at last to the Dry River at its issuing from the skirts of the mountains’.

24 Cf. The Silmarillion p. 125: ‘But there was a deep way under the mountains delved in the darkness of the world by waters that flowed out to join the streams of Sirion; and this way Turgon found, and so came to the green plain amid the mountains, and saw the island-hill that stood there of hard smooth stone; for the vale had been a great lake in ancient days.’

25 It is not said in The Silmarillion that the great eagles ever dwelt on Thangorodrim. In ch. 13 (p. 110) Manwë ‘sent forth the race of Eagles, commanding them to dwell in the crags of the North, and to keep watch upon Morgoth’; while in ch. 18 (p. 154) Thorondor ‘came hasting from his eyrie among the peaks of the Crissaegrim’ for the rescue of Fingolfin’s body before the gates of Angband. Cf. also The Return of the King VI 4: ‘Old Thorondor, who built his eyries in the inaccessible peaks of the Encircling Mountains when Middle-earth was young.’ In all probability the conception of Thorondor’s dwelling at first upon Thangorodrim, which is found also in an early Silmarillion text, was later abandoned.

26 In The Silmarillion nothing is said specifically concerning the speech of the Elves of Gondolin; but this passage suggests that for some of them the High Speech (Quenya) was in ordinary use. It is stated in a late linguistic essay that Quenya was in daily use in Turgon’s house, and was the childhood speech of Ea¨rendil; but that ‘for most of the people of Gondolin it had become a language of books, and as the other Noldor they used Sindarin in daily speech’. Cf. The Silmarillion p. 129: after the edict of Thingol ‘the Exiles took the Sindarin tongue in all their daily uses, and the High Speech of the West was spoken only by the lords of the Noldor among themselves. Yet that speech lived ever as a language of lore, wherever any of that people dwelt.’

27 These were the flowers that bloomed abundantly on the burial mounds of the Kings of Rohan below Edoras, and which Gandalf named in the language of the Rohirrim (as translated into Old English) simbelmynë, that is ‘Evermind’, ‘for they blossom in all the seasons of the year, and grow where dead men rest’. (The Two Towers III 6.) The Elvish name uilos is only given in this passage, but the word is found also in Amon Uilos, as the Quenya name Oiolossë (‘Ever-snow-white’, the Mountain of Manwë) was rendered into Sindarin. In ‘Cirion and Eorl’ the flower is given another Elvish name, alfirin (p. 393).

28 In The Silmarillion p. 92 it is said that Thingol rewarded the Dwarves of Belegost with many pearls: ‘These Círdan gave to him, for they were got in great number in the shallow waters about the Isle of Balar.’

29 Ecthelion of the Fountain is mentioned in The Silmarillion as one of Turgon’s captains who guarded the flanks of the host of Gondolin in their retreat down Sirion from the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, and as the slayer of Gothmog Lord of Balrogs, by whom he himself was slain, in the assault on the city.

30 From this point the carefully-written, though much-emended, manuscript ceases, and the remainder of the narrative is hastily scribbled on a scrap of paper.

31 Here the narrative finally comes to an end, and there remain only some hasty jottings indicating the course of the story:

Tuor asked the name of the City, and was told its seven names. (It is notable, and no doubt intentional, that the name Gondolin is never once used in the narrative until the very end (p. 66): always it is called the Hidden Kingdom or the Hidden City.) Ecthelion gave orders for the sounding of the signal, and trumpets were blown on the towers of the Great Gate, echoing in the hills. After a hush, they heard far off answering trumpets blown upon the city walls. Horses were brought (a grey horse for Tuor); and they rode to Gondolin.

      A description of Gondolin was to follow, of the stairs up to its high platform, and its great gate; of the mounds (this word is uncertain) of mallorns, birches, and evergreen trees; of the Place of the Fountain, the King’s tower on a pillared arcade, the King’s house, and the banner of Fingolfin. Now Turgon himself would appear, ‘tallest of all the Children of the World, save Thingol’, with a white and gold sword in a ruel-bone (ivory) sheath, and welcome Tuor. Maeglin would be seen standing on the right of the throne, and Idril the King’s daughter seated on the left; and Tuor would speak the message of Ulmo either ‘in the hearing of all’ or ‘in the council-chamber’.

      Other disjointed notes indicate that there was to be a description of Gondolin as seen by Tuor from far off; that Ulmo’s cloak would vanish when Tuor spoke the message of Turgon; that it would be explained why there was no Queen of Gondolin; and that it was to be emphasized, either when Tuor first set eyes upon Idril or at some earlier point, that he had known or even seen few women in his life. Most of the women and all the children of Annael’s company in Mithrim were sent away south; and as a thrall Tuor had seen only the proud and barbaric women of the Easterlings, who treated him as a beast, or the unhappy slaves forced to labour from childhood, for whom he had only pity.

      It may be noted that later mentions of mallorns in Númenor, Lindon, and Lothlórien do not suggest, though they do not deny, that those trees flourished in Gondolin in the Elder Days (see pp. 216 – 17), and that the wife of Turgon, Elenwë, was lost long before in the crossing of the Helcaraxë by the host of Fingolfin (The Silmarillion p. 90).