§ 3. Miscellaneous Matters
(i) Morgoth
Beren addresses Melko as ‘most mighty Belcha Morgoth’, which are said to be his names among the Gnomes (p. 44). In the Gnomish dictionary Belcha is given as the Gnomish form corresponding to Melko (see I. 260), but Morgoth is not found in it: indeed this is the first and only appearance of the name in the Lost Tales. The element goth is given in the Gnomish dictionary with the meaning ‘war, strife’ but if Morgoth meant at this period ‘Black Strife’ it is perhaps strange that Beren should use it in a flattering speech. A name-list made in the 1930s explains Morgoth as ‘formed from his Orc-name Goth “Lord or Master” with mor “dark or black” prefixed’, but it seems very doubtful that this etymology is valid for the earlier period. This name-list explains Gothmog ‘Captain of Balrogs’ as containing the same Orc-element (‘Voice of Goth (Morgoth)’); but in the name-list to the tale of The Fall of Gondolin (p. 216) the name Gothmog is said to mean ‘Strife-and-hatred’ (mog-‘detest, hate’ appears in the Gnomish dictionary), which supports the interpretation of Morgoth in the present tale as ‘Black Strife’.*
(ii) Orcs and Balrogs
Despite the reference to ‘the wandering bands of the goblins and the Orcs’ (p. 14, retained in the typescript version), the terms are certainly synonymous in the Tale of Turambar. The Orcs are described in the present tale (ibid.) as ‘foul broodlings of Melko’. In the second version (p. 44) wolf-rider Orcs appear.
Balrogs, mentioned in the tale (p. 15), have appeared in one of the outlines for Gilfanon’s Tale (I. 241); but they had already played an important part in the earliest of the Lost Tales, that of The Fall of Gondolin (see pp. 212–13).
(iii) Tinъviel’s ‘lengthening spell’
Of the ‘longest things’ named in this spell (pp. 19–20, 46) two, ‘the sword of Nan’ and ‘the neck of Gilim the giant’, seem now lost beyond recall, though they survived into the spell in the Lay of Leithian, where the sword of Nan is itself named, Glend, and Gilim is called ‘the giant of Eruman’. Gilim in the Gnomish dictionary means ‘winter’ (see I. 260, entry Melko), which does not seem particularly appropriate: though a jotting, very difficult to read, in the little notebook used for memoranda in connection with the Lost Tales (see I. 171) seems to say that Nan was a ‘giant of summer of the South’, and that he was like an elm.
The Indravangs (Indrafangs in the typescript) are the ‘Longbeards’ this is said in the Gnomish dictionary to be ‘a special name of the Nauglath or Dwarves’ (see further the Tale of the Nauglafring, p. 247).
Karkaras (Carcaras in the typescript) ‘Knife-fang’ is named in the spell since he was originally conceived as the ‘father of wolves, who guarded the gates of Angamandi in those days and long had done so’ (p. 21). In The Silmarillion (p. 180) he has a different history: chosen by Morgoth ‘from among the whelps of the race of Draugluin’ and reared to be the death of Huan, he was set before the gates of Angband in that very time. In The Silmarillion (ibid.) Carcharoth is rendered ‘the Red Maw’, and this expression is used in the text of the tale (p. 34): ‘both hand and jewel Karkaras bit off and took into his red maw’.
Glorund is the name of the dragon in the Tale of Turambar (Glaurung in The Silmarillion).
In the tale of The Chaining of Melko there is no suggestion that Tulkas had any part in the making of the chain (there in the form Angaino): I. 100.
(iv) The influence of the Valar
There is frequent suggestion that the Valar in some way exercised a direct influence over the minds and hearts of the distant Elves in the Great Lands. Thus it is said (p. 15) that the Valar must have inspired Beren’s ingenious speech to Melko, and while this may be no more than a ‘rhetorical’ flourish, it is clear that Tinъviel’s dream of Beren is meant to be accepted as ‘a dream of the Valar’ (p. 19). Again, ‘the Valar set a new hope in her heart’ (p. 47); and later in Vлannл’s tale the Valar are seen as active ‘fates’, guiding the destinies of the characters—so the Valar ‘brought’ Huan to find Beren and Tinъviel in Nan Dumgorthin (p. 35), and Tinъviel says to Tinwelint that ‘the Valar alone saved Beren from a bitter death’ (p. 37).
II TURAMBAR AND THE FOALУKЛ
The Tale of Turambar, like that of Tinъviel, is a manuscript written in ink over a wholly erased original in pencil. But it seems certain that the extant form of Turambar preceded the extant form of Tinъviel. This can be deduced in more ways than one, but the order of composition is clearly exemplified in the forms of the name of the King of the Woodland Elves (Thingol). Throughout the manuscript of Turambar he was originally Tintoglin (and this appears also in the tale of The Coming of the Elves, where it was changed to Tinwelint, I. 115, 131). A note on the manuscript at the beginning of the tale says: ‘Tintoglin’s name must be altered throughout to Ellon or Tinthellon = Q. Ellu’, but the note was struck out, and all through the tale Tintoglin was in fact changed to Tinwelint.
Now in the Tale of Tinъviel the king’s name was first given as Ellu (or Tinto Ellu), and once as Tinthellon (pp. 50–1); subsequently it was changed throughout to Tinwelint. It is clear that the direction to change Tintoglin to ‘Ellon or Tinthellon = Q. Ellu’ belongs to the time when the Tale of Tinъviel was being, or had been, rewritten, and that the extant Tale of Turambar already existed.
There is also the fact that the rewritten Tinъviel was followed, at the same time of composition, by the first form of the ‘interlude’ in which Gilfanon appears (see I. 203), whereas at the beginning of Turambar there is a reference to Ailios (who was replaced by Gilfanon) concluding the previous tale. On the different arrangement of the tale-telling at this point that my father subsequently introduced but failed to carry through see I. 229–30. According to the earlier arrangement, Ailios told his tale on the first night of the feast of Turuhalmл or the Logdrawing, and Eltas followed with the Tale of Turambar on the second.
There is evidence that the Tale of Turambar was in existence at any rate by the middle of 1919. Humphrey Carpenter discovered a passage, written on a scrap of proof for the Oxford English Dictionary, in an early alphabet of my father’s devising; and transliterating it he found it to be from this tale, not far from the beginning. He has told me that my father was using this version of the ‘Alphabet of Rъmil’ about June 1919 (see Biography, p. 100).