Now was naught left of the seed of Beren Ermabwed son of Egnor save Elwing the Lovely, and she wandered in the woods, and of the brown Elves and the green a few gathered to her, and they departed for ever from the glades of Hithlum and got them to the south towards Sirion’s deep waters, and the pleasant lands.

And thus did all the fates of the fairies weave then to one strand, and that strand is the great tale of Eдrendel; and to that tale’s true beginning are we now come.’

Then said Ailios: ‘And methinks that is tale enow for this time of telling.’

NOTES

1 This sentence is a rewriting of the text, which had originally:

“Nay then, know ye not that this gold belongs to the kindred of the Elves, who won it from the earth long time ago, and no one among Men has claim…”

The remainder of this scene, ending with the slaughter of Ъrin’s band, was rewritten at many points, with the same object as in the passage just cited—to convert Ъrin’s band from Men to Elves, as was done also at the end of Eltas’ tale (see p. 118 note 33). Thus original ‘Elves’ was changed to ‘Elves of the wood, woodland Elves’, and original ‘Men’ to ‘folk, outlaws’ and see notes 2, 3, 5.

2 The original sentence here was:

Doughty were those Men and great wielders of sword and axe, and still in those unfaded days might mortal weapons wound the bodies of the elfin-folk.

See note 1.

3 The original sentence here was: ‘and those Men being wildered with magics’. See note 1.

4 This sentence, from ‘and yet another sorrow…’, was added to the text later.

5 ‘those’: the text has ‘the Men’, obviously left unchanged through oversight. See note 1.

6 ‘in the earth’ is an emendation of the original reading ‘on the earth’.

7 ‘damasked in strange wise’, i.e. ‘damascened’, ornamentally inlaid with designs in gold and silver. The word ‘damascened’ is used of the sword of Tinwelint made by the Dwarves, on which were seen images of the wolf-hunt (p. 227), and of Glorfindel’s arms (p. 173).

8 The text has ‘Eltas’, but with ‘Ailios’ written above in pencil. Since Ailios appears as the teller at the beginning of the tale, and not as the result of emendation, ‘Eltas’ here was probably no more than a slip.

9 ‘save only’ is a later emendation of the original ‘not even’. See p. 256.

10 It is odd that Gwendelin appears here, not Gwenniel as hitherto in this tale. Since the first part of the tale is in ink over an erased pencil text, the obvious explanation is that the erased text had Gwendelin and that my father changed this to Gwenniel as he went along, overlooking it in this one instance. But the matter is probably more complex—one of those small puzzles with which the texts of the Lost Tales abound—for after the manuscript in ink ceases the form Gwenniel occurs, though once only, and Gwendelin is then used for all the rest of the tale. See Changes made to Names, p. 244.

11 Here the manuscript in ink ends; see p. 221.

12 Against this sentence my father wrote a direction that the story was to be that the Nauglafring caught in the bushes and held the king.

13 A rejected passage in the manuscript here gives an earlier version of the events, according to which it was Gwendelin, not Huan, who brought the news to Beren:

…and her bitter weeping filled the forest. Now there did Gwendeling [sic] gather to her many of the scattered woodland Elves and of them did she hear how matters had fared even as she had guessed: how the hunting party had been surrounded and o’erwhelmed by the Nauglath while the Indrafangs and Orcs fell suddenly with death and fire upon all the realm of Tinwelint, and not the least host was that of Ufedhin that slew the guardians of the bridge; and it was said that Naugladur had slain Tinwelint when he was borne down by numbers, and folk thought Narthseg a wild Elf had led the foemen hither, and he had been slain in the fighting.

Then seeing no hope Gwendelin and her companions fared with the utmost speed out of that land of sorrow, even to the kingdom of i.Guilwarthon in Hisilуmл, where reigned Beren and Tinъviel her daughter. Now Beren and Tinъviel lived not in any settled abode, nor had their realm boundaries well-marked, and no other messenger save Gwendelin daughter of the Vali had of a surety found those twain the living-dead so soon.

It is clear from the manuscript that the return of Mablung and Huan to Artanor and their presence at the hunt (referred to in general terms at the end of the Tale of Tinъviel, p. 41) was added to the tale, and with this new element went the change in Gwendelin’s movements immediately after the disaster. But though the textual history is here extremely hard to interpet, what with erasures and additions on loose pages, I think it is almost certain that this reshaping was done while the original composition of the tale was still in progress.

14 The first of these lacunae that I have left in the text contains two words, the first possibly ‘believe’ and the second probably ‘best’. In the second lacuna the word might conceivably be ‘pallor’.

15 This sentence, from ‘and is it not that very water…’, is struck through and bracketed, and in the margin my father scribbled: ‘No [?that] is Narog.’

16 The illegible word might be ‘brays’: the word ‘clearer’ is an emendation from ‘hoarser’.

17 ‘and told Beren’: i.e., ‘and Beren told’. The text as first written had ‘Then told Beren…’

18 The illegible word might just possibly be ‘treasury’, but I do not think that it is.

19 Dior replaced the name Ausir, which however occurs below as another name for Dior.

20 ‘Dior the Elf’ is an emendation from ‘Dior then an aged Elf’.

21 The latter part of this name is quite unclear: it might be read as Maithog, or as Mailweg. See Changes made to Names under Dinithel.

Changes made to names in

The Tale of the Nauglafring

Ilfiniol (p. 221) here so written from the first: see p. 201.

Gwenniel is used throughout the revised section of the tale except at the last occurrence (p. 228), where the form is Gwendelin; in the pencilled part of the tale at the first occurrence of the queen’s name it is again Gwenniel (p. 230), but thereafter always Gwendelin (see note 10).

The name of the queen in the Lost Tales is as variable as that of Littleheart. In The Chaining of Melko and The Coming of the Elves she is Tindriel > Wendelin. In the Tale of Tinъviel she is Wendelin > Gwendeling (see p. 50); in the typescript text of Tinъviel Gwenethlin > Melian; in the Tale of Turambar Gwendeling > Gwedheling; in the present tale Gwendelin/Gwenniel (the form Gwendeling occurs in the rejected passage given in note 13); and in the Gnomish dictionary Gwendeling > Gwedhiling.

Belegost At the first occurrence (p. 230) the manuscript has Ost Belegost, with Ost circled as if for rejection, and Belegost is the reading subsequently.

(i·)Guilwarthon In the Tale of Tinъviel, p. 41, the form is i.Cuilwarthon. At the occurrence on p. 240 the ending of the name does not look like-on, but as I cannot say what it is I give Guilwarthon in the text.

Dinithel could also be read as Durithel (p. 241). This name was written in later in ink over an earlier name in pencil now scarcely legible, though clearly the same as that beginning Mai…which appears for this son of Fлanor subsequently (see note 21).