Then the Valar laid aside their weapons at the gates, setting however folk to guard them, and placed the chain Angaino about the neck and arms of Tulkas, and even he might scarce support its great weight alone; and now they follow Manwë and his herald into the caverns of the North. There sat Melko in his chair, and that chamber was lit with flaming braziers and full of evil magic, and strange shapes moved with feverish movement in and out, but snakes of great size curled and uncurled without rest about the pillars that upheld that lofty roof. Then said Manwë: “Behold, we have come and salute you here in your own halls; come now and be in Valinor.”
But Melko might not thus easily forgo his sport. “Nay first,” said he, “wilt thou come Manwë and kneel before me, and after you all the Valar; but last shall come Tulkas and kiss my foot, for I have in mind something for which I owe Poldórëa no great love.” Now he purposed to spurn Tulkas in the mouth in payment of that buffet long ago, but the Valar had foreseen something of this and did but make play of humiliation that Melko might thereby be lured from his stronghold of Utumna. In sooth Manwë hoped even to the end for peace and amity, and the Gods would at his bidding indeed have received Melko into Valinor under truce and pledges of friendship, had not his pride been insatiate and his obstinacy in evil unconquerable. Now however was scant mercy left for him within their hearts, seeing that he abode in his demand that Manwë should do homage and Tulkas bend to those ruthless feet; nonetheless the Lord of Gods and Elves approaches now the chair of Melko and makes to kneel, for such was their plan the more to ensnare that evil one; but lo, so fiercely did wrath blaze up in the hearts of Tulkas and Aulë at that sight that Tulkas leapt across the hall at a bound despite Angaino, and Aulë was behind him and Oromë followed his father and the hall was full of tumult. Then Melko sprang to his feet shouting in a loud voice and his folk came through all those dismal passages to his aid. Then lashed he at Manwë with an iron flail he bore, but Manwë breathed gently upon it and its iron tassels were blown backward, and thereupon Tulkas smote Melko full in his teeth with his fist of iron, and he and Aulë grappled with him, and straight he was wrapped thirty times in the fathoms of Angaino.
Then said Oromë: “Would that he might be slain”—and it would have been well indeed, but the great Gods may not yet be slain.4 Now is Melko held in dire bondage and beaten to his knees, and he is constrained to command all his vassalage that they molest not the Valar—and indeed the most of these, affrighted at the binding of their lord, fled away to the darkest places.
Tulkas indeed dragged Melko out before the gates, and there Aulë set upon each wrist one of the Vorotemnar and upon each ankle twain of the Ilterendi, and tilkal went red at the touch of Melko, and those bands have never since been loosened from his hands and feet. Then the chain is smithied to each of these and Melko borne thus helpless away, while Tulkas and Ulmo break the gates of Utumna and pile hills of stone upon them. And the saps and cavernous places beneath the surface of the earth are full yet of the dark spirits that were prisoned that day when Melko was taken, and yet many are the ways whereby they find the outer world from time to time—from fissures where they shriek with the voices of the tide on rocky coasts, down dark water-ways that wind unseen for many leagues, or out of the blue arches where the glaciers of Melko find their end.
After these things did the Gods return to Valmar by long ways and dark, guarding Melko every moment, and he gnawed his consuming rage. His lip was split and his face has had a strange leer upon it since that buffet dealt him by Tulkas, who even of policy could not endure to see the majesty of Manwë bow before the accursed one.
Now is a court set upon the slopes of Taniquetil and Melko arraigned before all the Vali5 great and small, lying bound before the silver chair of Manwë. Against him speaketh Ossë, and Oromë, and Ulmo in deep ire, and Vána in abhorrence, proclaiming his deeds of cruelty and violence; yet Makar still spake for him, although not warmly, for said he: “’Twere an ill thing if peace were for always: already no blow echoes ever in the eternal quietude of Valinor, wherefore, if one might neither see deed of battle nor riotous joy even in the world without, then ’twould be irksome indeed, and I for one long not for such times!” Thereat arose Palúrien in sorrow and tears, and told of the plight of Earth and of the great beauty of her designs and of those things she desired dearly to bring forth; of all the wealth of flower and herbage, of tree and fruit and grain that the world might bear if it had but peace. “Take heed, O Valar, that both Elves and Men be not devoid of all solace whenso the times come for them to find the Earth” but Melko writhed in rage at the name of Eldar and of Men and at his own impotence.
Now Aulë mightily backed her in this and after him many else of the Gods, yet Mandos and Lórien held their peace, nor do they ever speak much at the councils of the Valar or indeed at other times, but Tulkas arose angrily from the midst of the assembly and went from among them, for he could not endure parleying where he thought the guilt to be clear. Liever would he have unchained Melko and fought him then and there alone upon the plain of Valinor, giving him many a sore buffet in meed of his illdoings, rather than making high debate of them. Howbeit Manwë sate and listened and was moved by the speech of Palúrien, yet was it his thought that Melko was an Ainu and powerful beyond measure for the future good or evil of the world; wherefore he put away harshness and his doom was this. For three ages during the displeasure of the Gods should Melko be chained in a vault of Mandos by that chain Angaino, and thereafter should he fare into the light of the Two Trees, but only so that he might for four ages yet dwell as a servant in the house of Tulkas, and obey him in requital of his ancient malice. “Thus,” said Manwë, “and yet but hardly, mayst thou win favour again sufficient that the Gods suffer thee to abide thereafter in an house of thine own and to have some slight estate among them as befitteth a Vala and a lord of the Ainur.”
Such was the doom of Manwë, and even to Makar and Meássë it seemed good, albeit Tulkas and Palúrien thought it merciful to peril. Now doth Valinor enter upon its greatest time of peace, and all the earth beside, while Melko bideth in the deepest vaults of Mandos and his heart grows black within him.
Behold the tumults of the sea abate slowly, and the fires beneath the mountains die; the earth quakes no more and the fierceness of the cold and the stubbornness of the hills and rivers of ice is melted to the uttermost North and to the deepest South, even to the regions about Ringil and Helkar. Then Palúrien goes once more out over the Earth, and the forests multiply and spread, and often is Oromë’s horn heard behind her in the dimness: now do nightshade and bryony begin to creep about the brakes, and holly and ilex are seen upon the earth. Even the faces of the cliffs are grown with ivies and trailing plants for the calm of the winds and the quietude of the sea, and all the caverns and the shores are festooned with weeds, and great sea-growths come to life swaying gently when Ossë moves the waters.
Now came that Vala and sat upon a headland of the Great Lands, having leisure in the stillness of his realm, and he saw how Palúrien was filling the quiet dusk of the Earth with flitting shapes. Bats and owls whom Vefántur set free from Mandos swooped about the sky, and nightingales sent by Lórien from Valinor trilled beside still waters. Far away a nightjar croaked, and in dark places snakes that slipped from Utumna when Melko was bound moved noiselessly about; a frog croaked upon a bare pool’s border.
Then he sent word to Ulmo of the new things that were done, and Ulmo desired not that the waters of the inner seas be longer unpeopled, but came forth seeking Palúrien, and she gave him spells, and the seas began to gleam with fish or strange creatures crawled at bottom; yet the shellfish and the oysters no-one of Valar or of Elves knows whence they are, for already they gaped in the silent waters or ever Melko plunged therein from on high, and pearls there were before the Eldar thought or dreamed of any gem.
Three great fish luminous in the dark of the sunless days went ever with Ulmo, and the roof of Ossë’s dwelling beneath the Great Sea shone with phosphorescent
scales. Behold that was a time of great peace and quiet, and life struck deep roots into the new-made soils of Earth, and seeds were sown that waited only for the light to come, and it is known and praised as the age of “Melko’s Chains”.’
NOTES
1 The following passage was added here, apparently very soon after the writing of the text, but was later firmly struck through:
The truth is that he is a son of Linwë Tinto King of the Pipers who was lost of old upon the great march from Palisor, and wandering in Hisilómë found the lonely twilight spirit (Tindriel) Wendelin dancing in a glade of beeches. Loving her he was content to leave his folk and dance for ever in the shadows, but his children Timpinen and Tinúviel long after joined the Eldar again, and tales there are concerning them both, though they are seldom told.
The name Tindriel stood alone in the manuscript as written, but it was then bracketed and Wendelin added in the margin. These are the first references in the consecutive narrative to Thingol (Linwë Tinto), Hithlum (Hisilómë), Melian (Tindriel, Wendelin), and Lúthien Tinúviel; but I postpone discussion of these allusions.
2 Cf. the explanation of the names Eriol and Angol as ‘ironcliffs’ referred to in the Appendix on Names (entry Eriol).
3 Associated with the story of the sojourn of Eriol (Ælfwine) in Tol Eressëa, and the ‘Lost Tales’ that he heard there, are two ‘schemes’ or synopses setting out the plan of the work. One of these is, for much of its length, a résumé of the Tales as they are extant; the other, certainly the later, is divergent. In this second scheme, in which the voyager is called Ælfwine, the tale on the second night by the Tale-fire is given to ‘Evromord the Door-ward’, though the narrative-content was to be the same (The Coming of the Gods; the World-fashioning and the Building of Valinor; the Planting of the Two Trees). After this is written (a later addition): ‘Ælfwine goes to beg limpë of Meril; she sends him back.’ The third night by the Tale-fire is thus described:
The Door-ward continues of the Primeval Twilight. The Furies of Melko. Melko’s Chains and the awakening of the Elves. (How Fankil and many dark shapes escape into the world.) [Given to Meril but to be placed as here and much abridged.]
It seems certain that this was a revision in intention only, never achieved. It is notable that in the actual text, as also in the first of these two ‘schemes’, Rúmil’s function in the house is that of door-ward—and Rúmil, not Evromord, was the name that was preserved long after as the recounter of The Music of the Ainur.
4 The text as originally written read: ‘but the great Gods may not be slain, though their children may and all those lesser people of the Vali, albeit only at the hands of some one of the Valar.’
5 Vali is an emendation from Valar. Cf. Rúmil’s words (p. 58): ‘they whom we now call the Valar (or Vali, it matters not).’
Commentary on
The Chaining of Melko
In the interlude between this tale and the last we encounter the figure of Timpinen or Tinfang. This being had existed in my father’s mind for some years, and there are two poems about him. The first is entitled Tinfang Warble; it is very brief, but exists in three versions. According to a note by my father the original was written at Oxford in 1914, and it was rewritten at Leeds in ‘1920–23’. It was finally published in 1927 in a further altered form, which I give here.*
Tinfang Warble
O the hoot! O the hoot!
How he trillups on his flute!
O the hoot of Tinfang Warble!
Dancing all alone,
Hopping on a stone,
Flitting like a fawn,
In the twilight on the lawn,
And his name is Tinfang Warble!
The first star has shown
And its lamp is blown
to a flame of flickering blue.
He pipes not to me,
He pipes not to thee,
He whistles for none of you.
His music is his own,
The tunes of Tinfang Warble!
In the earliest version Tinfang is called a ‘leprawn’, and in the early glossary of the Gnomish speech he is a ‘fay’.
The second poem is entitled Over Old Hills and Far Away. This exists in five texts, of which the earliest bears an Old English title as well (of the same meaning): eond fyrne beorgas heonan feor. Notes by my father state that it was written at Brocton Camp in Staffordshire between December 1915 and February 1916, and rewritten at Oxford in 1927. The final version given here differs in many details of wording and in places whole lines from earlier versions, from which I note at the end a few interesting readings.
Over Old Hills and Far Away
It was early and still in the night of June,
And few were the stars, and far was the moon,
The drowsy trees drooping, and silently creeping
Shadows woke under them while they were sleeping.
5
I stole to the window with stealthy tread
Leaving my white and unpressed bed;
And something alluring, aloof and queer,
Like perfume of flowers from the shores of the mere
That in Elvenhome lies, and in starlit rains
10
Twinkles and flashes, came up to the panes
Of my high lattice-window. Or was it a sound?
I listened and marvelled with eyes on the ground.
For there came from afar a filtered note
Enchanting sweet, now clear, now remote,
15
As clear as a star in a pool by the reeds,
As faint as the glimmer of dew on the weeds.
Then I left the window and followed the call
Down the creaking stairs and across the hall
Out through a door that swung tall and grey,
20
And over the lawn, and away, away!
It was Tinfang Warble that was dancing there,
Fluting and tossing his old white hair,
Till it sparkled like frost in a winter moon;
And the stars were about him, and blinked to his tune
25
Shimmering blue like sparks in a haze,
As always they shimmer and shake when he plays.
My feet only made there the ghost of a sound
On the shining white pebbles that ringed him round,
Where his little feet flashed on a circle of sand,
30
And the fingers were white on his flickering hand.
In the wink of a star he had leapt in the air
With his fluttering cap and his glistening hair;
And had cast his long flute right over his back,
Where it hung by a ribbon of silver and black.
35
His slim little body went fine as a shade,
And he slipped through the reeds like a mist in the glade;
And he laughed like thin silver, and piped a thin note,
As he flapped in the shadows his shadowy coat.
O! the toes of his slippers were twisted and curled,
40
But he danced like a wind out into the world.
He is gone, and the valley is empty and bare
Where lonely I stand and lonely I stare.
Then suddenly out in the meadows beyond,
Then back in the reeds by the shimmering pond,
45 Then afar from a copse where the mosses are thick
A few little notes came trillaping quick.
I leapt o’er the stream and I sped from the glade,
For Tinfang Warble it was that played;
I must follow the hoot of his twilight flute
50
Over reed, over rush, under branch, over root,
And over dim fields, and through rustling grasses
That murmur and nod as the old elf passes,
Over old hills and far away
Where the harps of the Elvenfolk softly play.
Earlier readings:
1–2 ’Twas a very qui
et evening once in June—
And I thought that stars had grown bright too soon—
Cf. the prose text, p. 94: ‘The Noldoli say that [the stars] come out too soon if Tinfang Warble plays’.
8 from the shores of the mere] by the fairies’ mere
9 Elvenhome] emendation made on the text of the final version, replacing ‘Fairyland’.
24 Till the stars came out, as it seemed, too soon.
Cf. the note to line 2.
25–6 They always come out when he warbles and plays,
And they shine bright blue as long as he stays.
Cf. the prose text, p. 95: ‘or will he play beneath a goodly moon and the stars go bright and blue.’
54 Elvenfolk] emendation made on the text of the final version, replacing ‘fairies’.
The first part of this story of The Chaining of Melko came to have a very different form in later versions, where (The Silmarillion p. 35) it was during the sojourn of the Valar on the Isle of Almaren, under the light of the Two Lamps, that ‘the seeds that Yavanna had sown began swiftly to sprout and to burgeon, and there arose a multitude of growing things great and small, mosses and grasses and great ferns, and trees whose tops were crowned with cloud’ and that ‘beasts came forth and dwelt in the grassy plains, or in the rivers and the lakes, or walked in the shadows of the woods’. This was the Spring of Arda; but after the coming of Melkor and the delving of Utumno ‘green things fell sick and rotted, and rivers were choked with weeds and slime, and fens were made, rank and poisonous, the breeding place of flies; and forests grew dark and perilous, the haunts of fear; and beasts became monsters of horn and ivory and dyed the earth with blood’. Then came the fall of the Lamps, and ‘thus ended the Spring of Arda’ (p. 37). After the building of Valinor and the arising of the Two Trees ‘Middle-earth lay in a twilight beneath the stars’ (p. 39), and Yavanna and Oromë alone of the Valar returned there at times: ‘Yavanna would walk there in the shadows, grieving because the growth and promise of the Spring of Arda was stayed. And she set a sleep upon many things that had arisen in the Spring, so that they should not age, but should wait for a time of awakening that yet should be’ (p. 47). ‘But already the oldest living things had arisen: in the seas the great weeds, and on earth the shadow of great trees; and in the valleys of the night-clad hills there were dark creatures old and strong.’