The Lays of Beleriand (27 page)

one autumn night, and creeps him forth;

the leaguer of his watchful foes

he passes - silently he goes.

No more his hidden bowstring sings,

no more his shaven arrow wings, 370

no more his hunted head doth lie

upon the heath beneath the sky.

The moon that looked amid the mist

upon the pines, the wind that hissed

among the heather and the fern 375

found him no more. The stars that burn

about the North with silver fire

in frosty airs, the Burning Briar

that Men did name in days long gone,

were set behind his back, and shone 380

o'er land and lake and darkened hill,

forsaken fen and mountain rill.

His face was South from the Land of Dread,

whence only evil pathways led,

and only the feet of men most bold 385

might cross the Shadowy Mountains cold.

Their northern slopes were filled with woe,

with evil and with mortal foe;

their southern faces mounted sheer

in rocky pinnacle and pier, 390

whose roots were woven with deceit

and washed with waters bitter-sweet.

There magic lurked in gulf and glen,

for far away beyond the ken

of searching eyes, unless it were 395

from dizzy tower that pricked the air

where only eagles lived and cried,

might grey and gleaming be descried

Beleriand, Beleriand,

the borders of the faery land. 400

NOTES.

128. A: a lord of Men undaunted, bold

134. A: Maglor his son and other ten.

141. A: But the king Bauglir did hunt them sore 177-9. Earlier reading:

to this far vale among the hills

a haggard hungry people tills,

there hooted nigh a hunting owl

205. found: earlier reading sought

209 - 10. A: with tidings of Lord Egnor's band, and where their hidings in the land

235. A: and Egnor was betrayed and slain

246. A: yet Maglor it was by fortune good

who hunting &c.

272. A: till Maglor waking swiftly sought

277. A: to where his father Egnor lay;

297. A: he took from Egnor's slaughtered hand: 298. Broceliand A, Broseliand B emended to Beleriand 301. A: for this same Egnor that I slew

304. Celegorm A, emended to Felagoth and then to Felagund 310. A: I found the hand of Egnor bare! '

313 - 16. These four lines were bracketed, and that at line 3 I 7 changed to Then, before the B-text went to C. S. Lewis (my father's numbering of the lines excludes these four, and Lewis's line-references agree). Lewis did not concur with the exclusion of 3 I 3 - 14, and I have let all four lines stand. See pp. 318-19.

317,329. Maglor A, Beren B

326. A: and deep ghylls in the mountains torn.

331-3. A: ere Egnor in the wilderness

was slain; but now his loneliness,

grief and despair, did rob his life

360. A: proud Maglor fled the forest fast

(fast is used in the sense 'secure against attack'; cf. fastness).

365. Maglor A, Beren B

377-81. A: about the North with silver flame in frosty airs, that men did name

Timbridhil in the days long gone,

he set behind his back, and shone

that sickle of the heavenly field

that Bridhil Queen of stars did wield

o'er land and lake and darkened hill,

The fifth and sixth lines are bracketed, with and shone in the fourth changed to It shone.

383-4. Cf. lines 49 - 50.

399. Broceliand A, Broseliand B emended to Beleriand.

Commentary on Canto II.

In this second Canto the story of the betrayal of the outlaw band is already in A close to its final form in essentials; but there is no trace of the story in any form earlier than the first drafts of the Lay of Leithian, composed in the summer of 1925 (see p. 150). In commenting on the Tale of Tinuviel I noted (II. 52):

It seems clear that at this time the history of Beren and his father (Egnor) was only very sketchily devised; there is in any case no hint of the story of the outlaw band led by his father and its betrayal by Gorlim the Unhappy before the first form of the Lay of Leithian.

There are indeed differences in the plot of the Lay from the story told in The Silmarillion (pp. 162ff.): thus the house where Gorlim saw the phantom of Eilinel was not in the Lay his own; his treachery was far deeper and more deliberate, in that he sought out the servants of Morgoth with the intention of revealing the hiding-place of the outlaws; and he came before Morgoth himself (not Thu-Sauron). But these differences are much outnumbered by the similarities, such as the absence of Maglor-Beren on the fatal day, the apparition of Gorlim coming to him in dream across the water of the lake, the carrion-birds in the alder-trees, the cairn, the seizing of the ring, his friendship with birds and beasts.

As regards the names in the A-text: Gorlim and Eilinel were to remain. Maglor-Beren has already been discussed (p. 159). Egnor was still his father, as in the last Tales (the emendation to Barahir in the second version of the Tale of Tinuviel, II. 43, was a change made casually years later). Bauglir (which entered during the composition of The Children of Hurin, see p. 52) is changed throughout to Morgoth, but this seems not to have been a rejection of the name, since it appears later in the B-text of the Lay, and survives in The Silmarillion.

In A Varda is called Bridhil (note to lines 377 - 81), as she is also in alliterative poem The Plight of the Noldoli (pp. 135, 139); but it is puzzling that the constellation of the Great Bear is in the same passage called Timbridhil, for that according to the old Gnomish dictionary is the title of Varda herself (as one would expect: cf. Tinwetari, I. 269). The

'Sickle of the Gods' (Valacirca) is here the 'sickle of the heavenly field'

wielded by Bridhil Queen of Stars. I can cast no light at all on the name Burning Briar that appears in B (line 378); it reappears in the 1930

version of 'The Silmarillion':

Many names have these [the Seven Stars] been called, but in the old days of the North both Elves and Men called them the Burning Briar, and some the Sickle of the Gods.

For the earliest myth of the Great Bear see I. I 14, 133.

Indications of geography are sparse, and not increased in the B-text.

Taur-na-Fuin has been named earlier in B (line 52), but it is not actually said in the present Canto to be the region where the outlaws lurked, though there is no reason to doubt that this is where my father placed it. Coming southwards Maglor-Beren crossed 'the Shadowy Mountains cold' (386). The Shadowy Mountains were named several times in The Children of Hurin, where they are the mountains fencing Hithlum, mirrored in the pools of Ivrin, as they are in The Silmarillion.

But it would obviously be impossible for Beren to cross the Shadowy Mountains in this application of the name if he were coming out of Taur-na-Fuin and moving south towards Doriath. In the 'Sketch of the Mythology' Beren likewise 'crosses the Shadowy Mountains and after grievous hardships comes to Doriath', and similarly in the 1930 version; in this latter, however, 'Mountains of Shadow' was emended to 'Mountains of Terror'. It is then clear that in the Lay of Leithian my father was using 'Shadowy Mountains' in a different sense from that in The Children of Hurin, and that the Shadowy Mountains of the present Canto are the first mention of Ered Gorgoroth, the Mountains of Terror,

'the precipices in which Dorthonion [Taur-nu-Fuin] fell southward'

(The Silmarillion p. 95); but the other meaning reappears (p. 234.).

The lake where Egnor-Barahir and his band dwelt in hiding, in The Silmarillion (p. 162) Tarn Aeluin, is not named in the Lay, where the hiding-place was 'a wooded island in the fen' (280). That the Orc-camp was beside a spring (also unnamed) appears in the Lay, and it is here a hot spring (292 - 3); in The Silmarillion (p. 163) it was Rieil's Well above the Fen of Serech.

Most notable of the features of this Canto so far as the development of the legends is'concerned, the rescue of Felagund by Barahir in the Battle of Sudden Flame (The Silmarillion p. 152) makes its first appearance in the 'service' done to Celegorm by Egnor in A (lines 301 - 4, where B has Felagund and Barahir). 'Celegorm' has already ceased its brief life as a replacement of Thingol (see p. 159), and is now again that of one of the sons of Feanor, as it was in The Children of Hurin. When these lines in A were written the story was that Celegorm (and Curufin) founded Nargothrond after the breaking of the Leaguer of Angband - a story that seems to have arisen in the writing of The Children of Hurin, see pp. 83 - 5;, and it was Celegorm who was rescued by Egnor-Barahir in that battle, and who gave Egnor-Barahir his ring. In the B-text the story has moved forward again, with the emergence of (Felagoth >) Felagund as the one saved by Barahir and the founder of Nargothrond, thrusting Celegorm and Curufin into a very different role.

In A Egnor and his son Maglor (Beren) are Men (e.g. Egnor was 'a lord of Men', note to line 128). In the first version of The Children of Hurin Beren was still an Elf, while in the second version my father seems to have changed back and forth on this matter (see pp. 124 - 5). He had not even now, as will appear later, finally settled the question.

III.

There once, and long and long ago,

before the sun and moon we know

were lit to sail above the world,

when first the shaggy woods unfurled,

and shadowy shapes did stare and roam 405

beneath the dark and starry dome

that hung above the dawn of Earth,

the silences with silver mirth

were shaken; the rocks were ringing,

the birds of Melian were singing, 410

the first to sing in mortal lands,

the nightingales with her own hands

she fed, that fay of garments grey;

and dark and long her tresses lay

beneath her silver girdle's seat 415

and down unto her silver feet.

She had wayward wandered on a time

from gardens of the Gods, to climb

the everlasting mountains free

that look upon the outmost sea, 420

and never wandered back, but stayed

and softly sang from glade to glade.

Her voice it was that Thingol heard,

and sudden singing of a bird,

in that old time when new-come Elves 425

had all the wide world to themselves.

Yet all his kin now marched away,

as old tales tell, to seek the bay

on the last shore of mortal lands,

where mighty ships with magic hands 430

they made, and sailed beyond the seas.

The Gods them bade to lands of ease

and gardens fair, where earth and sky

together flow, and none shall die.

But Thingol stayed, enchanted, still, 435

one moment to hearken to the thrill

of that sweet singing in the trees.

Enchanted moments such as these

from gardens of the Lord of Sleep,

where fountains play and shadows creep, 440

do come, and count as many years

in mortal lands. With many tears

his people seek him ere they sail,

while Thingol listens in the dale.

There after but an hour, him seems, 445

he finds her where she lies and dreams,

pale Melian with her dark hair

upon a bed of leaves. Beware!

There slumber and a sleep is twined!

He touched her tresses and his mind 450

was drowned in the forgetful deep,

and dark the years rolled o'er his sleep.

Thus Thingol sailed not on the seas

but dwelt amid the land of trees,

and Melian he loved, divine, 455

whose voice was potent as the wine

the Valar drink in golden halls

where flower blooms and fountain falls;

but when she sang it was a spell,

and no flower stirred nor fountain fell. 460

A king and queen thus lived they long,

and Doriath was filled with song,

and all the Elves that missed their way

and never found the western bay,

the gleaming walls of their long home 465

by the grey seas and the white foam,

who never trod the golden land

where the towers of the Valar stand,

all these were gathered in their realm

beneath the beech and oak and elm. 470

In later days when Morgoth first,

fleeing the Gods, their bondage burst,

and on the mortal lands set feet,

and in the North his mighty seat

founded and fortified, and all 475

the newborn race of Men were thrall

unto his power, and Elf and Gnome

his slaves, or wandered without home,

or scattered fastnesses walled with fear

upraised upon his borders drear, 480

and each one fell, yet reigned there still

in Doriath beyond his will

Thingol and deathless Melian,

whose magic yet no evil can

that cometh from without surpass. 485

Here still was laughter and green grass,

and leaves were lit with the white sun,

and many marvels were begun.