UNFINISHED TALES 1 r£ hoj pftf jo robraclp yfy p2u ccfflm £i6£p yiJ^ p^^p * PART I THE FIRST AGE PART II THE SECOND AGE PART III THE THIRD AGE PART IV THE DRUEDAIN, THE ISTARI, THE PALANTIRI T O m \) p£p aema bra, Jn mxb p xfcb ™ ^rw^ p ^ 0r> iq §3 py<&tjp p-aThot pa tfl^cpl% £?i£ pcrjiro >^ am Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-earth by J. R. R.TOLKIEN edited with introduction, commentary, index and maps by CHRISTOPHER TOLKIEN HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY BOSTON 1980 ,? p£m mix>a bra,Tha mrb p-&hi,mrxtxhipf p ro m 0 £, :$ eovop c cqtom }» p^JpAno p cpgi p p p£Ppyll" BOOKS BY J. R. R. TOLKIEN The Lord of the Rings The Fellowship of the Ring The Two Towers The Return of the King The Hobbit Farmer Giles of Ham The Adventures of Tom Bombadil Smith of Wootton Major Tree and Leaf Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl and Sir Orfeo . The Father Christmas Letters (edited by Baillie Tolkien) The Silmarillion (edited by Christopher Tolkien) Unfinished Tales (edited by Christopher Tolkien) WITH DONALD SWANN The Road Goes Ever On First American Edition Copyright © 1980 by George Allen & Unwin (publishers) Ltd This book is copyright under the Berne Convention. All rights re served. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photo copying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. ISBN: 0-395-29917-9 Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 80-83072 Printed in the United States of America W 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 21 CONTENTS Introduction page i PART ONE: THE FIRST AGE I OF TUOR AND HIS COMING TO GONDOLIN 17 Notes 51 II NARN I HIN HURIN 57 The Childhood of Turin 57; The Words of Hurin and Morgoth 65; The Departure of Turin 68; Turin in Doriath 76; Turin among the Outlaws 85; Of Mim the Dwarf 96; The Return of Turin to Dor- lomin 104; The Coming of Turin into Brethil 109; The Journey of Morwen and Nienor to Nargothrond 112; Nienor in Brethil 121; The Coming of Glaurung 125; The Death of Glaurung 132; The Death of Turin 140 Notes 146 Appendix 150 PART TWO: THE SECOND AGE I A DESCRIPTION OF THE ISLAND OF NUMENOR 165 Notes 171 II ALDARION AND ERENDIS: The Mariner's Wife 173 Notes 212 III THE LINE OF ELROS: KINGS OF NUMENOR 218 Notes 224 IV THE HISTORY OF GALADRIEL AND CELEBORN and of Amroth King of Lorien 228 Notes 252 Appendices (Appendix A, The Silvan Elves and their Speech 256; Appendix B, The Sindarin Princes of the Silvan Elves 257; Appendix C, The Boundaries of Lorien 260; Appendix D, The Port of Lond Daer 261; Appendix E, The Names of Celeborn and Galadriel 266) PART THREE: THE THIRD AGE I THE DISASTER OF THE GLADDEN FIELDS page 271 Notes 278 Appendix (Numenorean Linear Measures) 285 II CIRION AND EORL AND THE FRIENDSHIP OF GONDOR AND ROHAN 288 (i) The Northmen and the Wainriders 288 (ii) The Ride of Eorl 295 (iii) Cirion and Eorl 300 (iv) The Tradition of Isildur 308 Notes 310 III THE QUEST OF EREBOR 321 Notes 326 Appendix (Note on the texts, and extracts from the earlier version) 327 IV THE HUNT FOR THE RING 337 (i) Of the Journey of the Black Riders according to the account that Gandalf gave to Frodo 337 (ii) Other Versions of the Story 341 (iii) Concerning Gandalf, Saruman and the Shire 348 Notes 352 V THE BATTLES OF THE FORDS OF ISEN 355 Notes 364 Appendix 366 PART FOUR I THE DRUEDAIN 377 Notes 384 II THE ISTARI 388 Notes 400 III THE PALANTIRI 403 Notes 411 Index 416 NOTE It has been necessary to distinguish author and editor in different ways in different parts of this book, since the incidence of commentary is very various. The author appears in larger type in the primary texts throughout; if the editor intrudes into one of these texts he is in smaller type indented from the margin (e.g. p. 294). In The History of Galadriel and Celeborn, however, where the editorial text is pre dominant, the reverse indentation is employed. In the Appendices (and also in The Further Course of the Narrative of 'Aldarion and Erendis', pp. 205 ff.) both author and editor are in the smaller type, with citations from the author indented (e.g. p. 154). Notes to texts in the Appendices are given as footnotes rather than as numbered references; and the author's own annotation of a text at a particular point is indicated through out by the words * [Author's note]'. INTRODUCTION The problems that confront one given responsibility for the writings of a dead author are hard to resolve. Some persons in this position may elect to make no material whatsoever available for publication, save perhaps for work that was in a virtually finished state at the time of the author's death. In the case of the unpublished writings of J. R. R. Tolkien this might seem at first sight the proper course; since he himself, peculiarly critical and exacting of his own work, would not have dreamt of allowing even the more completed narratives in this book to appear without much further refinement. On the other hand, the nature and scope of his invention seems to me to place even his abandoned stories in a peculiar position. That The Silmarillion should remain unknown was for me out of the question, despite its disordered state, and despite my father's known, if very largely unfulfilled intentions for its transformation; and in that case I presumed, after long hesitation, to present the work not in the form of an historical study, a complex of divergent texts interlinked by commentary, but as a completed and cohesive entity. The narratives in this book are indeed on an altogether different footing: taken together they constitute no whole, and the book is no more than a collection of writings, disparate in form, intent, finish, and date of composition (and in my own treatment of them), concerned with Numenor and Middle-earth. But the argument for their publication is not different in its nature, though it is of lesser force, from that which I held to justify the publication of The Silmarillion. Those who would not have forgone the images of Melkor with Ungoliant looking down from the summit of Hyarmentir upon 'the fields and pastures of Yavanna, gold beneath the tall wheat of the gods'; of the shadows of Fingolfin's host cast by the first moonrise in the West; of Beren lurking in wolf's shape beneath the throne of Morgoth; or of the light of the Silmaril suddenly revealed in the darkness of the Forest of Neldoreth - they will find, I believe, that imperfections of form in these tales are much outweighed by the voice (heard now for the last time) of Gandalf, teasing the lordly Saruman at the meeting of the White Council in the year 2851, or describing in Minas Tirith after the end of the War of the Ring how it was that he came to send the Dwarves to the celebrated party at Bag-End; by the arising of Ulmo Lord of Waters out of the sea at Vinyamar; by Mablung of Doriath hiding 'like a vole' beneath the ruins of the bridge at Nargothrond; or by the death of Isildur as he floundered up out of the mud of Anduin. Many of the pieces in this collection are elaborations of matters told more briefly, or at least referred to, elsewhere; and it must be said at once that much in the book will be found unrewarding by readers of The Lord of the Rings who, holding that the historical structure of Middle-earth