The Peoples of Middle-earth (57 page)

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Authors: J. R. R. Tolkien

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It was long before the migrations of Men from the East reached the North-western regions. And it was long again before the Dwarves - of whom the Longbeards appear to have been the most secretive and least concerned to have dealings with Elves or Men - still felt any need to learn any languages of their neighbours, still less to take names by which they could be known to

'outsiders'.

22. [My father's point was that Balin and Fundin are actual Old Norse names used as 'translations' for the purpose of The Lord of the Rings. What he should have done in a visual representation of the tomb-inscription was to use, not of course their

'inner' names in Khuzdul, but their real 'outer' names which in the text of The Lord of the Rings are represented by Balin and Fundin.]

23. [It seems that it was when my father reached this point in the essay that he made the alterations to the text on p. 300 with the marginal observation given in note 20, and struck out the latter part of note 21.]

24. He alone had no companions; cf. 'he slept alone' (III.352). [The reference is to the beginning of Appendix A, III. The passage in the text is difficult to interpret. My father refers here to four places of awakening of the Seven Ancestors of the Dwarves: those of 'the ancestors of the Firebeards and the Broadbeams', 'the ancestor of the Longbeards', 'the Ironfists and Stiffbeards', and

'the Blacklocks and Stonefoots'. (None of these names of the other six kindreds of the Dwarves has ever been given before.

Since the ancestors of the Firebeards and the Broadbeams awoke in the Ered Lindon, these kindreds must be presumed to be the Dwarves of Nogrod and Belegost.) It seems that he was here referring to Durin's having 'slept alone' in contrast to the other kindreds, whose Fathers were laid to sleep in pairs. If this is so, it is a different conception from that cited in XI.213, where Iluvatar

'commanded Aule to lay the fathers of the Dwarves severally in deep places, each with his mate, save Durin the eldest who had none.' On the subject of the 'mates' of the Fathers of the Dwarves see XI.211-13. - In the margin of the typescript my father wrote later (against the present note): 'He wandered widely after awakening: his people were Dwarves that joined him from other kindreds west and east'; and at the head of the page he suggested that the legend of the Making of the Dwarves should be altered (indeed very radically altered) to a form in which other Dwarves were laid to sleep near to the Fathers.]

25. [In the rejected conclusion of note 21 the place of the awakening of the ancestor of the Longbeards was 'a valley in the Ered Mithrin' (the Grey Mountains in the far North). There has of course been no previous reference to this ancient significance of Mount Gundabad. That mountain originally appeared in the chapter The Clouds Burst in The Hobbit, where it is told that the Goblins 'marched and gathered by hill and valley, going ever by tunnel or under dark, until around and beneath the great mountain Gundabad of the North, where was their capital, a vast host was assembled'; and it is shown on the map of Wilderland in The Hobbit as a great isolated mass at the northern end of the Misty Mountains where the Grey Mountains drew towards them. In The Lord of the Rings, Appendix A (III), Gundabad appears in the account of the War of the Dwarves and Orcs late in the Third Age, where the Dwarves 'assailed and sacked one by one all the strongholds of the Orcs that they could [find] from Gundabad to the Gladden' (the word 'find' was erroneously dropped in the Second Edition).]

26. According to their legends their begetter, Aule the Vala, had made this for them and had taught it to the Seven Fathers before they were laid to sleep until the time for their awakening should come.

After their awakening this language (as all languages and all other things in Arda) changed in time, and divergently in the mansions that were far-sundered. But the change was so slow and the divergence so small that even in the Third Age converse between all Dwarves in their own tongue was easy. As they said, the change in Khuzdul as compared with the tongue of the Elves, and still more with those of Men, was 'like the weathering of hard rock compared with the melting of snow.'

27. The Dwarves multiplied slowly; but Men in prosperity and peace more swiftly than even the Elves.

28. For they had met some far to the East who were of evil mind.

[This was a later pencilled note. On the previous page of the typescript my father wrote at the same time, without indication of its reference to the text but perhaps arising from the mention (p. 301) of the awakening of the eastern kindreds of the Dwarves:

'Alas, it seems probable that (as Men did later) the Dwarves of the far eastern mansions (and some of the nearer ones?) came under the Shadow of Morgoth and turned to evil.']

29. No Dwarf would ever mount a horse willingly, nor did any ever harbour animals, not even dogs.

30. For a time. The Numenoreans had not yet appeared on the shores of Middle-earth, and the foundations of the Barad-dur had not yet been built. It was a brief period in the dark annals of the Second Age, yet for many lives of Men the Longbeards controlled the Ered Mithrin, Erebor, and the Iron Hills, and all the east side of the Misty Mountains as far as the confines of Lorien; while the Men of the North dwelt in all the adjacent lands as far south as the Great Dwarf Road that cut through the Forest (the Old Forest Road was its ruinous remains in the Third Age) and then went North-east to the Iron Hills. [As with so much else in this account, the origin of the Old Forest Road in 'the Great Dwarf Road', which after traversing Greenwood the Great led to the Iron Hills, has never been met before.]

31. Only the personal names of individuals. The name of their race, and the names of their families, and of their mansions, they did not conceal.

32. Either actual Mannish names current among the Northern Men, or names made in the same ways out of elements in the Mannish tongue, or names of no meaning that were simply made of the sounds used by Men put together in ways natural to their speech.

33. [My father might seem to write here as if Durin was the 'real'

Mannish name of the Father of the Longbeards; but of course it is a name derived from Old Norse, and thus a 'translation'.]

34. Somewhat similar to the way in which the 'runes' of Elvish origin were widely regarded by Men in the Third Age as a Dwarvish mode of writing.

35. Sauron was defeated by the Numenoreans and driven back into Mordor, and for long troubled the West no more, while secretly extending his dominions eastward.

36. Though such changes and divergence as had already occurred before they left Middle-earth would have endured - such as the divergence of the speech of the Teleri from that of the Noldor.

37. [This and the subsequent section-heading, together with their numbers, were pencilled in later. The title of section I is lost with the loss of the first page of the essay.]

38. The name is said to have been derived from atan 'man, human being as distinct from creatures', a word used by that kindred which the Eldar first encountered in Beleriand. This was borrowed and adapted to Quenya and Sindarin; but later when Men of other kinds became known to the Eldar it became limited to Men of the Three Peoples who had become allies of the Eldar in Beleriand.

[A typewritten draft for the page of the essay on which this second section begins is preserved (though without the section-heading or number, see note 37): in this draft the present note begins in the same way, but diverges after the words 'adapted to Quenya and Sindarin' thus:

It was however associated by the Eldar with their own word atar (adar) 'father' and often translated 'Fathers of Men', though this title, in full atanatar, properly belonged only to the leaders and chieftains of the peoples at the time of their entry into Beleriand. In Sindarin adan was still often used for 'man', especially in names of races with a preceding prefix, as in Dunadan, plural Dunedain, 'Men of the West', Numenoreans; Dru-edain 'Wild-men'.

The statement here that Atani was derived from a word in the Beorian language, atan 'man', contradicts what was said in the chapter Of the Coming of Men into the West that was added to the Quenta Silmarillion, XI.219, footnote: 'Atani was the name given to Men in Valinor, in the lore that told of their coming; according to the Eldar it signified "Second", for the kindred of Men was the second of the Children of Iluvatar'; cf. Quendi and Eldar, XI.386, where essentially the same is said (the devising of the name Atani is there ascribed to the Noldor in Valinor).]

39. [This refers to Morgoth's captivity in Aman. See X.423, note 3.) 40. [Cf. the words of Andreth, X.310, and of Bereg and Amlach, XI.220, $18).]

41. [Haleth was not the name of the chieftain who commanded the Folk of Haleth when they first came to Beleriand: see XI.221-2

and the genealogical tree, XI.237. But this is probably not significant, in view of what is said at the end of the paragraph: these people 'were called the Folk of Haleth, for Haleth was the name of their chieftainess who led them to the woods north of Doriath where they were permitted to dwell.' On the other hand, the statement that Hador was the name of the chieftain who led the Folk of Hador into Beleriand seems to ignore that greatly enlarged and altered history that had entered in the chapter Of the Coming of Men into the West (cf. note 38), according to which it was Marach who led that people over the Mountains, and Hador himself, though he gave his name to the people, was a descendant of Marach in the fourth generation (see XI.218 - 19

and the genealogical tree, XI.234). In that work the division of the Folk of Hador into three hosts, referred to a little later in the present paragraph, does not appear - indeed it was said (XI.218, $10) that Beor told Felagund that 'they are a numerous people, and yet keep together and move slowly, being all ruled by one chieftain whom they call Marach.']

42. [In other accounts the Folk of Haleth were the second kindred of the Edain to enter Beleriand, not the last; thus in QS $127

(V.275), when Haleth was still Haleth the Hunter and had not been transformed into the Lady Haleth, 'After Beor came Haleth father of Hundor, and again somewhat later came Hador the Goldenhaired', and in Of the Coming of Men into the West $13

(XI.218) 'First came the Haladin ... The next year, however, Marach led his people over the Mountains'. In that text ($10) Beor told Felagund that the people of Marach 'were before us in the westward march, but we passed them', and there is no suggestion of the story told here that they reached Eredlindon first of all the Edain, but that 'seeking a road round the Mountains' they

'came up from southward' into Beleriand. - Of internal strife among the Folk of Haleth, referred to a few lines later in this paragraph, there has been no previous mention.]

43. No doubt this was due to mingling with Men of other kind in the past; and it was noted that the dark hair ran in families that had more skill and interest in crafts and lore.

44. With a knowledge of the language of the Folk of Beor that was later lost, save for a few names of persons and places, and some words or phrases preserved in legends. One of the common words was atan. [With the last sentence cf. note 38.]

45. [With this is perhaps to be compared what my father wrote elsewhere at this time (p. 373, note 13) concerning the long period during which the 'Beorians' and the 'Hadorians' became separated in the course of their westward migration and dwelt on opposite sides of a great inland sea.]

46. Beren the Renowned had hair of a golden brown and grey eyes; he was taller than most of his kin, but he was broad-shouldered and very strong in his limbs.

47. The Eldar said, and recalled in the songs they still sang in later days, that they could not easily be distinguished from the Eldar -

not while their youth lasted, the swift fading of which was to the Eldar a grief and a mystery.

48. [With this account of the Folk of Beor and the Folk of Hador may be compared the description that my father wrote many years before in the Quenta Silmarillion, V.276, $130.]

49. [On the alteration of the relationship between the three languages of the Atani, whereby that of the Folk of Haleth replaced that of the Folk of Hador as the tongue isolated from the others, see p. 368 and note 4.]

50. Not due to their special situation in Beleriand, and maybe rather a cause of their small numbers than its result. They increased in numbers far more slowly than the other Atani, hardly more than was sufficient to replace the wastage of war; yet many of their women (who were fewer than the men) remained unwed.

51. [Apart from some slight and largely unnecessary modifications to the original text (in no case altering the sense) there are a few points to mention about that printed in Unfinished Tales. (1) The spelling Ork(s) was changed to Orc(s), and that of the river Taiglin to Teiglin (see XI.228, 309-10). (2) A passage about the liking of the Drugs for edible fungus was omitted in view of my father's pencilled note beside it: 'Delete all this about funguses.

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