The Peoples of Middle-earth (70 page)

22. Who was sometimes called Navatar, and the Dwarves Auleonnar

'children of Aule'.

23. [This brief version ends with these remarkable words: 'But Eru did not give them the immortality of the Elves, but lives longer than Men. "They shall be the third children and more like Men, the second." ']

24. The flesh of Dwarves is reported to have been far slower to decay or become corrupted than that of Men. (Elvish bodies robbed of their spirit quickly disintegrated and vanished.)

25. [A note at the end of the text without indication for 'its insertion reads:] What effect would this have on the succession? Probably this 'return' would only occur when by some chance or other the reigning king had no son. The Dwarves were very unprolific and this no doubt happened fairly often.

26. [These notes go with the text Glorfindel II, when my father had determined that Glorfindel came to Middle-earth in the Second Age, probably about the year 1600 (p. 382).]

27. [With this reference to Glorfindel's part in the war in Eriador cf.

the note cited on pp. 378-9.]

28. [Elsewhere on this page this name is written Rome(n)star.]

29. Before ever they came to Beleriand the Teleri had developed a craft of boat-making; first as rafts, and soon as light boats with paddles made in imitation of the water-birds upon the lakes near their first homes, and later on the Great Journey in crossing rivers, or especially during their long tarrying on the shores of the

'Sea of Rhun', where their ships became larger and stronger. But in all this work Cirdan had ever been the foremost and most inventive and skilful. [On the significance of the Sea of Rhun in the context of the Great Journey see XI.173-4.]

30. Pengoloh alone mentions a tradition among the Sindar of Doriath that it was in archaic form Nowe, the original meaning of which was uncertain, as was that of Olwe. [On the meaning of Olwe see p. 341 and note 20.]

31. [Cf. Appendix B (head-note to the Third Age): 'For Cirdan saw further and deeper than any other in Middle-earth' (said in the context of his surrender of Narya, the Ring of Fire, to Mithrandir). The statement here that this is said 'in the Annals of the Third Age (c.1000)' is puzzling, but is presumably to be related to the words in the same passage of Appendix B 'When maybe a thousand years had passed ... the Istari or Wizards appeared in Middle-earth.']

32. A Quenya name given by the exiled Noldor, and primarily applied to the folk of Doriath, people of Elwe Grey-cloak.

33. [That Cirdan was a kinsman of Elwe is mentioned in Quendi and Eldar (XI.384 and note 15).]

34. This is used as a general term for the Telerian dialect of Eldarin as it became in the changes of long years in Beleriand, though it was not entirely uniform in its development.

35. [Cf. Quendi and Eldar, XI.380: 'The Eglain became a people somewhat apart from the inland Elves, and at the time of the coming of the Exiles their language was in many ways different.'

(The Eglain are the people of Cirdan.)]

36. [For Falathrim see Quendi and Eldar, XI.378; and with Falmari cf. X.163, $27: 'The Sea-elves therefore they became in Valinor, the Falmari, for they made music beside the breaking waves.']

37. Vingilote, 'Sprayflower'. [Beside 'Spray' my father subsequently wrote 'Foam', and noted also: 'winge, Sindarin gwing, is properly a flying spume or spindrift blown off wavetops': see p. 376, note 24.]

PART THREE.

TEACHINGS OF

PENGOLOD.

XIV.

DANGWETH PENGOLOD.

This work, example and record of the instruction of AElfwine the Mariner by Pengolod the Wise of Gondolin, exists in two forms: the first ('A') a good clear text with (apart from one major exception, see note 6) very few changes made either in the act of writing or subsequently, and the second ('B') a superb illuminated manuscript of which the first page is reproduced as the frontispiece of this book.

This latter, together with the brief text Of Lembas, was enclosed in a newspaper of 5 January 1960, on which my father wrote: 'Two items from the lore of Pengolod', and also 'Danbeth to question. How/Why did Elvish language change? Origin of Lembas.' On a cardboard folder enclosing the newspaper he wrote: 'Pengolod items. $Manen lambe Quendion ahyane How did the language of Elves change?

$Mana i-coimas Eldaron What is the "coimas" of the Eldar?'

Above the gw of Dangweth on the illuminated manuscript he lightly pencilled b; but on an isolated scrap of paper found with the two texts are some jottings of which the following are clear: 'Keep Dangweth

"answer" separate from -beth = peth "word"'; 'v gweth "report, give account of, inform of things unknown or wished to be known"'; and

'Ndangwetha S[indarin] Dangweth'.

The Dangweth Pengolod cannot be earlier than 1951, while from the date of the newspaper (on which the two texts are referred to) it cannot be later than the end of 1959. I would be inclined to place it earlier rather than later in the decade; possibly the second manuscript B is to be associated with the fine manuscript pages of the Tale of Years of the First Age (see X.49), one of which is reproduced as the frontispiece to Morgoth's Ring.

Version B follows A very closely indeed for the most part (which is probably an indication of their closeness in time): a scattering of very minor changes (small shifts in word-order and occasional alterations in vocabulary), with a very few more significant differences (see the notes at the end of the text). That it was a work of importance to my father is evident from his writing it again in a manuscript of such elegance; and an aspect of his thought here, in respect of the conscious introduction of change by the Eldar on the basis of an understanding of the phonological structure of their language in its entirety, would reappear years later in The Shibboleth of Feanor (see p. 332 and note 3 to the present essay).

The text that follows is of course that of Version B, with alteration of a few points of punctuation for greater clarity.

Dangweth Pengolod

the

Answer

of

Pengolod

to Aelfwine who asked him how came

it that the tongues of the Elves changed

and were sundered.

Now you question me, AElfwine, concerning the tongues of the Elves, saying that you wonder much to discover that they are many, akin indeed and yet unalike; for seeing that they die not and their memories reach back into ages long past, you understand not why all the race of the Quendi have not maintained the language that they had of old in common still one and the same in all their kindreds. But behold! AElfwine, within Ea all things change, even the Valar; for in Ea we perceive the unfolding of a History in the unfolding: as a man may read a great book, and when it is full-read it is rounded and complete in his mind, according to his measure. Then at last he perceives that some fair thing that long endured: as some mountain or river of renown, some realm, or some great city; or else some mighty being, as a king, or maker, or a woman of beauty and majesty, or even one, maybe, of the Lords of the West: that each of these is, if at all, all that is said of them from the beginning even to the end. From the spring in the mountains to the mouths of the sea, all is Sirion; and from its first upwelling even to its passing away when the land was broken in the great battle, that also is Sirion, and nothing less. Though we, who are set to behold the great History, reading line by line, may speak of the river changing as it flows and grows broad, or dying as it is spilled or devoured by the sea. Yea, even from his first coming into Ea from the side of Iluvatar, and from the young lord of the Valar in the white wrath of his battle with Melkor unto the silent king of years uncounted that sits upon the vanished heights of Oiolosse and watches but speaks no more: all that is he whom we call Manwe.

Now, verily, a great tree may outlive many a Man, and may remember the seed from which it came ere all the Men that now walk the earth were yet unborn, but the rind upon which you lay your hand, and the leaves which overshadow you, are not as that seed was, nor as the dry wood shall be that decays into the mould or passes in flame. And other trees there are that stand about, each different in growth and in shape, according to the chances of their lives, though all be akin, offspring of one yet older tree and sprung therefore from a single seed of long ago.(1) Immortal, within Ea, are the Eldar, but since even as Men they dwell in forms that come of Ea, they are no more changeless than the great trees, neither in the forms that they inhabit, nor in the things that they desire or achieve by means of those forms. Wherefore should they not then change in speech, of which one part is made with tongues and received by ears?

It hath been said by some among our loremasters that, as for Men, their elders teach to their children their speech and then soon depart, so that their voices are heard no more, and the children have no reminder of the tongue of their youth, save their own cloudy memories: wherefore in each brief generation of Men change may be swift and unrestrained. But this matter seemeth to me less simple. Weak indeed may be the memories of Men, but I say to you, AElfwine, that even were your memory of your own being as clear as that of the wisest of the Eldar, still within the short span of your life your speech would change, and were you to live on with the life of the Elves it would change more, until looking back you would perceive that in your youth you spake an alien tongue.

For Men change both their old words for new, and their former manner of speaking for another manner, in their own lifetimes, and not only in the first learning of speech; and this change comes above all from the very changefulness of Ea; or if you will, from the nature of speech, which is fully living only when it is born, but when the union of the thought and the sound is fallen into old custom, and the two are no longer perceived apart, then already the word is dying and joyless,(2) the sound awaiting some new thought, and the thought eager for some new-patterned raiment of sound.

But to the changefulness of Ea, to weariness of the unchanged, to the renewing of the union: to these three, which are one, the Eldar also are subject in their degree. In this, however, they differ from Men, that they are ever more aware of the words that they speak. As a silversmith may remain more aware than others of the tools and vessels that he uses daily at his table, or a weaver of the texture of his garments. Yet this makes rather for change among the Eldar than for steadfastness; for the Eldar being skilled and eager in art will readily make things new, both for delight to look on, or to hear, or to feel, or for daily use: be it in vessels or raiment or in speech.

A man may indeed change his spoon or his cup at his will, and need ask none to advise him or to follow his choice. It is other indeed with words or the modes and devices of speech. Let him bethink him of a new word, be it to his heart howsoever fresh and fair, it will avail him little in converse, until other men are of like mind or will receive his invention. But among the Eldar there are many quick ears and subtle minds to hear and appraise such inventions, and though many be the patterns and devices so made that prove in the end only pleasing to a few, or to one alone, many others are welcomed and pass swiftly from mouth to mouth, with laughter or delight or with solemn thought - as maybe a new jest or new-found saying of wisdom will pass among men of brighter wit. For to the Eldar the making of speech is the oldest of the arts and the most beloved.

Wherefore, AElfwine, I say to you: whereas the change that goes long unperceived, as the growth of a tree, was indeed slow of old in Aman ere the Rising of the Moon, and even in Middle-earth under the Sleep of Yavanna slower far than it is now among Men, yet among the Eldar this steadfastness was offset by the changes that come of will and design: many of which indeed differ little in outward seeming from those of unwitting growth. Thus the Eldar would alter the sounds of their speech at whiles to other sounds that seemed to them more pleasant, or were at the least unstaled. But this they would not do at haphazard. For the Eldar know their tongue, not word by word only, but as a whole: they know even as they speak not only of what sounds is that word woven which they are uttering, but of what sounds and sound-patterns is their whole speech at one time composed.*(3) Therefore none among the Eldar would change the sounds of some one word alone, but would rather change some one sound throughout the structure of his speech; nor would he bring into one word only some sound or union of sounds that had not before been present, but would replace

'And these are for the most part few in number, for the Eldar being skilled in craft are not wasteful nor prodigal to small purpose, admiring in a tongue rather the skilled and harmonious use of a few well-balanced sounds than profusion ill-ordered.