Authors: J. R. R. Tolkien

The Peoples of Middle-earth (77 page)

BOOK: The Peoples of Middle-earth

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'A pity he remembers nothing of the language.' 'He will learn.' 'Maybe, but after a long time. If he spoke it now, he could tell us much that would speed our errand and lessen our peril.'

They make Tal-Elmar at last understand their desire to know how many men dwell near; are they friendly, are they like he is?

The object of the Numenoreans is to occupy this land, and in alliance with the 'Cruels' of the North to drive out the Dark People and make a settlement to threaten the King. (Or is this while Sauron is absent in Numenor?)

The place is on estuary of Isen? or Morthond.

Tal-Elmar could count and understand high numbers, though his language was defective.

Or does he understand Numenorean? [Added subsequently: Eldarin - these were Elf-friends.] He said when he heard the men speak to one another: 'This is strange for you speak the language of my long dreams. Yet surely now I stand in my own land and do not sleep?' Then they were astonished and said:

'Why did you not speak so to us before? You spoke like the people of the Dark who are our enemies, being servants of our Enemy.' And Tal-Elmar answered: 'Because this tongue has only returned to my mind hearing you speak it; and because how should I have known that you would understand the language of my dreams? You are not like those who spoke in my dreams.

Nay, a little like; but they were brighter and more beautiful.'

Then the men were still more astonished, and said: 'It seems that you have spoken with the Eldar, whether awake or in vision.'

'Who are the Eldar?' said Tal-Elmar. 'That name I did not hear in my dream.'

'If you rome with us you may perhaps see them.'

Then suddenly fear and the memory of old tales came upon Tal-Elmar again, and he quailed.' What would you do to me?'

he cried. 'Would you lure me to the black-winged boat and give me to the Dark?'

'You or your kin at least belong already to the Dark,' they answered. 'But why do you speak so of the black sails? The black sails are to us a sign of honour, for they are the fair night before the coming of the Enemy, and upon the black are set the silver stars of Elbereth. The black sails of our captain have passed further up the water.'

Still Tal-Elmar was afraid because he was not yet able to imagine black as anything but the symbol of the night of fear.

But he looked as boldly as he could and answered: 'Not all my kind. We fear the Dark, but we do not love it nor serve it.

At least so do some of us. So does my father. And him I love. I would not be torn from him not even to see the Eldar.'

'Alas!' they said. 'Your time of dwelling in these hills is come to an end. Here the men of the West have resolved to make their homes, and the folk of the dark must depart - or be slain.'

Tal-Elmar offers himself as a hostage.

There is no more. At the foot of the page my father wrote

'Tal-Elmar' twice, and his own name twice; and also 'Tal-Elmar in Rhovannion', 'Wilderland', 'Anduin the Great River', 'Sea of Rhun', and 'Ettenmoors'.

NOTES.

1. In the rejected version of the opening section of the text the story begins: 'In the days of the Great Kings when a man could still walk dryshod from Rome to York (not that those cities were yet built or thought of) there lived in the town of his people in the hills of Agar an old man, by name Tal-argan Longbeard', and Tal-argan remained the name without correction in the rejected page. The second version retained 'the Great Kings', the change to 'the Dark Kings' being made later on.

2. This paragraph was later placed within square brackets.

3. Both versions had 'the Fourth King', changed on the second to

'the North King' at the same time as 'the Great Kings' was changed to 'the Dark Kings' (note 1).

4. In the rejected version the father of Tal-argan (Hazad) was named Tal-Bulda, and the place of the battle was the valley of Rishmalog.

5. At this point the rejected first page ends, and the text becomes primary composition. A pencilled note at the head of the replacement page proposes that Buldar father of Hazad should be cut out, and that it should be Hazad himself who wedded the foreign woman Elmar (who is unnamed in the rejected version).

6. The name typed was Dur nor-Belgoth, corrected to Gorbelgod.

7. 'the Fourth King' was not corrected here: see note 3.

8. knappers: a 'knapper' was one who broke stones or flints. This word replaced 'tinkers', here and at its occurrence a little later.

9. I have left the text here as it stands.

10. A marginal note here says that Tal-elmar had 'no weapon but a casting-stone in a pouch'.

11. The text as written had 'far inland, and all men feared', corrected to 'far inland. All men feared'. I have altered the text to provide a complete sentence, but my father (who was here writing at great speed) doubtless did not intend this, and would have rewritten the passage had he ever returned to it.

12. In the margin my father wrote that the village of Udul was dying of a pestilence, and the marauders were in fact seeking food in desperation.

13. The conclusion of the text is in places in excruciatingly difficult handwriting, and the words I have given as 'he was called' are doubtful: but I can see no other interpretation of them.

14. Against the words on p. 434 'never daring to be caught by dark outside their homes' my father wrote: 'Dark is "the time of the King".' As is seen from a passage on p. 436, the King is Sauron.

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