The Fall of Gondolin. Alan Lee
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the sight and the smell of the Spring in Nan-tasarion!
It was very long indeed before Treebeard sang to the hobbits in Fangorn that Ulmo Lord of Waters came to Middle-earth to speak to Tuor in Tasarinan, the Land of Willows. Or again, at the end of the story we read of Elrond and Elros, sons of Eärendel, in a later age the master of Rivendell and the first king of Númenor: here they are very young, taken into protection by a son of Fëanor.
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But here I will introduce, as an emblem of the Ages, the figure of Círdan, the Shipwright. He was the bearer of Narya, the Ring of Fire, one of the Three Rings of the Elves, until he surrendered it to Gandalf; of him it was said that ‘he saw further and deeper than any other in Middle-earth’. In the First Age he was the lord of the havens of Brithombar and Eglarest on the coasts of Beleriand, and when they were destroyed by Morgoth after the Battle of Unnumbered Tears he escaped with a remnant of his people to the Isle of Balar. There and at the mouths of Sirion he turned again to the building of ships, and at the request of King Turgon of Gondolin he built seven. These ships sailed into the West, but no message from any one of them ever came back until the last. In that ship was Voronwë, sent out from Gondolin, who survived shipwreck and became the guide and companion of Tuor on their great journey to the Hidden City.
To Gandalf Círdan declared long after, when he gave him the Ring of Fire: ‘But as for me, my heart is with the Sea, and I will dwell by the grey shores, guarding the Havens until the last ship sails.’ So Círdan appears for the last time on the last day of the Third Age. When Elrond and Galadriel, with Bilbo and Frodo, rode up to the gates of the Grey Havens, where Gandalf was awaiting them,
Círdan the Shipwright came forth to greet them. Very tall he was, and his beard was long, and he was grey and old, save that his eyes were keen as stars; and he looked at them and bowed, and said: ‘All is now ready.’ Then Círdan led them to the Havens, and there was a white ship lying …
After farewells were spoken those who were departing went aboard:
and the sails were drawn up, and the wind blew, and slowly the ship slipped away down the long grey firth; and the light of the glass of Galadriel that Frodo bore glimmered and was lost. And the ship went out into the High Sea and passed on into the West …
thus following the path of Tuor and Idril as the end of the First Age approached, who ‘set sail into the sunset and the West, and came no more into any tale or song.’
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The tale of The Fall of Gondolin gathers as it proceeds many glancing references to other stories, other places, and other times: to events in the past that govern actions and presumptions in the present time of the tale. The impulse, in such cases, to offer explanation, or at least some enlightenment, is strong; but keeping in mind the purpose of the book I have not peppered the texts with small superimposed numbers leading to notes. What I have aimed at is to provide some assistance of this nature in forms that can be readily neglected if desired.
In the first place, I have in the ‘Prologue’ introduced a citation from my father’s Sketch of the Mythology of 1926, in order to provide a picture, in his words, of the World from its beginning to the events leading finally to the foundation of Gondolin. Further, I have used the List of Names in many cases for statements a good deal fuller than the name implies; and I have also introduced, after the List of Names, a number of separate notes on very varied topics, ranging from the creation of the World to the significance of the name Eärendel and the Prophecy of Mandos.
Very intractable of course is the treatment of the changing of names, or of the forms of names. This is the more complex since a particular form is by no means necessarily an indication of the relative date of the composition in which it occurs. My father would make the same change in a text at quite different times, when he noticed the need for it. I have not aimed at consistency throughout the book: that is to say, neither settling for one form throughout, nor in every case following that in the manuscript, but allowing such variation as seems best. Thus I retain Ylmir when it occurs for Ulmo, since it is a regular occurrence of a linguistic nature, but give always Thorondor for Thorndor, ‘King of Eagles’, since my father was clearly intending to change it throughout.
Lastly, I have arranged the content of the book in a manner distinct from that in Beren and Lúthien. The texts of the Tale appear first, in succession and with little or no commentary. An account of the evolution of the story then follows, with a discussion of my father’s profoundly saddening abandonment of the last version of the Tale at the moment when Tuor passed through the Last Gate of Gondolin.
I will end by repeating what I wrote nearly forty years ago.
It is the remarkable fact that the only full account that my father ever wrote of the story of Tuor’s sojourn in Gondolin, his union with Idril Celebrindal, the birth of Eärendel, the treachery of Maeglin, the sack of the city, and the escape of the fugitives – a story that was a central element in his imagination of the First Age – was the narrative composed in his youth.
Gondolin and Nargothrond were each made once, and not remade. They remained powerful sources and images – the more powerful, perhaps, because never remade, and never remade, perhaps, because so powerful.
Though he set out to remake Gondolin he never reached the city again: after climbing the endless slope of the Orfalch Echor and passing through the long line of heraldic gates he paused with Tuor at the vision of Gondolin amid the plain, and never recrossed Tumladen.
The publication ‘in its own history’ of the third and last of the Great Tales is the occasion for me to write a few words in honour of the work of Alan Lee, who has illustrated each Tale in turn. He has brought to this task a deep perception of the inner nature of scene and event that he has chosen from the great range of the Elder Days.
Thus, he has seen, and shown, in The Children of Húrin, the captive Húrin, chained to a stone chair on Thangorodrim, listening to Morgoth’s terrible curse. He has seen, and shown, in Beren and Lúthien, the last of Fëanor’s sons seated motionless on their horses and gazing at the new star in the western sky, which is the Silmaril, for which so many lives had been taken. And in The Fall of Gondolin he has stood beside Tuor and with him marvelled at the sight of the Hidden City, for which he has journeyed so far.
Finally, I am very grateful to Chris Smith of HarperCollins for the exceptional help that he has given to me in the preparation of the detail of the book, especially in his assiduous accuracy, drawing on his knowledge both of the demands of publication and the nature of the book. To my wife Baillie also: without her unwavering support during the long time the book has been in the making it would never have been made. I would also thank all those who generously wrote to me when it appeared that Beren and Lúthien was to be my last book.
Tuor strikes a note on his harp
Tuor descends into the hidden river