Time to move the discussion on! Well, time to post something for the next chapter, anyway. The topic of shifting names remains a major on-display feature of Chapter III, which picks up immediately from Chapter II (CT notes there is no textual break between the two and their Links). Compared with the later, published
Silmarillion, this chapter is part "Valaquenta," part "Of the Beginning of Days," and 100% unlike both of them.
The Link:
The Link here is short and CT does not separate it, as he did the longer on in "The Music of the Ainur" from the main tale. This is again told by Rúmil, though we're back in the Hall of Fire.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Of the Coming of the Valar and the Building of Valinor
"Then [said Rúmil] with the leave of Lindo and of Vairë I will begin the tale, else will you go on asking for ever; and may the company have pardon if they hear old tales again." But Vairë said that those words concerning the oldest things were far from stale yet in the ears of the Eldar.
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I quote this because this could almost be the Downs' motto: "I will discuss the topic, else will you go on asking forever, and may the company pardon if they heard old tales again." But, said the Downers, those words concerning Tolkien things were far from stale yet.
There's a lot going on in this chapter, but the thing that stood out for me first and foremost--possibly because of the ongoing discussion in this thread--is all the information revealed about the Valar. The names and how much they've stayed the same (though there HAVE been some changes) leap immediately to mind, but there's more than that. The comparison to the Valaquenta is apt, because we have more than one "list of the Valar" here--we have about three, I'd say: an initial one, when they enter the world, an update as they go through the earliest days, and finally--and most extensively--the list of their houses.
The Maiar have yet to appear--at least named as such. There are countless spirits in the train of the Valar and there is no clear distinction between the great Valar and their followers--and in the cases of Ossë and Ónen (Uinen) and Salmar, figures who would later be Maiar are here clearly called Valar. But the big difference from the later legendarium--at least if you want my opinion--is that, in the BoLT conception, the Valar could have children. Most importantly, Oromë is the son of Yavanna and Aulë. (He clearly takes after his mother, it seems.)
On this last point, it says of Oromë and his lands in Valinor: "Much indeed he loves those realms yet is he very often in the world without; more often even than Ossë and as often as Palúrien." The special care that Oromë and Yavanna had for the Great Lands would persist into the published Silmarillion, where they seemed to be somewhat randomly chosen to have similar interests. We see here, though, why they originally had such closely related concerns: the god of hunting was the son of the goddess of nature.
And speaking of gods and goddesses, the Valar having children is but one feature demonstrating how the BoLT version of the Valar feels more like the real-world pantheons they represent. Unlike the more clinical (or is it compressed?) Valar of the later Silm, the list here trails off a bit more (what do we really know about Omar, the youngest of the Valar?), includes more rogues (Makar and Meássë), and more generations. To me, this made the entire chapter feel a lot like Hesiod's "Theogony," and I noted in the margins that the halls of Makar and Meássë seemed to remind me more of Valhalla than anything in the later Silm--though Tolkien does not glorify it at all.
We get more geography in this chapter, and although Tolkien would not create a map of the kind we fans grew familiar with from
The Hobbit, the LotR, etc, there's a clear geography here on the large scale: Valinor and the Great Lands with the Magic Isles and the Twilit Isles set between--and in the ancillary information in the commentary, CT reproduces two "maps" in a looser sense, showing his father's conceptions of the cosmological structure of the world, as it then stood. The terminology shifted a bit and elements were refined, but this is the germ of early Silmarillion-contemporary "Ambarkanta." In other words, this is already close to the cosmology of the published Silmarillion.
(But with a caveat! Tolkien did not ever manage to rework the Silm so that it was "always round Earth," but he did want to.)
Even so, the information given here is more detailed and precise than most of what comes in the published Silm, and at least when I first read it--before I encountered the Ambarkanta a few volumes later--it seemed to fill in some of the questions the later text prompted.
To give an idea of how much is covered here, in his commentary, CT breaks down the chapter into sections for discussion, and I will list them off:
I. The Coming of the Valar and their encounter with Melko
II. The earliest conception of the Western Lands, and the Oceans
III. The Lamps
IV. The Two Trees
V. The Dwellings of the Valar
VI. The Gods of Death and the Fates of Elves and Men
Some minor notes I made, more or less in the order I encountered them:
1. "[The Valar] chose certain of their number to seek out the wrongdoer, and these were Mandos and Tulkas, Mandos for that of his dread aspect was Melko more in fear than of aught else save it were the strength of Tulkas' arm, and Tulkas was the other."
Melkor's special bitterness for Tulkas would remain, but I can't remember another reference to having a concern or fear where Mandos was concerned. It's the sort of thing that would be in-character, not least given the later imprisonment he would suffer in the halls of Mandos, but I can't recall the later Melkor ever giving the Doomsman of the Valar second pause.
2. A case of inconsistent characterization? "It was the rede of Aulë and of his wife Palúrien, for they were the most grieved by the mischief of Melko's turmoils and trusted his promises not at all," it says of them on the bottom of page 68 in my text, and then halfway through page 69, it says "Aulë suaded Melko to build two towers to the North and South," setting up Melko's ice-as-"an imperishable substance of great strength" deception.
3. "Then Ossë, for Ulmo was not there, gathered to him the Oarni, and putting forth their might they dragged that island whereupon stood the Valar westward from the waters till they came to Eruman"--why would Ulmo object? I know he and Ossë never see eye-to-eye, but did I miss what the difference of philosophy was in this matter?
4. Lórien and Vána share more of the glory with Yavanna here for the creation of the Two Trees and this how things roll in the BoLT--they will also play a more prominent role in the BoLT creation of the sun and moon.
5. On page 73, Tolkien calls Palúrien "mother of magic." I wonder what Sam and Galadriel would make of this--though Lothlórien does feel like somewhere Yavanna would be held in high regard.
6. Regarding the Two Trees, one of the most intriguing differences between the BoLT and the later legendarium is the order of the Trees' creation. Later, the silver tree would come first and the moon like it; here, it was Laurelin first and also the sun. The change to the later version predates
The Lord of the Rings and thus predates the famous "consciously Catholic in the revision" moment Tolkien claimed to have had with that text; nonetheless, I note that change makes the legendarium more congruent with the Bible: "there was evening and there was morning"--in that order. I am not going to argue that there's enough evidence to say Tolkien was making the legendarium more Catholic-congruent, but it would track with the more "pagan" feel of the BoLT giving way to the more "angelic" Valar of the later legends, who are not "gods."
Finally, this chapter comes with a poem included in the commentary: "Habbanan beneath the Stars." My sole comment here is wonderment at the third line: "There is a sound of faint guitars."
The only mention of guitars in all the matter of Middle-earth? I certainly cannot think of another. Maybe it's just me, but I find it a bit jarring.