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Old 03-03-2007, 12:30 PM   #1
Aiwendil
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Join Date: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,224
Aiwendil is a guest at the Prancing Pony.Aiwendil is a guest at the Prancing Pony.
Sting Silmarillion - Chapter 09 - Of the Flight of the Noldor

This is something of a grim chapter. It is the first (but certainly not last) place in the Silmarillion where we have the ‘good guys’ committing grave misdeeds.

Many events are told in rapid succession here. We have Feanor’s decision not to yield the Silmarils, the death of Finwe and the theft of the jewels, the quarrel of Melkor and Ungoliant, Feanor’s speech in Tirion, the Kin-slaying at Alqualonde, the burning of the ships at Losgar, and finally the crossing of the Helcaraxe by Fingolfin’s host. This has always struck me as a tale that could have borne a longer treatment, like that given to some of the later tales. In fact, Tolkien did at one point begin to write an alliterative “Flight of the Noldor”, but abandoned it after 146 lines.

The tale of the Flight of the Noldor is in a sense a story of a Fall, like, for example, the story of Adam and Eve. But it is more complex than a simple story of temptation and sin. What is interesting here is that the Noldor are reacting against Melkor. They have not been seduced by evil so much as they have been incited by evil. What do you think it says about the nature of good and evil in Tolkien’s world that such atrocities as the Kin-slaying are committed by people working against the ‘devil’ figure rather than with him?

Like previous chapters, this one began as a short section in the ‘Sketch of the Mythology’ summarizing the earlier ‘Lost Tales’ version of the story and was expanded in the subsequent ‘Quenta Noldorinwa’ and ‘Quenta Silmarillion’ stages. Again, the final post-LotR version combined elements from the ‘Quenta Silmarillion’ and ‘Annals of Aman’ texts. Tolkien’s latest revision of the ‘Quenta Silmarillion’ extended only part of the way through this chapter (up to the Thieves’ Quarrel). Perhaps because he feared a stylistic clash when the revised section ended, Christopher Tolkien eliminated many of the ‘fuller’ touches his father added in this last revision. To give one example, while the report of Maedhros concerning the death of Finwe and theft of the Silmarils is paraphrased in the published version, in the latest QS text it is given as a direct quote.

In his late writings, Tolkien often touched upon the events of this chapter, often putting events in a new light and sometimes indicating proposed changes to the narrative. A notable example is the story of the death of Feanor’s youngest son told in notes associated with ‘The Shibboleth of Feanor’.

Additional Readings
Unfinished Tales – ‘The History of Galadriel and Celeborn’ offers several different views of Galadriel’s role in the Flight of the Noldor.
HoMe I – Earliest version
HoMe III – The abandoned alliterative ‘Flight of the Noldor’
HoMe IV, V – Pre-LotR versions
HoMe X – Post-LotR revisions.
HoMe XII – ‘The Shibboleth of Feanor’ discusses the events of this chapter extensively.
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