Melkor's Appearance

[Inderjit Sanghera]

.K, I’ve got a important question here. In The Silmarillion, it is said that Melkor after the slaying of the trees couldn’t or wouldn’t change his form, which was the one that he had worn as the tyrant of Utumno, dark and terrible.

Yet, in Morgoth’s ring, or more specifically in Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth, Andreth is talking about the first fall of man, in which a great being, most probably Melkor came to them in a ‘fair semblance.’

So ,what is going on? How can Melkor, who couldn’t change his terrible form again come back in a fair semblance? There are several possibilities. One that it is Sauron, not Melkor who went to woo men, yet it is written that it was Melkor himself who went to woo men, not Sauron, who commanded the War for him, for a brief time.

Or maybe, due to the inherent weakness of the fea of men, or their innocence, Melkor was able to trick them? Or is it possible that men woke before the rising of the sun? I know Tolkien one intended this to be so, or at least contemplated the notion of it happening, they awoke during the great march of the elves, but were rooted on an island and when the Sun came it dried up the water. So could the round earth theory be worked into the Revised Silmarillion, as the Athrabeth seems to be in Lindil’s list.

Though, Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth is littered with mistakes such as Andreth’s presumption that Turin will come back to slay Ancalagon and Tolkien’s BIG mistake in Finrod talking about the death of Fingolfin years before it happened, I don’t think he would make a mistake this big. Or are the folk of Hador (Who the story comes from) just trying to lessen their shame by saying that men were tricked by Melkor and initially they saw him as a evil character and chose to worship him?