#silmedit

@esotolkienweek day five | ruins | eregion-that-was

The travellers reached a low ridge crowned with ancient hollytrees whose grey-green trunks seemed to have been built out of the very stone of the hills. Their dark leaves shone and their berries glowed red in the light of the rising sun. Away in the south Frodo could see the dim shapes of lofty mountains that seemed now to stand across the path that the Company was taking. At the left of this high range rose three peaks; the tallest and nearest stood up like a tooth tipped with snow; its great, bare, northern precipice was still largely in the shadow, but where the sunlight slanted upon it, it glowed red. Gandalf stood at Frodo’s side and looked out under his hand. ‘We have done well,’ he said. ‘We have reached the borders of the country that Men call Hollin; many Elves lived here in happier days, when Eregion was its name.’ [...] ‘I think we will rest here, not only today but tonight as well. There is a wholesome air about Hollin. Much evil must befall a country before it wholly forgets the Elves, if once they dwelt there.’ ‘That is true,’ said Legolas. ‘But the Elves of this land were of a race strange to us of the silvan folk, and the trees and the grass do not now remember them. Only I hear the stones lament them: deep they delved us, fair they wrought us, high they builded us; but they are gone. They are gone. They sought the Havens long ago.’

—The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, “The Ring Goes South”

@esotolkienweek day four | trammel | elmar

Now Buldar, father of Hazad, had been in the army of the North King that went to the muster of Ishmalog, and he brought back from the war as booty a wound, and a sword, and a woman. And she was fortunate; for the fate of the captives was short and cruel, but Buldar took her as his wife. For she was beautiful, and having looked on her he desired no woman of his own folk. He was a man of wealth and power in those days, and did as he would, scorning the scorn of his neighbours. But when his wife, Elmar, had learned at length enough of the speech of her new kin, she said to Buldar on a day: ‘I have much to thank thee for, lord; but think not ever to get my love so. For thou hast torn me from my own people, and from him that I loved and from the child that I bore him. For them ever shall I yearn and grieve, and give love to none else. Never again shall I be glad, while I am held captive among a strange folk that I deem base and unlovely.’

@esotolkienweek day three | skies, demand | velindo

Wéland (Smith): Eriol asks innocently is not Aulë him that we call Wéland and they (Rúmil?) laughing says no and tells of Velindo or Gwilion the fay — one of Aulë’s folk who was sent by Aulë into the world to fetch at his need some of the gold heavy red gold of the dwarves. There his pride swelled by reason of the amazement of men and dwarves at his skill; and he never returned to Aulë but set up on his own — and was once famous far and wide but with the fading of the fairies his power has waned. He was not wicked but very vain — Eriol touches on the Bodvildr legend [in which Wéland escapes the captivity of the cruel king Niðhad and elopes with his daughter by flying away on invented wings] and Rúmil says that if it is true it shows the vanity of Wéland (Niðhad must be a dwarf king).

—Parma Eldalambaron No. 15,  “Early Runic Documents”

@esotolkienweek day two | waters, music, return | langon

Beleriand drowns, Thangorodrim with it: and Langon feels the ocean overwhelm him. Once he had played his mighty bells beneath the waves for the pleasure of his first lord, in time with the tide and in tune with the whale-song; but Ulmo had better music-makers, and Langon grew bitter. He dove deeper, deeper into the darkest places of the abyss, and there he found heat amidst the biting cold: there he found Melkor. He served his new master well, blaring forth his message unto those who would dare assail Utumno; and when the Dark King returned to Middle-earth, Langon followed him to Angband, heralding all his cruel and mighty deeds. He mocked captives, belted Melkor’s praises, relished his newfound power—but he was never so great as the other Úmaiar, and deep in his heart he knew he was no happier than before. But now Melkor is defeated, and Langon has no escape. He has no voice, no bells, no music. He has only the water, dragging him back from whence he came. Lanakânnôz, sings a voice he has not heard in a long, long time, speaking a name he has not heard in even longer. Lanakânnôz, my friend. It is over. Wilt thou not return? Return? To where? To Ulmo—to insignificance? Lanakânnôz, Ulmo murmurs, and Langon is swept from the twisting bowels of Angband and into the open sea. Repent, my friend, and you may come home. Home. Friend. The words echo in his ears like the ringing of a bell, and Langon lets go: of his betrayal, of his corruption, of his pride. Yes, my lord, he sighs, and lets his friend carry him away into the next verse of his part in the Song.

@tolkiengenweek day six | environment & places | tol himling

The chief citadel of Maedhros was upon the Hill of Himring, the Ever-cold; and that was wide-shouldered, bare of trees, and flat upon its summit, surrounded by many lesser hills.

—The Silmarillion, “Of Beleriand and Its Realms”

I have shown the little island of Himling off the far north-western coast, which appears on one of my father's sketch-maps and on my own first draft. Himling was the earlier form of Himring (the great hill on which Maedhros son of Fëanor had his fortress in The Silmarillion), and though the fact is nowhere referred to it is clear that Himring's top rose above the waters that covered drowned Beleriand.

@tolkiengenweek day five | traditions | the tale of adanel

But the Elves were on their part generally ignorant of the persistent tradition among Men that Men were also by nature immortal. As is seen in the Athrabeth, Finrod is deeply moved and amazed to discover this tradition. He uncovers a concomitant tradition that the change in the condition of Men from their original design was due to a primeval disaster, about which human lore is unclear, or Andreth is at least unwilling to say much.

—Morgoth’s Ring, “Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth”

@tolkiengenweek day four | work and craft | finwe the wheelwright

Next came the Noldor, a name of wisdom, the people of Finwë. They are the Deep Elves, the friends of Aulë; and they are renowned in song, for they fought and laboured long and grievously in the northern lands of old.

—The Silmarillion, “Of the Coming of the Elves and the Captivity of Melkor”

...but the Noldor were beloved of Aulë, and he and his people came often among them. Great became their knowledge and their skill; yet even greater was their thirst for more knowledge, and in many things they soon surpassed their teachers... And it came to pass that the masons of the house of Finwë, quarrying in the hills after stone (for they delighted in the building of high towers), first discovered the earth-gems, and brought them forth in countless myriads; and they devised tools for the cutting and shaping of gems, and carved them in many forms. They hoarded them not, but gave them freely, and by their labour enriched all Valinor.

Another board for the mouths of Sirion, where the great river emptied into the sea and where, one day, the last refugees of Beleriand would shelter until the third kinslaying