The Book of Lost Tales II - By J.R.R.Tolkien Page 0,1

decided that the Tale of the Sun and Moon, rather than Tinuviel, should follow The Darkening of Valinor and The Flight of the Nolduli (see I. 203 -- 4, where the complex question of the re-ordering of the Tales at this point is discussed).

The opening words of the next part of the Link, 'Now in the days soon after the telling of this tale', referred, when they were written, to the tale of The Darkening of Valinor and The Flight of the Noldoli; but it is never made plain to what tale they were to refer when Tinuviel had been removed from its earlier position. The two versions of the Link are at first very close, but when Eriol speaks of his own past history they diverge. For the earlier part I give the typescript text alone, and when they diverge I give them both in succession. All discussion of this story of Eriol's life is postponed to Chapter VI. Now in the days soon after the telling of this tale, behold, winter approached the land of Tol Eressea, for now had Eriol forgetful of his wandering mood abode some time in old Kortirion. Never in those months did he fare beyond the good tilth that lay without the grey walls of that town, but many a hall of the kindreds of the Inwir and the Teleri received him as their glad guest, and ever more skilled in the tongues of the Elves did he become, and more deep in knowledge of their customs, of their tales and songs. Then was winter come sudden upon the Lonely Isle, and the lawns and gardens drew on a sparkling mantle of white snows; their fountains were still, and all their bare trees silent, and the far sun glinted pale amid the mist or splintered upon facets of long hanging ice. Still fared Eriol not away, but watched the cold moon from the frosty skies look down upon Mar Vanwa Tyalieva, and when above the roofs the stars gleamed blue he would listen, yet no sound of the flutes of Timpinen heard he now; for the breath of summer is that sprite, and or ever autumn's secret presence fills the air he takes his grey magic boat, and the swallows draw him far away. Even so Eriol knew laughter and merriment and musics too, and song, in the dwellings of Kortirion -- even Eriol the wanderer whose heart before had known no rest. Came now a grey day, and a wan afternoon, but within was firelight and good warmth and dancing and merry children's noise, for Eriol was making a great play with the maids and boys in the Hall of Play Regained. There at length tired with their mirth they cast themselves down upon the rugs before the hearth, and a child among them, a little maid, said: 'Tell me, 0 Eriol, a tale! '

'What then shall I tell, 0 Veanne?' said he, and she, clambering upon his knee, said: 'A tale of Men and of children in the Great Lands, or of thy home -- and didst thou have a garden there such as we, where poppies grew and pansies like those that grow in my corner by the Arbour of the Thrushes?' I give now the manuscript version of the remainder of the Link passage: Then Eriol told her of his home that was in an old town of Men girt with a wall now crumbled and broken, and a river ran thereby over which a castle with a great tower hung. 'A very high tower indeed,' said he, 'and the moon climbed high or ever he thrust his face above it.' 'Was it then as high as Ingil's Tirin?' said Veanne, but Eriol said that that he could not guess, for 'twas very many years agone since he had seen that castle or its tower, for '0 Veanne,' said he, 'I lived there but a while, and not after I was grown to be a boy. My father came of a coastward folk, and the love of the sea that I had never seen was in my bones, and my father whetted my desire, for he told me tales that his father had told him before. Now my mother died in a cruel and hungry siege of that old town, and my father was slain in bitter fight about the walls, and in the end I Eriol escaped to the shoreland of the Western Sea, and mostly have lived