B2MEM 2011 - The Silmarillion Extracts by Dwimordene

Nan Elmoth: Melkor and the Mountain

Then Eru withdrew and waited, withheld: the Flame Imperishable burned not in the Void, but within One. Bad lover, who must be won – desire distances, is war disguised.

Forth went Melkor to do better by lonely majesty.

“Love me,” he told the mountain, and spirit of fire, neither waited nor withheld. With his own flame he fired it to love him as himself.

It vomited, wept ash-tears and embers, trembled with his heat.

'Tis the image of his beauty. He will enflame Eä with his love, yet vainly: echoes are not answers, but he'll not hear the wailings...

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In that hour Finarfin forsook the march... but his sons were not with him

For they approached Finarfin at Araman; Finrod knelt, saying: “We will continue. Pray, bless us, Father!”

Then Finarfin tore his hair, for his horror would not lift his hand, but love would not withhold. Heart-rent he fell, weeping.

His younger sons embraced him finally, and departed, but Finrod waited. Groaning, his father clutched him.

“Why ask this of me?”

“For love. And for good.”

“Vanities! You heard the Doomsayer!”

Then Finrod was silent, 'til finally: “I heard an airy voice. But even Melkor was received back, so bless me, and that defy. Then, when the others repent, we will return.”

Chapter End Notes

There's always something ironic about author's notes that are longer than the drabble they annotate, but...

“In that hour Finarfin forsook the march... but his sons were not with him” - “Of the Flight of the Noldor,” Silmarillion

Context: “There they beheld suddenly a dark figure standing high upon a rock that looked down upon the shore. Some say that it was Mandos himself, and no lesser herald of Manwë. And they heard a loud voice, solemn and terrible, that bade them stand and give ear. Then all halted and stood still, and […] the voice was heard speaking the curse and prophecy which is called the Prophecy of the North [...]”

This drabble came from a very interesting conversation with a friend that went all fandomy about the tragedy of heeding strange voices that speak 'from heaven' in Hagigah, 15a: “After his apostasy, Aher asked R. Meir: What is the meaning of the verse: Gold and glass cannot equal it; neither shall the exchange thereof be vessels of fine gold?37 He answered: These are the words of the Torah, which are hard to acquire like vessels of fine gold, but are easily destroyed38 like vessels of glass. Said [Aher] to him: R. Akiba, thy master, did not explain thus, but [as follows]: Just as vessels of gold and vessels of glass, though they be broken, have a remedy,39 even so a scholar, though he has sinned, has a remedy.40 [Thereupon, R. Meir] said to him: Then, thou, too, repent! He replied: I have already heard from behind the Veil:41 Return ye backsliding children — except Aher.”

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Constancy

They were unlike the elements. Soft as beasts – softer, even, dying swiftly in his hands.

So Melkor changed them. He sang their skins hard, thickened bones, polished eyes to night-shine sharpness. He sang them lion's claws and teeth.

And he Tuned them to his own Song.

Long, painstaking labor, but they were finally – finally! – his own.

But the first cut her brother's throat in hatred of him. He nearly lost the lot.

Time bred their fierceness out somewhat, but not their fratricide – self-hatred remained. Something other sang still in them: forever inward-riven, between Elf and Orc, no peace but death...

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The Harrowing

Maglor never knew what set brother against cousin that eve. He'd returned to camp to find them nigh another Kin-slaying, 'til Finrod apologized, abandoning the hunt.

Afterward, they'd spoken little until the Bragollach, and Finrod died in the raiding years for mortal debts.

Things have worsened since – unbearably so: the Nirnaeth. Doriath. Sirion.

“We persist,” Maedhros ever says. “Oath-bound under curse, we cannot but.”

By night, however, conviction vanishes: “For nothing!” he cries upon waking. “Everything, for trickery, ai, cruelty, Cousin – !”

But nightmares pass. Strange fears fortunately pass: “To sword, brother.” Maedhros rises to their bloody task. “We're still bound.”

Chapter End Notes

“When three hundred years and more were gone since the Noldor came to Beleriand, in the days of the Long Peace, Finrod Felagund lord of Nargothrond journeyed east of Sirion and went hunting with Maglor and Maedhros, sons of Fëanor. But he wearied of the chase and passed on alone [...]” - “Of the Coming of Men into the West,” The Silmarillion

Building on In that hour Finarfin forsook the march... but his sons were not with him.

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He'd come to share, to struggle and to save. Yet giving wasn't straightforward – one had first to be given.

Pallando had not expected gifts, but Children were prodigious! He found 'his' people ardent, violent, fractiously pious, wounded, passionate – desperately desirous of courageous, all-giving love.

Unbearable, his fiery brother's vicious perversion of that desire!

Yet even Sauron had had first to be given their language: their yearning for wholeness, for god-like union with God in life's grey years.

As they gave, so did Pallando:

For frail flesh, to be living flame is to live where God dwells: patiently in each other...

Chapter End Notes

Building off of “False Fire,” where it's a question of whether the interpretation of Denethor's death through the figure of "heathen kings" doesn't do an injustice to both Denethor *and* the "heathen kings," whether one agrees with their practice or not.

Pallando is one of the Blue Wizards sent 'East'. I had him veer south eventually and settle in with the Haradrim. See "The Istari" in Unfinished Tales. I hope this is appropriate for SWG, even though it deals with a Maia in the Third Age and is prompted by an issue that comes to light in the Ring War era.

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Rozuvakol had always called her kings by their names – the Adûnaic ones. She'd never felt at home in Sindarin. Moreover her pottery sold better since they'd closed the ports to Elves.

And she'd liked the new faith – until the Temple rites. No elven lore needed to call them ungodly!

"Mulkhêr"'s appetite daily waxed, though. People – Elendili – disappeared. One day, Rozuvakol found her neighbors gone, and their girls hiding in her yard.

Poor frantic things! Incensed, she took them in, taught them some proper prayers, and to the Templers seeking urns, lied glibly: "My orphaned nieces, Yôzirânil and Anminalphel..."

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Everyone avoided the tower. It was believed to have saved more sailors than swimming. Calmindon welcomed them home: radiant, but forbidden – home to its keepers, who mustn't be troubled. 

Uruzir had joined the Guild, world-restless, but seeing Azruphel, the keeper's daughter, he was scuttled.

“Will you wait for me?” he asked.

“As every other,” she answered, placidly. But she looked him closely. Then: “Tell me a story – one to keep me through your ventures, for sailors never stay.”

So he did – two years and ten stories later, she gave him one word worth all of his: yes. 

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Beneath the bending bower eaves
Walks Lúthien among the trees –
Beech and ash, willow, yew 
Hollyhock and rowan, too – 

A year beneath her shoeless feet
A year her soles have felt the beat
of treely measures slow and solemn – 
joyful life a throbbing drum,

To which she turns and stately dances
Weaving like the windy branches – 
Lifts her voice in song so deep
it touches roots and sappy seeps.

Leaves shake, wood cracks,
branches sway – the trees sing back!
Silent stiffness falls to earth,
Oboed throats gives voice to mirth,
Knotted eyes then truly see: 
Woody life goes dancing free.

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