Morgoth's Ring Read Free Page A

main chronicle, one or two other connected 'myths': 'The Music of the Ainur', the 2
    Beginning; and the Later Tales: 'The Rings of Power', and 'The Fall of Númenor', which link up with Hobbit-lore of the later or 'Third Age'.
    Yours
    JRRT

    The end of this, from 'and the Later Tales', was struck out and marked 'not included'.
    It cannot be doubted that these were drafts for the undated letter to MORGOTH`S RING - AINULINDALË - 6

    Katherine Farrer which is printed as no.115 in The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien , for through there is not much left from these drafts in that form of it, it contains the words 'I am distressed (for myself) to be unable to find the "Rings of Power", which with the "Fall of Numenor" is the link between the Silmarillion and the Hobbit world.'
    My father said in the first of the two drafts given above that he was including in the materials to be lent to Katherine Farrer 'two others', one of which was 'a "Round World" version of the "Music of Ainur"'; and this can be taken to mean that he was giving her two versions, 'Flat World' and 'Round World'. Now there is preserved a portion of a letter to him from Katherine Farrer, and on this my father pencilled a date: 'October 1948'. She had by this time received and read what he had given to her, and in the course of her illuminating and deeply enthusiastic remarks she said: 'I like the Flat Earth versions best. The hope of Heaven is the only thing which makes modern astronomy tolerable: otherwise there must be an East and a West and Walls: aims and choices and not an endless circle of wandering.'
    It must have been when he was preparing the texts for her that he wrote the words 'Flat World Version' and 'Round World Version' on the texts B/C and C* of the Ainulindalë . Beyond this one can only go by guesswork; but my guess is that the
    'Flat World Version' was the old B manuscript before it had been covered with the revisions and new elements that constitute version C. It may be that Katherine Farrer's opinion had some influence on my father in his decision to make this new version C on the old manuscript - deriving much of it from C*, and emending C* in conformity with new readings. Thus:
    - Ainulindalë B, a manuscript of the 1930s. When lending this to Katherine Farrer in 1948 he wrote on it 'Flat World Version'.
    - A new version, lost apart from a single torn sheet, written in 1946.
    - A typescript, Ainulindalë C* , based on this text. When lending this in 1948 he wrote on it 'Round World Version'.
    - Ainulindalë C, made after the return of the texts by covering the old B
    manuscript with new writing, and removing certain radically innovative elements present in C*.
    It would in this way be entirely explicable how it came about that the typescript C* preceded the complicated and confusing revision (C) on the old manuscript - this being the precursor of the last version of the work that my father wrote, Ainulindalë 'D', made in all probability not long after C.
    Ainulindalë C* was thus an experiment, conceived and composed, as it appears, before the writing of The Return of the King , and certainly before The Lord of the Rings was finished. It was set aside; but as will appear later in this book, it was by no means entirely forgotten.
    C* should therefore in strict chronology be given first; but in view MORGOTH`S RING - AINULINDALË - 7

    of its peculiarities it cannot be made the base text. It is necessary therefore to change the chronological order, and I give first version C in full, following it with a full account of the development in the final text D, and postponing consideration of C*
    to the end of Part One.
    Before giving the text of C, however, there is another brief document that has value for dating: this is a brief, isolated list of names and their definitions 3
    headed Alterations in last revision 1951 .

    Atani N[oldorin] Edain = Western Men or Fathers of Men Pengoloð 4
    Aman name of land beyond Pelóri or mountains of Valinor, of