V. THE AMBARKANTA. This very short work, of cardinal interest (and not least in the associated maps), is entitled at the beginning of the text 'Of the Fashion of the World', on a title-page loose from but obviously belonging with the work is written: Ambarkanta. The Shape of the World. Rumil. together with the word Ambarkanta in tengwar. This is the first appearance of Rumil since the Lost Tales; but he is not men- tioned in the text itself. That the Ambarkanta is later than the Quenta (perhaps by several years) cannot be doubted. The reappearance of the name Utumna is an advance on Q, where also the term 'Middle-earth' does not appear; Eruman is (aberrantly) the name in Q of the land where Men awoke (pp. 119, 205), whereas in the Ambarkanta its name is for the first time Hildorien; and there are several cases where the Ambarkanta has names and details that are only found in Q by emendation (for example, Elvenhome p. 289, but Bay of Faerie > Bay of Elvenhome in Q (II), p. 186 note 12). The text consists of six pages of fine manuscript in ink, with very little emendation; I give the final forms throughout, with all rejected readings in the notes that follow the text. Closely associated with the work and here reproduced from the origi- nals are three diagrams of the World, here numbered I, II, and III, and two maps, numbered IV and V (see insert). On the pages facing these reproductions I note changes made to names. The text begins with a list of cosmographical words, with explanations; this I give on pp. 294 - 6. OF THE FASHION OF THE WORLD. About all the World are the Ilurambar, or Walls of the World. They are as ice and glass and steel, being above all imagination of the Children of Earth cold, transparent, and hard. They cannot be seen, nor can they be passed, save by the Door of Night. Within these walls the Earth is globed: above, below, and upon all sides is Vaiya, the Enfolding Ocean. But this is more like to sea below the Earth and more like to air above the Earth. In Vaiya below the Earth dwells Ulmo. Above the Earth lies the Air, which is called Vista,(1) and sustains birds and clouds. Therefore it is called above Fanyamar, or Cloudhome; and below Aiwenore (2) or Bird-land. But this air lies only upon Middle-earth and the Inner Seas, and its proper bounds are the Mountains of Valinor in the West and the Walls of the Sun in the East. Therefore clouds come seldom in Valinor, and the mortal birds pass not beyond the peaks of its mountains. But in the North and South, where there is most cold and darkness and Middle-earth extends nigh to the Walls of the World, Vaiya and Vista and Ilmen' flow together and are confounded. Ilmen is that air that is clear and pure being pervaded by light though it gives no light. Ilmen lies above Vista, and is not great in depth, but is deepest in the West and East, and least in the North and South. In Valinor the air is Ilmen, but Vista flows in at times especially in Elvenhome, part of which is at the eastern feet of the Mountains; and if Valinor m darkened and this air is not cleansed by the light of the Blessed Realm, it takes the form of shadows and grey mists. But Ilmen and Vista will mingle being of like nature, but Ilmen is breathed by the Gods, and purified by the pas- sage of the luminaries; for in Ilmen Varda ordained the courses of the stars, and later of the Moon and Sun. From Vista there is no outlet nor escape save' for the ser- vants of Manwe, or for such as he gives powers like to those of his people, that can sustain themselves in Ilmen or even in the upper Vaiya, which is very thin and cold. From Vista one may descend upon the Earth. From Ilmen one may descend into Valinor. Now the land of Valinor extends almost to Vaiya, which is most narrow in the West and East of the World, but deepest in the North and South. The Western shores of Valinor are therefore not far from the Walls of the World. Yet there is a chasm which sunders Valinor from Vaiya, and it is filled with Ilmen, and by this way one may come from Ilmen above the earth to the lower regions, and to the Earthroots, and the caves and grottoes that are at the foundations of the lands and seas. There is Ulmo's abiding-place. Thence are derived the wa- ters of Middle-earth. For these waters are compounded of Ilmen and Vaiya and Ambar' (which is Earth), since Ulmo blends Ilmen and Vaiya and sends them up through the veins of the World to cleanse and refresh the seas and rivers, the lakes and the fountains of Earth. And running water thus possesses the memory of the deeps and the heights, and holds somewhat of the wisdom and music of Ulmo, and of the light of the luminaries of heaven. In the regions of Ulmo the stars are sometimes hidden, and there the Moon often wanders and is not seen from Middle-earth. But the Sun does not tarry there. She passes under the earth in haste, lest night be prolonged and evil strengthened; and she is drawn through the nether Vaiya by the servants of Ulmo, and it is warmed and filled with life. Thus days are measured by the courses of the Sun, which sails from East to West through the lower Ilmen, blotting out the stars; and she passes over the midst of Middle-earth and halts not, and she bends her course northward or south- ward, not waywardly but in due procession and season. And when she rises above the Walls of the Sun it is Dawn, and when she sinks behind the Mountains of Valinor it is evening. But days are otherwise in Valinor than in Middle-earth. For there the time of greatest light is Evening. Then the Sun comes down and rests for a while in the Blessed Land, lying upon the bosom of Vaiya. And when she sinks into Vaiya it is made hot and glows with rosecoloured fire, and this for a long while illumines that land. But as she passes toward the East the glow fades, and Valinor is robbed of light, and is lit only with stars; and the Gods mourn then most for the death of Laurelin. At dawn the dark is deep in Valinor, and the shadows of their mountains lie heavy on the mansions of the Gods. But the Moon does not tarry in Valinor, and passeth swiftly o'er it to plunge in the chasm of Ilmen,(5) for he pursues ever after the Sun, and overtakes her seldom, and then is consumed and darkened in her flame. But it happens at times that he comes above Valinor ere the Sun has left it, and then he descends and meets his beloved, and Valinor is filled with mingled light as of silver and gold; and the Gods smile remembering the mingling of Laurelin and Silpion long ago. The Land of Valinor slopes downward from the feet of the Mountains, and its western shore is at the level of the bottoms of the inner seas. And not far thence, as has been said, are the Walls of the World; and over against the west- ermmost shore in the midst of Valinor is Ando Lomen (6) the Door of Timeless Night that pierceth the Walls and opens upon the Void. For the World is set amid Kuma, the Void, the Night without form or time. But none can pass the chasm and the belt of Vaiya and come to that Door, save the great Valar only. And they made that Door when Melko was overcome and put forth into the Outer Dark; and it is guarded by Earendel. The Middle-earth lies amidst the World, and is made of land and water; and its surface is the centre of the world from the confines of the upper Vaiya to the confines of the nether. Of old its fashion was thus. It was highest in the middle, and fell away on either side into vast valleys, but rose again in the East and West and again fell away to the chasm at its edges. And the two valleys were filled with the primeval water, and the shores of these ancient seas were in the West the western highlands and the edge of the great land, and in the East the eastern highlands and the edge of the great land upon the other side. But at the North and South it did not fall away, and one could go by land from the uttermost South and the chasm of Ilmen to the utter- most North and the chasm of Ilmen. The ancient seas lay therefore in troughs, and their waters spilled not to the East or to the West; but they had no shores either at the North or at the South, and they spilled into the chasm, and their waterfalls became ice and bridges of ice because of the cold; so that the chasm of Ilmen was here closed and bridged, and the ice reached out into Vaiya, and even unto the Walls of the World. Now it is said that the Valar coming into the World de- scended first upon Middle-earth at its centre, save Melko who descended in the furthest North. But the Valar took a portion of land and made an island and hallowed it, and set it in the Western Sea and abode upon it, while they were busied in the exploration and first ordering of the World. As is told they desired to make lamps, and Melko offered to devise a new substance of great strength and beauty to be their pillars. And he set up these great pillars north and south of the Earth's middle yet nearer to it than the chasm; and the Gods placed lamps upon them and the Earth had light for a while. But the pillars were made with deceit, being wrought of ice; and they melted, and the lamps fell in ruin, and their light was spilled. But the melting of the ice made two small inland seas, north and south of the middle of the Earth, and there was a northern land and a middle land and a southern land. Then the Valar removed into the West and forsook the island; and upon the highland at the western side of the West Sea they piled great mountains, and behind them made the land of Valinor. But the mountains of Valinor curve backward, and Valinor is broadest in the middle of Earth, where the mountains march beside the sea; and at the north and south the mountains come even to the chasm. There are those two regions of the Western Land which are not of Middle-earth and are yet outside the mountains: they are dark and empty. That to the North is Eruman, and that to the South is Arvalin; and there is only a narrow strait be- tween them and the corners of the Middle-earth, but these straits are filled with ice. For their further protection the Valar thrust away Middle- earth at the centre and crowded it eastward, so that it was bended, and the great sea of the West is very wide in the middle, the widest of all waters of the Earth. The shape of the Earth in the East was much like that in the West, save for the narrowing of the Eastern Sea, and the thrusting of the land thither. And beyond the Eastern Sea lies the East- ern Land, of which we know little, and call it the Land of the Sun; and it has mountains, less great than those of Valinor, yet very great, which are the Walls of the Sun. By reason of the falling of the land these mountains cannot be descried, save by highflying birds, across the seas which di- vide them from the shores of Midd1e-earth. And the thrusting aside of the land caused also moun- tains to appear in four ranges, two in the Northland, and two in the Southland; and those in the North were the Blue Mountains in the West side, and the Red Mountains in the East side; and in the South were the Grey Mountains and the Ye11ow. But Melko fortified the North and built there the Northern Towers, which are also called the Iron Moun- tains, and they look southward. And in the middle land there were the Mountains of the Wind, for a wind blew strongly there coming from the East before the Sun; and Hildorien the land where Men first awoke lay between these mountains and the Eastern Sea. But Kuivienen where Orome found the Elves is to the North beside the waters of Helkar.(7) But the symmetry of the ancient Earth was changed and broken in the first Battle of the Gods, when Valinor went out against Utumno,(8) which was Melko's stronghold, and Melko was chained. Then the sea of Helkar (which was the northern lamp) became an inland sea or great lake, but the sea of Ringil (which was the southern lamp) became a great sea flowing north-eastward and joining by straits both the Western and Eastern Seas. And the Earth was again broken in the second battle, when Melko was again overthrown, and it has changed ever in the wearing and passing of many ages.' But the greatest. change took place, when the First Design was destroyed, and the Earth was rounded, and severed from Valinor. This befell in the days of the assault of the Numenoreans upon the land of the Gods, as is told in the Histories. And since that time the world has forgotten the things that were be- fore, and the names and the memory of the lands and wa- ters of old has perished. NOTES. 1. Vista: at all seven occurrences the original name Wilwa was changed, first in pencil then in ink, to Vista; so also on the world-diagrams I and II, and on the diagram III (the World Made Round). 2. Original reading Aiwenor; so also on diagram I. 3. Ilmen: at all the many occurrences the original name Silma was care- fully erased and changed to Ilma (the same change on the map IV); Ilma was then itself altered to Ilmen (the same succession of changes on diagrams I and II). 4. Ambar is an emendation but the underlying word is wholly erased (so also on diagram II; written in later on I). 5. In the margin is written Ilmen-assa, changed from Ilman-assa. 6. Ando Lomen is interpolated into the text, but in all probability not sig- nificantly later than the original writing of the MS. 7. The last two sentences of this paragraph (from 'And in the middle land...') were added, but to all appearance belong in time with the original writing of the MS. 8. Utumno is emended from Utumna. 9. The original MS ends here; what follows, concerning the Earth Made Round at the time of the assault of the Numenoreans, was added later (see p. 309). I give now the list of cosmological words accompanying the Ambarkanta. My father made several changes to this list, but since the alterations were mostly made over erasures and the additions belong to the same period it is impossible to know the original form of the list in all points. The changes in the list are however much the same as those made in the text of the Ambarkanta and on the world-diagrams; thus Silma > Ilma > Ilmen, Wilwa > Vista, Aiwenor > Aiwenore; ava, ambar, Endor over erasures; Avakuma, & Elenarda Stellar Kingdom additions. The translation of Ilmen as 'Place of light' is an emendation from 'sheen'. Ilu The World. World. Ilurambar The Walls of the World; ramba wall Kuma darkness, void Dark. ava outer, exterior; Avakuma Vaiya fold, envelope. In nature like to Outer Sea, or Encircling water, but less buoyant than air, and Ocean, or Enfolding Ocean surrounding The Outer Sea.* Ilmen Place of light. The region above Sky. Heaven the air, than which it is thinner and more clear. Here only the stars and Moon and Sun can fly. It is called also Tinwe-malle the Star-street, & Elenarda Stellar Kingdom. Vista air. Wherein birds may fly and Air clouds sail. Its upper region is Fanyamar or Cloudhome, and its lower Aiwenore' or Birdland. ambar Earth. ambar-endya or Middle Earth Earth of which Endor is the midmost point. (* This is very confusing, since Vaiya is apparently said to surround the Outer Sea (though in the right-hand column it is itself defined as 'Outer Sea'). But the word 'The' in 'The Outer Sea' has a capital T; and I think that my father left the preceding sentence unfinished, ending with 'surrounding', and that he added 'The Outer Sea' afterwards as a definition of Vaiya, with- out noticing that the preceding phrase was incomplete.) ear water; sea. Sea The roots of the Earth are Mar- talmar, or Talmar Ambaren. ando door, gate. lome Night. Ando Lomen the Door of Night, through which Melko was thrust after the Second War of the Gods. All that land that lies above water, between the Seas of the West and East and the Mountains of North and South is Pelmar, the Enclosed Dwelling. Commentary on the Ambarkanta. This elegant universe, while certainly in many respects an ev- olution from the old cosmology of the Lost Tales, shows also radical shifts and advances in essential structure. To begin from the Outside: beyond the Walls of the World lies 'the Void, the Night without form or time', Kuma (Ava- kuma); and this is of course an aboriginal conception, 'the outer dark', 'the limitless dark', 'the starless vast' of the tale of The Hiding of Valinor (I. 216). The Walls of the World, Ilurambar,* are the unbroken, uninterrupted shell of a vast globe; they are cold, invisible, and impassable save by Ando Lomen, the Door of Night. This Door was made by the Valar 'when Melko was overcome and put forth into the Outer Dark', and Earendel guards it. Already in S ($19) it was said that 'Morgoth is thrust through the Door of Night into the outer dark beyond the Walls of the World, and a guard set for ever on that Door', this is repeated in the corresponding pas- sage in Q, where the same expressions are used as in the Ambarkanta, 'the Door of Timeless Night', 'the Void', and where Earendel, sailing in the Void, is named as the guardian (see pp. 197, 248). It is not however said in these texts that the (*Ilu is 'the World' in diagrams I and II, and is so defined in the list of words (p. 295); for its early meaning see I. 255, entry Ilwe. - The changes to Earambar in diagrams I and II, like the pencilled note at the bottom of I, were made very much later and do not concern us here.) Door of Night was made when Melko was overcome, at the end of the Great Battle. I have remarked earlier (p. 57 - 8) on the great shift in the as- tronomical myth introduced in S by the passage of the Sun be- neath the Earth, rather than departure through the Door of Night followed by the journey through the Outer Dark and re- turn through the Gates of Morn, as described in The Hiding of Valinor; in that account the Gods made the Door of Night in order that the Sunship should not have to pass beneath the Earth. Thus the Door of Night has remained, but its purpose and the time of its making have been totally changed. The conception of a great Wall surrounding the 'World' and fencing it against an outer Emptiness and Darkness goes back to the beginning; in The Hiding of Valinor it is called 'the Wall of Things', and Ulmo instructs the Valar that 'Vai runneth from the Wall of Things unto the Wall of Things whithersoever you may fare' (I. 214). I have discussed earlier (I. 86) the possibil- ity that already in the early cosmology Vaitya (the outermost of the three 'airs') and Vai (the Outer Ocean) constituted 'a con- tinuous enfolding substance', and that the Ambarkanta 'only makes explicit what was present but unexpressed in the Lost Tales', and pointed to the difficulties in this idea. In the first draft of The Hiding of Valinor (see I. 221 note 16) the Wall of Things was evidently imagined, as I have said (I. 227), 'like the walls of terrestrial cities, or gardens - walls with a top: A "ring-fence" '; the Walls were lower in the East, so that there was no Door there corresponding to the Door of Night in the West, and the Sun rode over the Eastern Wall. In the second draft (I. 216) the idea of the Gates of Morn was introduced; but the nature and extent of the Walls was still left obscure, and indeed nothing else is said of them in the Lost Tales be- yond the statement that they are 'deep-blue' g. 215). A re- markable sentence in the original tale of The Music of the Ainur (I. 56) declares that 'the Ainur marvelled to see how the world was globed amid the void and yet separated from it'. How this is to be interpreted in the context of the Lost Tales I do not know; but the sentence was retained through all the rewritings of the Ainulindale (cf. The Silmarillion p. 17), and so became a precise description of the world of the Ambarkanta, whatever my father's original meaning may have been. In a view of the close similarity of wording between Q and the Ambarkanta on the subject of the expulsion of Melko through the Door of Night, mentioned above, it is very puz- zling that in the same passage of Q (p. 197) it is said that some think that he 'creeps back surmounting the Wal1s and visiteth the world'. The fact that this is only a surmise ('Some say...'), and that the Prophecy of Mandos which immediately follows declares that when Morgoth does return it will be through the Door of Night, hardly explains how the idea of his 'surmounting the Walls' (in inescapable contradiction to the Ambarkanta, and negating the purpose of Earendel's guard) could arise.* It is not indeed explained in the Ambarkanta how the Valar entered the world at its beginning, passing through the impass- able Walls, and perhaps we should not expect it to be. But the central idea at this time is clear: from the Beginning to the Great Battle in which Melko was overthrown, the world with all its inhabitants was inescapably bounded; but at the very end, in order to extrude Melko into the Void, the Valar were able to pierce the Walls by a Door. Wholly new is the conception of Ilmen as the pure air that is breathed in Valinor, and whose bounds are the Mountains of Valinor and the mountains called the Walls of the Sun, beyond the Eastern Sea, though 'Vista flows in at times especially in Elvenhome'. In Ilmen journey the Sun, Moon, and Stars, so that this region is called also Tinwe-malle+ and Elenarda (translated 'Star-street' and 'Stellar Kingdom' in the list of words, p. 295). This partly corresponds to the cosmology of the Lost Tales, where the Moon-ship 'saileth in the lower folds of Ilwe threading a white swathe among the stars', and the (*This conception of the Walls reappears much later, and is found in The Silmarillion (p. 36): Melkor, returning to Arda after his expulsion by Tulkas into the outer darkness, 'passed over the Walls of the Night with his host, and came to Middle-earth far in the north'. But this is an aspect of intractable problems arising in the later cosmology that cannot be entered into here. + See I. 269 (entry Tinwe Linto) and 263 (entry Olore Malle).) stars 'could not soar into the dark and tenuous realm of Vaitya that is outside all', but where the Sun 'voyageth even above Ilwe and beyond the stars' (I. 181, 193). The lowest air, Vista, in which are Fanyamar 'Cloudhome' and Ainwenore 'Bird-land', retains the characteristic nature of the earlier Vilna; cf. I. 65 'Vilna that is grey and therein may the birds fly safely'. But there is an important corollary to the frontier between Ilmen and Vista in the West: 'clouds come seldom in Valinor, and the mortal birds pass not beyond the peaks of its mountains'. An aspect of the cosmology that seems puzzling at first sight arises from the statements in the Ambarkanta (1) that 'in the North and South ... Middle-earth extends nigh to the Walls of the World' (p. 290), and (2) that Vaiya is 'most nar- row in the West and East of the World, but deepest in the North and South' (ibid.). This apparent contradiction is to be explained by the passage (p. 292) describing how the Inner Seas have no shores at North and South, hut spilling into the Chasm of Ilmen form ice bridges* that close the chasm, and the ice extends out into Vaiya and even to the Walls of the World. This ice is represented by the mountain-like peaks above the words Tormen and Harmen in diagram II. Of all this there is no trace in the Lost Tales; but it will be found that the Ambarkanta here greatly illumines the passage in The Silmarillion (p. 89) describing the Helcaraxe: For between the land of Aman that in the north curved east- ward, and the east-shores of Endor (which is Middle-earth) that bore westward, there was a narrow strait, through which the chill waters of the Encircling Sea and the waves of Belegaer flowed together, and there were vast fogs and mists of deathly cold, and the sea-streams were filled with clash- ing hills of ice and the grinding of ice deep-sunken. The passage of the Sun beneath the Earth seems to be dif- ferently conceived in the Ambarkanta from that of the Moon; (*Cf. 'Far north lies the bridge of Ice' in the N.W. corner of the Westward Extension of the first 'Silmarillion' map, p. 281; Insert p. iv.) for while both pass from East to West through I1men, the Sun 'sinks into Vaiya' and is 'drawn through the nether Vaiya by the servants of Ulmo', whereas the Moon plunges into the Chasm of Ilmen.* Turning now to the surface of the Earth, we meet for the first time the name Endor, which does not occur in the text of the Ambarkanta itself, but which is defined in the word-list as 'the midmost point' of Ambarendya or Middle-earth. Endor is marked in also on the 'World-diagrams' I and II, and also on the map IV, where it is shown as a point, the 'Earth-middle', and subsequently changed to Endon. The name Endor occurs once in The Silmarillion (in the passage just cited), but there it is a name of Middle-earth, not of the midmost point of Middle- earth; so also in The Lord of the Rings (Appendix E): Quenya Endore, Sindarin Ennor 'Middle-earth'. Ambar-endya seems to be synonymous with Pelmar, since in the word-list the former is defined as 'Middle-earth', while on map IV the region be- tween the two seas of East and West is called 'Pelmar or Middle-earth', but in diagram I they are marked as if different in reference. Possibly, Pelmar (translated in the list of words as 'the Enclosed Dwelling') means strictly the habitable surface, Ambar-endya the central raised part of Ambar, the Earth.+ (* The statement in The Silmarillion (p. 101) that Tilion (steersman of the Moon) 'would pass swiftly over the western land... and plunge in the Chasm beyond the Outer Sea' cannot in any way be brought into harmony with the Ambarkanta, where the Chasm of Ilmen is reached before Vaiya, and must be so by virtue of the fundamental ideas of the cosmology. The passage in the 'Silmarillion' version that followed Q and was inter- rupted at the end of 1937 has: 'But Tilion... passes swiftly over the western land... and plunges into the chasm between the shores of the Earth and the Outer Sea.' The passage in the published Silmarillion derives from a later version written in all probability in 1951 - 2; but though I retained it I am at loss to explain it. + For the first element in Pelmar see the Appendix to The Silmarillion, en- try pel-. Neither this name nor Ambar, Ambar-endya occur in The Silmarillion, but Ambar-metta 'world-ending' is found in The Return of the King (VI. S). - Middle-earth is first found in the Ambarkanta and in the An- nals of Valinor, which belong to the same period but cannot be dated relative to one another. - Romen 'East' appears for the first time in diagram I, and Hyarmen 'South' and Formen 'North' (< Harmen, Tormen) in diagram II.) The lines drawn downwards from the surface of the Earth to Martalmar 'the roots of the Earth' in diagrams I and II are 'the veins of the World' (p. 290); and this passage is important in understanding Ulmo's power and benign influence exerted through the waters of the world (cf. The Silmarillion pp. 27, 40, in both of which passages the expression 'the veins of the world' is used). In the East of the world are the Walls of the Sun, which is a great mountain range symmetrically answering the Moun- tains of Valinor in the West, as shown on map IV. Of this range there is no mention in the Lost Tales, where almost all that is said of the East is contained in Orome's words to the In the East beyond the tumbled lands there is a silent beach and a dark and empty sea' (I. 214); in the East also was the great mountain Kalorme (I. 212), and there Aule and Ulmo 'builded great havens [of the Sun and Moon] beside the sound- less sea' (I. 215). In the Ambarkanta the Gates of Morn, through which the Sun returns from the Outer Dark in the Lost Tales, have disappeared. In the description of evening and dawn in Valinor in the Ambarkanta there is an echo of the Lost Tales: 'Valinor is Sled with mingled light as of silver and gold; and the Gods smile remembering the mingling of Laurelin and Silpion long ago', cf. I. 216 'Then smile the Gods wistfully and say: "It is the mingling of the lights once more." ' The extremely close symmetry of the Eastern and Western lands as displayed on map IV is striking; the chief departure from symmetry being the difference in shape of the great Seas, and this was due to the eastward thrusting or 'crowding' of Middle-earth - 'so that it was bended' - at the time of the mak- ing of Valinor and the raising of its protective mountain-chain. This more than Titanic crushing of the new-made world was the origin of the great mountain ranges of Middle-earth, the Blue, the Red, the Yellow, and the Grey. Cf. The Silmarillion p. 37: And the shape of Arda and the symmetry of its waters and its lands was marred in that time, so that the first designs of the Valar were never after restored. But in The Silmarillion this loss of symmetry is not attributed to the deliberate act of the Valar themselves, who in the Ambarkanta are ready to contort the very structure of Ambar for the sake of their own security. There are some interesting points in the Ambarkanta account of the first days of the Valar in the world. Here it is said for the first time that Melko 'descended in the furthest North', whereas the Valar, coming to Middle-earth at its centre, made their island from 'a portion of land' and set it in the Western Sea. The old story of Melko's treacherous assistance of the Valar in their works by devising the pillars of the Lamps out of ice is still present, despite the wording of S, and still more of Q ($1): 'Morgoth contested with them and made war. The lamps he overthrew ...', which seems to suggest that it had been abandoned. In the tale of The Coming of the Valar the name Ringil was given (by Melko!) to the northern pillar, and Helkar to the southern (I. 69); in the Ambarkanta the names are applied to the Lamps rather than the pillars, and Ringil be- comes that of the southern, Helkar that of the northern. In the tale there is no mention of the formation of Inland Seas at the time of the fall of the Lamps; rather 'great floods of water poured from [the Lamps] into the Shadowy Seas', and 'so great was their thaw that whereas those seas were at first of no great size but clear and warm, now were they black and wide and vapours lay upon them and deep shades, for the great cold rivers that poured into them' (I. 70). Later the names of the Lamps were changed more than once, but Helcar remained the name of the Inland Sea 'where aforetime the roots of the mountain of Illuin [the northern Lamp] had been' (The Silma- rillion p. 49), and it is seen from the Ambarkanta that the idea of the sea being formed where the Lamp once stood owed its origin to the melting pillar of ice, although the actual story of Melko's devising of the pillars was abandoned when it became impossible to represent Melko as co-operative, even in seem- ing, with the Valar. There is no mention in The Silmarillion of a southern sea where the other Lamp had stood. Kuivienen is said in the Ambarkanta to be 'to the North be- side the waters of Helkar', as shown on map IV. In the Lost Tales (I. 115, 117) Koivie-neni was a lake (with 'bare margin', in a vale 'surrounded by pine-clad slopes') in Palisor, the midmost region; in The Silmarillion it is 'a bay in the Inland Sea of Helcar' (p. 49). In the same passage Orome, on that that led him to the finding of the Elves, 'turned north by the shores of Helcar and passed under the shadows of the Orocarni, the Mountains of the East', and this agrees perfectly map IV (Orocarni Red Mountains, see the Appendix to The Silmarillion entry caran). The Blue Mountains oppose them symmetrically in the West; and in the South are the Grey Mountains and the Yellow, again symmetrically opposed both to each other and to the northern ranges. The hack of the March of the Elves as marked on map IV is again in complete ment with The Silmarillion (p. 53): 'passing northwards about the Sea of Helcar they turned towards the west', but of the Misty Mountains (Hithaeglir) and the Great River (Anduin) where many Elves of the Third Host turned away South (ibid. p. 54) there is no sign. In The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings the Grey Mountains (Ered Mithrin) are a range beyond Mirkwood in the North of Middle-earth. It seems that Beleriand, to judge by the placing and size of the lettering of the name on map IV, was relatively a very snall region; and the EIves reached the Sea to the south of it, at the Falasse (later the Falas of Beleriand). But my father cir- cled 'Beleriand' in pencil and from the circle drew an arrow to the point where the track of the March reached the Sea, which probably implies that he wished to show that this was in fact within the confines of Beleriand. The name Hildorien of the land where Men awoke (implying Hildor, the Aftercomers) now first appears; for the curious use of the name Eruman for this land in Q see pp. 119 - 20, 205. Hildorien is a land lying between the Mountains of the Wind and the Eastern Sea; in The Silmarillion (p. 103) it is placed, more vaguely, 'in the eastward regions of Middle-earth'. The placing of Utumna (in the Ambarkanta emended to Utumno, note 8) on map IV is notable, as is also the occur- rence of the name itself. Whereas in the Lost Tales Melko's first fortress was Utumna, and his second Angband (see I. 198), in S and Q the original fortress is Angband, to which Melko returned after the destruction of the Trees (see p. SO), and Utumna is not mentioned in those texts. My father had now reverted to Utumna (Utumno) as the name of Melko's an- cient and original dwelling in Middle-earth (see further below, p. 307). The archipelagoes in the Western Sea have undergone the great change and simplification that distinguishes the account in The Silmarillion from that in the Lost Tales (see II. 324-5); there is no sign on the map of the Harbourless Isles or the Twi- lit Isles, and instead we have 'The Enchanted or Magic Isles' - in Q II $17 Magic Isles is emended to Enchanted Isles (note 11). The 'Shadowy Isles' lying to the northward of the Enchanted Isles on the map seem to be a new conception. The name Eldaros (not Eldamar, see I. 251) appears on map IV with the meaning 'Elvenhome'. Eldaros has occurred once previously, in one of the AElfwine' outlines (II. 301): 'Eldaros or AElfham', where the reference is unclear, but seems to be to Tol Eressea. The words 'Bay of Elfland' are written on the map but no bay is indicated. In the West the symmetrically formed lands of Eruman and Arvalin between the Mountains and the Sea now appear; for the earlier history see I. 83. Tun lies a little to the north of Taniquetil; and the position of Valmar is as it was on the little ancient map given in I. 81. In the Ambarkanta something is said of the vast further changes in the shape of the lands and seas that took place in 'the first Battle of the Gods', when Melko was taken captive, concerning which there is nothing in Q ($2) beyond a refer- ence to the 'tumult'. In The Silmarillion (p. 51) this is called 'the Battle of the Powers', and In that time the shape of Middle-earth was changed, and the. Great Sea that sundered it from Aman grew wide and deep; and it broke in upon the coasts and made a deep gulf to the southward. Many lesser bays were made between the Great Gulf and Helcaraxe far in the north, where Middie-earth and Aman came nigh together. Of these the Bay of Balar was the chief; and into it the mighty river Sirion flowed down from the new-raised highlands northwards: Dorthonion, and the mountains about Hithlum. The text of the Ambarkanta does not mention the Great Gulf or the Bay of Balar, but speaks rather of the vast extension of the sea of Ringil and its joining to the Eastern and Western Seas (it is not clear why it is said that the sea of Helkar 'be- came an inland sea or great lake', since it was so already). But on the back of the map IV is another map (V) that illustrates all the features of both accounts. This map is however a very rapid pencil sketch, and is in places difficult to interpret, from uncertainty as to the meaning of lines, more especially in the Western Lands (Outer Lands). It is very hard to say how pre- cisely this map should be interpreted in relation to map IV. For example, in map IV the Grey Mountains are very widely sep- arated from the Blue, whereas in map V there is only a narrow space at the head of the Great Gulf between them; the Inland Sea (Helkar) is further to the North; and so on. Again, many features are absent (such as the Straits of Ice), and in such cases one cannot be sure whether their absence is casual or in- tentional; though the failure to mark in Tol Eressea or the En- chanted Isles suggests the former. I am inclined to think that map V is a very rough sketch not to be interpreted too strictly. The narrow ring between the Earth and the Outer Seas clearly represents the Chasm of Ilmen. In relation to Beleriand in the North-west, and bearing in mind the whole underlying history of Eriol-AElfwine and Leithien (England), the southern part of the Hither Lands, be- low the Great Gulf, bears an obvious resemblance to the con- tinent of Africa; and in a vaguer way the Inland Sea could be interpreted as the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. But I can offer nothing on this matter that would not be the purest spec- ulation. The sea marked 'East Sea' on map V is the former sea of Ringil,- cf. the Ambarkanta: the sea of Ringil ... became a great sea flowing northeastward and joining by straits both the Western and Eastern Seas.' In the North-west the ranges of Eredlomin and Eredwethrin (not named; see pp. 233-4) enclosing Hithlum (which is named) are shown, and the western extension of Eredwethrin that was the southern fence of later Nevrast.* In the version of 'The Silmarillion' that followed Q it is said that in the War of the Gods the Iron Mountains 'were broken and distorted at their western end, and of their fragments were made Eredwethrin and Eredlomin', and that the Iron Mountains 'bent back northward', and map V, in relation to map IV, agrees well with this. The first 'Silmarillion' map (see insert), on the oth- er hand, shows the Iron Mountains curving back strongly to the North-east (it is conceivable that the hasty zigzag lines to the east of Thangorodrim were intended to rectify this). In the version of 'The Silmarillion' just referred to it is also said that 'beyond the River Gelion the land narrowed suddenly, for the Great Sea ran into a mighty gulf reaching almost to the feet of Eredlindon, and there was a strait of mountainous land between the gulf and the inland sea of Helcar, by which one might come into the vast regions of the south of Middle-earth'. Again, these features are clearly seen on map V, where the 'strait of mountainous land' is called the 'Straits of the World'. The enclosed areas to the east of Eredwethrin and south-east of Thangorodrim clearly represent the Encircling Mountains about Gondolin and the highlands of Taur-na-Fuin; we see what was later called the Gap of Maglor between those high- lands and the Blue Mountains, and the rivers Gelion (with its tributaries, the rivers of Ossiriand), Sirion, and Narog.+ With this part of map V compare the first 'Silmarillion' map and its Eastward extension. Particularly notable is the closeness of Hithlum on map V to the edge of the world (the Chasm of Ilmen). Angband is placed in very much the same position on map V as is Utumna on map IV: very near to the Chasm of Ilmen and well behind the mountain-wall, in the land that on map V (*This range is seen also on the Westward Extension of the first 'Silmarillion' map (see insert). + A11 these north-western features are drawn in ink, whereas the rest of map V is in pencil; but the mountain-ranges (though not the rivers) are inked in over pencil.) is called Daidelos (later Dor Daedeloth).* As noted above, Utumna had now been resurrected from the Lost Tales as Melko's original fortress; and it emerges clearly from later texts that the story now was that when Melko returned to Middle-earth after the destruction of the Trees he returned to the ruins of Utumna and built there his new fortress, Angband. This, I think, is why the fortress is called Angband, not Utumna, on map V. The history was therefore as follows: Lost Tales. Utumna. Melko's original fortress. Angband. His dwelling when he re- turned. S,Q. Angband. Melko's original fortress to which he returned. Ambarkanta. Utumna. Melko's original fortress. maps. Angband. His second fortress built on the site of Utumna when he returned. Much later, Utumno and Angband were both ancient fotresses of Morgoth, and Angband was that to which he returned (The Silmarillion pp. 47, 81). Thangorodrim is shown on map V as a point, set slightly out from the Iron Mountains. This represents a change in the con- ception of Thangorodrim from that on the first 'Silmarillion' map, which illustrates the words of S ($8) that Thangorodrim is 'the highest of the Iron Mountains around Morgoth's for- tress'. The marking of Thangorodrim on Ambarkanta map V Shows the later conception, seen in The Silmarillion p. 118, where it is said expressly that Melkor made a tunnel under the tnountains which issued south of them, that Thangorodrim was piled above the gate of issue, and that Angband was behind the (* Similar forms but with different application have occurred earlier: in the Epilogue to the Lost Tales the High Heath in Tol Eressea where the battle was fought is Ladwen-na-Dhaideloth, Dor-na-Dhaideloth ('Sky-roof'), II. 287; and in line 946 of the Lay of the Children of Hurin Dor-na-Fauglith was first called Daideloth ('High plain'), III. 49.) mountain-wall: thus Thangorodrim stood out somewhat from the main range. There are extremely puzzling features in the Western Land on map V. There is now a mountain chain (for so the herring- bone markings must be interpreted, since that is their meaning elsewhere on the map) extending up the western coast north- wards from Taniquetil to the Helkarakse and (as it seems) ris- ing out of the sea, as well as the old westward curve of the Mountains of Valinor (bending back to the Chasm of Ilmen) seen on map IV; thus Eruman (with the first occurrence of the name Araman pencilled above it afterwards) is not represented as a coastal wasteland between the mountains and the sea but is walled in by mountains both on the East and on the West. I do not understand this; in any case The Silmarillion has the geography shown on map IV. Equally puzzling is the representation of the lands south of Tun and Taniquetil. Here there are herring-bone lines continu- ing the main line of mountains southwards from Taniquetil, with again the old westward curve back to the Chasm; but the area symmetrically corresponding to Eruman in the North is here left unnamed, and Arvalin (emended from Eruman) is shown as a substantial land extending east even of the 'new' mountains, from the southern shore of the Bay of Faery to the extreme South of the world. The Bay of Faery, which is clearly shown on this map (in contrast to map IV), is in fact partly formed by this 'new' Arvalin. In a corner of the map is writ- ten: After the War of the Gods (Arvalin was cast up by the Great Sea at the foot of the Mts. Though the brackets are not closed after 'Mts.', I think that the first words may have been intended as a title, indicating the period represented by the map. But the following words, cou- pled with the absence of Arvalin from its expected place on the map, seem to imply that it was only now that Arvalin came into being. * * * The Old English names Ingarsecg, Utgarsecg are found in the Old English texts (pp. 253, 256). Aflon on the coast north of Tun is Alqualonde (later Sindarin alph, lond (lonn): see the Appendix to The Silmarillion, entries alqua, londe). The names Aman, Araman were added to map V many years later (as also Arda, Earambar on the diagrams). If this map shows the vastness of the cataclysm that my fa- ther conceived as having taken place at the time of the break- ing of Utumno and the chaining of Melko, at the end of the Ambarkanta he added (see note 9) a passage concerning the far greater cataclysm that took place 'in the days of the assault of the Numenoreans upon the land of the Gods'. This may have been added much later; but the passage is written carefully in ink, not scribbled in pencil, and is far more likely to be con- temporary, since the story of Numenor arose about this time. In support of this is the diagram III, 'the World after the Cata- clysm and the ruin of the Numenoreans'; for on this diagram the inner air was originally marked Wilwa and only later changed to Vista. In the Ambarkanta and the accompanying list of words, as in diagrams I and II, Vista is likewise an emenda- tion from Wilwa; it seems therefore that diagram III belongs to the same period.