<<Previous Page | Next Page>>
2.06.18
It was to these clans come as men, Finwe’s people, Finadrin; and others as stated, remained near to Valinor and Eressëa, upon Westernessë reborn, adding there all the light gained and preserved upon Taniquetil, or before her plains far out-rolling west to the coastal waters – when later Finwë himself was brought, in person child called Dyacôm; but of this matter, already we and others have told a little, much remains—as we might say of entire peoples who are not now known; and here too we locate Bilha and Zilpah, clans inestimable in good works, righteous wheresoever roaming or settled, and though small in number, great were the consequences of their little labors, easy though seeming, long in the undertaking, one generation following upon another;
Until come to the gates of their narrow valley, tall men sea-carried, of Westernesse’s glory, and not as teachers, nor layers down of lore only, nor to labor alongside in field’s furrows, or to birth their man-children; as rulers, keepers of fiefs far-flung, and by worse men administered;
So they were scattered – as their own histories give in greater detail – and many enslaved, and others fled, escaping when opportune, or fighting at cost of many lives, to flee wheresoever their feet carried, nameless, abashed, forgetful in misery, where memory stirs a bitter cup for drinking, and not one to hope for restoration; Some became fishers of little waterways, of this people, in later years, came Miriam, whose tale in part you already know; others were put into mines delved deep, in search of ore and wealth unalloyed, some to forge weapons with, others armor in defense of blows rung out by lesser armed men; and here dying, were lain out to dry, corpses strung along the miner’s way, before their eyes their own fathers and brothers, mothers and children, crying for vengeance, but none hearing; blood they drank, in misery affordance to bring maybe to terror other people also there brought to labor, for none might fear a peaceful clan, resonant in Elvish lore, and doers of good, when any doing be done.
And in the mines miserable, they taught some few others, how to sing, and to strike in time with the songs; and in hidden tongues did they converse, keeping about them all the strange array of foolish, brute artifacts, of a benighted people; so that none would accuse them, nor come upon them unawares, to make them violate an oath of peace; left in blessing upon them by Ki-Abroam – now in a great many years gone from their eldest men’s recall – these blessed people in the heats underneath foul keepers seated on blood crusted chairs, and holders of chains, breeders of men-cattle, and armies of flies to send in bearing plague, and also thereafter to reign [rain] in sport, death upon survivors, as if cleansing; there also to some brought they in mockery of Iluvatar (unnamed, ever), false gifts, poisons to take as medicine, emoluments that unfolded deceit and downfall; under such as ruled above, lived these kept people, yet in blessing, where brought in song was hope of Eru; and not for them only, but to their keeper’s restoration to his good, and a leaving away of the ill done without provocation; none may imagine their lives in darkness, some to be born and labor to die, seldom seeing the daylight, and yet more often let out to walk under starlight – ever in chains, and seldom to men of their known tongue; they received neither more nor less than any other found and brought to Utumno’s Hells, and were not especial targets of any master granted power in his evil name;
Yet into the caves, and these mines carried they, memory of stars aglimmer, and there while in practice of scraping, driving stakes, and exploring veins of silver or lesser ores, they carved in solid rock, memories of starlight’s arrangement, before Varda outlayed, in blessing to her children all, and inevitably saying: Melko’s outcast would draw also out, his suitors, and unwise supplicants; So they carved tales in rock; black, silver, red encrusted in blood run a thousand years, there, and sweat of men innumerable; and small chambers built they, to carry sound in song’s chimes, so that one may call forth music of a hammer’s strike, and there was its hitting of stone turned to swirl as blown through pipes extraordinary; so pleasing was the striking work, hammer and ax swinging, that often men otherwise content only in evil’s contemplation, would halt their whip, to hear the crack’s running, and enlargement, into chambers as a pipe organ may blow simultaneous, notes to spread out before a choir arranged; and cries too, these pipes turned to music, though not pleasing to hear; cries of pleading, for peace, release, redemption, to escape and flee forever these chambers, and to take by leading out, all who would not strike another, or put them into bonds;
Here they hammered out many days and years, also, until sent forth of Gorgoroth were spikes black, and fumes to bear them hence, in Gothmog’s vengeance, long sought, and silently abiding; When those seven sisters of Asenath’s house were by these chains ensnared, and all the lands lying about, brought under fume poison, to grey all that liked green, or stayed so, in times of winter; so also were these souls, carried upon a cold wind therefrom, raised in sparkled dappled snow upward running, and thence out, escaped; and more so in number were the living restrained there, and they also elsewhere in those tunnels – where was housed and not happily, shades miserable, some who sought to dangle themselves over the jaws of death-monster, in mockery of fay unwisdom; and yet many alive in bodies were led therefrom, gathered as a host in song rejoicing, for in tormented fear, their keepers, jailers, and foremasters, fled likewise those halls Utumno; and they were led forth from that region where few had ever walked under daylight – by a wandering elf, seeming caught in his own net of grief, content to come wheresoever that sorrow misled him;
Southward, and east he brought them, away from his ancestral palace where once upon an age in Doriath, he saw his lord severed head of hroa, and mocked in display; and later, that lord’s heir, come also to ruin, to the utter ruin of that place, thereafter a haunt of ghosts, spider demon-hame, and above all, riding in the air above webs to catch her, Thuringwethil vampire bitch, terror to lands many leagues surrounding, and for long years fattened on the roasts of elf-kind, offered by men fallen into the worship of evil lords;
So turning down the flame of grief, and its burning wrath, and desire to draw forth words of living ones, all – tree, plant, stone, fish, fowl – he dressed the hroa in contemplation of woes, and not his alone; but to succor the miseries come upon men, and Elda, and thereafter to guide them to similar deeds, passing on to new lands, far he wandered that Second Age, trackless, without friend or home, seeking only to remain, though in that day he came into the Valley of Death – as it was known – westward pointed his face; for longing no longer neglect-able, rose upon him in those years no longer restrained, or turned out by plans long in the contriving, and out-working; No longer resistant, his feet plowed furrows – as it were – in a line west-taken, heading if he continued, straight on that course to Valinor, where never he came, save in majestic imagining, by song carried thither; or in the swoop of Manwe’s eagles, riding as it were with them, to sit before him, and rest; who this Elda and where he after took his ways, having seen these refugees safely housed, shall not be told entirely; for time is now short, and come we must to the matter of this brief tale’s concluding;
How Ifariel was roused to leave her stream bank,
And to take in rescue, some few faithful
To lore of Valinor, by Zhera’ espoused
<<Previous Page | Next Page>>