Unfinished Tales

UNFINISHED TALES

of Númenor and Middle-earth

BY

J.R.R. TOLKIEN

Edited by Christopher Tolkien

Copyright

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

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London SE1 9GF

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This edition 1998

First published in Great Britain by George Allen & Unwin 1980

Copyright © The J.R.R.Tolkien Copyright Trust and C.R.Tolkien 1980

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Source ISBN: 9780261103627

Ebook Edition © MARCH 2009 ISBN: 9780007322572 Version: 2017-10-26

Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth is a collection of narratives ranging in time from the Elder Days of Middle-earth to the end of the War of the Ring, and comprising such various elements as Gandalf’s lively account of how it was that he came to send the Dwarves to the celebrated party at Bag-End, the emergence of the sea-god Ulmo before the eyes of Tuor on the coast of Beleriand, and an exact description of the military organisation of the Riders of Rohan. The book contains the only story that survived from the long ages of Númenor before its downfall, and all that is known of such matters as the Five Wizards, the Palantíri, or the legend of Amroth.

Writing of the Appendices to The Lord of the Rings J. R. R. Tolkien said in 1955: ‘Those who enjoy the book as a “heroic romance” only, and find “unexplained vistas” part of the literary effect, will neglect the Appendices, very properly.’ Unfinished Tales is avowedly for those who, on the contrary, have not yet sufficiently explored Middle-earth, its languages, its legends, its politics, and its kings.

Christopher Tolkien has edited and introduces this collection. He has also redrawn the map for The Lord of the Rings to a larger scale and reproduced the only map of Númenor that J. R. R. Tolkien ever made.

Contents

COVER PAGE

TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT PAGE

NOTE

INTRODUCTION

PART ONE: THE FIRST AGE

I: OF TUOR AND HIS COMING TO GONDOLIN

II: NARN I HÎN HÚRIN

PART TWO: THE SECOND AGE

I: A DESCRIPTION OF THE ISLAND OF NÚMENOR

II: ALDARION AND ERENDIS

III: THE LINE OF ELROS: KINGS OF NÚMENOR

IV: THE HISTORY OF GALADRIEL AND CELEBORN

PART THREE: THE THIRD AGE

I: THE DISASTER OF THE GLADDEN FIELDS

II: CIRION AND EORL AND THE FRIENDSHIP OF GONDOR AND ROHAN

III: THE QUEST OF EREBOR

IV: THE HUNT FOR THE RING

V: THE BATTLES OF THE FORDS OF ISEN

PART FOUR

I: THE DRÚEDAIN

II: THE ISTARI

III: THE PALANTÍRI

KEEP READING

INDEX

WORKS BY J. R. R. TOLKIEN

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

It has been necessary to distinguish author and editor in different ways in different parts of this book, since the incidence of commentary is very various. The author appears in larger type in the primary texts throughout; if the editor intrudes into one of these texts he is in smaller type indented from the margin (e.g. p. 380). In The History of Galadriel and Celeborn, however, where the editorial text is predominant, the reverse indentation is employed. In the Appendices (and also in The Further Course of the Narrative of ‘Aldarion and Erendis’, pp. 264 ff.) both author and editor are in the smaller type, with citations from the author indented (e.g. p. 198).

Notes to texts in the Appendices are given as footnotes rather than as numbered references; and the author’s own annotation of a text at a particular point is indicated throughout by the words ‘[Author’s note]’.

The problems that confront one given responsibility for the writings of a dead author are hard to resolve. Some persons in this position may elect to make no material whatsoever available for publication, save perhaps for work that was in a virtually finished state at the time of the author’s death. In the case of the unpublished writings of J. R. R. Tolkien this might seem at first sight the proper course; since he himself, peculiarly critical and exacting of his own work, would not have dreamt of allowing even the more completed narratives in this book to appear without much further refinement.

On the other hand, the nature and scope of his invention seems to me to place even his abandoned stories in a peculiar position. That The Silmarillion should remain unknown was for me out of the question, despite its disordered state, and despite my father’s known if very largely unfulfilled intentions for its transformation; and in that case I presumed, after long hesitation, to present the work not in the form of an historical study, a complex of divergent texts interlinked by commentary, but as a completed and cohesive entity. The narratives in this book are indeed on an altogether different footing: taken together they constitute no whole, and the book is no more than a collection of writings, disparate in form, intent, finish, and date of composition (and in my own treatment of them), concerned with Númenor and Middle-earth. But the argument for their publication is not different in its nature, though it is of lesser force, from that which I held to justify the publication of