"GL1" - читать интересную книгу автора (vol05)

West, but came back to his starting-point. Thus new lands came
into being beneath the Old World; and the East and West were
bent back and [?water flowed all over the round] earth's surface
and there was a time of flood. But Atalante being near the rift was
utter[ly] thrown down and submerged. The remnant of [struck
out at time of writing: Numen the Lie-numen] the Numenoreans
in their ships flee East and land upon Middle-earth. [Struck out:
Morgoth induces many to believe that this is a natural cataclysm.]
The [?longing] of the Numenoreans. Their longing for life on
earth. Their ship burials, and their great tombs. Some evil and
some good. Many of the good sit upon the west shore. These also
seek out the Fading Elves. How [struck out at time of writing:
Agaldor] Amroth wrestled with Thu and drove him to the centre
of the Earth and the Iron-forest.
The old line of the lands remained as a plain of air upon which
only the Gods could walk, and the Eldar who faded as Men
usurped the sun. But many of the Numenorie could see it or
faintly see it; and tried to devise ships to sail on it. But they
achieved only ships that would sail in Wilwa or lower air. Whereas
the Plain of the Gods cut through and traversed Ilmen [in] which
even birds cannot fly, save the eagles and hawks of Manwe. But
the fleets of the Numenorie sailed round the world; and Men took
them for gods. Some were content that this should be so.

As I have said, this remarkable text documents the beginning of the
legend of Numenor, and the extension of 'The Silmarillion' into a
Second Age of the World. Here the idea of the World Made Round and
the Straight Path was first set down, and here appears the first germ of
the story of the Last Alliance, in the words 'These also seek out the
Fading Elves. How [Agaldor >] Amroth wrestled with Thu and drove
him to the centre of the Earth' (at the beginning of the text Agaldor is
named as the chief of a people living on the North-west coasts of Middle-
earth). The longevity of the Numenoreans is already present, but (even
allowing for the compression and distortion inherent in such 'outlines'
of my father's, in which he attempted to seize and dash onto paper a



bubbling up of new ideas) seems to have far less significance than it
would afterwards attain; and is ascribed, strangely, to 'the radiance of
Valinor', in which the mariners of Numenor were 'bathed' during their
visits to Tol-eressea, to which they were permitted to sail. Cf. the Quenta,
IV.98: Still therefore is the light of Valinor more great and fair than that
of other lands, because there the Sun and Moon together rest a while
before they go upon their dark journey under the world'; but this does
not seem a sufficient or satisfactory explanation of the idea (see further
p. 20). The mortuary culture of the Numenoreans does indeed appear,
but it arose among the survivors of Numenor in Middle-earth, after the
Downfall; and this remained into more developed forms of the legend, as
did the idea of the flying ships which the exiles built, seeking to sail on the