"GL3" - читать интересную книгу автора (vol09)

PART THREE.

THE DROWNING
OF ANADUNE.

With the Third Version of
THE FALL OF NUMENOR,

And Lowdham's Report on
THE ADUNAIC LANGUAGE.

THE DROWNING OF ANADUNE

(i) The third version of The Fall of Numenor

Before coming to The Drowning of Anadune it is necessary to turn
first to the original narrative of the legend of Numenor, which arose in
close association with The Lost Road (see V.9). This, The Fall of
Numenor, is extant (in addition to an initial sketch) in two versions,
given in V.13 ff., which I called FN I and FN II, the second being
closely similar to the first for the greater part of its length. Some
subsequent work was done on this text during the period of the
writing of The Lord of the Rings, including a rewriting of the passage
describing 'the World Made Round' and a development of the
concluding section concerning Beleriand and the Last Alliance (see
V.31 ff.); but since the name Ondor appears in the latter passage it
can be dated before February 1942, when Ondor became Gondor
(VII.423); at that time my father was working on Book III of The Lord
of the Rings.
Now there is a further text of The Fall of Numenor in fine
manuscript, which I referred to but did not print in Vol.V; I noted
there that 'this version, improved and altered in detail, shows however
very little further advance in narrative substance,' and concluded there-
fore that it belongs to the same period as the revisions just referred to,
i.e. to a relatively early stage in the writing of The Lord of the Rings.
Since The Drowning of Anadune shows such an extraordinary depar-
ture from The Fall of Numenor I give the third version of the latter
in full here, calling it 'FN III', to make comparison of the two works
easier. I have again introduced the paragraph numbers that I inserted
in the earlier versions; and various alterations that were made to FN III
subsequently are shown as such.

The Last Tales.

1. The Fall of Numenor.

$1 In the Great Battle, when Fionwe son of Manwe over-
threw Morgoth, the three houses of the Men of Beleriand were
friends and allies of the Elves, and they wrought many deeds of
valour. But men of other kindreds turned to evil and fought for