The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Volume 2: Reader’s Guide PART 1. Christina Scull

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The ‘Alphabet of Dairon’. Brief text on the runes devised by the Danian Elves of Beleriand, published in *The Treason of Isengard (1989), pp. 454–5. Their most elaborated form was the ‘Runes of Moria’, ‘long in use among the Dwarves, and most of the inscriptions employing it survived in the halls and chambers of Moria’ (p. 455).

      *Christopher Tolkien dates the writing of this text to c. 1937, but notes that his father made additions substantially later. See also *Writing systems.

      Alphabets see Writing systems

Aman. Originally the beginning of the introductory text to *Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth (c. 1959), Aman was removed from that work to stand alone. Only one manuscript is extant, written with little hesitation or correction. *Christopher Tolkien published it, with notes and commentary, as text XI in the section ‘Myths Transformed’ in *Morgoth’s Ring (1993), pp. 424–31.

      SYNOPSIS

      In this the Valian Year is redefined, in accordance with cosmogonic changes Tolkien contemplated making to the *‘Silmarillion’ in later life: it is no longer based on the waxing and waning of the Two Trees, but on the Valar’s perception of the slow ageing of Arda. Elves are said to be able to live in Aman, the Blessed Realm of Tolkien’s mythology, because their speed of growth was in accord with the slow rate with which other living things aged in Aman. ‘For in Aman the world appeared to them as it does to Men on Earth, but without the shadow of death soon to come. Whereas on Earth to them all things in comparison with themselves were fleeting, swift to change and die or pass away, in Aman they endured and did not so soon cheat love with their mortality’ (Morgoth’s Ring, p. 426). In Middle-earth the Elves’ hröar (bodies, singular hröa) weakened or faded, even if very slowly, until only their longeval fëar (spirit, singular fëa) remained, whereas in Aman these aged at the same rate, and ‘the Eldar that remained in the Blessed Realm endured in full maturity, and in undimmed power of body and spirit conjoined for ages beyond our mortal comprehension’ (p. 427).

      Tolkien also considered, under the (later) subheading ‘Aman and Mortal Men’, what would have happened to a Man if he had been allowed to live in Aman. The Valar could not alter his nature; he would remain mortal. Even in a life of a hundred years, little would seem to change or age in the land about him. His mortality would thus seem an even greater burden: ‘he would become filled with envy, deeming himself a victim of injustice. … He would not value what he had, but feeling that he was among the least and most despised of all creatures, he would grow soon to contemn his manhood, and hate those more richly endowed. He would not escape the fear and sorrow of his swift mortality that is his lot upon Earth … but would be burdened by it unbearably to the loss of all delight’ (p. 428).

      Possibly the hröa of a man living in Aman might not wither and age, but the nature and doom of his fëa could not be changed and it must soon depart. ‘The hröa being in full vigour and joy of life would cling to the fëa, lest its departure should bring death; and against death it would revolt. … But the fëa would be as it were in prison, becoming ever more weary of all the delights of the hröa, until they were loathsome to it, longing ever more and more to be gone. The Man would not be blessed, but accursed’ (p. 429).

Ambarkanta: The Shape of the World. List of cosmographical words with explanations, and a description of the world of Tolkien’s mythology (*‘The Silmarillion’) as it stood at the time of writing, published with commentary, notes, three diagrams, and two maps in *The Shaping of Middle-earth (1986), pp. 235–61.

      SYNOPSIS

      The Earth is said to be globed within the Ilurambar, the transparent Walls of the World, impassable except by the Door of Night. On all sides of the Earth is Vaiya, the Enfolding Ocean – the seas and air – of which the Air is of two kinds, Vista which ‘sustains birds and clouds’ and Ilmen ‘breathed by the Gods, and purified by the passage of the luminaries; for in Ilmen [the Vala] Varda ordained the courses of the stars, and later of the Moon and Sun’ (The Shaping of Middle-earth, p. 236). Vaiya, Vista, and Ilmen are further defined in relation to Valinor and Middle-earth, and to the movements of the Sun and Moon. The creation of Valinor and the shaping of Middle-earth by the Valar are recounted; ‘but the symmetry of the ancient Earth was changed and broken in the first Battle of the Gods … and the Earth was again broken in the second battle … and it has changed ever in the wearing and passing of many ages’ (pp. 239–40).

      HISTORY

      When editing the Ambarkanta for The Shaping of Middle-earth *Christopher Tolkien believed that it belonged with his father’s writings of the early 1930s. Later, however, he realized that it dated instead from the mid-1930s, following the ‘later Annals’ but preceding *The Fall of Númenor; see *The Lost Road and Other Writings, pp. 9, 108.

      At the beginning of the six manuscript pages of the text is an alternate title, Of the Fashion of the World; the title Ambarkanta (Qenya ambar ‘Earth’ + kanta ‘shape’) and a subtitle, The Shape of the World, are given on a separate but related title-leaf. Two of the three diagrams accompanying the text are labelled ‘The World from Númen (West) to Rómen (East)’ and ‘The World from Formen (North) to Harmen (South)’. The third, ‘The World after the Cataclysm and the ruin of the Númenóreans’, is related to three sentences added by Tolkien to the original text of the Ambarkanta, which ended with the final words quoted above: these refer to the re-shaping of the world that occurred at the end of the Second Age, when the Númenóreans sailed West against the ban of the Valar: ‘But the greatest change took place, when the First Design was destroyed, and the Earth was rounded, and severed from Valinor’ (p. 240). Christopher Tolkien feels that this addition could date from ‘much later; but … is far more likely to be contemporary, since the story of Númenor arose about this time’ (The Shaping of Middle-earth, p. 261). The third diagram, twice marked with ‘the Straight Path’ (by which the Elves may seek Valinor, while mortals may follow only the curvature of the earth), seems to belong to the same period; a precursor, ‘a very rough and hasty sketch, which shows a central globe … with two circles around it’ in which ‘a straight line’ extends ‘to the outer circle in both directions’, is described in The Lost Road and Other Writings, p. 11.

      The two related maps are inscribed ‘The World about V[alian] Y[ear] 500 after the fall of the Lamps … and the first fortification of the North by Melko’ and ‘After the War of the Gods (Arvalin was cast up by the Great Sea at the foot of the Mts.’ (sic, lacking a closing parenthesis).

‘The Ambidexters Sentence’. Text, edited with notes and analysis by Patrick H. Wynne, published as section IV of ‘Eldarin Hands, Fingers & Numerals and Related Writings, Part Three’ in Vinyar Tengwar 49 (June 2007), pp. 3–37.

      The work consists of two untitled pages, one in manuscript, dated later than 12 January 1968, and one typewritten, ‘bearing several successive versions of a sentence in Quenya [*Languages, Invented] (with English translation) concerning Elvish ambidexterity and the significance of the left hand’ (p. 3). The text is closely related to a section of *Eldarin Hands, Fingers & Numerals. Here the text proper is followed by an appendix, ‘Late Writings on √nā ‘to be”.

       Amroth and Nimrodel

       see Part of the Legend of Amroth and Nimrodel Recounted in Brief

       ‘Analysis of Fragments of Other Languages Found in The Lord of the Rings’

      see The Lord of the Rings; Words, Phrases, and Passages СКАЧАТЬ