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Here Bruithwir (with the additional name Felegron > Feleor) is still the father of Fëanor as in the Lost Tales; but Fingolfin and Finweg have emerged, and speak against Fëanor (it is not clear whether Finweg here is Fingolfin’s father (Finwë) or Fingolfin’s son (later Fingon): see III. 137–8, 146). Narrative features that were never taken up in the later development of ‘The Silmarillion’ here make their only appearance. What lay behind ‘the wise words of Ethlon (Dimlint)’ and ‘the threats of Fëanor to march to Cú nan Eilch’ has now vanished without trace. The name Fangros appears once elsewhere, in the alliterative Children of Húrin, III. 31 line 631 (earlier Fangair), where there is a reference to a song, or songs, being sung

of the fight at Fangros, and Fëanor’s sons’

oath unbreakable

(the fight and the oath need not be in any way connected). But whatever happened at Fangros is lost beyond recall; and nowhere later is there any suggestion that the burning of the ships arose from repentance. In the Lost Tales (I. 168) the Gnomes ‘abandoned their stolen ships’ when they made the passage of the Ice; Sorontur reported to Manwë (I. 177) that he had seen ‘a fleet of white ships that drifted empty in the gales, and some were burning with bright fires’; and Manwë ‘knew thereby that the Noldoli were gone for ever and their ships burned or abandoned’.

Lastly, Gilfanon appears as an Elf of Alqualondë, one of those hurled by the Gnomes into the sea, though it is not said that he was drowned. Gilfanon of Tavrobel was a Gnome (I. 174–5); and it seems virtually certain that the two Gilfanons were not the same. In that case it is most probable that the Elf of Tavrobel had ceased to be so named; though he had not, as I think, ceased to exist (see p. 274).

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(The ‘Sketch of the Mythology’)

I have earlier (III. 3) given an account of this text, but I repeat the essentials of it here. On the envelope containing the manuscript my father wrote at some later time:

Original ‘Silmarillion’. Form orig[inally] composed c. 1926–30 for R. W. Reynolds to explain background of ‘alliterative version’ of Túrin & the Dragon: then in progress (unfinished) (begun c. 1918).