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As S was first written the Trees had periods of twelve hours, as in the Lost Tales (see I. 88 and footnote), but with emendation from ‘six’ to ‘seven’ (allowing for the time of ‘mingled light’) the period becomes fourteen hours. This was a movement towards the formulation in The Silmarillion (p. 38), where each Tree ‘waxed to full and waned again to naught’ in seven hours; but in The Silmarillion ‘each day of the Valar in Aman contained twelve hours’, whereas in S each day was double that length.

The Gnomish name of Varda, Bridhil, occurs in the alliterative Flight of the Noldoli (changed to Bredhil), the Lay of Leithian, and the early Gnomish dictionary (I. 273, entry Varda). On Timbrenting, Tindbrenting see III. 127, 139; Tengwethil (varying with Taingwethil) is found in the Lay of the Children of Húrin. For Ifan Belaurin see I. 273, entry Yavanna; in the Gnomish dictionary the Gnomish form is Ifon, Ivon.

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The description in S of the ‘Outer Lands’ (now used of the Great Lands, see III. 224), where growth was checked at the downfall of the Lamps, but where there are forests of dark trees in which Oromë goes hunting at times, moves the narrative at this point in one step to its structure in The Silmarillion; of the very different account in the Lost Tales I noticed in my commentary on The Chaining of Melko (I. 111): ‘In this earliest narrative there is no mention of the beginning of growth during the time when the Lamps shone, and the first trees and low plants appeared under Yavanna’s spells in the twilight after their overthrow.’

Whereas in the Lost Tales the star-making of Varda took place after the awakening of the Elves (I. 113), here they awake ‘at the making of the stars’.

In commenting on the Lost Tales I noticed (I. 111, 131) that the Gods sought out Melko on account of his renewed cosmic violence, before the awakening of the Elves and without respect to them in any way; and that the release of Melko from Mandos took place before the coming of the Eldar to Valinor, so that he played a part in the debate concerning their summons. In S the later story (that the discovery of the Elves led directly to the assault of the Valar on the fortress of Morgoth) is already present, and moreover a motive is ascribed to the intervention of the Valar that is not found in The Silmarillion: they are ‘reminded of their duty to the Earth, since they came thither knowing that their office was to govern it for the two races of Earth who should after come each in appointed time’. It seems clear also that the old story of the coming of the Elves being known to Manwë independently of their discovery by Oromë (see I. 131) had been abandoned.