Glǽmscrafu - Seo Niþerhrorene

⁊     :	7 Saweron cóm to hýþe.	And Sauron came to the haven.
    :	Gedruron Fréafíras under sceadu.	The Lords of Men fell under the shadow.
     :	Tarkalion wíg gebéad þam Héamægnum.	Tar-Kalion made war upon the High Powers.
    	Þa tocléaf Westfréa þas woruld	Then the Lords of the West rent the Earth
    :	be þæs Ælmihtigan léafe.	with leave of Ilúvatar.
⁊        	7 fléowon þa sǽ inn on þæt micle gin	And the seas flowed into the great chasm
⁊    :	7 wearþ Nówendaland ahwylfed.	and the Land of Mariners was overwhelmed.

     ⸱	Géo læg riht weg westanweard,	Of old a straight way lay westward,
     :	nú sind alle wegas [?forcrymbed].	now all ways are crooked.
  :	Fréafíras éastweard.	The Lords of Men are eastward.
     :	Déaþscúa ús líþ hefig on.	The shadow of death lies heavy on us.
      :	Nú swíþe feor is seo Niþerhrorene.	Very far away now is the Downfallen.

Commentary

These sentences in Old English paraphrase the Qenya fragments dreamt by Alboin Errol in The Lost Road, but were published only later in Sauron Defeated p. 317. A recast version of these fragments in Qenya and Adûnaic are to be found there too, included in Tolkien’s unfinished novel The Notion Club Papers.

We heartily recommend to those who wish to delve deeper in these matters Aleš Bičan’s excellent essay The Atalante Fragments, that can be downloaded on his website (Elm) and is available too in the Elvish Linguistic Fellowship’s article selection.

The symbol here reproduced as 7 stands for a similar sign in use in Anglo-Saxon writing. It is an abbreviation from the ancient system of Tironian notes and is read and / ond.

The text is transcribed in tengwar or “letters of Fëanor”. Tolkien created two different adaptations of the general use of the Third Age to Old English, presented in Sauron Defeated p. 318-327. We especially attempted here to emulate the mode of the so-called “Text II”. We made use of Måns Björkman Berg’s typeface Tengwar Eldamar. Open this mode in Glaemscribe