Seo Niþerhrorene
|
7 Saweron cóm to hýþe. Gedruron Fréafíras under sceadu. Tarkalion wíg gebéad þam Héamægnum. Þa tocléaf Westfréa þas woruld be þæs Ælmihtigan léafe. 7 fléowon þa sǽ inn on þæt micle gin 7 wearþ Nówendaland ahwylfed. Géo læg riht weg westanweard, nú sind alle wegas [?forcrymbed]. Fréafíras éastweard. Déaþscúa ús líþ hefig on. Nú swíþe feor is seo Niþerhrorene. |
And Sauron came to the haven. The Lords of Men fell under the shadow. Tar-Kalion made war upon the High Powers. Then the Lords of the West rent the Earth with leave of Ilúvatar. And the seas flowed into the great chasm and the Land of Mariners was overwhelmed. Of old a straight way lay westward, now all ways are crooked. The Lords of Men are eastward. The shadow of death lies heavy on us. Very far away now is the Downfallen. |
These sentences in Old English paraphrase the Qenya fragments dreamt by Alboin Errol in The Lost Road, but were published in Sauron Defeated only. 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 (http://www.elvish.org/elm/index2.html) and is available too in the Elvish Linguistic Fellowship's article collection (http://www.elvish.org/articles/).
The symbol here reproduced as 7 stands for a similar sign in use in Anglo-Saxon writing ; it is an abbreviation from the system of Tironian notes and is read and / ond.
Quotations of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien, Édouard Kloczko, Christopher Gilson, Patrick Wynne, Rhona Beare, Thomas Alan Shippey, Charles Kennedy, Elaine Treharne, André Crépin, Régis Boyer, François-Xavier Dillmann, Gabriel Rebourcet, Keith Bosley, Pierre-Yves Lambert, Gwyn Jones, Thomas Jones are under the copyright of their publishers.
Last update of the site : 2006, August 9th.
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