The Lay of the Fall of Gondolin is an unpublished poem about the Fall of Gondolin. It consists of an abandoned beginning of the poem, numbering only 130 lines. Christopher Tolkien discusses it briefly in The Lays of Beleriand but did not publish its entirety, and it is excluded from The Fall of Gondolin (2018).
Background[]
Christopher Tolkien chose to leave it unpublished as he believed it added nothing new to "The Fall of Gondolin" (as given in The Book of Lost Tales Part Two), possibly because his father found its metrical form unsuitable to the purpose.
These excerpts are given in The Lays of Beleriand:
- Rejoice that ye have found it and rest from endless war,
- For the seven-named city 'tis that stands upon the hill,
- Where all who strive with Morgoth find hope and valour still.'
- 'What be those names,' said Tuor, 'for I come from long afar?'
- "Tis said and 'tis sung,' one answered, '"My name is Gondobar
- And Gondothlimbar also, the City hewn of Stone,
- The fortress of the Gnome-folk who dwell in Halls of Stone, &c.
- Thither Tuor son of Fengel came out of the dim land
- that the Gnomes have called Dor-Lomin, with Bronweg at his hand,
- who fled from the Iron Mountains and had broken Melko's chain
- and cast his yoke of evil, of torment and bitter pain;
- who alone most faithful-hearted led Tuor by long ways
- through empty hills and valleys by dark nights and perilous days,
- till his blue lamp magic-kindled, where flow the shadowy rills
- beneath enchanted alders, found that Gate beneath the hills,
- the door in dark Dungorthin that only-the Gnome-folk knew.
- how the Gods in council gathered on the outmost rocky bars
- of the Lonely Island westward, and devised a land of ease
- beyond the great sea-shadows and the shadowy seas;
- how they made the deep gulf of Faerie with long and lonely shore . . .