The Tale of the Sun and Moon, abridged

[ranger_lennier]

Hello. I'm new to the message board, but browsing around, it sounds like there are many knowledgeable members.

Anyway, here's something I've been wondering about since I first read The Book Of Lost Tales, Part 1. Christopher Tolkien comments, "The Tale of The Sun and Moon is very long, and I have shortened it in places in brief paraphrase, without omitting any detail of interest." And indeed, there are three places where the tale is shortened. For example, as:

"There follows an account of how Vána, repeating of her past murmurings, cut short her golden hair and gave it to the Gods, and from her hair they wove sails and ropes 'more strong than any mariner hath seen, yet of the slenderness of gossamer'. The masts and spars of the ship were all of gold."

Now, Tolkien's notes did indicate that he planned on shortening this section, but nonetheless it bothers me that, in a book dedicated to presenting Tolkien's earliest Middle-earth manuscripts, and containing copious notes and commentary, this one section of the manuscript is abridged. It's a pretty unique part of the mythology, and in my version is only about 25 pages in its present form.

Has the full version ever been made available somewhere? Does anyone know how long it originally was, and why it was shortened when published? Am I actually missing anything here, or is it just the allure of what I can't have?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Hi ranger_lennier. Welcome again to the Hall of Fire!

I share your frustration regarding the abridgment of this Tale. The only explanation I can think of is that the publisher imposed a length limit. However, BoLT 1 is quite a bit shorter than subsequent volumes of HoMe. And as you say, it contains quite a bit of notes and commentary. But this is certainly not the only place in HoMe where a text is abridged! To some extent, Christopher certainly had to make some decisions about what to include, and what not to include. Still, I agree that this seems to have been an odd choice. And so far as I know, other than gaining access to the original manuscripts at the Bodleian (and/or in Christopher's possession in France), there is no way to read the full version.

[solicitr]

Yes, it was a publisher's length limit. It was only the surprisingly healthy sales of BOLT which persuaded A&U to raise the limit (rather like LR, Rayner Unwin regarded HME as a 'prestige book' which he expected to lose money on).

[ranger_lennier]

Yes, I did notice the subsequent volumes getting longer and more comprehensive, in some cases printing the same story several times with fairly minor revisions. Since I don't plan on traveling to Europe to read them, I guess my only hope is that they publish an updated edition at some point. I assume they have to run out of new Tolkien material to publish eventually.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Oh no, there is still some very interesting Tolkien material left to publish, though, like the recent Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun, it's not necessarily Middle-earth-related. I am particularly interested in the unfinished poem "The Fall of Arthur."

[ranger_lennier]

Ah, I hadn't heard of "The Fall of Arthur," though I was wondering if there would be anything else after Sigurd and Gudrun. I know he did a Beowulf translation as well--wasn't that supposed to be published by now? And I vaguely recall reading mention of some unfinished non-Middle-earth story in the introduction or notes to one of his other works. Is there a good list of unpublished material anywhere?

[N.E. Brigand]

Ah, I hadn't heard of "The Fall of Arthur," though I was wondering if there would be anything else after Sigurd and Gudrun. I know he did a Beowulf translation as well--wasn't that supposed to be published by now? And I vaguely recall reading mention of some unfinished non-Middle-earth story in the introduction or notes to one of his other works. Is there a good list of unpublished material anywhere?

Tolkien made a complete prose translation of Beowulf, and a partial verse translation. Michael Drout was editing these for publication more than five years ago, following on his edition of Tolkien's lectures, Beowulf and the Critics, but reportedly a remark that Drout made in an interview c. 2003 was misreported in such a way as to spur some incredible gossip-mongering online: some people claimed he was faking the manuscripts. Unhappy with the publicity, the Estate withdrew the translations, at least temporarily.

There is known to be one complete short story by Tolkien, "Sellic Spell" that to be published in the 1940s, before the magazine that had accepted it folded. The story is said to present a folk tale that could underlie Beowulf. In addition, there are several other stories in at least fragmentary form, like "The Orgog" and "The King of the Green Dozen" and "The Bovadium Fragments", as well as at least 30 more poems, and probably enough letters of interest to fill a collection as big as the first: Humphrey Carpenter examined thousands while preparing the biography, he later reported, and somewhere I read that Hammond and Scull had (a while back) expressed interest in creating a much expanded edition of Letters. Among Tolkien's scholarly papers there may also be yet material worth reading: a friend who has examined some of those in the Bodleian expressed astonishment to me at his thoroughness: how for any text Tolkien intended to discuss, he would write out his own working translation first. And of course, there is "The Ulsterior Motive" -- but Tolkien said that commentary on C.S. Lewis's Letters to Malcolm was unpublishable.

None of this relates to the Middle-earth legendarium. The only known works remaining in that field --i.e., other than such errata as edited texts that like BoLT I you described-- are the linguistic texts being edited by Christopher Gilson, et al., the latest of which has just been, or is about to be, released, as vol. 18 of Parma Eldalamberon.