"GL3" - читать интересную книгу автора (vol12)

PART THREE.

TEACHINGS OF
PENGOLOD.

XIV.

DANGWETH PENGOLOD.

This work, example and record of the instruction of AElfwine the
Mariner by Pengolod the Wise of Gondolin, exists in two forms:
the first ('A') a good clear text with (apart from one major exception,
see note 6) very few changes made either in the act of writing or sub-
sequently, and the second ('B') a superb illuminated manuscript of
which the first page is reproduced as the frontispiece of this book.
This latter, together with the brief text Of Lembas, was enclosed in a
newspaper of 5 January 1960, on which my father wrote: 'Two items
from the lore of Pengolod', and also 'Danbeth to question. How/Why
did Elvish language change? Origin of Lembas.' On a cardboard
folder enclosing the newspaper he wrote: 'Pengolod items. $Manen
lambe Quendion ahyane How did the language of Elves change?
$Mana i-coimas Eldaron What is the "coimas" of the Eldar?'
Above the gw of Dangweth on the illuminated manuscript he lightly
pencilled b; but on an isolated scrap of paper found with the two texts
are some jottings of which the following are clear: 'Keep Dangweth
"answer" separate from -beth = peth "word"'; 'v gweth "report, give
account of, inform of things unknown or wished to be known"'; and
'Ndangwetha S[indarin] Dangweth'.
The Dangweth Pengolod cannot be earlier than 1951, while from
the date of the newspaper (on which the two texts are referred to) it
cannot be later than the end of 1959. I would be inclined to place it
earlier rather than later in the decade; possibly the second manuscript
B is to be associated with the fine manuscript pages of the Tale of Years
of the First Age (see X.49), one of which is reproduced as the frontis-
piece to Morgoth's Ring.
Version B follows A very closely indeed for the most part (which is
probably an indication of their closeness in time): a scattering of very
minor changes (small shifts in word-order and occasional alterations
in vocabulary), with a very few more significant differences (see the
notes at the end of the text). That it was a work of importance to my
father is evident from his writing it again in a manuscript of such ele-
gance; and an aspect of his thought here, in respect of the conscious
introduction of change by the Eldar on the basis of an understanding
of the phonological structure of their language in its entirety, would
reappear years later in The Shibboleth of Feanor (see p. 332 and note
3 to the present essay).

The text that follows is of course that of Version B, with alteration
of a few points of punctuation for greater clarity.