The One Wiki to Rule Them All
Advertisement
The One Wiki to Rule Them All
This page concerns the real world.
This article refers to the 2018 novel. For other namesakes, see Fall of Gondolin (disambiguation).

The Fall of Gondolin is a stand-alone publication by HarperCollins devoted to the third part of J.R.R. Tolkien's Great Tales, recounting the fall of the city of Gondolin, and the successor to The Children of Húrin (2007) and Beren and Lúthien (2017). It also contains a chapter concerning the last of the "Great Tales": The Tale of Eärendel.

Details & canon[]

The Fall of Gondolin is the third of the Great Tales, but was the first that J.R.R. Tolkien wrote, and is the second most complete of the tales (after The Children of Húrin; and is less fractured and more continuous than the materials comprising Beren and Lúthien).

...I have arranged the content of the book in a manner distinct from that in Beren and Lúthien. The texts of the Tale appear first, in succession and with little or no commentary. An account of the evolution of the story then follows, with a discussion of my father’s profoundly saddening abandonment of the last version of the Tale at the moment when Tuor passed through the Last Gate of Gondolin.

The Fall of Gondolin contains the original version as previously printed in The Book of Lost Tales Part Two, notes from Tolkien's earliest text on the story, a short piece of an unfinished follow up story Turlin and the Exiles of Gondolin, The story as told in the Sketch of the Mythology, the story as told in the Quenta Noldorinwa, the last version called Of Tuor and his Coming to Gondolin (previously published in Unfinished Tales), and the letters and notes related to the final manuscript. Finally there several chapters of how the exiles of Doriath and Gondolin lead to the Great Tale of Eärendel, these include the chapter called "Conclusion", followed by "Conclusion of the Sketch of the Mythology" and "Conclusion of the Quenta Noldorinwa".

Previous sources which cover this major First Age event are the chapters "The Fall of Gondolin" of The Book of Lost Tales Part Two and "Of Tuor and the Fall of Gondolin" in The Silmarillion, which both tell of the founding of the Elven city of Gondolin (built in secret by Turgon and his people), of the arrival Tuor, a prince of the Edain, of the betrayal of the city to Morgoth by Turgon's nephew Maeglin, and of its subsequent destruction by Morgoth's armies.[1] There is also a unfinished (consisting of around 130 lines) and unpublished poem: The Lay of the Fall of Gondolin.[2] Only a few brief fragments were included in The Lays of Beleriand (the bulk not published as Christopher Tolkien explained its closeness to already published Tale in Lost Tales Part Two).

Some of this material such as the The Lay of the Fall of Gondolin was not included in this edition of the The Fall of Gondolin, and thus remains unpublished (other than what is related in The Lays of Beleriand). A List of Names is included in the extras, though it is unassociated with the version previously published in Parma Eldalamberon.

The Lost Tales chapter goes more in-depth than the account in The Silmarillion, telling notably in detail of Tuor's and Ecthelion's feats in battle, and mentioning every captain of the Houses of the Gondolindrim.

Contents[]

Contents[3]

THE FALL OF GONDOLIN[]

  • The Original Tale
  • The Earliest Text
  • Turlin and the Exiles of Gondolin
  • The Story Told in the Sketch of the Mythology
  • The Story Told in the Quenta Noldorinwa
  • The Last Version
  • The Evolution of the Story.
  • Conclusion
  • The Conclusion of the Sketch of the Mythology
  • The Conclusion of the Quenta Noldorinwa
  • Footnotes
  • List of Names
  • Additional Notes
  • Glossary
  • Map of Beleriand
  • The House of Beor
  • The Princes of the Noldor
  • Works by J.R.R. Tolkien

List of Plates[]

  • Swanhaven
    ‘They attempt to seize the swan-ships in Swanhaven, and a fight ensues’
  • Turgon Strengthens the Watch
    ‘he caused the watch and ward to be thrice strengthened at all points’
  • The King's Tower Falls
    ‘the tower leapt into a flame and in a stab of fire it fell’
  • Glorfindel and the Balrog
    ‘that Balrog that was with the rearward foe leapt with great might on certain lofty rocks’
  • The Rainbow Cleft
    ‘he should be led to a river-course that flowed underground through which a turbulent water ran at last into the western sea’
  • Mount Taras
    ‘he saw a line of great hills that barred his way, marching westward until they ended in a tall mountain’
  • Ulmo Appears Before Tuor
    ‘Then there was a noise of thunder, and lightning flared over the sea’
  • Orfalch Echor
    ‘Tuor saw that the way was barred by a great wall built across the ravine’

List of Illustrations[]

  • Tuor strikes a note on his harp
  • Twor descends into the hidden river
  • Isfin and Eöl
  • Lake Mithrim
  • The mountains and the sea
  • Eagles fly above the encircling mountains
  • The delta of the River Sirion
  • Carved figurehead of Glorfindel in front of Elven-ships
  • Ran searches the Hill of Slain The entrance to the King's house
  • Tuor follows the swans to Vinyamar
  • Gondolin amid the snow
  • The Palace of Ecthelion
  • Elwing receives the survivors of Gondolin Eärendel's heraldic symbol above the sea

Background[]

J.R.R. Tolkien began writing what would become "The Fall of Gondolin" in 1917, in an army barracks on the back of a sheet of military marching music.[4] It is the first traceable, substantial story he wrote of the Middle-earth legendarium.

Because Tolkien was constantly revising his First Age stories, the narrative he wrote in 1917 (published posthumously in The Book of Lost Tales Part Two) remains the only full account of Gondolin's fall. The narrative in The Silmarillion was the result of the editing by his son Christopher of various different sources, and is briefer.

A partial new version of "The Fall of Gondolin" was published in the Unfinished Tales under the title "Of Tuor and his Coming to Gondolin". Actually titled "Of Tuor and the Fall of Gondolin", this narrative shows a great expansion of the earlier tale. It can be surmised from this text that Tolkien would have rewritten the entire story, but for reasons that are not known he abandoned the text before Tuor actually arrives in the city. For this reason Christopher Tolkien re-titled the story before including it in Unfinished Tales.

Translations[]

Foreign Language Translated name
Arabic سقوط غوندولين
Bulgarian Cyrillic Падането на Гондолин
Catalan La caiguda de Gondolin
Chinese 貢多林的陷落
Croatian Pad Gondolina
Dutch De Val van Gondolin
Esperanto La Falo de Gondolin
Estonian Gondoliini langus
Finnish Gondolinin tuho
French La Chute de Gondolin
Galician A caída de Gondolin
German Der Fall von Gondolin
Greek Η Πτώση της Γκόντολιν
Hebrew נפילת גונדולין
Hungarian A Gondolin bukása
Indonesian Jatuh Gondolin
Italian La caduta di Gondolin
Kannada ಗೊಂಡೊಲಿನ್ ಪತನ
Kazakh Гондоленнің құлдырауы (Cyrillic) Gondolenniñ quldırawı (Latin)
Lithuanian Gondolino kritimas
Macedonian Cyrillic На Падот на Гондолин
Malagasy Ny fianjeran'i Gondolin
Malaysian Kejatuhan Gondolin
Marathi गोंडोलिनचे पतन
Polish Upadek Gondolina
Portuguese A Queda de Gondolin
Romanian Căderea Gondolinului
Serbian Пад Гондолина (Cyrillic) Pad Gondolina (Latin)
Spanish La caída de Gondolin
Ukrainian Cyrillic Падіння Ґондоліна

References[]

External links[]

Hilt and blade of broken Narsil Note: This is a section stub. Expand it by clicking FandomDesktop pencil small-gray-26x26 Edit to right of the section title.


J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium
Articles about Middle-earth by...
CategoryNameWritingsCharactersLiving CreaturesRiversRealmsAges
Advertisement