The Tale of the Fall of Gondolin
the earliest prose of Tuor and of Gondolin's ruin (Book of Lost Tales, HoME 2)
Nature
The Tale of the Fall of Gondolin is the earliest telling of Tuor’s coming to the hidden city and of its ruin — the epic of the Lost Tales, delivered to Eriol by Littleheart, son of Bronweg, the gong-warden. It tells of the white-hidden city of Gondolin in its rock-ringed vale under king Turgon, of the treasons of Meglin, of the onrush of Melko’s hordes with their balrogs and dragons, and of the escape of Tuor and Idril with the child Eärendel down the pass of the Eagles. The later gathering of the full tale is The Fall of Gondolin (book).
Contents
The building of the secret city by Turgon and the guarding of the hidden vale; Tuor’s wild youth, the counsels of Ulmo the sea-lord, and his guidance of Tuor through the perilous ways to the secret gate; The coming of Tuor among the Gondothlim and at the court of Turgon, where he is made welcome and given a place; The slow gathering of Meglin’s malice and the betrayal of the city’s secret; The assault: the burning, the great battle of the square, and the fall of the king; The escape of Tuor, Idril and Eärendel by the pass of the Eagles, the fall of Glorfindel with the balrog he slew, and the long wandering of the remnant; The last sailing of Tuor and Idril into the West, where Tuor was numbered among the eldest of Elven-kind.
Composition
Written in 1916–1917 — its core belongs to the time of the First World War — and revised over the years, The Fall of Gondolin is one of the few early tales printed in full. It appears in The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two (HoME 2) with Christopher Tolkien’s reconstruction and extensive notes. The later fragment “Of Tuor and his Coming to Gondolin” (Unfinished Tales) breaks off where this tale begins; the epic in full was reconstructed for The Fall of Gondolin (book).