The Legend of the Fall of Gondolin
So said Heart, son of Bronweg: “Learn then that Tuor was a mortal man and lived in time immemorial in that northern land called Dor-lomin, or the Land of Shadows;
of the Eldar, the Noldol know her best.
The people of Tuor wandered in the forests and hills, and knew not about the sea, and did not sing about it;
Tuor, on the other hand, did not live with his relatives, but alone, near a lake called Mithrim, hunted in the surrounding forests, or else he played near the coast on his rough wooden harp with strings of bear veins.
Many, having heard about the power of his artless songs, came from near and far lands to listen to him playing, but Tuor fell silent and went into the wilderness.
Here he learned a lot of wonderful things and made acquaintance with the wanderers-Noldoli, and they taught him their language and their wisdom;
but he was not destined to spend his whole life in those forests.
It is said that magic and fate once led him to the entrance to a cavernous hole, down which an underground river flowed from Mithrim.
And Tuor entered that cave, hoping to find out its secret, but the Mithrim waters caught him and drew him with him into the very heart of the mountain, and he could not get out back to the light.
And it is said that this was the will of Ulmo the Lord of the Waters, at whose prompting the Noldoli paved this secret path.
And the Noldoli came to Tuor, and led him through dark tunnels among the rocks, and now he got out again into the light and saw that the river was rushing rapidly along a deep gorge, the walls of which were inaccessible.
But Tuor had already changed his mind to return: he went on and on, and the river invariably led him to the west.
The sun rose behind him and set before his eyes; where the water foamed among heaps of boulders or plunged down waterfalls, rainbows sometimes weaved over the gorge, but in the evenings its smooth walls sparkled in the rays of the sunset, and therefore Tuor called this place the Golden Cleft, or the Rainbow Roof Gorge: in the language of the nomes - Glorfalk, or Chris Ilbrantelot.
So Tuor walked for three days, quenched his thirst with the water of a secret river, and was fed with fish; fish here were found gold, blue and silver - of a variety of bizarre species. Finally, the gorge widened, and as its walls opened and lowered, they became more and more uneven and rough, and the river bed was increasingly cluttered by boulders, forming foam rifts. Here Tuor sat for a long time, admiring the splashing water and listening to her voice, and then he got up and rushed on, jumping from stone to stone, and chanted as he walked; and when the stars covered the narrow strip of sky above the cleft, he took up the harp, and the echo echoed the violent chime of the strings.
One day closer to night, after a long and tiring journey, Tuor heard a cry, and could not understand who it could be. Now he said to himself: "This is a local spirit, not otherwise", then: "No, this is true, some small animal groaning among the rocks"; otherwise it seemed to Tuor as if it was the voice of an unknown bird - unfamiliar to him and strangely sad; and since during the entire journey down the Golden Cleft he did not hear a bird singing, he rejoiced at this cry, albeit such a bitter one. The next day in the morning, the same cry came again from above, and, throwing back his head, Tuor saw three large white birds: they flew on mighty wings back up the gorge, and made sounds akin to those that spread in the twilight. They were seagulls, Ossé birds.
In this part of the river, stone islets rose above the water, and here and there fragments of rocks piled up here and there, bordered by white sand, so it became difficult to walk, and after looking a little, Tuor found a place where he finally, with great difficulty, managed to climb up the slope. There a fresh wind hit him in the face, and Tuor said: “It is gratifying to me, as if I had drunk wine!”; but Tuor did not know that the Great Sea was nearby.
Tuor moved on along the river: little by little the gorge narrowed again, and its walls rose higher and higher, so that now he walked along the edge of the dizzying cliff; and then he reached the narrow mouth of the gorge, which was filled with thunderous noise. Tuor looked down - and saw the greatest of miracles: it seemed that a furious stream, turbulent, was rolling up the cleft and pushing the river back to its source, but the river that rushed from distant Mithrim kept pressing and pressing, and a wall of water, crowned with foam and whirled by the winds, it rose higher and higher, to the very edge of the cliff. And so, having overcome the waters of Mithrim, the advancing wave with a roar rushed up the gorge, and flooded the stone islets, and stirred up the white sand - so that Tuor fled in fear, for he did not know the customs of the Sea. Ainur themselves put in his heart the idea of getting out of the gorge shortly beforeotherwise the tide would have swept over him, which was especially fierce that day, for the wind was blowing from the west. And Tuor found himself in an uncomfortable treeless land, swept away by the wind that flew in from the direction of sunset; and all the bushes and thickets sloped towards sunrise, for that wind blew without changing. There, Tuor wandered for some time, until he came to the black cliffs by the sea and saw for the first time the ocean and its waves, and at that very hour the sun went down beyond the oceans of the earth far into the sea, while Tuor stood on the top of the cliff, arms outstretched, and his heart was filled with irresistible longing. Others say that he was the first of people to reach the Sea, and looked at it, and tasted the thirst that it gives birth to, but I do not know if there is much truth in that.for that wind blew without changing. There, Tuor wandered for some time, until he came to the black cliffs by the sea and saw for the first time the ocean and its waves, and at that very hour the sun went down beyond the oceans of the earth far into the sea, while Tuor stood on the top of the cliff, arms outstretched, and his heart was filled with irresistible longing. Others say that he was the first of people to reach the Sea, and looked at it, and tasted the thirst that it gives birth to, but I do not know if there is much truth in that.for that wind blew without changing. There, Tuor wandered for some time, until he came to the black cliffs by the sea and saw for the first time the ocean and its waves, and at that very hour the sun went down beyond the oceans of the earth far into the sea, while Tuor stood on the top of the cliff, arms outstretched, and his heart was filled with irresistible longing. Others say that he was the first of people to reach the Sea, and looked at it, and tasted the thirst that it gives birth to, but I do not know if there is much truth in that.how much truth is there.how much truth is there.
Tuor settled in those parts: he settled in a cove, protected by huge coal-black rocks; it was covered with white sand, and only at high tide did the blue water partly flood; there was no foam or spray, except during the fiercest storm. For a long time Tuor lived there alone: he either wandered along the coast, then made his way through the rocks at low tide, marveling at the backwaters and giant algae, at wet grottoes and at unfamiliar sea birds, which he first saw and recognized; but the ebb and flow and the voice of the waves always remained for him the greatest miracle, invariably new and inconceivable.
And it must be said that Tuor often sailed in a small canoe, the carved nose of which resembled a swan's neck, on the calm waters of Mithrim, over which the cries of a duck or a water hen could be heard far away; he lost his boat the day he found the hidden river. For the time being, Tuor did not dare to go out to sea, although his heart invariably urged him to do this, filled with a strange longing, and on quiet evenings, when the sun sank over the edge of the sea, this longing grew into an irresistible thirst.
On the hidden river, logs sailed towards him; It was a good tree - the Noldoli cut it down in the forests of Dorlomin and deliberately rafted Tuora. But he has not yet built anything, except perhaps a house in a secluded corner of his bay, which in the legends of the Eldar has since received the name Falasquil. Working unhurriedly, Tuor decorated that dwelling with wonderful carved images of animals and trees, flowers and birds, which he remembered in the vicinity of Lake Mithrim, and the main among them was the Swan, for Tuor loved this image, and later he became the coat of arms of Tuor himself, and his relatives, and his people. Tuor lived there for a very long time, until the loneliness of the deserted sea entered his heart, and even Tuor the hermit dreamed of a human voice. Then Ainur had to intervene, for Ulmo loved Tuor.
One morning, looking around the coast - and this happened in the last days of summer - Tuor saw that three swans were flying high in the sky from the north on mighty wings. He had never met these birds in this region before, and considered it a sign, and said: “Long ago in my heart I decided to go on a long campaign; lo! - now, at last, I will follow these swans ”. Behold, the swans sank into the water, swam three times around the bay and soared up again, and slowly flew along the coast to the south, and Tuor, taking a harp and a spear, moved after them.