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Despite having its origin in the same writing project as the first part, this is a fairly separate section and the break helps emphasize that.

In-fiction, the bulk of the stories here all intertwine even more than the first part. Out-fiction this is the part where the Tolkien’s writing project came apart, and for the most part we get drafts from separate (but related) notebooks, and papers inserted into the manuscripts. Part six is a delve into the overall scheme for the stories both before and after The Book of Lost Tales (not that this isn’t gone into elsewhere).

We get glimpses of Tolkien’s original thoughts that link elves to fairies, with elves fading, becoming smaller, and less substantial as the power of Men waxes. At various points Eriol, or Ælfwine (elf-friend) as he is later named, is hooked into actual history, early on before the Dark Ages, and later in the Eleventh Century.

All of this disappears later on, after further revisions take him further into his own lore, and away from a mythology that might have historically grown up on its own. This is for the best on many levels. The world and its stories are allowed to grow organically as they must, but there is also a racial snobbery lurking in these early versions where only the English have any true knowledge of the fay folk. The growth of the world also broadened its outlook. (If not as much as some may wish, it’s still a long step up from the Edwardian provincialism it started with.)

Similarly, Eärendil reveals the early roots of the stories. He comes up earlier, but part five is the forever unfinished (in any form) “Tale of Eärendil” which has its earliest seeds, with Eärendil being a Quenya name, but deriving from the Anglo-Saxon éarendil, and his story is decidedly a mythological-mode explanation of the evening star.

All this makes the later parts of the book scholastically interesting, though much of it is so fragmented between various drafts and outlines that pulling anything else out is challenging. Thankfully, Christopher Tolkien is a valuable docent, and guides us through these parts, helping us understand the ideas behind the later First Age.

The earlier parts of the book are far more complete, and would reappear later, and later versions are generally in the eventual Silmarillion. On their own, I found “The Nauglafring” also close its sources, echoing ideas of the Nibelungenlied. Personally, I found “Turambar and the Foalókë” very rough going, and “The Fall of Gondolin” only somewhat better, leaving “The Tale of Tinuviel” as one of the more engaging parts, which makes sense; there’s a lot of The Silmarillion that does not stick in my brain, but parts of the equivalent section do, so it’s a tale that certainly appeals to me more.