The Theft of Melko

"The History of Middle-Earth" vol 1, chapter "The Theft of Melko".
If you know Tolkien's Silmarillion: this is a sort of alternate way the story with Melkor/Morgoth, the Silmaril and the Two Trees went.

He steals the Silmaril and flees north into the lands of Mandos and Fui:
It is said indeed that this riding in half-circle [....] was at first no part of Melko's design, for rather had he purposed to get northward over the passes nigh to Mandos; but this he was warned might not be done, for Mandos and Fui never left those realms, and all the ravines and chasms of the northward mountains were infested with their folk [....].

Far to the north [....] Melko and his company might thus have ecaped into the world safely; but this was not done, and the sad tale took it's appointed course, or the Two Trees might yet have shone and the Elves sung still in Valinor.

HoME 1, VI, p.145/146, HarperCollins Paperback 2002


Ink drawing, 2004.


Stories and characters belong to Tolkien.