The tale does not tell how the first Hyûvandri were brought into being. They came into the Midworld in clans and families, led by emissaries of the Entellári and of the Silúna and of the Thendâ, who helped them on their long journey out of the south-eastern land of their birth, fed them and clothed them in the wilderness and guided them to springs of water.
The Entellári bade the Kabadri and Gangri to withdraw into the hills and mountains of the North and keep aloof, lest the Hyûvandri be affrighted by their appearance. For the Kabadri, though of short stature, have a wild appearance: the Kabadwa has a long bushy beard and the Kabatya a great shock of hair, and the body of the Kabatya is as muscular and sinewy as that of the Kabadwa. And the Gangri stand between seven and eight feet in height and are otherwise in appearance similar to the Kabadri; moreover, the Gyúgri, the females, are as fearsome as the Gangri.
And the Fair Ones, the Hyilavúna, that is to say the Silúna, the Thendâ, and the Entellári, began to prepare to withdraw from the Midworld, which they loved, only remaining while the Hyûvandri took up their residence and became settled. And, as Ingos foretold, for the most part, the Hyûvandri chose to settle in the Southlands, the Yivandâl, the lands where the Entellári had wandered and tended the trees and plants, for these were warm and fertile, hilly and wooded but not thickly forested or rugged.
Wherever the Hyûvandri entered the Midworld, by land or sea, there they found Ingos, father of the peoples, waiting to welcome them. He greeted them kindly and went a little way with them until they became accustomed to the beautiful new land. Then, promising to revisit them at seedtime or harvest, he went back to the borders of Thrâyeldim to await another party of newcomers.
Each tribe came bearing its insignia, the figure of its name on an ensign woven in cloth, or cast in bronze, or carved in wood. So the Pragodath, People of the Rose, bore a woven ensign of a wild rose; the Dagnusdáye, Folk of the Mountain Stream, carried a curious casting in glass of a waterfall; the Laukonardi, Beloved of the Moon, held up a silver disc with a crescent shape marked upon it; and the People of the Yew, the Valkari, displayed a carving of a yew tree made of that same wood.
Ingos marvelled that he never failed to meet a new clan, never missed a family wandering alone; always something led him to find them. And another strange thing happened. Whenever he encountered a new party of Hyûvandri entering Thrâyeldim, and began to conduct them on their journey into the interior, they would always encounter Melyúnas by the way. And Melyúnas would salute Ingos in the presence of the people, and praise him, and call him Lord of Thrâyeldim; he would present himself as the spokesman of the Doitherúna, by whom all the land had been prepared for the Hyûvandri, and he would hint at the even greater things that they might discover, buried in special places and hidden away in secret utterances — the key to which he alone, Melyúnas, possessed.
For the most part, these remarks found no place in the hearts of the Hyûvandri, for they were enchanted by the loveliness of their new land, and they applied themselves to the labour of making a home there. They took more notice of Father Ingos, their helper, than Melyúnas with his oratory. But there were a few clans into whose ears his words fell and found a receptive mind.
On each occasion, Melyúnas carefully noted the ensign of each tribe and, when he had returned to his home in Ombros, wove a figure of the name of the new Hyúvanka tribe upon an enchanted rune-web; and so, bit by bit, he fashioned a spell of subjection for all the tribes. And the Valkari’s yew stood at the head of the web; because they were apt to his suggestions he planned that they should bear sway over the other tribes.
Now it so happened one day late in the autumn of the Year of Incoming that Ingos was awakened by an urgent prompting to go into the Waste Land to welcome a party of newcomers. And such was his haste that he went without his hat, or his staff, or the wallet wherein he stowed his modest stock of food. Ingos came to their landing place, but found them gone. For five days he searched in the land called Ravini-Gwasdâl, the Land beyond the Waste Land. And he endured great hunger and thirst, and the burning of the sun on his head, before he found them sheltering among great rocks. And their leader, Tertêi ta-Hinda, Tertei the Old, came out to meet him, bowing low.
‘We were afraid, Lord Ingos, for there were fearful creatures and wild wights all around, and so we hid. But now we see you, we have no fear.’
Now this people had no name or ensign. And so they became known as Vurwë Yamudúna, the Lost Tribe, for they were lost in the wilderness on their way into the Midworld. They greatly loved the Thendâ, and from them acquired not only horses and oxen, but also great wains with tilts over them in which to travel and to live; and Ingos loved them, for the sake of the labours he had bestowed in finding them, and the hunger he had endured in his search; and in after times he delighted to ride with them in their wains. And of them came Vidnî and Arbros, of whom much is told later on, and Tertêi ta Sáyis, Tertei the Young, of whom the tales of the Third Circle of the world tell.
And when, after setting the Lost Tribe on the road in their wains, Ingos parted from them, he said to himself, ‘Now a thing has happened that never befell before: I have conducted a clan of the Hyûvandri into the Midworld, and Melyúnas has not presented himself.’ And after journeying back to the settlement of the Hyûvandri where he was then lodging, he entered his tent, and caught sight of the wallet that he had left behind in his haste, and looking within at the Talyoran, bethought himself that this was the only journey on which he had not carried it with him. And then the thought came to him: ‘It is by the Talyoran that Melyúnas knows where to find me.’
So Ingos took the Talyoran, and journeyed a long way into the waste lands of Thrâyeldim and climbed to the summit of Laukonoth, the Mountain of the Moon, where dwelt the good Fellgiant Astagant, the watcher of the Moon. He placed the Talyoran in a cleft of the rock, saying to Astagant:
Let the truth-teller take this treasure back,
But the false speaker fail of his quest!
Let the Moon witness and make judgement,
For Astagant to execute.
Then Ingos departed.
Melyúnas was aware that the Talyoran was no longer with Ingos but in a distant waste place. And he was angry that his wiles had been found out, and set off to take back the Talyoran for himself. He climbed to the top of the Mountain of the Moon and waited for Night, that he might put forth runes of discernment. By them it was revealed that he was close to the hiding place of the Talyoran. But as he went to find it, there came forth Astagant the good Fellgiant. He asked him why he had come to disturb his peace. And Melyúnas said:
For my star crystal, stolen from me
By a crooked thief, I am come straightly.
Then the Moon rose above the eastern mountains and shone full on the face of Melyúnas; his runes recoiled and stung his mind, and he looked askance. And Astagant said:
The Moon has shone and shown the truth.
Three ways thou liest: not thine the gem;
By wrong thou kept that crystal back;
The last keeper was a loyal man.
Then he pushed Melyúnas from the mountaintop so that he rolled ignominiously down a great way. And Melyúnas hated and feared the Moon from that time onwards.
Then Melyúnas feared that the Talyoran would pass out of his reach and back into the hands of the Hyilavúna, and he was very wroth. He resolved there and then to be revenged upon Ingos, to sow dissension among the Entellári, to bring destruction upon the Giants, and, if possible, to bring misery to the Hyûvandri.
And after this winter came, and no further parties of the Hyûvandri entered the Midworld, for the Lost Tribe were the last; and they were the only clan whose arrival Melyúnas did not witness, they were unknown to him, and he to them; and so the figure of their name was not woven into his enchanted rune-web.
Ingos never ceased to care for his peoples. He walked up and down on the earth, visiting every encampment and settlement and village and town. He ploughed and sowed and reaped with them, gathered the fruits of the earth, brewed and baked and trod the grape with them, mowed and threshed, thatched and daubed, sawed and planed and hammered with them all. He joined them in their merriment, and came to them in their sicknesses and griefs. And he taught them many arts, of herbs, of the stars, of the signs of the weather, and much else.
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