Of the various sunderings of the elves

Michael has been reading The Silmarillion aloud to me the last few evenings, as I pack his lunch and wash the supper dishes. I thought I'd read it ages ago and been profoundly bored by it, but now I'm beginning to wonder if I actually did ever read it in its entirety, because much of what we're reading sounds no more than remotely familiar. All this about the Valar in Valinor and the binding of Melkor makes me think of the Norse gods sitting around in Valhalla, contemplating the binding of Loki, and it astounds me to realise that the dwarves actually came before the elves, the so-called firstborn! I think what must have happened is that I skimmed through it and probably read only the bits about Beren and Luthien, and supplemented much of my knowledge thereof by reading the Appendices in RotK. It's good to be reading through it with Michael, who grew up reading it and knows it well and can explain it to me. Last night we actually had to dig out the flow chart from the Appendix to understand all the various sunderings of the elves. We ended up pulling out The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, to the discovery of the most deliciously creepy poem about the Mewlips, of which I include the last two lines here:

And through the wood of hanging trees and the gallows-weed
You go to find the Mewlips - and the Mewlips feed.

Shivers!