Ai! Lá polin saca i quettar!
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The hidden city of the Noldor in Beleriand, translated “Hidden Rock”, an adaptation of its Quenya name Ondolindë “Rock of the Music of Water” (S/125). Tolkien stated that the name Gondolin was properly “neither Sindarin or Noldorin [Quenya]” (PE17/29), but the Sindarized name was reinterpretated as a combination of gond “stone” and dolen “hidden” (WJ/201).
Conceptual Development: The name G. Gondolin appeared in the earliest Lost Tales, but at this stage it was translated “Stone of Song” (LT2/158). This was the same meaning as its early Qenya name Ondolinda, with the second element being G. dólin “song” (GL/29, 41; LT1A/Gondolin). In The Etymologies from the 1930s, Tolkien revised the meaning of N. Gondolin to “heart of hidden rock” (Ety/DUL), setting the stage for the later derivation described above.