the typescript version has thus two inescapably contradictory statements : melko 'sought ever to destroy the friendship and intercourse of elves and men , lest they forget the battle of unnumbered tears ' ( p. 44 ) ; 'little love was there between the woodland elves and the folk of angband even in those days before the battle of unnumbered tears ' ( p- 45 ) such a radical contradiction within a single text is in the highest degree unusual , perhaps unique , in all the writings concerned with the first age .