The Book of Lost Tales - J. R. Tolkien [160]
Eärendel makes his way back by land with Voronwë. Finds that Idril has vanished.5 His grief. Prays to Ulmo and hears the conches. Ulmo bids him build a new and wonderful ship of the wood of Tuor from Falasquil. Building of Wingilot.
There are four items headed ‘Additions’ on this page of the notebook:
Building of Eärámë (Eaglepinion).
Noldoli add their pleading to Ulmo’s bidding.
Eärendel surveys the first dwelling of Tuor at Falasquil.
The voyage to Mandos and the Icy Seas.
The outline continues:
Voronwë and Eärendel set sail in Wingilot. Driven south. Dark regions. Fire mountains. Tree-men. Pygmies. Sarqindi or cannibalogres.
Driven west. Ungweliantë. Magic Isles. Twilit Isle [sic]. Littleheart’s gong awakes the Sleeper in the Tower of Pearl.6
Kôr is found. Empty. Eärendel reads tales and prophecies in the waters. Desolation of Kôr. Eärendel’s shoes and self powdered with diamond dust so that they shine brightly.
Homeward adventures. Driven east—the deserts and red palaces where dwells the Sun.7
Arrives at Sirion, only to find it sacked and empty. Eärendel distraught wanders with Voronwë and comes to the ruins of Gondolin. Men are encamped there miserably. Also Gnomes searching still for lost gems (or some Gnomes gone back to Gondolin).
Of the binding of Melko.8 The wars with Men and the departure to Tol Eressëa (the Eldar unable to endure the strife of the world). Eärendel sails to Tol Eressëa and learns of the sinking of Elwing and the Nauglafring. Elwing became a seabird. His grief is very great. His garments and body shine like diamonds and his face is in silver flame for the grief and……….
He sets sail with Voronwë and dwells on the Isle of Seabirds in the northern waters (not far from Falasquil)—and there hopes that Elwing will return among the seabirds, but she is seeking him wailing along all the shores and especially among wreckage.
After three times seven years he sails again for halls of Mandos with Voronwë—he gets there because [?only] those who still……….and had suffered may do so—Tuor is gone to Valinor and nought is known of Idril or of Elwing.
Reaches bar at margin of the world and sets sail on oceans of the firmament in order to gaze over the Earth. The Moon mariner chases him for his brightness and he dives through the Door of Night. How he cannot now return to the world or he will die.
He will find Elwing at the Faring Forth.
Tuor and Idril some say sail now in Swanwing and may be seen going swift down the wind at dawn and dusk.
The Co-events to Eärendel’s Tale
Raid upon Sirion by Melko’s Orcs and the captivity of Elwing.
Birds tell Elves of the Fall of Gondolin and the horrors of the fate of the Gnomes. Counsels of the Gods and uproar of the Elves. March of the Inwir and Teleri. The Solosimpi go forth also but fare along all the beaches of the world, for they are loth to fare far from the sound of the sea—and only consent to go with the Teleri under these conditions—for the Noldoli slew some of their kin at Kópas.
This outline then goes on to the events after the coming of the Elves of Valinor into the Great Lands, which will be considered in the next chapter.
Though very much fuller, there seems to be little in C that is certainly contradictory to what is said in B, and there are elements in the latter that are absent from the former. In discussing these outlines I follow the divisions of the tale made in B.
Second part. A little more is told in C of Tuor’s departure from Sirion (in B there is no mention of Idril); and there appears the motive of Ossë’s hostility to Eärendel and the curse of the Nauglafring as instrumental in his shipwrecks. The place of the first wreck is called the Fiord of the Mermaid. The word ‘them’ rather than ‘him’ in ‘Ulmo saves them, telling them he must go to Kôr’ is certain in the manuscript, which possibly suggests that Idril or Elwing (or both) were with Eärendel.
Third part. In B Eärendel’s second voyage, like the first, is explicitly an attempt to reach Mandos (seeking his father), whereas in C it seems