The Book of Lost Tales - J. R. Tolkien [163]
Seventh part. In B the concluding part of the tale is merely summarised in the words ‘His voyage to the firmament’, with a reference to the other outline C, and in the latter we get some glimpses of a narrative. It seems to be suggested that the brightness of Eärendel (quite unconnected with the Silmaril) arose from the ‘diamond dust’ of Kôr, but also in some sense from the exaltation of his grief. An isolated jotting elsewhere in C asks: ‘What became of the Silmarils after the capture of Melko?’ My father at this time gave no answer to the question; but the question is itself a testimony to the relatively minor importance of the jewels of Fëanor, if also, perhaps, a sign of his awareness that they would not always remain so, that in them lay a central meaning of the mythology, yet to be discovered.
It seems too that Eärendel sailed into the sky in continuing search for Elwing (‘he sets sail on the oceans of the firmament in order to gaze over the Earth’); and that his passing through the Door of Night (the entrance made by the Gods in the Wall of Things in the West, see I.215–16) did not come about through any devising, but because he was hunted by the Moon. With this last idea, cf. I.193, where Ilinsor, steersman of the Moon, is said to ‘hunt the stars’.
The later of the two schemes for the Lost Tales, which gives a quite substantial outline for Gilfanon’s Tale, where I have called it ‘D’ (see I.234), here fails us, for the concluding passage is very condensed, in part erased, and ends abruptly early in the Tale of Eärendel. I give it here, beginning at a slightly earlier point in the narrative:
Of the death of Tinwelint and the flight of Gwenethlin [see p. 51]. How Beren avenged Tinwelint and how the Necklace became his. How it brought sickness to Tinúviel [see p. 246], and how Beren and Tinúviel faded from the Earth. How their sons [sic] dwelt after them and how the sons of Fëanor came up against them with a host because of the Silmaril. How all were slain but Elwing daughter of Daimord [see p. 139] son of Beren fled with the Necklace.
Of Tuor’s vessel with white sails.
How folk of the Lothlim dwelt at Sirion’s Mouth. Eärendel grew fairest of all Men that were or are. How the mermaids (Oarni) loved him. How Elwing came to the Lothlim and of the love of Elwing and Eärendel. How Tuor fell into age, and how Ulmo beckoned to him at eve, and he set forth on the waters and was lost. How Idril swam after him.
(In the following passage my father seems at first to have written: ‘Eärendel…….. Oarni builded Wingilot and set forth in search of….leaving Voronwë with Elwing’, where the first lacuna perhaps said ‘with the aid of’, though nothing is now visible; but then he wrote ‘Eärendel built Swanwing’, and then partly erased the passage: it is impossible to see now what his intention was.)
Elwing’s lament. How Ulmo forbade his quest but Eärendel would yet sail to find a passage to Mandos. How Wingilot was wrecked at Falasquil and how Eärendel found the carven house of Tuor there.
Here Scheme D ends. There is also a reference at an earlier point in it to ‘the messengers sent from Gondolin. The doves of Gondolin fly to Valinor at the fall of that town.’
This outline seems to show a move to reduce the complexity of the narrative, with Wingilot being the ship in which Eärendel attempted to sail to Mandos and in which he was wrecked at Falasquil; but the outline is too brief and stops too soon to allow any certain conclusions to be drawn.
A fourth outline, which I will call ‘E’, is found on a detached sheet; in this Tuor is called Tûr (see p. 148).
Fall of Gondolin. The feast of Glorfindel. The dwelling by the waters of Sirion’s mouth. The mermaids come to Eärendel.
Tûr groweth sea-hungry—his song to Eärendel. One evening he calls Eärendel and they go to the shore. There is a skiff. Tûr bids farewell to Eärendel and bids him thrust it off—the skiff fares away into the West. Eärendel hears a great song swelling from the sea as Tûr’s skiff dips over the world’s rim. His passion of tears