The Book of Lost Tales - J. R. Tolkien [165]
Another of the early Eärendel poems, ‘The Shores of Faëry’, has a short prose preface, which if not as old as the first composition of the poem itself (July 1915, see p. 271) is certainly not much later:
Eärendel the Wanderer who beat about the Oceans of the World in his white ship Wingelot sat long while in his old age upon the Isle of Seabirds in the Northern Waters ere he set forth upon a last voyage.
He passed Taniquetil and even Valinor, and drew his bark over the bar at the margin of the world, and launched it on the Oceans of the Firmament. Of his ventures there no man has told, save that hunted by the orbed Moon he fled back to Valinor, and mounting the towers of Kôr upon the rocks of Eglamar he gazed back upon the Oceans of the World. To Eglamar he comes ever at plenilune when the Moon sails a-harrying beyond Taniquetil and Valinor.*
Both here and in the outline associated with ‘The Bidding of the Minstrel’ Eärendel was conceived to be an old man when he journeyed into the firmament.
No other ‘connected’ account of the Tale of Eärendel exists from the earliest period. There are however a number of separate notes, mostly in the form of single sentences, some found in the little notebook C, others jotted down on slips. I collect these references here more or less in the sequence of the tale.
(i) ‘Dwelling in the Isle of Sirion in a house of snow-white stone.’—In C (p. 254) it is said that Eärendel dwelt with Tuor and Idril at Sirion’s mouth by the sea ‘on the Isles of Sirion’.
(ii) ‘The Oarni give to Eärendel a wonderful shining silver coat that wets not. They love Eärendel, in Ossë’s despite, and teach him the lore of boat-building and of swimming, as he plays with them about the shores of Sirion.’—In the outlines are found references to the love of the Oarni for Eärendel (D, p. 259), the coming of the mermaids to him (E, p. 260), and to Ossë’s enmity (C, p. 254).
(iii) Eärendel was smaller than most men but nimble-footed and a swift swimmer (but Voronwë could not swim).
(iv) ‘Idril and Eärendel see Tuor’s boat dropping into the twilight and a sound of song.’—In B Tuor’s sailing is ’secret’ (p. 253), in C ‘Idril sees him too late’ (p. 254), and in E Eärendel is present at Tuor’s departure and thrusts the boat out: ‘he hears a great song swelling from the sea’ (p. 260).
(v) ‘Death of Idril?—follows secretly after Tuor.’—That Idril died is denied in C: ‘Tuor and Idril some say sail now in Swanwing…’ (p. 255); in D Idril swam after him (p. 260).
(vi) ‘Tuor has sailed back to Falasquil and so back up Ilbranteloth to Asgon where he sits playing on his lonely harp on the islanded rock.’—This is marked with a query and an ‘X’ implying rejection of the idea. There are curious references to the ‘islanded rock’ in Asgon in the outlines for Gilfanon’s Tale (see I.238).
(vii) ‘The fiord of the Mermaid: enchantment of his sailors. Mermaids are not Oarni (but are earthlings, or fays?—or both).’—In D (p. 259) Mermaids and Oarni are equated.
(viii) The ship Wingilot was built of wood from Falasquil with ‘aid of the Oarni’.—This was probably said also in D: see p. 260.
(ix) Wingilot was ‘shaped as a swan of pearls’.
(x) ‘The doves and pigeons of Turgon’s courtyard bring message to Valinor—only to Elves.’—Other references to the birds that flew from Gondolin also say that they came to the Elves, or to Kôr (pp. 253, 255, 257).
(xi) ‘During his voyages Eärendel sights the white walls of Kôr gleaming afar off, but is carried away by Ossë’s adverse winds and waves.’—The same is said in B (p. 253) of Eärendel’s sighting of Tol Eresseäa on his homeward voyage from Kôr.
(xii) ‘The Sleeper in the Tower of Pearl awakened by Littleheart’s gong: a messenger that was despatched years ago by Turgon and enmeshed in magics. Even now he cannot leave the Tower and warns them of the magic.’—In C there is a statement, rejected, that the Sleeper in