The Book of Lost Tales - J. R. Tolkien [166]
(xiii) ‘Ulmo’s protection removed from Sirion in wrath at Eärendel’s second attempt to Mandos, and hence Melko overwhelmed it.’—This note is struck through, with an ‘X’ written against it; but in D (p. 260) it is said that ‘Ulmo forbade his quest but Eärendel would yet sail to find a passage to Mandos’. The meaning of this must be that it was contrary to Ulmo’s purpose that Eärendel should seek to Mandos for his father, but must rather attempt to reach Kôr.
(xiv) ‘Eärendel weds Elwing before he sets sail. When he hears of her loss he says that his children shall be “all such men hereafter as dare the great seas in ships”.’—With this cf. The Cottage of Lost Play (I.13): ‘even such a son of Eärendel as was this wayfarer’, and (I.18): ‘a man of great and excellent travel, a son meseems of Eärendel’. In an outline of Eriol’s life (I.24) it is said that he was a son of Eärendel, born under his beam, and that if a beam from Eärendel fall on a child newborn he becomes ‘a child of Eärendel’ and a wanderer. In the early dictionary of Qenya there is an entry: Eärendilyon ‘son of Eärendel (used of any mariner)’ (I.251).
(xv) ‘Eärendel goes even to the empty Halls of Iron seeking Elwing.’—Eärendel must have gone to Angamandi (empty after the defeat of Melko) at the same time as he went to the ruins of Gondolin (pp. 253, 255).
(xvi) The loss of the ship carrying Elwing and the Nauglafring took place on the voyage to Tol Eressëa with the exodus of the Elves from the Great Lands.—See my remarks, pp. 258–9. For the ‘appeasing’ of Mîm’s curse by the drowning of the Nauglafring see the Appendix on Names, entry Nauglafring. The departure of the Elves to Tol Eressëa is discussed in the next chapter (p. 280).
(xvii) ‘Eärendel and the northern tower on the Isle of Seabirds.’—In C (p. 255) Eärendel ‘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’ in B (p. 253) ‘he sights the Isle of Seabirds “whither do all the birds of all waters come at whiles”.’ There is a memory of this in The Silmarillion, p. 250: ‘Therefore there was built for [Elwing] a white tower northward upon the borders of the Sundering Seas; and thither at times all the seabirds of the earth repaired.’
(xviii) When Eärendel comes to Mandos he finds that Tuor is ‘not in Valinor, nor Erumáni, and neither Elves nor Ainu know where he is. (He is with Ulmo.)’—In C (p. 255) Eärendel, reaching the Halls of Mandos, learns that Tuor ‘is gone to Valinor’. For the possibility that Tuor might be in Erumáni or Valinor see I.91 ff.
(xix) Eärendel ‘returns from the firmament ever and anon with Voronwë to Kôr to see if the Magic Sun has been lit and the fairies have come back—but the Moon drives him back’.—On Eärendel’s return from the firmament see (xxi) below; on the Rekindling of the Magic Sun see p. 286.
Two statements about Eärendel cited previously may be added here:
(xx) In the tale of The Theft of Melko (I.141) it is said that ‘on the walls of Kôr were many dark tales written in pictured symbols, and runes of great beauty were drawn there too or carved upon stones, and Eärendel read many a wondrous tale there long ago’.
(xxi) The Name-list to The Fall of Gondolin has the following entry (cited on p. 215): ‘Eärendel was the son of Tuor and Idril and ’tis said the only being that is half of the kindred of the Eldalië and half of Men. He was the greatest and first of all mariners among Men, and saw regions that Men have not yet found nor gazed upon for all the multitude of their boats. He rideth now with Voronwë upon the winds of the firmament nor comes ever further back than Kôr, else would he die like other Men, so much of the mortal is in him.’—In the outline associated with the poem ‘The Bidding of the Minstrel’ Eärendel ‘sets sail upon the sky and returns no more to earth’ (p. 261); in the prose preface to ‘The Shores of Faëry’ ‘to Eglamar he comes ever at plenilune when the Moon sails-a-harrying beyond Taniquetil