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Seven invasions.

Of the coming of Men to Luthany, how each race quarrelled, and the fairies faded, until [?the most] set sail, after the coming of the Rúmhoth, for the West. Why the Men of the seventh invasion, the Ingwaiwar, are more friendly.

Ingwë and Eärendel who dwelt in Luthany before it was an isle and was [sic] driven east by Ossë to found the Ingwaiwar.

(21) All the descendants of Ing were well disposed to Elves; hence the remaining Elves of Luthany spoke to [?them] in the ancient tongue of the English, and since some have fared…..to Tol Eressëa that tongue is there understood, and all who wish to speak to the Elves, if they know not and have no means of learning Elfin speeches, must converse in the ancient tongue of the English.

In (20) the term ‘Faring Forth’ must again be used as it is in (18), of the March from Kôr. There it was called a ‘disaster’ (see p. 303), and here it is said that it ‘came to nought’: it must be admitted that it is hard to see how that can be said, if it led to the binding of Melko and the release of the enslaved Noldoli (see (1) and (3)).

Also in (20) is the first appearance of the idea of the Seven Invasions of Luthany. One of these was that of the Rúmhoth (mentioned also in (14)) or Romans; and the seventh was that of the Ingwaiwar, who were not hostile to the Elves.

Here something must be said of the name Ing (Ingwë, Ingwaiar) in these passages. As with the introduction of Hengest and Horsa, the association of the mythology with ancient English legend is manifest. But it would serve no purpose, I believe, to enter here into the obscure and speculative scholarship of English and Scandinavian origins: the Roman writers’ term Inguaeones for the Baltic maritime peoples from whom the English came; the name Ingwine (interpretable either as Ing-wine ‘the friends of Ing’ or as containing the same Ingw- seen in Inguaeones); or the mysterious personage Ing who appears in the Old English Runic Poem:

Ing wæs ærest mid East-Denum

gesewen secgum oþ he siþþan east

ofer wæg gewat; wæn æfter ran

—which may be translated: ‘Ing was first seen by men among the East Danes, until he departed eastwards over the waves; his car sped after him.’ It would serve no purpose, because although the connection of my father’s Ing, Ingwë with the shadowy Ing (Ingw-) of northern historical legend is certain and indeed obvious he seems to have been intending no more than an association of his mythology with known traditions (though the words of the Runic Poem were clearly influential). The matter is made particularly obscure by the fact that in these notes the names Ing and Ingwë intertwine with each other, but are never expressly differentiated or identified.

Thus Ælfwine was ‘of the kin of Ing, King of Luthany’ (15, 16), but the Elves retreated ‘to Luthany where Ingwë was king’ (18). The Elves of Luthany throve again ‘after the coming of the sons of Ing’ (19), and the Ingwaiwar, seventh of the invaders of Luthany, were more friendly to the Elves (20), while Ingwë ‘founded’ the Ingwaiwar (20). This name is certainly to be equated with Inguaeones (see above), and the invasion of the Ingwaiwar (or ‘Sons of Ing’) equally certainly represents the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ invasion of Britain. Can Ing, Ingwë be equated? So far as this present material is concerned, I hardly see how they can not be. Whether this ancestor-founder is to be equated with Inwë (whose son was Ingil) of the Lost Tales is another question. It is hard to believe that there is no connection (especially since Inwë in The Cottage of Lost Play is emended from Ing, I.22), yet it is equally difficult to see what that connection could be, since Inwë of the Lost Tales is an Elda of Kôr (Ingwë Lord of the Vanyar in The Silmarillion) while Ing(wë) of ‘the Ælfwine story’ is a Man, the King of Luthany and Ælfwine’s ancestor. (In outlines for Gilfanon’s Tale it is said that Ing King of Luthany was descended from Ermon, or from Ermon and Elmir (the first Men, I. 236–7).)

The following outlines