The Book of Lost Tales - J. R. Tolkien [190]
(22) How Ing sailed away at eld [i.e. in old age] into the twilight, and Men say he came to the Gods, but he dwells on Tol Eressëa, and will guide the fairies one day back to Luthany when the Faring Forth takes place.*
How he prophesied that his kin should fare back again and possess Luthany until the days of the coming of the Elves.
How the land of Luthany was seven times invaded by Men, until at the seventh the children of the children of Ing came back to their own.
How at each new war and invasion the Elves faded, and each loved the Elves less, until the Rúmhoth came—and they did not even believe they existed, and the Elves all fled, so that save for a few the isle was empty of the Elves for three hundred years.
(23) How Ingwë drank limpë at the hands of the Elves and reigned ages in Luthany.
How Eärendel came to Luthany to find the Elves gone.
How Ingwë aided him, but was not suffered to go with him. Eärendel blessed all his progeny as the mightiest sea-rovers of the world.16
How Ossë made war upon Ingwë because of Eärendel, and Ing longing for the Elves set sail, and all were wrecked after being driven far east.
How Ing the immortal came among the Dani OroDáni Urdainoth East Danes.
How he became the half-divine king of the Ingwaiwar, and taught them many things of Elves and Gods, so that some true knowledge of the Gods and Elves lingered in that folk alone.
Part of another outline that does not belong with the foregoing passages but covers the same part of the narrative as (23) may be given here:
(24) Eärendel takes refuge with [Ingwë] from the wrath of Ossë, and gives him a draught of limpë (enough to assure immortality). He gives him news of the Elves and the dwelling on Tol Eressëa.
Ingwë and a host of his folk set sail to find Tol Eressëa, but Ossë blows them back east. They are utterly wrecked. Only Ingwë rescued on a raft. He becomes king of the Angali, Euti, Saksani, and Firisandi,* who adopt the title of Ingwaiwar. He teaches them much magic and first sets men’s hearts to seafaring westward……
After a great [?age of rule] Ingwë sets sail in a little boat and is heard of no more.
It is clear that the intrusion of Luthany, and Ing(wë), into the conception has caused a movement in the story of Eärendel: whereas in the older version he went to Tol Eressëa after the departure of the Eldar and Noldoli from the Great Lands (pp. 253, 255), now he goes to Luthany; and the idea of Ossë’s enmity towards Eärendel (pp. 254, 263) is retained but brought into association with the origin of the Ingwaiwar.
It is clear that the narrative structure is:
– Ing(wë) King of Luthany.
– Eärendel seeks refuge with him (after [many of] the Elves have departed to Tol Eressëa).
– Ing(wë) seeks Tol Eressëa but is driven into the East.
– Seven invasions of Luthany.
– The people of Ing(wë) are the Ingwaiwar, and they ‘come back to their own’ when they invade Luthany from across the North Sea.
(25) Luthany was where the tribes first embarked in the Lonely Isle for Valinor, and whence they landed for the Faring Forth,* whence [also] many sailed with Elwing to find Tol Eressëa.
That Luthany was where the Elves, at the end of the great journey from Palisor, embarked on the Lonely Isle for the Ferrying to Valinor, is probably to be connected with the statement in (20) that ‘Ingwë and Eärendel dwelt in Luthany before it was an isle’.
(26) There are other references to the channel separating Luthany from the Great Lands: in rough jottings in notebook C there is mention of an isthmus being cut by the Elves, ‘fearing Men now that Ingwë has gone’, and ‘to the white cliffs where the silver spades of the Teleri worked’ also in the next citation.
(27) The Elves tell Ælfwine of the ancient manner of Luthany, of Kortirion or Gwarthyryn (Caer Gwâr),17 of Tavrobel.
How the fairies dwelt there a hundred ages before Men had the skill to build boats to cross the channel—so that magic lingers yet mightily in its woods and hills.
How they renamed many a place in Tol Eress