The Book of Lost Tales - J. R. Tolkien [194]
All that land the Elves named Lúthien20 and do so yet. In Lúthien alone dwelt still the most part of the Fading Companies, the Holy Fairies that have not yet sailed away from the world, beyond the horizon of Men’s knowledge, to the Lonely Island, or even to the Hill of Tûn21 upon the Bay of Faëry that washes the western shores of the kingdom of the Gods. Therefore is Lúthien even yet a holy land, and a magic that is not otherwise lingers still in many places of that isle.
Now amidmost of that island is there still a town that is aged among Men, but its age among the Elves is greater far; and, for this is a book of the Lost Tales of Elfinesse, it shall be named in their tongue Kortirion, which the Gnomes call Mindon Gwar.22 Upon the hill of Gwar dwelt in the days of the English a man and his name was Déor, and he came thither from afar, from the south of the island and from the forests and from the enchanted West, where albeit he was of the English folk he had long time wandered. Now the Prince of Gwar was in those days a lover of songs and no enemy of the Elves, and they lingered yet most of all the isle in those regions about Kortirion (which places they called Alalminórë, the Land of Elms), and thither came Déor the singer to seek the Prince of Gwar and to seek the companies of the Fading Elves, for he was an Elf-friend. Though Déor was of English blood, it is told that he wedded to wife a maiden from the West, from Lionesse as some have named it since, or Evadrien ‘Coast of Iron’ as the Elves still say. Déor found her in the lost land beyond Belerion whence the Elves at times set sail.
Mirth had Déor long time in Mindon Gwar, but the Men of the North, whom the fairies of the island called Forodwaith, but whom Men called other names, came against Gwar in those days when they ravaged wellnigh all the land of Lúthien. Its walls availed not and its towers might not withstand them for ever, though the siege was long and bitter.
There Éadgifu (for so did Déor name the maiden of the West, though it was not her name aforetime)23 died in those evil hungry days; but Déor fell before the walls even as he sang a song of ancient valour for the raising of men’s hearts. That was a desperate sally, and the son of Déor was Ælfwine, and he was then but a boy left fatherless. The sack of that town thereafter was very cruel, and whispers of its ancient days alone remained, and the Elves that had grown to love the English of the isle fled or hid themselves for a long time, and none of Elves or Men were left in his old halls to lament the fall of Óswine Prince of Gwar.
Then Ælfwine, even he whom the unfaded Elves beyond the waters of Garsecg did after name Eldairon of Lúthien (which is Ælfwine of England), was made a thrall to the fierce lords of the Forodwaith, and his boyhood knew evil days. But behold a wonder, for Ælfwine knew not and had never seen the sea, yet he heard its great voice speaking deeply in his heart, and its murmurous choirs sang ever in his secret ear between wake and sleep, that he was filled with longing. This was of the magic of Éadgifu, maiden of the West, his mother, and this longing unquenchable had been hers all the days that she dwelt in the quiet inland places among the elms of Mindon Gwar—and amidmost of her longing was Ælfwine her child born, and the Foamriders, the Elves of the Sea-marge, whom she had known of old in Lionesse, sent messengers to his birth. But now Éadgifu was gone beyond the Rim of Earth, and her fair form lay unhonoured in Mindon Gwar, and Déor’s harp was silent, but Ælfwine laboured in thraldom until the threshold of manhood, dreaming dreams and filled with longing, and at rare times holding converse with the hidden Elves.
At last his longing for the sea bit him so sorely that he contrived to break his bonds, and daring great perils and suffering many grievous toils he escaped to lands where the Lords of the Forodwaith had not come, far from the places of Déor’s abiding in Mindon Gwar. Ever he wandered southward and to the west, for that way his feet unbidden led him. Now