The Book of Lost Tales - J. R. Tolkien [205]
24 In Ælfwine I the text here reads: ‘by reason of her beauty and goodliness, even as that king of the Franks that was upon a time most mighty among men hath said…’ [sic]. In Ælfwine II the manuscript in ink stops at ‘high white shores’, but after these words my father pencilled in: ‘even as that king of the Franks that was in those days the mightiest of earthly kings hath said…’ [sic]. The only clue in Ælfwine of England to the period of Ælfwine’s life is the invasion of the Forodwaith (Vikings); the mighty king of the Franks may therefore be Charlemagne, but I have been unable to trace any such reference.
25 Evil is emended from Melko. Ælfwine I does not have the phrase.
26 Ælfwine I has: ‘when the ancient Men of the South from Micelgeard the Heartless Town set their mighty feet upon the soil of Lúthien.’ This text does not have the reference to Rûm and Magbar. The name Micelgeard is struck through, but Mickleyard is written at the head of the page. Micelgeard is Old English (and Mickleyard a modernisation of this in spelling), though it does not occur in extant Old English writings and is modelled on Old Norse Mikligarðr (Constantinople).—The peculiar hostility of the Romans to the Elves of Luthany is mentioned by implication in citation (20), and their disbelief in their existence in (22).
27 The application, frequent in Ælwine I, of ‘little’ to the fairies (Elves) of Lúthien and their ships was retained in Ælfwine II as first written, but afterwards struck out. Here the word is twice retained, perhaps unintentionally.
28 Elvish is a later emendation of fairy.
29 This sentence, from ‘save Ælfheah…’, was added later in Ælfwine II; it is not in Ælfwine I.—The whole text to this point in Ælfwine I and II is compressed into the following in Ælfwine A:
Ælfwine of England (whom the fairies after named Lúthien (friend) of Luthany (friendship)) born of Déor and Éadgifu. Their city burned and Déor slain and Éadgifu dies. Ælfwine a thrall of the Winged Helms. He escapes to the Western Sea and takes ship from Belerion and makes great voyages. He is seeking for the islands of the West of which Éadgifu had told him in his childhood.
30 Ælfwine I has here: ‘But three men could he find as his companions; and Ossë took them unto him.’ Ossë was emended to Neorth; and then the sentence was struck through and rewritten: ‘Such found he only three; and those three Neorth after took unto him and their names are not known.’ Neorth = Ulmo; see note 39.
31 Ælfwine A reads: ‘He espies some islands lying in the dawn but is swept thence by great winds. He returns hardly to Belerion. He gathers the seven greatest mariners of England; they sail in spring. They are wrecked upon the isles of Ælfwine’s desire and find them desert and lonely and filled with gloomy whispering trees.’ This is at variance with Ælfwine I and II where Ælfwine is cast on to the island alone; but agrees with II in giving Ælfwine seven companions, not three.
32 A clue that this was Ulmo: cf. The Fall of Gondolin (p. 155): ‘he was shod with mighty shoes of stone.’
33 In Ælfwine A they were ‘filled with gloomy whispering trees’ (note 31).
34 From the point where the Man of the Sea said: ‘Lo, this is one of the ring of Harbourless Isles…’ (p. 317) to here (i.e. the whole episode of the foundered Viking ship and its captain Orm, slayer of Ælfwine’s father) there is nothing corresponding in Ælfwine I, which has only: ‘but that Man of the Sea aided him in building a little craft, and together, guided by the solitary mariner, they fared away and came to a land but little known.’ For the narrative in Ælfwine A see note 39.
35 At one occurrence of the name Ythlings (Old English ýð ‘wave’) in Ælfwine I it is written Ythlingas, with the Old English plural ending.
36 The Shipmen of the West: emendation from Eneathrim.
37 Cf. in the passage of alliterative verse in my father’s On Translating Beowulf (The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays, 1983, p. 63): then away