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By Root 1010 0

‘that was the first making and uttering of that name’. Eriol told Vairë of the ‘dream-musics’ he had heard, and she said that it was no dream-music, but rather the flute of Timpinen, ‘whom those Gnomes Rúmil and Littleheart and others of my house call Tinfang’. She told him that the children called him Tinfang Warble; and that he played and danced in summer dusks for joy of the first stars: ‘at every note a new one sparkles forth and glisters. The Noldoli say that they come out too soon if Tinfang Warble plays, and they love him, and the children will watch often from the windows lest he tread the shadowy lawns unseen.’ She told Eriol that he was ‘shier than a fawn—swift to hide and dart away as any vole: a footstep on a twig and he is away, and his fluting will come mocking from afar’.

‘And a marvel of wizardry liveth in that fluting,’ said Eriol, ‘if that it be indeed which I have heard now for two nights here.’

‘There be none,’ said Vairë, ‘not even of the Solosimpi, who can rival him therein, albeit those same pipers claim him as their kin; yet ’tis said everywhere that this quaint spirit is neither wholly of the Valar nor of the Eldar, but is half a fay of the woods and dells, one of the great companies of the children of Palúrien, and half a Gnome or a Shoreland Piper.1 Howso that be he is a wondrous wise and strange creature, and he fared hither away with the Eldar long ago, marching nor resting among them but going always ahead piping strangely or whiles sitting aloof. Now does he play about the gardens of the land; but Alalminórë he loves the best, and this garden best of all. Ever and again we miss his piping for long months, and we say: “Tinfang Warble has gone heart-breaking in the Great Lands, and many a one in those far regions will hear his piping in the dusk outside tonight.” But on a sudden will his flute be heard again at an hour of gentle gloaming, or will he play beneath a goodly moon and the stars go bright and blue.’

‘Aye,’ said Eriol, ‘and the hearts of those that hear him go beating with a quickened longing. Meseemed ’twas my desire to open the window and leap forth, so sweet was the air that came to me from without, nor might I drink deep enough, but as I listened I wished to follow I know not whom, I know not whither, out into the magic of the world beneath the stars.’

‘Then of a sooth ’twas Timpinen who played to you,’ said Vairë, ‘and honoured are you, for this garden has been empty of his melody many a night. Now, however, for such is the eeriness of that sprite, you will ever love the evenings of summer and the nights of stars, and their magic will cause your heart to ache unquenchably.’

‘But have you not all heard him many times and often, that dwell here,’ said Eriol, ‘yet do not seem to me like those who live with a longing that is half understood and may not be fulfilled.’

‘Nor do we so, for we have limpë,’ said she, ‘limpë that alone can cure, and a draught of it giveth a heart to fathom all music and song.’

‘Then,’ said Eriol, ‘would I might drain a goblet of that good drink’ but Vairë told him that that might only be if he sought out Meril the queen.

Of this converse of Eriol and Vairë upon the lawn that fair day-tide came it that Eriol set out not many days thereafter—and Tinfang Warble had played to him many times by dusk, by starry light and moongleam, till his heart was full. In that was Littleheart his guide, and he sought the dwellings of Meril-i-Turinqui in her korin of elms.

Now the house of that fair lady was in that very city, for at the foot of the great tower which Ingil had built was a wide grove of the most ancient and beautiful elms that all that Land of Elms possessed. High to heaven they rose in three lessening storeys of bright foliage, and the sunlight that filtered through was very cool—a golden green. Amidst of these was a great green sward of grass smooth as a web of stuffs, and about it those trees stood in a circle, so that shades were heavy at its edge but the gaze of the sun fell all day on its middle. There stood a beautiful house, and it was builded