Unfinished Tales - J. R. R. Tolkien [131]
5 Eruhantalë: ‘Thanksgiving to Eru’, the autumn feast in Númenor; see the ‘Description of Númenor’ p. 214.
6 (Sîr) Angren was the Elvish name of the river Isen. Ras Morthil, a name not otherwise found, must be the great headland at the end of the northern arm of the Bay of Belfalas, which was also called Andrast (Long Cape).
The reference to ‘the country of Amroth where the Nandor Elves still dwell’ can be taken to imply that the tale of Aldarion and Erendis was written down in Gondor before the departure of the last ship from the haven of the Silvan Elves near Dol Amroth in the year 1981 of the Third Age; see pp. 310 ff.
7 For Uinen the spouse of Ossë (Maiar of the Sea) see The Silmarillion p. 30. There it is said that ‘the Númenóreans lived long in her protection, and held her in reverence equal to the Valar’.
8 It is stated that the Guildhouse of the Venturers ‘was confiscated by the Kings, and removed to the western haven of Andúnië; all its records perished’ (i.e. in the Downfall), including all the accurate charts of Númenor. But it is not said when this confiscation of Ea¨mbar took place.
9 The river was afterwards called Gwathló or Greyflood, and the haven Lond Daer; see pp. 338 ff.
10 Cf. The Silmarillion p. 148: ‘The Men of that House[i.e. of Bëor] were dark or brown of hair, with grey eyes.’ According to a genealogical table of the House of Bëor Erendis was descended from Bereth, who was the sister of Baragund and Belegund, and thus the aunt of Morwen mother of Túrin Turambar and of Rían the mother of Tuor.
11 On different life-spans among the Númenóreans see Note 1 to ‘The Line of Elros’, p. 289.
12 On the tree oiolairë see the ‘Description of Númenór’,p. 216.
13 This is to be understood as a portent.
14 Cf. the Akallabêth (The Silmarillion p. 277), where it is told that in the days of Ar-Pharazôn ‘ever and anon a great ship of the Númenóreans would founder and not return to haven, though such a grief had not till then befallen them since the rising of the Star’.
15 Valandil was Aldarion’s cousin, for he was the son of Silmarien, daughter of Tar-Elendil and sister of Tar-Meneldur. Valandil, first of the Lords of Andúnië, was the ancestor of Elendil the Tall, father of Isildur and Anárion.
16 Erukyermë: ‘Prayer to Eru’, the feast of the Spring in Númenor; see the ‘Description of Númenór’ p. 214.
17 It is said in the Akallabêth (The Silmarillion pp. 262 – 3) that ‘at times, when all the air was clear and the sun was in the east, they would look out and descry far off in the west a city white-shining on a distant shore, and a great harbour and a tower. For in those days the Númenóreans were far-sighted; yet even so it was only the keenest eyes among them that could see this vision, from the Meneltarma maybe, or from some tall ship that lay off their western coast.... But the wise among them knew that this distant land was not indeed the Blessed Realm of Valinor, but was Avallónë, the haven of the Eldar upon Eressëa, easternmost of the Undying Lands.’
18 Thus came, it is said, the manner of the Kings and Queens afterward to wear as a star a white jewel upon the brow, and they had no crown. [Author’s note.]
19 In the Westlands and in Andúnië the Elven-tongue [Sindarin] was spoken by high and low. In that tongue Erendis was nurtured; but Aldarion spoke the Númenórean speech, although as all high men of Númenór he knew also the tongue of Beleriand. [Author’s note.] – Elsewhere, in a note on the languages of Númenor, it is said that the general use of Sindarin in the north-west of the Isle was due to the fact that those parts were largely settled by people of ‘Bëorian’ descent; and the People of Bëor had in Beleriand early abandoned their own speech and adopted Sindarin. (Of this there is no mention in The Silmarillion, though it is said there (p. 148) that in Dor-lómin in the days of Fingolfin the people of Hador did not forget their own speech, ‘and from it came the common tongue of Númenor’.) In other regions of Númenor Adûnaic was the native language of the people,