I have already noticed (p. 257) the remarkable fact that there is no hint of the idea that it was Eärendel who by his intercession brought aid out of the West; equally there is no suggestion that the Valar hallowed his ship and set him in the sky, nor that his light was that of the Silmaril. Nonetheless there were already present the coming of Eärendel to Kôr (Tirion) and finding it deserted, the dust of diamonds on his shoes, the changing of Elwing into a seabird, the passing of his ship through the Door of Night, and the sanction against his return to the lands east of the Sea. The raid on the Havens of Sirion appears in the early outlines, though that was an act of Melko’s, not of the Fëanorians; and Tuor’s departure also, but without Idril, whom he left behind. His ship was Alqarámë, Swanwing: afterwards it bore the name Eärrámë, with the meaning ‘Sea-wing’ (The Silmarillion p. 245), which retained, in form but not in meaning, the name of Eärendel’s first ship Eärámë ‘Eaglepinion’ (pp. 253–4, and see note 9).
It is interesting to read my father’s statement, made some half-century later (in the letter of 1967 referred to above), concerning the origins of Eärendil:
This name is in fact (as is obvious) derived from Anglo-Saxon éarendel. When first studying Anglo-Saxon professionally (1913–)—I had done so as a boyish hobby when supposed to be learning Greek and Latin—I was struck by the great beauty of this word (or name), entirely coherent with the normal style of Anglo-Saxon, but euphonic to a peculiar degree in that pleasing but not ‘delectable’ language. Also its form strongly suggests that it is in origin a proper name and not a common noun. This is borne out by the obviously related forms in other Germanic languages; from which amid the confusions and debasements of late traditions it at least seems certain that it belonged to astronomical-myth, and was the name of a star or star-group. To my mind the Anglo-Saxon uses seem plainly to indicate that it was a star presaging the dawn (at any rate in English tradition): that is what we now call Venus: the morning star as it may be seen shining brilliantly in the dawn, before the actual rising of the Sun. That is at any rate how I took it. Before 1914 I wrote a ‘poem’ upon Eärendel who launched his ship like a bright spark from the havens of the Sun. I adopted him into my mythology—in which he became a prime figure as a mariner, and eventually as a herald star, and a sign of hope to men. Aiya Eärendil Elenion Ancalima ([The Lord of the Rings] II.329), ‘hail Eärendil brightest of Stars’ is derived at long remove from Éalá Éarendel engla beorhtast.* But the name could not be adopted just like that: it had to be accommodated to the Elvish linguistic situation, at the same time as a place for this person was made in legend. From this, far back in the history of ‘Elvish’, which was beginning, after many tentative starts in boyhood, to take definite shape at the time of the name’s adoption, arose eventually (a) the C[ommon] E[lvish] stem* AYAR ‘sea’, primarily applied to the Great Sea of the West, lying between Middle-earth and Aman the Blessed Realm of the Valar; and (b) the element, or verbal base (N) DIL, ‘to love, be devoted to’—describing the attitude of one to a person, thing, cause, or occupation to which one is devoted for its own sake. Eärendil became a character in the earliest written (1916–17) of the major legends: The Fall of Gondolin, the greatest of the Pereldar ‘Half-elven’, son of Tuor of the most renowned House of the Edain, and Idril daughter of the King of Gondolin.
My father did not indeed here say that his Eärendel contained from the beginning elements that in combination give a meaning like ‘Sea-lover’ but it is in any case clear that at the time of the earliest extant writings on the subject the name was associated with an Elvish word ea ‘eagle’—see p. 265 on the name of Eärendel’s first ship Eärámë ‘Eaglepinion’. In the Name-list to The Fall of Gondolin this is made explicit: ‘Earendl [sic] though belike it hath some kinship to the Elfin ea and earen “eagle” and “eyrie” (wherefore cometh to mind the passage of Cristhorn and the use of the sign of the Eagle by Idril [see p. 193]) is thought to be woven of that secret tongue of the Gondothlim [see p. 165].’
I give lastly four early poems of my father’s in which Eärendel appears.
I
Éalá Éarendel Engla Beorhtast
There can be little doubt that, as Humphrey Carpenter supposes (Biography p. 71), this was the first poem on the subject of Eärendel that my father composed, and that it was written at Phoenix Farm, Gedling, Nottinghamshire, in September 1914.10 It was to this poem that he was referring in the letter of 1967 just cited—‘I wrote a “poem” upon Eärendel who launched his ship like a bright spark’: cf. line 5 ‘He launched his bark like a silver spark…’
There are some five different versions, each one incorporating emendations made in the predecessor, though only the first verse was substantially rewritten. The title was originally ‘The Voyage of Éarendel the Evening Star’, together with (as customarily) an Old English version of this: Scipfæreld Earendeles fensteorran; this was changed in a later copy to Éalá Éarendel Engla Beorhtast ‘The Last Voyage of Eärendel’, and in still later copies the modern English name was removed. I give it here in the last version, the date of which cannot be determined, though the handwriting shows it to be substantially later than the original composition; together with all the divergent readings of the earliest extant version in footnotes.
Éarendel arose where the shadow flows
At Ocean’s silent brim;
Through the mouth of night as a ray of light
Where the shores are sheer and dim 4
He launched his bark like a silver spark
From the last and lonely sand;
Then on sunlit breath of day’s fiery death
He sailed from Westerland. 8
He threaded his path o’er the aftermath
Of the splendour of the Sun,
And wandered far past many a star
In his gleaming galleon. 12
On the gathering tide of darkness ride
The argosies of the sky,
And spangle the night with their sails of light
As the streaming star goes by. 16
Unheeding he dips past these twinkling ships,
By his wayward spirit whirled
On an endless quest through the darkling West
O’er the margin of the world; 20
And he fares in haste o’er the jewelled waste
And the dusk from whence he came
With his heart afire with bright desire
And his face in silver flame. 24
The Ship of the Moon from the East comes soon
From the Haven of the Sun,
Whose white gates gleam in the coming beam
Of the mighty silver one. 28
Lo! with bellying clouds as his vessel’s shrouds
He weighs anchor down the dark,
And on shimmering oars leaves the blazing shores
In his argent-timbered bark. 32
Readings of the earliest version:
1–8 Eärendel sprang up from the Ocean’s cup
In the gloom of the mid-world’s rim;
From the door of Night as a ray of light
Leapt over the twilight brim,
And launching his bark like a silver spark
From the golden-fading sand
Down the sunlit breath of Day’s fiery Death
He sped from Westerland.
10 splendour] glory
11 wandered] went wandering
16 streaming] Evening
17 Unheeding] But unheeding
18 wayward] wandering
19 endless] magic darkling] darkening
20 O’er the margin] Toward the margent
22 And the dusk] To the dusk
25 The Ship] For the Ship
31 blazing] skiey
32 timbered] orbéd
Then Éarendel fled from that Shipman dread
Beyond the dark earth’s pale,
Back under the rim of the Ocean dim,
And behind the world set sail; 36
And he heard the mirth of the f
olk of earth
And the falling of their tears,
As the world dropped back in a cloudy wrack
On its journey down the years. 40
Then he glimmering passed to the starless vast
As an isléd lamp at sea,
And beyond the ken of mortal men
Set his lonely errantry, 44
Tracking the Sun in his galleon
Through the pathless firmament,
Till his light grew old in abysses cold
And his eager flame was spent. 48
There seems every reason to think that this poem preceded all the outlines and notes given in this chapter, and that verbal similarities to the poem found in these are echoes (e.g. ‘his face is in silver flame’, outline C, p. 255; ‘the margent of the world’, outline E, p. 260).
In the fourth verse of the poem the Ship of the Moon comes forth from the Haven of the Sun; in the tale of The Hiding of Valinor (I.215) Aulë and Ulmo built two havens in the east, that of the Sun (which was ‘wide and golden’) and that of the Moon (which was ‘white, having gates of silver and of pearl’)—but they were both ‘within the same harbourage’. As in the poem, in the Tale of the Sun and Moon the Moon is urged on by ‘shimmering oars’ (I. 195).
II
The Bidding of the Minstrel
This poem, according to a note that my father scribbled on one of the copies, was written at St. John’s Street, Oxford (see I.27) in the winter of 1914; there is no other evidence for its date. In this case the earliest workings are extant, and on the back of one of the sheets is the outline account of Eärendel’s great voyage given on p. 261. The poem was then much longer than it became, but the workings are exceedingly rough; they have no title. To the earliest finished text a title was added hastily later: this apparently reads ‘The Minstrel renounces the song’. The title then became ‘The Lay of Eärendel’, changed in the latest text to ‘The Bidding of the Minstrel, from the Lay of Eärendel’.
33 Then] And
38 And the falling of] And hearkened to
46–8 And voyaging the skies
Till his splendour was shorn by the birth of Morn
And he died with the Dawn in his eyes.
There are four versions following the original rough draft, but the changes made in them were slight, and I give the poem here in the latest form, noting only that originally the minstrel seems to have responded to the ‘bidding’ much earlier—at line 5, which read ‘Then harken—a tale of immortal sea-yearning’; and that ‘Eldar’ in line 6 and ‘Elven’ in line 23 are emendations, made on the latest text, of ‘fairies’, ‘fairy’.
‘Sing us yet more of Eärendel the wandering,
Chant us a lay of his white-oared ship,
More marvellous-cunning than mortal man’s pondering,
Foamily musical out on the deep.
Sing us a tale of immortal sea-yearning 5
The Eldar once made ere the change of the light,
Weaving a winelike spell, and a burning
Wonder of spray and the odours of night;
Of murmurous gloamings out on far oceans;
Of his tossing at anchor off islets forlorn 10
To the unsleeping waves’ never-ending sea-motions;
Of bellying sails when a wind was born,
And the gurgling bubble of tropical water
Tinkled from under the ringéd stem,
And thousands of miles was his ship from those wrought her 15
A petrel, a sea-bird, a white-wingéd gem,
Gallantly bent on measureless faring
Ere she came homing in sea-laden flight,
Circuitous, lingering, restlessly daring,
Coming to haven unlooked for, at night.’ 20
‘But the music is broken, the words half-forgotten,
The sunlight has faded, the moon is grown old,
The Elven ships foundered or weed-swathed and rotten,
The fire and the wonder of hearts is acold.
Who now can tell, and what harp can accompany 25
With melodies strange enough, rich enough tunes,
Pale with the magic of cavernous harmony,
Loud with shore-music of beaches and dunes,
How slender his boat; of what glimmering timber;
How her sails were all silvern and taper her mast, 30
And silver her throat with foam and her limber
Flanks as she swanlike floated past!
The song I can sing is but shreds one remembers
Of golden imaginings fashioned in sleep,
A whispered tale told by the withering embers 35
Of old things far off that but few hearts keep.’
III
The Shores of Faëry
This poem is given in its earliest form by Humphrey Carpenter, Biography, pp. 76–7.11 It exists in four versions each as usual incorporating slight changes; my father wrote the date of its composition on three of the copies, viz. ‘July 8–9, 1915’; ‘Moseley and Edgbaston, Birmingham July 1915 (walking and on bus). Retouched often since—esp. 1924’ and ‘First poem of my mythology, Valinor……….1910’. This last cannot have been intended for the date of composition, and the illegible words preceding it may possibly be read as ‘thought of about’. But it does not in any case appear to have been ‘the first poem of the mythology’: that, I believe, was Éalá Éarendel Engla Beorhtast—and my father’s mention of this poem in his letter of 1967 (see p. 266) seems to suggest this also.
The Old English title was Ielfalandes Strand (The Shores of Elfland). It is preceded by a short prose preface which has been given above, p. 262. I give it here in the latest version (undateable), with all readings from the earliest in footnotes.
East of the Moon, west of the Sun
There stands a lonely hill;
Its feet are in the pale green sea,
Its towers are white and still,
Beyond Taniquetil 5
In Valinor.
Comes never there but one lone star
That fled before the moon;
And there the Two Trees naked are
That bore Night’s silver bloom, 10
That bore the globéd fruit of Noon
In Valinor.
There are the shores of Faëry
Readings of the earliest version:
1 East…..west] West….. East
7 No stars come there but one alone
8 fled before] hunted with
9 For there the Two Trees naked grow
10 bore] bear 11 bore] bear
With their moonlit pebbled strand
Whose foam is silver music 15
On the opalescent floor
Beyond the great sea-shadows
On the marches of the sand
That stretches on for ever
To the dragonheaded door, 20
The gateway of the Moon,
Beyond Taniquetil
In Valinor.
West of the Sun, east of the Moon
Lies the haven of the star, 25
The white town of the Wanderer
And the rocks of Eglamar.
There Wingelot is harboured,
While Eärendel looks afar
O’er the darkness of the waters 30
Between here and Eglamar—
Out, out, beyond Taniquetil
In Valinor afar.
There are some interesting connections between this poem and the tale of The Coming of the Elves and the Making of Kôr. The ‘lonely hill’ of line 2 is the hill of Kôr (cf. the tale, I.122: ‘at the head of this long creek there stands a lonely hill which gazes at the loftier mountains’), while ‘the golden feet of Kôr’ (a line replaced in the later versions of the poem) and very probably ‘the sand That stretches on for ever’ are explained by the passage that follows in the tale:
Thither [i.e. to Kôr] did Aulë bring all the dust of magic metals that his great works had made and gathered, and he piled it about the foot of that hill, and most o
f this dust was of gold, and a sand of gold stretched away from the feet of Kôr out into the distance where the Two Trees blossomed.
18 marches] margent
20–21 To the dragonheaded door, The gateway of the Moon] From the golden feet of Kôr
24 West of the Sun, east of the Moon] O! West of the Moon, East of the Sun
27 rocks] rock
28 Wingelot] Earliest text Wingelot > Vingelot; second text Vingelot; third text Vingelot > Wingelot; last text Wingelot
30 O’er the darkness of the waters] On the magic and the wonder
31 Between] ’Tween
In the latest text Elvenland is lightly written over Faëry in line 13, and Eldamar against Eglamar in line 27 (only); Eglamar > Eldamar in the second text.
With the ‘dragonheaded door’ (line 20) cf. the description of the Door of Night in The Hiding of Valinor (I.215–16):
Its pillars are of the mightiest basalt and its lintel likewise, but great dragons of black stone are carved thereon, and shadowy smoke pours slowly from their jaws.
In that description the Door of Night is not however ‘the gateway of the Moon’, for it is the Sun that passes through it into the outer dark, whereas ‘the Moon dares not the utter loneliness of the outer dark by reason of his lesser light and majesty, and he journeys still beneath the world [i.e. through the waters of Vai]’.
IV
The Happy Mariners
I give lastly this poem whose subject is the Tower of Pearl in the Twilit Isles. It was written in July 1915,12 and there are six texts preceding the version which was published (together with ‘Why the Man in the Moon came down too soon’) at Leeds in 1923* and which is the first of the two given here.
(I)
I know a window in a western tower
That opens on celestial seas,
And wind that has been blowing round the stars
Comes to nestle in its tossing draperies.
It is a white tower builded in the Twilight Isles, 5
Where Evening sits for ever in the shade;
It glimmers like a spike of lonely pearl
The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two Page 37