‘The thought of the Sea’, Tolkien also says in the preface, was ‘ever-present in the background of hobbit imagination’. So it was in his own: ships and gulls, cliffs and caves, wind and wave figure in many of his works. The ‘glittering sand … / dust of pearl and jewel-grist’ of The Sea-Bell recalls a description of Valinor, the ‘Blessed Realm’ of the Elves and the angelic powers, in ‘The Silmarillion’: ‘Many jewels the Noldor gave [the Teleri], opals and diamonds and pale crystals, which they strewed upon the shores and scattered in the pools. Marvellous were the beaches of Elendë in those days’ (Morgoth’s Ring (1993), p. 43). And from the song of Eärendil in The Lord of the Rings (bk. II, ch. 1; see our notes for Errantry), ‘Evereven’s lofty hills / where softly silver fountains fall’, referring to Valinor, are echoed in The Sea-Bell, where the speaker climbs ‘a fountain-stair to a country fair of ever-eve’.
In a letter to Pauline Baynes, Tolkien called The Sea-Bell the ‘poorest’ of the poems he selected for the Bombadil collection (6 December 1961, Letters, p. 312), and in correspondence with Rayner Unwin he described it as ‘the vaguer, more subjective and least successful piece’ among those submitted (8 December 1961, A&U archive; Reader’s Guide, p. 26); we cannot say why he thought so. In time, the work was praised by W.H. Auden, and has been the subject of much scholarship relative to the other poems in the Bombadil volume, most extensively by Verlyn Flieger. Among other points, Flieger has found parallels between The Sea-Bell (and Looney) and Tolkien’s Old English poem of the 1920s, Ides Ælfscýne, in which a boy travels over the ocean to a ‘far-off land, on the silver strand … by the dim and dreary waves’, and when at last he returns home he is ‘grey and alone’ (translation by Tom Shippey, The Road to Middle-earth, p. 405; see our comments on Shadow-Bride). Flieger has also discussed Tolkien’s late story, Smith of Wootton Major (1967), ‘as a kind of corrective’ to The Sea-Bell, ‘sweetening the bitterness of the pain and gently balancing the loss [of Faërie] with renewed appreciation for the things of this world’. Smith, who frequently visits Faery (as it is spelled in his tale), must finally leave it and not return, but ‘finds consolation in family and friends’. Like the traveller in The Sea-Bell, Smith ‘is given to know that this Otherworld is not for him; but unlike the voyager,’ he gives it up freely, if reluctantly, ‘not isolated but enriched by where he has been and what he has seen’ (A Question of Time: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Road to Faërie (1997), p. 229).
In Looney, moonsheen is a variation on moonshine, and frore ‘intensely cold’ is the archaic past participle of freeze. In The Sea-Bell, ruel-bone is an obsolete word for whale-ivory, a rill is a small stream, nenuphars are water-lilies, and gladdon-swords are irises, also known as flags, with sword-shaped leaves, thus the speaker’s ‘flag of gold’ is a yellow flag or iris. Brocks are badgers, and sea-wrack refers to seaweed which grows on the shoreline.
THE LAST SHIP
The precursor to The Last Ship was the poem Firiel, published in the Chronicle of the Convents of the Sacred Heart, no. 4 (1934):
Firiel looked out at three o’clock:
the grey night was going;
Far away a golden cock
clear and shrill was crowing.
The trees were dark, the light was pale;
waking birds were cheeping;
A wind moved cool and frail
through dim leaves creeping.
She watched the gleam at window grow,
till the long light was shimmering
On land and leaf; on grass below
grey dew was glimmering.
Over the floor her white feet crept,
down the stairs they twinkled,
Through the grass they dancing stepped
all with dew besprinkled.
Her gown had jewels upon its hem,
as she ran down to the river,
And leaned upon a willow-stem,
and watched the water quiver.
A kingfisher plunged down like a stone
in a blue flash falling,
Bending reeds were softly blown,
lily-leaves were sprawling.
A sudden music to her came,
as she stood there gleaming
With free hair in the morning’s flame
on her shoulders streaming.
Flutes there were, and harps were wrung,
and there was sound of singing
Like wind-voices keen and young
in green leaves swinging.
A boat with golden beak and oar
and timbers white came gliding;
Swans went sailing on before,
her swift course guiding.
Fair folk out of Elvenland
robed in white were rowing,
And three with crowns she saw there stand
with bright hair flowing.
They sang their song, while minstrels played
on harp and flute slowly
Like sea heard in a green glade
under mountains holy.
The beak was turned, the boat drew nigh with elven-treasure laden,
‘Firiel! Come aboard!’ they cry,
‘O fair earth-maiden!’
‘O whither go ye, Elvenfolk,
down the waters gliding?
To the twilight under beech and oak
in the green forest hiding?
To foam that falls upon the shore
and the white gulls crying?
To Northern isles grey and frore
on strong swans flying?’
‘Nay! Out and onward, far away
past oak and elm and willow,
Leaving western havens grey,
cleaving the green billow,
We go back to Elvenhome
beyond the last mountains,
Whose feet are in the outer foam
of the world’s deep fountains.
In Elvenhome a clear bell
is in white tower shaking!
To wood and water say farewell,
the long road taking!
Here grass fades and leaves fall
and sun and moon wither;
And to few comes the far call
that bids them journey hither.’
Firiel looked from the river-bank,
one step daring;
And then her heart misgave and shrank,
and she halted staring.
Higher climbed the round sun,
and the dew was drying;
Faint faded, one by one,
their far voices crying.
No jewels bright her gown bore,
as she walked back from the water,
Under roof and dark door,
earth’s fair daughter.
At eight o’clock in green and white,
with long hair braided,
She tripped down, leaving night
and a vision faded.
Up climbed the round sun,
and the world was busy,
In and out, walk and run,
like an anthill dizzy.
Inside the house were feet
going pitter-patter;
Brooms, dusters, mats to beat,
pails, and dishes clatter.
Breakfast was on table laid;
there were voices loud and merry;
There was jam, honey, marmalade,
milk and fruit, and berry.
Of this and that people spoke,
jest, work, and money,
Shooting bird, and felling oak,
and ‘please, pass the honey!’
Tolkien wrote Firiel in the early 1930s, and submitted it to a journal published by an order of Roman Catholic nuns. He was in close contact with their Oxford convent (established 1929): his daughter, Priscilla, attended children’s parties there in the summer, and at Christmas while her father provided entertainment.
The name Fíriel (in the 1934 poem printed without an accent) means ‘mortal woman’ in Tolkien’s invented ‘High-Elvish’ language, and is found several ti
mes in his ‘Silmarillion’ mythology. In the Bombadil preface, he expands its use as the name also of ‘a princess of Gondor, through whom Aragorn [in The Lord of the Rings] claimed descent from the Southern line’, and of ‘a daughter of Elanor, daughter of Sam [Gamgee], but her name, if connected with the rhyme, must be derived from it’. With The Man in the Moon Came Down Too Soon (see above), The Last Ship is said to ‘be derived ultimately from Gondor’, with its ‘rivers running into the Sea’, and only a re-handling ‘of Southern matter, though this may have reached Bilbo by way of [the Elvish refuge of] Rivendell’.
Firiel and The Last Ship are alike in many respects. A mortal woman (the unnamed illustrator of the 1934 poem depicted her as a child) leaves her home in the early morning, her feet twinkling (moving lightly and rapidly) down the stair and dancing in the grass. She sees a company of elves, ‘fair folk out of Elvenland’ (applying a traditional term for elves or fairies), pass by on the water, leaving western havens (harbours). They invite her to join them, to sail to ‘Elvenhome’. She dares to take one step forward, but no further. At last, she returns home to family or work. In Firiel, however, the elves cry simply for the ‘fair earth-maiden’ to come aboard; in The Last Ship, the invitation is made with urgency: they have ‘heard the far call’ to sail for Elvenhome, and does she hear it too? Their ship may bear only one more; Fíriel’s ‘days are speeding’ – her mortality is swiftly passing – and for the ‘Earth-maiden elven-fair’ it is the ‘last call’: there will be no more elven-boats passing by.
In Firiel, at the moment of truth ‘her heart misgave and shrank, / and she halted staring’, until the boat has moved on and the elves’ voices are lost in the distance; she is not led into temptation. In contrast, in The Last Ship Fíriel’s feet sink ‘deep in clay’. Reminded of her mortality, she accepts her fate: she ‘cannot’ go with the immortal elves, for although ‘elven-fair’, she was ‘born Earth’s daughter’. In Firiel, she walks back from the water, ‘leaving night / and a vision faded’ in favour of life in a busy household: ‘Brooms, dusters, mats to beat, / pails, and dishes clatter’. But the dénouement is cheerful, with ‘voices loud and merry’ and ‘please, pass the honey!’ The Last Ship ends instead on a note of profound sadness, with Fíriel dressed in ‘russet brown’ (in the earlier version, in green and white), ‘under the house-shadow’, and the sunlight and the elves’ song both ‘faded’.
The ‘jewels’ upon the gown’s hem are evidently to be taken as dew, for after a time ‘no jewels bright her gown bore’ – they have evaporated (in the 1934 poem ‘the dew was drying’ as the sun climbed) – though they may also be symbolic of the promise of the fresh morning, compared with the return of Firiel/Fíriel ‘under roof and dark door’. In any event, they are part of the imagery of nature Tolkien establishes, as the world of mortals, before introducing the other-worldly ‘boat with golden beak [a projection at the prow] and oar / and timbers white’. The swans ‘sailing on before’ recall those in ‘The Silmarillion’ which guide the ships of the Teleri.
As a gloss to Elvenland, Tolkien notes in the preface that ‘in the Langstrand and Dol Amroth [both in the southern part of Gondor] there were many traditions of the ancient Elvish dwellings, and of the haven at the mouth of the Morthond from which “westward ships” had sailed as far back as the fall of Eregion in the Second Age’. (Compare also Sam’s sad comment in The Lord of the Rings, Book I, Chapter 2: ‘They are sailing, sailing, sailing over the Sea, they are going into the West and leaving us’.) In the poems, ‘Elvenland’ stands in contrast to the elves’ destination, Elvenhome, which in the context of Tolkien’s mythology usually refers to the land of Aman in the far West of the world (as opposed to elven-lands in Middle-earth), and in later stories was forbidden to mortals. In Firiel, Elvenhome is to be found ‘beyond the last mountains, / Whose feet are in the outer foam / of the world’s deep fountains’, a description which strongly evokes Tolkien’s mythology, with Valinor behind the walls of the Pelóri, the Mountains of Aman. In The Last Ship, the elves dare ‘the seas of shadow’ on ‘the last road’ – the sea-path ‘filled with shadows and bewilderment’ (The Silmarillion, p. 102) – to return to ‘where the White Tree is growing’, presumably (in the mythology) Galathilion, the White Tree of Tirion, and where ‘the Star shines upon the foam’, presumably a reference to Eärendil, the celestial mariner. In both poems, the elves hear ‘a clear bell’ in a white, or high, tower, the call that bids them journey; there are several white (or silver) towers in ‘The Silmarillion’, among them the high Tower of Ingwë with its silver lamp, and the white tower of Elwing on the edge of the Sundering Seas.
In the earlier poem, Firiel hails the mariners explicitly as ‘Elvenfolk’, but in The Last Ship they are ‘boatmen fair’ – though probably Tolkien intended no difference in meaning. The destination Firiel/Fíriel describes in her question to them, variously to ‘twilight’, ‘under beech and oak’ or ‘to secret lair’, in the green (or great) forest ‘hiding’, to ‘Northern isles grey and frore’ (frozen) and ‘shores of stone’, recalls in a general fashion the landscape of Northern myth and legend.
In The Last Ship, Fíriel’s brown smock is an overgarment to protect her clothing as she works. The Seven Rivers of the final stanza are identified in the preface as the Lefnui, Morthond–Kiril–Ringló, Gilrain–Serni, and Anduin. The hyphenated rivers join before they reach the sea.
Gallery
These pages by J.R.R. Tolkien are three of the earliest (c. 1931) examples of his ‘Elvish’ alphabet which evolved into the tengwar of The Lord of the Rings. Although in different calligraphic styles, they use the same system of letter values for transcription. The first two are excerpts from the earlier version of The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, while the third is from Errantry; all vary slightly from the poems as published. Reproductions of these pages first appeared, in colour, in The Silmarillion Calendar 1978, and later in Pictures by J.R.R. Tolkien (1979). See further, Tolkien, The Qenya Alphabet (2012).
Appendix
Overleaf is an illustration of Old Man Willow by Pauline Baynes, made for Tolkien’s Poems and Stories (1981). Another illustration from this collection, of Tom Bombadil, appears at the end of the present volume
I. Tom Bombadil: A Prose Fragment
Among the Tolkien papers in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and partly printed in Humphrey Carpenter’s Biography, is a fragment of a prose tale, entitled Tom Bombadil, written probably in the 1920s. Unfortunately, Tolkien ceased to write, or the surviving manuscript fails, after only three paragraphs:
It happened in the days of King Bonhedig, before the wild men came hither out of Ond, or the dark men out of Euskadi, or the fair haired warriors with long iron swords across the narrow water; in fact before any one ever mentioned in fantastic history or sober legend had yet arrived in Britain (as it was called in those days), a long time ago, and before the most far-reaching prophecies, of which there was a multitude, had even glimpsed Arthur in the distant and incredible future.
Nonetheless things already happened here and the island was full enough of peoples and other inhabitants, and had already suffered many invasions and changed (as since) everything but its name several times over. King Bonhedig sat upon the throne of the Kingdom of Bon [added: & Barroc] which stretched for many miles on either side of the Tames as they called the chief river of the South. There we will leave him, for he concerns us only as a convenient method of dating. He reigned for fifty years only, so you will not be far out in whatever part of his reign you place these events.
Tombombadil [sic] was the name of one [of] the oldest inhabitants of the kingdom; but he was a hale and hearty fellow. Four foot high in his boots he was, and three foot broad; his beard went below his knees; his eyes were keen and bright, and his voice deep and melodious. He wore a tall hat with a blue feather[;] his jacket was blue, and his boots were yellow.
Bonhedig (Bonheddig) is Welsh for ‘noble’. Ond is an ancient word for ‘stone’, almost the lone survivor of the langua
ge that preceded the Celts and the Germanic invaders of Britain; Tolkien incorporated it in ‘Elvish’ words such as Gondor ‘stone-land’. Euskadi is the Basque country in northern Spain. The ‘narrow water’ is presumably the English Channel. The name Barroc – if this is the correct reading; in the manuscript the word is smudged – may be meant to refer to the forest (or possibly hill), variously spelled, thought to be a source element for Berkshire, the name of a county which borders on the river Thames (here ‘Tames’).
II. Once upon a Time and An Evening in Tavrobel
In addition to The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Bombadil Goes Boating in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses from the Red Book, Tolkien published a third poem featuring Goldberry and Tom Bombadil, Once upon a Time, in a collection of new poetry and stories, Winter’s Tales for Children 1, edited by Caroline Hillier (1965):
Once upon a day on the fields of May
there was snow in summer where the blossom lay;
the buttercups tall sent up their light
in a steam of gold, and wide and white
there opened in the green grass-skies
the earth-stars with their steady eyes
watching the Sun climb up and down.
Goldberry was there with a wild-rose crown,
Goldberry was there in a lady-smock
blowing away a dandelion clock,
The Adventures of Tom Bombadil Page 14