The Book of Lost Tales 2
Page 20
Chapter Twenty-Eight
But when that ship was made ready that ancient sailor bid them climb aboard, and this they did, but with them went also Bior of the Ythlings, a man of mighty sea-craft for their aid, and one who above any of that strange folk was minded to sail at times far from the land of Eneadur to West or North or South. There stood many men of the Ythlings upon the shore beside that vessel; for they had builded her in a cove of the steep shore that looked to the West, and a bar of rock with but a narrow opening made here a sheltered pool and mooring place, and few like it were to be found in that island of sheer cliffs. Then the ancient one laid his hand upon her prow and spoke words of magic, giving her power to cleave uncloven waters and enter unentered harbours, and ride untrodden beaches.
Twin rudder-paddies, one on either side, had she after the fashion of the Ythlings, and each of these he blessed, giving them skill to steer when the hands that held them failed, and to find lost courses, and to follow stars that were hid. Then he strode away, and the press of men parted before him, until climbing he came to a high pinnacle of the cliffs. Then leapt he far out and down and vanished with a mighty flurry of foam where the great breakers gathered to assault the towering shores. AElfwine saw him no more, and he said in grief and amaze: 'Why was he thus weary of life? My heart grieves that he is dead,' but the Ythlings smiled, so that he questioned some that stood nigh, saying: 'Who was that mighty man, for meseems ye know him well,' and they answered him nothing. Then thrust they forth that vessel valiant-timbered" out into the sea, for no longer would AElfwine abide, though the sun was sinking to the Mountains of Valinor beyond the Western Walls. Soon was her white sail seen far away filled with a wind from off the land, and red-stained in the light of the half-sunken sun;. and those aboard her sang old songs of the English folk that faded on the sailless waves of the Western Seas', and now no longer came any sound of them to the watchers on the shore.
Then night shut down and none on Eneadur saw that strong ship ever more. ~ So began those mariners that long and strange and perilous voyage whose full tale has never yet been told. Nought of their adventures in the archipelagoes of the West, and the wonders and the dangers that they found in the Magic Isles and in seas and sound unknown, are here to tell, but of the ending of their voyage, how after a time of years sea-weary and sick of heart they found a grey and cheerless day. Little wind was there, and the clouds hung low overhead; while a grey rain fell, and nought could any of them descry before their vessel's beak that moved now slow and uncertain over the long dead waves. That day had they trysted to be the last ere they turned their vessel homeward (if they might), save only if some wonder should betide or any sign of hope. For their heart was gone.
Behind them lay the Magic Isles where three of their number slept upon dim strands in deadly sleep, and their heads were pillowed on white sand and they were clad in foam, wrapped about in the agelong spells of Eglavain. Fruitless had been all their journeys since, for ever the winds had cast them back without sight of the shores of the Island of the Elves. ~ Then said AlEfheah'4 who held the helm: 'Now, 0 AElfwine, is the trysted time! Let us do as the Gods and their winds have long desired -- cease from our heart-weary quest for nothingness, a fable in the void, and get us back if the Gods will it seeking the hearths of our home. ' And AElfwine yielded. Then fell the wind and no breath came from East or West, and night came slowly over the sea. Behold, at length a gentle breeze sprang up, and it came softly from the West; and even as they would fill their sails therewith for home, one of those shipmen on a sudden said: 'Nay, but this is a strange air, and full of scented memories,' and standing still they all breathed deep. The mists gave before that gentle wind, and a thin moon they might see riding in its tattered shreds, until behind it soon a thousand cool stars peered forth in the dark. '
The night-flowers are opening in Faery,' said AElfwine; 'and behold,' said Bior," 'the Elves are kindling candles in their silver dusk,' and all looked whither his long hand pointed over their dark stern. Then none spoke for wonder and amaze, seeing deep in the gloaming of the West a blue shadow, and in the blue shadow many glittering lights, and ever more and more of them came twinkling out, until ten thousand points of flickering radiance were splintered far away as if a dust of the jewels self-luminous that Feanor made were scattered on the lap of the Ocean. 'Then is that the Harbour of the Lights of Many Hues,' said AElfheah, 'that many a little-heeded tale has told of in our homes. ' Then saying no more they shot out their oars and swung about their ship in haste, and pulled towards the never- dying shore. Near had they come to abandoning it when hardly won. Little did they make of that long pull, as they thrust the water strongly by them, and the long night of Faerie held on, and the horned moon of Elfinesse rode over them. Then came there music very gently over the waters and it was laden with unimagined longing, that AElfwine and his comrades leant upon their oars and wept softly each for his heart's half- remembered hurts, and memory of fair things long lost, and each for the thirst that is in every child of Men for the flawless loveliness they seek and do not find. And one said: 'It is the harps that are thrumming, and the songs they are singing of fair things; and the windows that look upon the sea are full of light. ' And another said: 'Their stringed violins complain the ancient woes of the immortal folk of Earth, but there is a joy therein. ' 'Ah me,' said AElfwine, 'I hear the horns of the Fairies shimmer- ing in magic woods -- such music as I once dimly guessed long years ago beneath the elms of Mindon Gwar. '
And lo! as they spoke thus musing the moon hid himself, and the stars were clouded, and the mists of time veiled the shore, and nothing could they see and nought more hear, save the sound of the surf of the seas in the far-off pebbles of the Lonely Isle; and soon the wind blew even that faint rustle far away. But AElfwine stood forward with wide-open eyes unspeaking, and suddenly with a great cry he sprang forward into the dark sea, and the waters that filled him were warm, and a kindly death it seemed enveloped him. Then it seemed to the others that they awakened at his voice as from a dream; but the wind now suddenly grown fierce filled all their sails, and they saw him never again, but were driven back with hearts all broken with regret and longing. Pale elfin boats awhile they would see beating home, maybe, to the Haven of Many Hues, and they hailed them; but only faint echoes afar off were borne to their ears, and none led them ever to the land of their desire; who after a great time wound back all the mazy. clue of their long tangled ways, until they cast anchor at last in the haven of Belerion, aged and wayworn men. And the things they had seen and heard seemed after to them a mirage, and a phantasy, born of hunger and sea-spells, save only to Bior of Eneadur of the Ship-folk of the West.
Yet among the seed of these men has there been many a restless and wistful spirit thereafter, since they were dead and passed beyond the Rim of Earth without need of boat or sail. But never while life lasted did they leave their sea-faring, and their bodies are all covered by the sea. ~ The narrative ends here. There is no trace of any further continuation, though it seems likely that AElfwine of England was to be the beginning of a complete rewriting of the Lost Tales. It would be interesting to know for certain when AElfwine II was written. The handwriting of the manuscript is certainly changed from that of the rest of the Last Tales; yet I am inclined to think that it followed AElfwine I at no great interval, and the first version is unlikely to be much later than 1920 (see p. 3I2). At the end of AElfwine II my father jotted down two suggestions: (1) that AElfwine should be made 'an early pagan Englishman who fled to the West'; and (2) that 'the Isle of the Old Man' should be cut out and all should be shipwrecked on Eneadur, the Isle of the Ythlings.
The latter would (astonishingly) have entailed the abandonment of the foundered ship, with the Man of the Sea thrusting it to shore on the incoming tide, and the dead Vikings 'lying abottom gazing at the sky'. In this narrative -- in which the 'magic' of the early Elves is most intensely conveyed, in the seamen's vision of the Lonely Isle beneath 'the horned moon of Elfinesse' -- AElfwine is still p
laced in the context of the figures of ancient English legend: his father is Deor the Minstrel. In the great Anglo-Saxon manuscript known as the Exeter Book there is a little poem of 42 lines to which the title of Deor is now given. It is an utterance of the minstrel Deor, who, as he tells, has lost his place and been supplanted in his lord's favour by another bard, named Heorrenda; in the body of the poem Deor draws examples from among the great misfortunes recounted in the heroic legends, and is comforted by them, concluding each allusion with the fixed refrain paes ofereode; pisses swa maeg, which has been variously translated; my father held that it meant 'Time has passed since then, this too can pass'.
From this poem came both Deor and Heorrenda. In 'the Eriol story' Heorrenda was Eriol's son born in Tol Eressea of his wife Naimi (p. 290), and was associated with Hengest and Horsa in the conquest of the Lonely Isle (p. 291); his dwelling in England was at Tavrobel (p. 292). I do not think that my father's Deor the Minstrel of Kortirion and Heorrenda of Tavrobel can be linked more closely to the Anglo-Saxon poem than in the names alone -- though he did not take the names at random. He was moved by the glimpsed tale (even if, in the words of one of the poem's editors, 'the autobiographical element is purely fictitious, serving only as a pretext for the enumeration of the heroic stories'); and when lecturing on Beowulf at Oxford he sometimes gave the unknown poet a name, calling him Heorrenda. Nor, as I believe, can any more be made of the other Old English names in the narrative: Oswine prince of Gwar, Eadgifu, AElfheah (though the names are doubtless in themselves 'significant'. thus Oswine contains os 'god' and wine 'friend', and Eadgifu ead 'blessedness' and gifu 'gift').
The Forodwaith are of course Viking invaders from Norway or Denmark; the name Orm of the dead ship's captain is well-known in Norse. But all this is a mise-en-scene that is historical only in its bearings, not in its structure. The idea of the seven invasions of Luthien (Luthany) remained (p. 314), and that of the fading and westward flight of the Elves (which indeed was never finally lost),~ but whereas in the outlines the invasion of the Ingwaiwar (i. e. the Anglo-Saxons) was the seventh (see citations (20) and (22)), here the Viking invasions are portrayed as coming upon the English -- 'nor was that the last of the takings of Luthien by Men from Men' (p. 314), obviously a reference to the Normans. There is much of interest in the 'geographical' references in the story. At the very beginning there is a curious statement about the breaking off of Ireland 'in the warfare of the Gods'. Seeing that 'the AElfwine story' does not include the idea of the drawing back of Tol Eressea eastwards across the sea, this must refer to something quite other than the story in (5), p. 283, where the Isle of fverin was broken off when Osse tried to wrench back Tol Eressea. What this was I do not know; but it seems conceivable that this is the first trace or hint of the great cataclysm at the end of the Elder Days, when Beleriand was drowned. (I have found no trace of any connection between the harbour of Belerion and the region of Beleriand. ) Kortirion (Mindon Gwar) is in this tale of course 'Kortirion the Old', the original Elvish dwelling in Luthien, after which Kortirion in Tol Eressea was named (see pp. 308, 310); in the same way we must suppose that the name Alalminore (p. 3I3) for the region about it ('Warwick- shire') was given anew to the midmost region of Tol Eressea. Turning to the question of the islands and archipelagoes in the Great Sea, what is said in AElfwine of England may first be compared with the passages of geographical description in The Coming of the Valar (1. 68) and The Coming of the Elves (I. 125), which are closely similar the one to the other.
From these passages we learn that there are many lands and islands in the Great Sea before the Magic Isles are reached; beyond the Magic Isles is Tol Eressea; and beyond Tol Eressea are the Shadowy Seas, 'whereon there float the Twilit Isles', the first of the Outer Lands. Tol Eressea itself 'is held neither of the Outer Lands or of the Great Lands' (I. 125); it is far out in mid-ocean, and 'no land may be seen for many leagues' sail from its cliffs' (I. 121). With this account AElfwine of England agrees closely; but to it is added now the archi- pelago of the Harbourless Isles. As I have noted before (I. 137), this progression from East to West of Harbourless Isles, Magic Isles, the Lonely Isle, and then the Shadowy Seas in which were the Twilit Isles, was afterwards changed, and it is said in The Silmarillion (p. 102) that at the time of the Hiding of Valinor the Enchanted Isles were set, and all the seas about them were filled with shadows and bewilderment.
And these isles were strung as a net in the Shadowy Seas from the north to the south, before Tol Eressea, the Lonely Isle, is reached by one sailing west. Hardly might any vessel pass between them, for in the dangerous sounds the waves sighed for ever upon dark rocks shrouded in mist. And in the twilight a great weariness came upon mariners and a loathing of the sea; but all that ever set foot upon the islands were there entrapped, and slept until the Change of the World. As a conception, the Enchanted Isles are derived primarily from the old Magic Isles, set at the time of the Hiding of Valinor and described in that Tale (I. 211): 'Osse set them in a great ring about the western limits of the mighty sea, so that they guarded the Bay of Faery', and all such as stepped thereon came never thence again, but being woven in the nets of Oinen's hair the Lady of the Sea, and whelmed in agelong slumber that Lorien set there, lay upon the margin of the waves, as those do who being drowned are cast up once more by the movements of the sea; yet rather did these hapless ones sleep unfathomably and the dark waters laved their limbs. . .
Here three of AElfwine's companions slept upon dim strands in deadly sleep, and their heads were pillowed on white sand and they were clad in foam, wrapped about in the agelong spells of Eglavain (p. 320). (I do not know the meaning of the name Eglavain, but since it clearly contains Egla (Gnomish, = Elda, see I. 251) it perhaps meant 'Elfinesse'. ) But the Enchanted Isles derive also perhaps from the Twilit Isles, since the Enchanted Isles were likewise in twilight and were set in the Shadowy Seas (cf. I. 224); and from the Harbourless Isles as well, which, as AElfwine was told by the Man of the Sea (p. 3 I 7), were set at the time of the Hiding of Valinor -- and indeed served the same purpose as did the Magic Isles, though lying far further to the East. Eneadur, the isle of the Ythlings (Old English jd 'wave'), whose life is so fully described in AEflwine of England, seems never to have been mentioned again. Is there in Eneadur and the Shipmen of the West perhaps some faint foreshadowing of the early Numenoreans in their cliff-girt isle ? The following passage (pp. 316 -- 17) is not easy to interpret: Thence [i. e. from the Bay of Faery] slopes the world steeply beyond the Rim of Things to Valinor, that is God-home, and to the Wall and to the edge of Nothingness whereon are sown the stars.
In the Ambarkanta or 'Shape of the World' of the 1930s a map of the world shows the surface of the Outer Land sloping steeply westwards from the Mountains of Valinor. Conceivably it is to this slope that my father was referring here, and the Rim of Things is the great mountain- wall; but this seems very improbable. There are also references in AElfwine of England to 'the Rim of Earth', beyond which the dead pass (pp. 314, 322); and in an outline for the Tale of Earendel (p. 260) Tuor's boat 'dips over the world's rim'.
More likely, I think, the expression refers to the rim of the horizon ('the horizon of Men's knowledge', p. 313). The expression 'the sun was sinking to the Mountains of Valinor beyond the Western Walls' (p. 320) I am at a loss to explain according to what has been told in the Lost Tales. A possible, though scarcely convincing, interpretation is that the sun was sinking towards Valinor, whence it mould pass 'beyond the Western Walls' (i. e. through the Door of Night, see I. 215 -- 16). Lastly, the suggestion (p. 313) is notable that the Elves sailing west from Luthien might go beyond the Lonely Isle and reach even back to Valinor; on this matter see p. 280 Before ending, there remains to discuss briefly a matter of a general nature that has many times been mentioned in the texts, and especially in these last chapters: that of the 'diminutiveness' of the Elves. It is said several times in the last Tales that the Elves of the ancient days were of greater bodily stature than they afterw
ards became. Thus in ?he Fall of Condolin (p. 159): 'The fathers of the fathers of Men were of less stature than Men now are, and the children of Elfinesse of greater growth'; in an outline for the abandoned tale of Gilfanon (I. 235) very similarly: 'Men were almost of a stature at first with Elves, the fairies being far greater and Men smaller than now'; and in citation (4) in the present chapter: 'Men and Elves were formerly of a size, though Men always larger. '
Other passages suggest that the ancient Elves were of their nature of at any rate somewhat slighter build (see pp. 142, 220). The diminishing in the stature of the Elves of later times is very explicitly related to the coming of Men. Thus in (4) above: 'Men spread and thrive, and the Elves of the Great Lands fade. As Men's stature grows theirs diminishes -, and in (5): ever as Men wax more powerful and numerous so the fairies fade and grow small and tenuous, filmy and transparent, but Men larger and more dense and gross. At last Men, or almost all, can no longer see the fairies. ' The clearest picture that survives of the Elves when they have 'faded' altogether is given in the Epilogue (p. 289): Like strands of wind, like mystic half-transparencies, Gilfanon Lord of Tavrobel rides out tonight amid his folk, and hunts the elfin deer beneath the paling sky. A music of forgotten feet, a gleam of leaves, a sudden bending of the grass, and wistful voices murmuring on the bridge, and they are gone. But according to the passages bearing on the later 'AElfwine' version, the Elves of Tol Eressea who had left Luthany were unfaded, or had ceased to fade. Thus in (15): Tol Eressea, whither most of the unfaded Elves have retired from the noise, war, and clamour of Men'; and (16): 'Tol Eressea, whither most of the fading Elves have withdrawn from the world, and there fade now no more'; also in AElfwine of England (p. 3I3): 'the unfaded Elves beyond the waters of Garsecg'. On the other hand, when Eriol came to the Cottage of Lost Play the doorward said to him (I. 14): Small is the dwelling, but smaller still are they that dwell here -- for all who enter must be very small indeed, or of their own good wish become as very little folk even as they stand upon the threshold.
I have commented earlier (I. 32) on the oddity of the idea that the Cottage and its inhabitants were peculiarly small, in an island entirely inhabited by Elves. But my father, if he had ever rewritten The Cottage of Lost Play, would doubtless have abandoned this; and it may well be that he was in any case turning away already at the time of AElfwine II from the idea that the 'faded' Elves were diminutive, as is suggested by his rejection of the word 'little' in 'little folk', 'little ships' (see note 27). Ultimately, of course, the Elves shed all associations and qualities that would be now commonly considered 'fairylike', and those who remained in the Great Lands in Ages of the world at this time unconceived were to grow greatly in stature and in power: there was nothing filmy or trans- parent about the heroic or majestic Eldar of the Third Age of Middle- earth. Long afterwards my father would write, in a wrathful comment on a 'pretty' or 'ladylike' pictorial rendering of Legolas: He was tall as a young tree, lithe, immensely strong, able swiftly to draw a great war-bow and shoot down a Nazgul, endowed with the tremendous vitality of Elvish bodies, so hard and resistant to hurt that he went only in light shoes over rock or through snow, the most tireless of all the Fellowship.
This brings to an end my rendering and analysis of the early writings bearing on the story of the mariner who came to the Lonely Isle and learned there the true history of the Elves. I have shown, convincingly as I hope, the curious and complex way in which my father's vision of the significance of Tol Eressea changed. When he jotted down the synopsis (10), the idea of the mariner's voyage to the Island of the Elves was of course already present; but he journeyed out of the East and the Lonely Isle of his seeking was -- England (though not yet the land of the English and not yet lying in the seas where England lies). When later the entire concept was shifted, England, as 'Luthany' or 'Luthien', remained pre- eminently the Elvish land; and Tol Eressea, with its meads and coppices, its rooks' nests in the elm-trees of Alalminore, seemed to the English mariner to be remade in the likeness of his own land, which the Elves had lost at the coming of Men: for it was indeed a re-embodiment of Elvish Luthany far over the sea. All this was to fall away afterwards from the developing mythology; but AElfwine left many marks on its pages before he too finally disappeared.
Much in this chapter is necessarily inconclusive and uncertain; but I believe that these very early notes and projections are rightly disinterred. Although, as 'plots', abandoned and doubtless forgotten, they bear witness to truths of my father's heart and mind that he never abandoned. But these notes were scribbled down in his youth, when for him Elvish magic 'lingered yet mightily in the woods and hills of Luthany', in his old age all was gone West-over-sea, and an end was indeed come for the Eldar of story and of song. NOTES. 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 12 13 14 On this statement about the stature of Elves and Men see pp. 326 -- 7. 2 For the form Taimonto (Taimondo) see I. 268, entry Telimektar. Belaurin is the Gnomish equivalent of Palurien (see I. 264). A side-note here suggests that perhaps the Pine should not be in Tol Eressea. -- For Ilwe, the middle air, that is 'blue and clear and flows among the stars', see I. 65, 73. Gil = Ingil. At the first occurrence of Ingil in this passage the name was written Ingil (Gil), but (Gil) was struck out. The word. Nautar occurs in a rejected outline for the Tale of the Nauglafring (p. 136), where it is equated with Nauglath (Dwarves) . Uin: 'the mightiest and most ancient of whales', chief among those whales and fishes that drew the 'island-car' (afterwards Tol Eressea) on which Ulmo ferried the Elves to Valinor (I. 118 -- 20).
Gongs: these are evil beings obscurely related to Orcs: see I. 245 note 10, and the rejected outlines for the Tale of the Nauglafring given on pp. 136 -- 7. A large query is written against this passage. The likeness of this name to Dor Daedeloth is striking, but that is the name of the realm of Morgoth in The Silmarillion, and is interpreted 'Land of the Shadow of Horror'; the old name (whose elements are dai 'sky' and teloth 'roof') has nothing in common with the later except its form. Cf. Kortirion among the Trees (I. 34, 37, 41): A wave of bow- ing grass. The origin of Warwick according to conventional etymology is uncertain. The element wic, extremely common in English place- names, meant essentially a dwelling or group of dwellings. The earliest recorded form of the name is Waering wic, and Waving has been thought to be an Old English word meaning a dam, a derivative from wer, Modern English weir: thus 'dwellings by the weir'. Cf. the title-page given in citation (II): Heorrenda of Haegwudu. -- No forms of the name of this Staffordshire village are actually recorded from before the Norman Conquest, but the Old English form was undoubtedly hag-wudu 'enclosed wood' (cf. the High Hay, the great hedge that protected Buckland from the Old Forest in The Lord of the Rings). The name Luthany, of a country, occurs five times in Francis Thompson's poem The Mistress of Vision. As noted previously (I. 29) my father acquired the Collected Poems of Francis Thompson in 1913 -- 14; and in that copy he made a marginal note against one of the verses that contains the name Luthany -- though the note is not concerned with the name. But whence Thompson derived Luthany I have no idea. He himself described the poem as'afantasy'(Everard Meynell, The Life ofFrancis Thompson, 1913, p. 237). This provides no more than the origin of the name as a series of sounds, as with Kor from Rider Haggard's She, * or Rohan and Moria mentioned in my father's letter of 1967on this subject (The Letters of j R. R. Tolkien, pp. 383 -- 4), in which he said: This leads to the matter of 'external history': the actual way in which I came to light on or choose certain sequences of sound to use as names, before they were given a place inside the story.
I think, as I said, this is unimportant: the labour involved in my setting out what I know and remember of the process, or in the guess-work of others, would be far greater than the worth of the results. The spoken forms would simply be mere audible forms, and when transferred to the prepared linguistic situation in my story would receive meaning and significance according to that situation, and to the nature of the story told. It would be entirely delusory to refer to the sources of the sound-combinatio
n to discover any meanings overt or hidden. 15 16 17 18 19 20 The position is complicated by the existence of some narrative outlines of extreme roughness and near-illegibility in which the mariner is named AElfwine and yet essential elements of 'the Eriol story' are present. These I take to represent an intermediate stage. They are very obscure, and would require a great deal of space to present and discuss; therefore I pass them by. Cf. p; 264 (xiv). Caer Gwar: see p. 292. It may be mentioned here that when my father read The Fall of Condolin to the Exeter College Essay Club in the spring of 1920 the mariner was still Eriol, as appears from the notes for his preliminary remarks on that occasion (see Unfinished Tales p. 5). He said here, very strangely, that 'Eriol lights by accident on the Lonely Island'.
Garsecg (pronounced Garsedge, and so written in AElfwine A) was one of the many Old English names of the sea. In AElfwine I the land is likewise named Luthien, not Luthany. In AElfwine A, on the other hand, the same distinction is made as in the outlines: 'AElfwine of England (whom the fairies after named (* There is no external evidence for this, but it can hardly bc doubted. In this case it eight bc thought that since the African Kor was a city built on the top of a great mountain standing in isolation the relationship was more than purely 'phonetic'. )
I Luthien (friend) of Luthany (friendship)). ' -- At this first occur- rence (only) of Luthien in AElfwine II the form Leithian is pencilled above, but Luthien is not struck out. The Lay of Leithian was afterwards the title of the long poem of Beren and Luthien Tinuviel. The Hill of Tun, i. e. the hill on which the city of Tun was built: see p. 292. 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 Mindon Gwar: see p. 291. Eadgifu: in 'the Eriol story' this Old English name (see p. 323) was given as an equivalent to Naimi, Eriol's wife whom he wedded in Tol Eressea (p. 290). In AElfwine 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 AElfwine Il 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 AElfwine of England to the period of AElfwine'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. Evil is emended from Melko. AElfwine I does not have the phrase.
AElfwine I has: 'when the ancient Men of the South from Micelgeard the Heartless Town set their mighty feet upon the soil of Luthien. ' This text does not have the reference to Rum 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 Mikligaror (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). The application, frequent in AElwine I, of 'little' to the fairies (Elves) of Luthien and their ships was retained in AElfwine II as first written, but afterwards struck out. Here the word is twice retained, perhaps unintentionally.
Elvish is a later emendation of fairy. This sentence, from 'save AElfheah. . . ', was added later in AElfwine Il; it is not in AElfwine 1. -- The whole text to this point in AElfwine I and II is compressed into the following in AElfwine A:, AElfwine of England (whom the fairies after named Luthien (friend) of Luthany (friendship)) born of Deor and Eadgifu. Their city burned and Deor slain and Eadgifu dies. AElfwine 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 Eadgifu had told him in his childhood. 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 AElfwine I has here: 'But three men could he find as his com- panions; and Osse took them unto him. ' Osse 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. AElfwine 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 AElfwine's desire and find them desert and lonely and filled with gloomy whispering trees. ' This is at variance with AElfwine I and II where AElfwine is cast on to the island alone; but agrees with II in giving AElfwine seven companions, not three.
A clue that this was Ulmo: cf. The Fall of Gondolin (p. 155): he was shod with mighty shoes of stone. ' In AElfwine A they were 'filled with gloomy whispering trees' (note 31). 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 AElfwine's father) there is nothing corresponding in AElfwine 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 AElfwine A see note 39. At one occurrence of the name Ythlings (Old English yd 'wave') in AElfwine I it is written Ythlingas, with the Old English plural ending. The Shipmen of the West: emendation from Eneathrim. 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 thrust her to voyage gladly valiant-timbered. The whole section of the narrative concerning the island of the Ythlings is more briefly told in AElfwine I (though, so far as it goes, in very much the same words) with several features of the later story absent (notably the cutting of timber in the grove sacred to Ulmo, and the blessing of the ship by the Man of the Sea).