Earendel was a mariner
that tarried in Arvernien;
he built a boat of timber felled
in Nimbrethil to journey in;
her sails he wove of silver fair
of silver were her lanterns made,
her prow he fashioned like a swan,
and light upon her banners laid.
Beneath the moon and under star
he wandered far from northern strands,
bewildered on enchanted ways
beyond the days of mortal lands.
From gnashing of the Narrow Ice
where shadow lies on frozen hills,
from nether heat and burning waste
he turned in haste, and roving still
on starless waters far astray
at last he came to night of Naught,
and passed, and never sight he saw
of shining shore nor light he sought.
The winds of wrath came driving him,
and blindly in the foam he fled
from West to East, and errandless,
unheralded he homeward sped.
As bird then Elwing came to him,
and flame was in her carcanet,
more bright than light of diamond
was fire that on her heart was set.
The Silmaril she bound on him
and crowned him with a living light,
and dauntless then with burning brow
he turned his prow, and in the night
from otherworld beyond the Sea
there strong and free a storm arose,
a wind of power in Tarmenel;
by paths that seldom mortal goes
his boat it bore with mighty breath
as driving death across the grey
and long-forsaken seas distressed;
from East to West he passed away.
Through Evernight then borne afar
by waters dark beyond the Day,
he saw the Lonely Island rise,
where twilight lies upon the Bay
of Valinor, of Elvenhome,
and ever-foaming billows roll.
He landed on forbidden strands
of silver sand and yellow gold;
beneath the Hill of Ilmarin
a-glimmer in a valley sheer
the lamps of towering Tirion
were mirrored on the Shadowmere.
He tarried there from errantry
and melodies they taught to him,
and lays of old and marvels told,
and harps of gold they brought to him.
In panoply of Elven-kings,
in serried rings they armoured him;
his shield they writ with elven-runes
that never wound did harm to him,
his bow was made of dragon-horn,
his arrows shorn of ebony,
of silver was his habergeon,
his scabbard of chalcedony;
his sword of steel was valiant,
of adamant his helmet tall,
an argent flame upon his crest,
upon his breast an emerald.
His boat anew they built for him
of mithril and of elven-glass;
the Silmaril was hanging bright
as lantern light on slender mast;
and eagle-wings they made for her,
and laid on her a mighty doom,
to sail the shoreless skies and come
behind the Sun and light of Moon.
From Evereven's lofty hills,
where softly silver fountains fall,
he rose on high, a wandering light
beyond the mighty Mountain Wall.
From World's End then he turned away,
and yearned again to seek afar
his land beneath the morning-light,
and burning like a beacon-star
on high above the mists he came,
a distant flame, a marineer,
on winds unearthly swiftly borne,
uplifted o'er the Shadowmere.
He passed o'er Calacirian
where Tirion the hallowed stands;
the sea below him loudly roared
on cloudy shores in Shadowland;
and over Middle-earth he passed,
and heard at last the weeping sore
of women and of Elven-maids
in Elder Days, in years of yore.
But on him mighty doom was laid,
till Moon should fade, an orbed star,
to pass, and tarry never more
on Hither Shores where mortals are;
for ever still on errand, as
a herald that should never rest,
to bear his shining lamp afar,
the Flammifer of Westernesse.
The next text (B) is a typescript of A, but introduces some minor changes that were retained in the FR version (his boat it bore with biting breath/as might of death 37 - 8, the lamplit towers of Tirion 51), and line 25 is here Bird-Elwing thither came to him. My father then used this typescript B as the vehicle for massive rewriting, including the movement of the 'arming of Earendel' to its later place as the second stanza. A new typescript (C)(24) was made incorporating all this, and the form of the poem in FR was now virtually achieved; a very few further minor changes were made, and entered on this text.(25) Careful examination of these texts shows the development from A to the published form with perfect clarity.
But the history of this, perhaps the most protean, in its scale, of all my father's works, does not end here. It ends, in fact, in the most extraordinary way.
This text C was not the last, although the published form of the poem was achieved in it. Another typescript (D) was made, doubtless at the same time as C, and given the title The Short Lay of Earendel; In this, a new element entered at the beginning of the fourth stanza (There flying Elwing came to him): the attack of the four surviving sons of Feanor on the Havens of Sirion, Elwing's casting herself into the sea, bearing the Silmaril, and her transformation into a seabird, in which guise she flew to meet Earendel returning (IV.152-3).
In wrath the Feanorians
that swore the unforgotten oath
brought war into Arvernien
with burning and with broken troth;
and Elwing from her fastness dim
then cast her in the roaring seas,
but like a bird was swiftly borne,
uplifted o'er the roaring wave.
Through hopeless night she came to him
and flame was in the darkness lit,
more bright than light of diamond
the fire upon her carcanet.
The Silmaril she bound on him (&c.)
There then followed a fine manuscript (E), with elaborate initials to the stanzas, and this was entitled The Short Lay of Earendel: Earendillinwe. In this text a rewriting of lines 5 - 8, which had been entered in the margin of D, appears:
Her woven sails were white as snow,
as flying foam her banner flowed;
her prow was fashioned like a swan
that white upon the Falas goes.
But my father abandoned E at the foot of the first page, the end of the third stanza, and the reason why he abandoned it was that he had already begun to rewrite in the margin both the lines just given and also the second stanza (In panoply of ancient kings). So he began once again, with a very similar and equally beautiful manuscript (F), bearing the same title; and this was completed. The revisions made to D and to E (so far as that went) were taken up; and this manuscript remained intact, without the smallest further change.
It was in fact the last, the ultimate development of the poem. The history I have attempted to convey is schematically thus:
I have studied all these texts at length and at different times, and it had always seemed strange to me that the chain of development led at last to a superb manuscript (F) without any disfigurement through later changes, but which was not the form found in FR. The solution was at last pro
vided by the text C at Marquette, which showed that there were two lines of development from B.
What actually happened one can only surmise. I believe the most likely explanation to be that the texts D, E, F were mislaid, and that at the crucial time the version represented by C went to the publishers, as it should not have done. It looks also as if these lost texts did not turn up again until many years had passed, by which time my father no longer remembered the history. In what are obviously very late notes he went so far as to analyse their readings in relation to the published form, and was evidently as puzzled as I was: his analysis at that time contains demonstrably incorrect conclusions - because he assumed, as I did, that all these texts must have preceded the 'final form' in FR. I give finally the Earendillinwe' in the form in which it should have been published.(26)
Stanza 1
Earendil was a mariner
that tarried in Arvernien:
he built a boat of timber felled
in Nimbrethil to journey in.
Her sails he wove of silver fair,
with silver were her banners sewn;
her prow he fashioned like the swans
that white upon the Falas roam.
Stanza 2.
His coat that came from ancient kings
of chained rings was forged of old;
his shining shield all wounds defied,
with runes entwined of dwarven gold.
His bow was made of dragon-horn,
his arrows shorn of ebony,
of triple steel his habergeon,
his scabbard of chalcedony;
his sword was like a flame in sheath,
with gems was wreathed his helmet tall,
an eagle-plume upon his crest,
upon his breast an emerald.
Stanza 3.
As in FR, but with winds of fear for winds of wrath in line
13 of the stanza.
Stanza 4.
In might the Feanorians
that swore the unforgotten oath
brought war into Arvernien
with burning and with broken troth;
and Elwing from her fastness dim
then cast her in the waters wide,
but like a mew was swiftly borne,
uplifted o'er the roaring tide.
Through hopeless night she came to him,
and flame was in the darkness lit,
more bright than light of diamond
the fire upon her carcanet.
The Silmaril she bound on him,
and crowned him with the living light,
and dauntless then with burning brow
he turned his prow at middle-night.
Beyond the world, beyond the Sea,
then strong and free a storm arose,
a wind of power in Tarmenel;
by paths that seldom mortal goes
from Middle-earth on mighty breath
as flying wraith across the grey
and long-forsaken seas distressed
from East to West he passed away.
Stanza 5
As in FR.
Stanza 6
As in FR, but with a difference in the twelfth line:(27)
for ever king on mountain sheer;
Stanza 7
A ship then new they built for him
of mithril and of elvenglass
with crystal keel; no shaven oar
nor sail she bore, on silver mast
the Silmaril as lantern light
and banner bright with living flame
of fire unstained by Elbereth
herself was set, who thither came (&c. as in FR)
Stanza 8.
As in FR.
Stanza 9.
As in FR except at the end:
till end of Days on errand high,
a herald bright that never rests,
to bear his burning lamp afar,
the Flammifer of Westernesse.
Only one line survived now from Errantry (as published in 1933): his scabbard of chalcedony.
NOTES.
1. This suggests that the story of Gandalf's captivity found in the 'New Plot' of August 1940 was present (p. 71): 'Saramund betrays him ... he tells Gandalf false news of the Black Riders, and they pursue him to the top of a mountain...' The final story of what had happened to Gandalf (set to stand on the pinnacle of Orthanc) first appears in this period of the work (pp. 131 ff.).
2. Changed in pencil later to Elfstone son of Elfhelm; see p. 80 note 17. At one occurrence of Trotter in this passage, where Gandalf names him, this too was changed to Elfstone; at the other two Trotter was retained, since it is Frodo who is speaking.
3. In a preliminary draft for this passage Frodo says 'in wonder': 'Is he of that race ?' Then follows:
'Didn't he tell you, and didn't you guess?' said Gandalf. 'He could have told you even more: he is Aragorn son of Kelegorn, descended through many fathers from Isildur the son of Elendil.'
'Then It belongs to him as much as to me or more!' said Frodo.
'It does not belong to either of you,' said Gandalf; 'but you, my good hobbit, are to keep it for a while. For so it is ordained.'
This was the second time that this dialogue had been used; it first occurred at Bree between Trotter and Frodo (p. 50), when Gandalf named Aragorn as a descendant of Elendil in his letter, but this had now been removed (p. 77). It was finally used in 'The Council of Elrond'.
4. See p. 43 and note 3. The words 'I stayed at The Pony in Bree for a bit' were crossed out before the rest of the passage was changed, perhaps at the time of writing.
5. On Tarkil see p. 8. Westernesse: Numenor.
6. In the version of Errantry published in 1962 the last stanza began not as in the 1933 Oxford Magazine version but at He tarried for a little while (p. 88).
7. One of the early texts has the head-note: Elaboration of the well-known pastime of the never-ending Tale'; and at the end, after the last line a weather-driven mariner, returns to He called the winds of argosies in the second verse (p. 87), with the note: da capo, ad lib, et ad naus.
8. I cannot explain this reference.
9. See Humphrey Carpenter, The Inklings, pp. 56 - 7; also Letters no. 133 (to Rayner Unwin, 22 June 1952) and no. 298 (to W. L. White, 11 September 1967).
10. morion: helmet. bravery: splendour, finery. dumbledore: bumble-bee. panoply: suit of armour. attercop: spider (Old English attor 'poison'; cf. cobweb, 'cop-web'). Bilbo called the spiders in Mirkwood Attercop.
On the back of the page, with every appearance of having been written at the same time, is a section of a dramatic dialogue in rhyming verse that preceded by more than twenty years the publication of The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son in Essays and Studies, 1953. The Englishmen who took the body of Beorhtnoth from the battlefield at Maldon are here called Pudda and Tibba. - Panta (Old English) is the river Blackwater.
This text is extremely rough, one would say in the first stage of composition, were there not another text still rougher, but in very much the same words (though with no ascription of the speeches to speakers), in the Bodleian Library, where it is preserved (I believe) with my father's pictures. This begins at In the shadows yonder and continues a few lines further. On it my father wrote: 'early version in rhyme of Beorhtnoth'.
11. sigaldry: sorcery (see note 14). glamoury: magic.
12. Preliminary lines of a new ending were written on the manuscript of the first version:
So now he must depart again
and start again his gondola,
a silly merry passenger,
a messenger, an errander,
a jolly, merry featherbrain,
a weathervane, a mariner.
Other differences in the second version from that published in 1933 were:
he wrought her raiment marvellous
and garments all a-glimmering
in the fifth verse; and 'He made a sword and morion' in the eighth (with spear for sword in the third line).
13. Maurice Bowra, at that time Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University.
14. In the letter to Donald Swann cited on p. 85 my father gave an example of this (Swann had himself known the poem by 'indepen- dent tradition' for many years before its publication in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil): 'A curious feature was the preservation of the word sigaldry, which I got from a 13th century text (and is last recorded in the Chester Play of the Crucifixion).' The word goes back to the second version of Errantry; it was used also in the Lay of Leithian line 2072,
written in 1928 (The Lays of Beleriand, p. 228).
15. cardamon is so spelt, but cardamom in preliminary rough workings, as in the Oxford Magazine version of Errantry.
16. I ignore all variants (though a few, as merry written above gallant in line 1, ladyfern above everfern in line 10) may belong to the time of writing. A few inconsistencies of hyphenation are preserved. In the latter part of the poem the stanza-divisions are not perfectly clear. Line-numbers at intervals of 8 are marked on the original.
17. This verse is absent from the first text, but a space was left for it, with the note: 'They enchant his boat and give it wings'.
18. A four-line stanza follows here:
She caught him in her stranglehold
The History of Middle Earth: Volume 7 - The Treason of Isengard Page 14
