Gnomes and The Fallagongalin
(the earliest version of the Tuor and Voronwe tale) Tuor wanders through much more of his journey alone, aided by random Noldor, whom Tolkien also calls "Gnomes". They were not three inches tall with pointy red hats, but they are much more slinky and silent, cowed by Morgoth's might, his slaves, controlled from afar by "that spell which Melko held over the Nodoli... one of bottomless dread.".
Tolkien hasn't quite escaped from the "fancies either pretty or silly" faerie tale stuff he was born into, and all of the things in these earlier tales have a more Victorian fairy quality to them. Even Littleheart Son of Bronweg (Voronwe) the Gongwarden who serves as a guide to all these early tales, is described as "ancient beyond count" with a "weatherworn face and blue eyes of great merriment, and was very slender and small, not one might say if he were fifty or ten thousand". More Tom Bombadil or Brian Froud (who with Alan Lee illustrated the coffee table book "Faeries", and whose wonderful weird faerie art inspired the Henson film, "Dark Crystal") A far cry from the later descriptions of the Noldor, and of Voronwe with his piercing sea-grey eyes and a face that Tuor is struck by the beauty of.
At last the Gnomes abandon Tuor utterly, and he sits by a "rushing stream and the sea-longing was about his heart and he was minded once more to follow this river back to the wide waters and the roaring waves".
But wait; all is not lost.
"Now when the Gnomes out of fear deserted Tuor, one Voronwe or Bronweg followed afar off despite his fear." As Tuor sits beside the stream, contemplating hanging it all up and going to some beach in the Caribbean and spending the rest of his days drinking rum, Voronwe appears; "I will not leave thee...I am not one of the road-learned of the Noldor, being a craftsman and maker of things made by hand of wood and metal...of old have I heard whispers...concerning a city where Noldoli might be free could they find the hidden way..." In this version Voronwe is not a resident of Gondolin, sent forth with a mission, he is but an escaped thrall himself, hiding from the Dark Lord and looking for the underground railroad to the last free city.
The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales
Tuor and Voronwe travel slowly, and in secrecy, "shunning the night-eyed hunters of Morgoth". Voronwe chooses their path, and it leads north, toward the dark stronghold of Morgoth. Winter falls, and "there at the end of a weary night in the grey dawn they halted; and Voronwe was dismayed, looking about him in grief and fear." The sacred spring of Ivrin has been defiled by one of Morgoth's dragons. Not the wise dragons of Chinese lore, but an evil worm of the Dark. Voronwe is dismayed that even this place, sacred to his people, filled with the power of healing and life, has been destroyed. He senses something more than eye or ear or nose can tell; "a malice has been here with strength greater than that of orcs." They see the track of the dragon, Glaurung, and it lends urgency to their errand to Turgon.
A little while later they cross paths with Turin, cousin of Tuor, though they do not know him, or of the tragedy that has befallen him. Turin runs a parallel course with Tuor; fostering by the Elves, a faithful Elven companion, falling in love with a high-born Elven woman, doing great deeds. But where Tuor makes decisions in patience and with an ear to the will of the Valar, Turin makes decisions in haste, out of pride. And it is the downfall of him, and his most trusted ally, Beleg Cuthalion.
For five months The Fell Winter holds the North in bonds. "Now Tuor and Voronwe were tormented by the cold." They travel on, Voronwe assuring Tuor that he is leading him on a straight a road as possible to Turgon's gates. In the depths of winter they encounter a blazing fire; an orc fire, and Tuor would leap forth, slaying all the orcs for mastery of it. Voronwe wisely holds him back: "this band is not alone in the wild: cannot your mortal sight see the far flame of other posts..." more than this once he grumbles at Tuor's mortal shortsightedness. And impulsiveness. The cloak of Ulmo that Tuor is wearing comes in handy, and they pass under the very noses of the orc band...
...only to be scented. They flee, and find refuge; "side by side under the grey cloak they lay and panted like foxes."
In the commentary for the film of Two Towers, Orlando Bloom describes the chase across Rohan: himself, Viggo, and Gimli's stunt double (all with random injuries). He as the Elf is supposed to be cool, calm and collected. He is not supposed to run to the top of the hill gasping for breath. (Viggo, two decades older, has Orli gasping to keep up). In a wrathful commentary on a too-pretty illustration of Legolas, as related by Christopher Tolkien in Lost Tales 2, Tolkien himself tells us something about that Elf, and Elves in general: "He was tall as a young tree, lithe, immensely strong, able to swiftly draw a great warbow 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." In LOTR the Elves are a bit distant, except for the one we ride through the whole saga with: Legolas. In The Silmarillion and later published tales, we see more of them, and they become more complex. More human. Voronwe is tough, perhaps the most tireless of the Fellowship of two seeking Gondolin, but he still needs to lie under a bush panting like a fox when pressed too hard.
However, as we see here, he still, like Legolas, doesn't need much sleep.
"The night passed, and the brooding silence lay again upon the empty lands. Weary and spent, Tuor slept beneath Ulmo's cloak; but Voronwe crept forth and stood like a stone silent, unmoving, piercing the shadows with his Elvish eyes." This image is much like one from Two Towers: Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli chasing the orcs across the Plains of Rohan, resting for the night. We see Legolas "standing, gazing northwards into the darkness, thoughtful and silent as a young tree on a windless night." The image was recreated several times in the films; on the high rocks as the Fellowship sets out (crebain from Dunland!) at the Doors of Moria, inside Moria, before the warg attack, alone under the stars as the Rohirrim party; the Elf silent and watchful; a young tree, a hawk on a hunting perch, a wolf on a hill listening into the dark. Guarding, seeing with more senses than just five. A lone, watchful guardian angel.
Even with the distant mythic voice of this tale, Tolkien does not fail to show us the beauty of the land, often through the eyes of the Elf: "Alae! Ered en Echoriath, ered e'mbar nin!" "(exclamation) The Encircling Mountains, mountains of my home." There is Sirion the Fair, renowned in song, and Dimbar; "Would we were there!" and other beauties which Voronwe does not fail to notice. He notices too, with great joy, the circling eagles of the Crissaegrim, who guard that land, and under the shadow of Ulmo's cloak, they cross the Brithiach stream.
They find a secret road toward the hidden city, a road which appears to be the work of wind and water. Voronwe tells how only the eagles know where the city lies, and how they guard the air above it (though none of the Enemy have taken to the air: it will be some ages before winged Nazgul on fell beasts). Here too, Voronwe warns Tuor one more time of the peril he...they will face at the Gates. For Tuor may be slain as an intruder, and Voronwe himself as a traitor who dared to break the rule of secrecy.
It remains to be seen if Ulmo's words will carry weight here, so far from the sea.
Fallagongalin vs Unfinished Tales
In The Fall of Gondolin, Tuor and Voronwe follow a riverbed with steep walls, (again the secret passage is guarded by water) "in the green wall the Gnome found an opening like a great door with sloping sides, and this was cloaked with thick bushes and long tangled undergrowth; yet Voronwe's piercing sight might not be deceived...none save of the blood of the Noldoli might light on it thus by chance ; nor would Tour have found it ever but for the steadfastness of that Gnome Voronwe." In that version, Voronwe is not leading Tuor back to a place he knows, but searching for it himself as well. He still has those Elven qualities of keen sight and he's still the steadfast hero companion; things we see over and over in later tales, including LOTR.
In Unfinished Tales, Voronwe and Tuor are at last closing in on the Lost City; They are moving through a dark tunnel; the whispers of our heroes magnify and ricochet off the rock walls till it seems they are surrounded by a frightening an unseen host.
In Fall of Gondolin the echoes are even more fearsome, and Tuor and Voronwe run out of fear they are being pursued by the Dark Hordes of Morgoth. The tunnel is an archetypal image used again in The Hobbit and in LOTR; the Underground, the Underworld, or a passage between worlds...one where you can find a magic ring, or lose a wizard.
In Unfinished Tales Tuor "heard out of the heart of the darkness a voice speak in the Elven-tongues..." and they are surrounded by a company of Noldorin guards of Gondolin. The guards are also met in Fall of Gondolin, but they are not so fearsome there. In the tunnel in Unfinished Tales a voice comes out of the dark...
"Stand! Stir not or you will die!"
…. and the words are not lightly spoken.
There are sounds in the dark, (what happened to those stealth Elves?) and at last a sliver of light from a lantern shines upon Voronwe's face. The lantern shines like a star in the dark, and Voronwe's face shows in the ray, hard and clear as if graven in stone; "and Tuor marveled to see its beauty." Tuor has been taveling with Voronwe for thirty-seven days, and in this terrifying moment, when the entire mission could go down like a foundering ship, he is struck by the sheer beauty of that face. There's a purity to this vision, as if he's seen an angel in the dark. It's the kind of feeling one gets from Sam, looking up through the choking mists of Mordor and seeing one star. Perhaps Tuor is struck by the beauty of that one life (which could be lost in the next instant) which has guarded and sheltered his own...or perhaps it represents the beauty of all things Elvish; the hidden city which lies in peril from the Darkness of Morgoth, a last stronghold of the beauty and wisdom the Noldor gained from their long sojourn in the Blessed Realm, beauty which Eru created, which Morgoth wishes to eradicate from the face of Middle-earth...maybe it's a vision of Tuor's own son, who will shine like a star in the dark for all to see.
It's rather like that moment in RotK the film, when we see Legolas with the other Elves at the end, divested of his traveling leathers, crowned with a circlet of silver, and Aragorn says "Hannon le"...thank you. The quiet, unassuming companion we have ridden with through fire and battle and death, suddenly is revealed as something more; and he shines with his own light.
The moment in the dark tunnel, lit by this one shaft of light, is tense. Voronwe, the quiet guide, steps forward and speaks like a lord of the Noldor now: "Know you not whom you see? I am Voronwe son of Aranwe of the House of Fingolfin. Or am I forgotten in my own land in a few years? Far beyond the thought of Middle-earth have I wandered, yet I remember your voice Elemmakil."
A brief foray into Voronwe's DNA: Fingolfin and Finarfin are sons of Finwe, as is Feanor, their half-brother (Feanor of the Silmarils, who started the whole mess). Finarfin had a few kids: Finrod (who figures into the Beren and Luthien legend), Orodreth (who takes over Finrod's kingdom after Finrod goes off to aid Beren in his Silmaril quest), Angrod, Aegnor and, oh, yeah, that Galadriel chick. Fingolfin has three kids: Fingon, who has a son Gil-Galad (seen briefly in the Prologue to the Fellowship film) who fights beside Elendil (he of the broken sword, Narsil which gets passed down to some ranger guy named Aragorn) who removes The One Ring from Sauron's hand. There is also a daughter named Aredhel (whose son Maeglin gives Tuor much angst), and Turgon, who goes off and founds a hidden city in the middle of the Dark Lord's realm. This is the lineage of Voronwe, and he carries the weight of their history, good or ill.
"This is strange in you, Voronwe," says Elemmakil, Captain of the Guard. He is set cruelly between the Law and friendship, for the Law says none may enter here; even another Elf would be suspect, but "you have brought to knowledge of the Way a Mortal Man - for by his eyes I percieve his kin." Bad enough Voronwe returns with potential evil at his heels, but to bring a human into the hidden city is beyond reason.
There is another interesting thing here: "for by his eyes I percieve his kin." When Tuor first sees Voronwe on the beach, he knows him for an Elf when he looks up and Tuor meets the "piercing glance of his sea-grey eyes, and knows him for one of the high folk of the Noldor". Tolkien never tells us what his Elves' ears look like, though there is a reference somewhere to a relationship between the Elvish words for leaf (lasse) and ear (lhaw); therefor, leaf-shaped ears. And it's been done forever in depictions of Middle-earth, because pointy ears are so much a part of the history of the Elf archetype. That likely has its origins in ancient godlings of field and wood: Pan, Cernunos and the like, who had some animal characteristics; because they were guardians of herds, either wild or domestic. Even in comics, or modern fantasy, if you want to make someone odd, other; make their extremities animalistic. Add a tail, antlers, hooves or bunny ears or something. But Tolkien never describes those ears. He just describes eyes. Legolas has bright eyes. Voronwe has a piercing sea-grey glance. When Arwen or Luthien give up their claim to immortality something changes in their eyes.
"Other shall the wanderer return than as he set forth." Voronwe tells Elemmakil. "The King alone shall judge me."
Here Tuor at last speaks up, and explains his errand, whereupon Elemmakil shows his wisdom; "In matters so great judgement is not mine."
They travel through many more gates, each more marvelous than the last; a typical fairytale structure (an obstacle or action repeated, maybe with minor variations). It doesn't really advance plot or characterization, except to show Tuor's growing awe at the hidden realm.
In Unfinished Tales Tuor and Voronwe stand at the last gate and Echthelion of the Fountain, the Warden of the Great Gate, judges whether they should enter or not. Tuor is silent, and to the eyes of Voronwe his cloaked form is like a sea-wave, higher than the crest of Echthelion's helm. Echthelion speaks: "You have come to the last gate. Know then that no stranger who passes it shall go out again save by the door of death." Tuor speaks Ulmo's words of warning, and to Voronwe it seems as if he is hearing another voice, the voice of the Vala himself, from far away speaking through Tuor. And so they pass into the hidden city at last.
In Fall of Gondolin, Tuor and Voronwe come out of the secret tunnels onto a wide plain, and see the city. They travel to it with the ease of a Hobbit walking party; Tuor growing ever more awed, and Voronwe (this version being the escaped thrall of Melko/Morgoth) in great joy "that he had both brought Tuor hither in the will of Ulmo and had himself thrown off the yoke of Melko forever."
Unfinished Tales takes us no farther than that last gate. In The Silmarillion, we learn a bit more about the fate of Tuor and Gondolin, but the fullest version is still Fall of Gondolin, the earliest one.
In The Silmarillion: Tuor comes quickly to Gondolin and gives his message from Ulmo to Turgon. Turgon is listening, but he is loathe to leave this beautiful last refuge of his folk...and there is a dark voice, like Wormtongue of LOTR, who speaks out against abandoning the city; the voice of Turgon's sister-son, Maeglin.
In the Fall of Gondolin, Tuor delivers Ulmo's message; "Prepare for battle..." and meets with the same reluctance and resistance from Turgon.
"Then Tuor's heart was heavy and Voronwe wept."
Think about Voronwe for a moment. He has been sent out of a hidden realm on a mission. He has sailed the shadowy marches of the enchanted seas for years seeking a way West and failing. His ship at last turns home in defeat, and within sight of safety, sinks, with all hands, save himself. He meets this crazed human, on his own mission from the gods, who demands guidance to a hidden city; a death sentence to any who find it. But Voronwe has taken the tale of Ulmo's quest on faith, looked on Tuor with hope, and traveled with him through unimaginable terrors and hardships to stand before Turgon.
And have him say no.
At this point a lesser man would hang it all up and crumple into a heap of suicidal mania.
Not Voronwe. He shrugs it off and teaches Tuor the ways of the Noldor.
There is some deep part of him that is not only faithful to his friend, but to something bigger, deeper, far-reaching. He has Faith.
After all, his name means the Faithful.
Seven Years in Gondolin
In The Silmarillion, Tuor remains in Gondolin for seven years, learning and growing wise in the ways of the Noldor.
In Fall of Gondolin, we read: "Now Tuor learnt many things in those realms taught by Voronwe whom he loved, and who loved him exceedingly greatly in return..." If you read accounts by soldiers in war or other situations where people face the worst horrors side by side and live, you find a kind of bond...the warband, band of brothers (or sisters)...that not even the families of those people can understand. It crosses race and culture and class and Tolkien (who lived through two world wars and fought in the trenches of the first) wrote it over and over: Sam and Frodo, Legolas and Gimli, Beleg and Turin, Voronwe and Tuor. In some cases, it was a bond that lasted beyond the circles of the world.
Others of Gondolin teach Tuor as well, and he grows wise and learned; "Now for his skill and his great mastery over all lore and craft whatsoever and his great courage of heart and body did Tuor become a comfort and stay to the king who had no son."
To the delight of everyone but Maeglin, the eye and heart of Turgon's daughter, Idril, is turned ever more to Tuor, till at last they are wed in a great feast.
And Earendil is born; "his skin of shining white and his eyes of a blue surpassing that of the sky in southern lands".
Meanwhile back in the Dark Lord's castle, Morgoth is searching. His beasts and orcs are sniffing under every rock for the faint hint of footsteps years old; the footsteps of Tuor.
Idril has foresight and has a secret way delved as an escape route. She sees the shadow that is on Maeglin's heart and makes sure no rumour of it comes to him.
Good thing too, he is taken by the Dark, tortured and sent back as a spy, cowed by "that spell which Melko held over the Nodoli... one of bottomless dread."
Idril is no wispy lady in waiting: she has already begun the delving of the secret passage. She is a wise advisor. And she devises a "stout guard" with Tuor's emblem of swan wings "to wear that they become his folk". She whispers to folk of the city that if Turgon falls, that they rally about Tuor and her son.
And on the night of the great feast The Gates of Summer, comes the assault.
The Fall of Gondolin
...is a blow by blow account of a mighty battle; one that makes the similar siege of Minas Tirith look small. There are not only orcs innumerable and siege engines, but monsters of metal and dragons of fire. There is a council, and a debate about whether to flee or to stand and fight. And the whisperings of those whom Morgoth has deceived; Maeglin and his house, are heeded.
Turgon decides to hold the city.
Tuor goes forth to kick Dark Lord butt, and the camera follows him. He first goes home, where he finds Maeglin & Co. ahead of him, attempting to take his wife and kill his son, though here, many of Maeglin's followers realize his true intent, and the darkness in his heart, and refuse to aid him further. There is a great struggle; and Idril and Earendil aid in the destruction of Maeglin. Maeglin's House of the Sable Mole flee, are driven off or thrown over the ramparts by Tuor's company.
"Then Tuor and his men must get them to the battle of the Gate...with Idril he left there Voronwe against his will and some other swordsmen to be a guard till he returned or might send tidings from the fray." Voronwe is apparently part of Tuor's house now, and as most close and trusted friend, is left to guard Tuor's lady and son.
The son who will change the history of Middle-earth.
Tuor then gallops off for pages and pages of battle action. Idril does not remain still, a lady in waiting for her hero. She is clad in mail, and Earendil also. She sends him with most of her guard down the secret way of escape, but she stays behind, to die with her lord Tuor if she must. And Voronwe the Faithful stays beside her. They set about gathering refugees and sending them down the secret way, and "smiting marauders with her small band, nor might they dissuade her from bearing a sword."
"At length they had fallen in with a band somewhat too numerous..." Voronwe drags Idril from that overwhelming skirmish "by the luck of the Gods" and everyone else in that Elvish company dies. Tuor and Idril's house is burned, but the enemy do not find the secret way. Idril in despair fares wildly into the city, and Voronwe stays by her, trying to defend her.
Tuor at last wins his way to the Place of Wedding, and "lo! there stands Idril before him...by her stood Voronwe and none other". The others in that valiant company are dead, only Voronwe is left. Together, hopeless and unable to help, they watch the last tower, and the king's guard, and Turgon himself...fall.
They flee. Gathering what refugees they can. Down the secret way, heat from the fiery dragons above ground melting its way through the hard rock of the plain, the ceiling of the tunnel collapsing in places. Through death and dragonfire they emerge onto the plain and make for the mountains.
As they emerge, they have two choices; Bad Uthwen (the Way of Escape: which sounds to the ear unschooled in Elvish like a very bad idea indeed); it is the old way, nearer, yet maybe discovered by the Dark Hordes. There is another way; the Cristhorn, farther, and Tuor opts for that. Some of the band do go the old way; straight into the jaws of one of Morgoth's beasts. Tuor's band of refugees yet has a long road ahead: a dark and trackless waste; where "one Legolas Greenleaf of the House of the Tree, who knew all of that plain by day or by dark", and "whose eyes were like cats' for the dark" comes forth and leads the refugees. This is not our Sindarin prince of Mirkwood, but a Noldorin Elf of Gondolin, the first use of any of the names of the Fellowship by Tolkien. There is a mountain ambush where Glorfindel dies fighting a balrog; that one, according to an account of Elvish reincarnation in "Peoples of Middle-earth", is likely the very same Glorfindel we encounter on the road in LOTR, aiding Frodo.
"Thus led by Tuor son of Huor, the remnant of Gondolin passed over the mountains and came down into the Vale of Sirion; and fleeing southward by weary and dangerous marches they came at length to Nan-tathren, The Land of Willows, for the power of Ulmo yet ran in the great river, and it was about them."
Voronwe's Nan-Tathren, the place he had tarried in so long ago on his way to the sea. In The Fall of Gondolin, he knows not that land, for it was Tuor who tarried there earlier in that version. They rest awhile there, healing themselves of their hurts and weariness. They eventually pack up and move farther down the river to the sea, to join the host of Elwing, Dior's daughter, who had fled there some time before.
And one day Dior marries Earendil.
And one day Earendil himself sails west, and legend is made.
The Sea Longing
Tuor grows old, and the sea-longing awakes in him. He builds a great ship, Earrame, Sea-Wing, and with Idril Celebrimbal he sets sail into the west and comes no more into any tale or song.
Except for the songs that tell how he alone of Mortal Men was numbered among the Eldar and joined with the Noldor whom he loved, in the Undying Lands.
Of Voronwe no more is said. The New Tolkien Companion (my revised edition published in 1980) says "His fate is not recorded." Peoples of Middle-earth says nothing of him, only of his namesake, the first ruling steward of Gondor. Neither "Letters by JRR Tolkien" nor biographies say more of this Elf of Gondolin. Only in the early pages of "Of Tuor and the Fall of Gondolin" in "Unfinished Tales" do we read: 'Then we will go together as we are counseled,' said Tuor. 'But mourn not, Voronwe! For my heart says to you that far from the Shadow your long road shall lead you, and your hope shall return to the Sea.'
'And yours also,' said Voronwe.
I think he won his way down the great river on the flight with the refugees of Gondolin, staying by Tuor's side through his beloved Nan-tathren and on to the Sea. And when Earendil had opened the way West once more, Voronwe followed his sea-heart home.
Where Tuor and Idril were waiting.
in the tradition of Tolkien we bring you the sprawling expanse of the...
APPENDIX
(pancreas, cerebellum, whatever)
One last note on Voronwe: in Book of Lost Tales 2, there are numerous references to the Gongwarden, Littleheart, son of Bronweg or Voronwe. He serves as a narrator for most of the legends recounted. There is also much mention of Voronwe himself, oddly in Earendil's tale (The Tale of Earendel), where Earendil's adventures on the shadowy marches of the seas are quite different, and his faithful sidekick is none other than Voronwe.
"The Silmarillion"; published in 1977, I read it somewhere after 1978
"Unfinished Tales"; published in 1980 I read it before 1985, when I used it to name my mustang mare: Olori Eldalie.
"The Book of Lost Tales 2", published 1984, my paperback in 1992, read in 2003, along with a bit of the rest of the dreaded History of Middle Earth opus. (HoME)
"The Peoples of Middle-earth": p204 The Heirs of Elendil: Mardil Voronwe ("steadfast') First of the line of the ruling stewards of Gondor: 1960-2080: The Stewards belonged to a family of the ancient Elf-friends who used, besides the Common Speech, the Noldorin tongue, after the fashion of Gondor; so many of their names were in that tongue. It is not said whether this Man is named after the Noldorin Elf of Gondolin, last mariner of the last fleet to seek the Uttermost West, friend and faithful companion to Tuor. The Stewards themselves are the faithful companions of the True Kings, so perhaps the first Steward was named after Voronwe of Gondolin.
"Book of Lost Tales 1": Some of the earliest writings of Tolkien are collected in this book, the mythology that underlies LOTR and is fully developed in the Silmarillion can be glimpsed here in its earliest forms. In this disjointed series of notes, wonderfully gathered and commented on by Tolkien's son Christopher, a stray traveler (presumeably human) finds himself upon the Lonely Isle of the Elves. He hears many of their tales, and one of the tale-tellers is the Gongwarden, Littleheart.
Only the Valar know why Littleheart has such a Faithful Indian Sidekick sounding name, rather than an Elvish one, though he does eventually get one: Ilverin. And actually, the Valar do tell us, or at least Christopher Tolkien does in Lost Tales 2: "he was so named for the youth and wonder of his heart".
Littleheart's father is Bronweg, or Voronwe, one of the earliest uses of this name. And apparently the same character, though he has gone through a few transformations by the time we meet him in The Silmarillion.
Cirdan means shipwright, therefore Cirdan the Shipwright is rather like saying Legolas Greenleaf, or Voronwe the Faithful. You are just repeating yourself in two languages.
Earendil's mail is mentioned in the Fall of Gondolin. He is only seven, and the mail shirt was made just for him. It is uncannily like a shirt later found in a troll's hoard. The one found with Sting and Glamdring and Orcrist, swords of Gondolin. The one Frodo wears. I think though, that Earendil's shirt escaped Gondolin, on Earendil's back. But I'm not entirely sure...
A description of the Elves from The Book of Lost Tales, one of Tolkien's earliest concepts of what they were like: "Tis written that in those days the fathers of the fathers of Men were of less stature than Men are now, and the children of Elfinesse of greater growth, yet was Tuor taller than any that stood there. ...the Gondothlim ...small were they and slender and very lithe. They were swift of foot and surpassing fair; sweet and sad were their mouths and their eyes had ever a joy within quivering to tears, for in those times the Gnomes (Noldor) were exiles at heart, haunted with a desire for their ancient home (in the Blessed Realm). But fate and unconquerable eagerness after knowledge had driven them into far places, and now were they hemmed by Melko and must make their abiding as fair as they might by labour and by love."
A much later description of the Elves, from the Appendix to Lord of the Rings: "Elves has been used to translate both Quendi, 'the speakers'. the High-elven name of all their kind, and Eldar, the name of the three kindreds that sought for the Undying Realm and came there at the beginning of Days (save the Sindar only). This old word was indeed the only one available, and was once fitted to apply to such memories of this people as Men preserved, or to the making of Men's minds not wholly dissimilar. But it has been diminished, and to many it may now suggest fancies either pretty or silly, as unlike to the Quendi of old as are butterflies to the swift falcon-not that any of the Quendi ever possessed wings of the body, as unnatural to them as to Men. They were a race high and beautiful, the older Children of the world, and among them the Eldar were as kings, who are now gone: the People of the Great Journey, the People of the Stars. They were tall, fair of skin and grey-eyed, though their locks were dark, save in the golden house of Finarfin, and their voices had more melodies than any mortal voice that now is heard. They were valiant, but the history of those that returned to Middle-earth inexile was grevious; and though it was in far off days crossed by the fate of the Fathers, their fate is not that of Men. Their dominion passed long ago, and they dwell now beyond their circles of the world, and do not return."
Who perpetrated this... When not chasing my cats off the keyboard, I play with mustangs (equine) enjoy my fur-wheel drive (three Siberian huskies and a mountain bike or dogsled, depending on the weather), and paddle lakes, rivers, and mosquito-infested salt marshes in my 17 1/2 ft. sea kayak, Mak-eh-nuk's Fin. I have decorated Christmas trees and carved pumpkins underwater (with a dive knife, you can carve Cirth but not Tengwar on the Gourd of the Rings). As a volunteer for local wildlife rehabbers I've demonstrated projectile pooping to awed third graders (with the aid of Thermal, the Wonder Hawk), driven in a stuffy van with a vomiting vulture, wrangled otters, manic Bambis and escaped emus, and illustrated a display; "Soil, It's Not Just Dirt" for a local county park (ask me about the dancing salamanders). I can occasionally hit the broad side of a stack of haybales with an arrow at twenty paces. I have, with accuracy and vehemence, swung broadswords in the Society for Creative Anachronisms (I see knee replacement surgery in my future), but fence exactly the way Orlando Bloom doesn't. If I did encounter any of the Quendi, my Elvish would be just good enough to make them fall on the ground laughing their (hot little) buns off.
Art, shots over the bow of kayak, dogrig or tall ship, and random musings here: .com