Thierna na oge

She had slept terribly. Unpleasant dreams had made her sleep restless and not very restful. In addition, she woke up the next morning even before her time and could not fall asleep again. She finally gave up trying to get one more capful of sleep.

When she noticed that Legolas had indeed slept on the other side of the bed, she suddenly remembered the previous evening. Good heavens, how embarrassing! Had she really fallen asleep in his arms, all classically kitschy? Slowly she began to wonder which terrible director had written the script of her life.

Legolas still seemed to be asleep and seemed to be pushing himself to the far edge of the bed. However, she was not sure if he was really still asleep when she thought of the chapter of the hunt of the three hunters. Elves were there as in so many things different from humans. Nevertheless she decided to stay in bed and stare at the ceiling.

Today they would talk to the old lady. Aimee McDuff, Jack had meant, was her name. She had forgotten the exact address again, but had stuck a note on the car dashboard. The navigation system would find it. So they were invited for tea, and she could bet that they would be filled with cakes and biscuits. Wasn't it always like that with old ladies?

And then? They would have to let the woman in on it, Eri knew that. She wasn't quite so sure of the idea. Who would believe them if they said that Legolas was really Legolas? Would it be an old lady?

But what if she believed them? Would she be able to help them? And if she could? Then this might be the last day she would see Legolas.

Eri was frightened and avoided carrying that thought any further.

After Legolas finally woke up and they had gotten up, he soon realised that her mood was not very good today. She blamed her poor sleep, but could not hide the fact that even the third cup of coffee at breakfast did not improve her mood.

They spent the morning exploring Dublin city centre before heading off to Ardagh to be on the mat at Mrs McDuff's at five o'clock sharp. Legolas was pleased to note that Dublin, though still a capital city, was in many ways hardly comparable to London. He still did not seem to warm to modern human cities, but apparently he found Dublin much more enjoyable than London. Mainly he gave the direction and looked around curiously in all directions, while she trotted along quite disinterestedly and did not really want to start this day. He made a few attempts to cheer her up again, but finally stopped when he received mostly mumbled answers.

Around three o'clock they returned to the hotel and set off for Ardagh. The car journey was mostly silent, while Eri, bored, tuned in to various Irish radio stations and still found nothing to appeal to. She didn't want to turn on one of her audio books either, although Legolas had been so enthusiastic the day before about Christopher Lee's reading of the story of the children of Húrin. He had remarked that Lee had been an excellent choice for Saruman, as he had met him extremely well, and had expressed surprise when she told him that Lee had once met Tolkien in person, who had said that Lee would make a very good Gandalf. Legolas had not really wanted to believe this, but Eri thought that Tolkien was right in his assessment, just as Lee's choice as Saruman had been appropriate.

They found Ardagh without any problems thanks to the navigation system, but when it was supposed to guide them to Mrs. McDuff's house, it became problematic. Apparently the navigation system did not know the street and Google Maps did not bring any enlightenment for once. When they had already literally driven around the village five times with the church, Legolas decided it was time to ask someone for directions.

"Normally they say that men never ask for directions," said Eri.

They stopped by the side of the road and asked someone who looked like a local. After that they had at least a rough idea where to go.

"That can't be that difficult," Eri grumbled. "This nest is the epitome of one-horse town. What does Wikipedia say? A thousand inhabitants? Six hundred of them are cows and cats, I bet."

With a little delay, however, they actually found Aimee McDuff's small, quiet house, which, like all the houses in the village, looked as if it had been built during the first settlement in Ireland and has been family-owned ever since. Eri once again found that she had absolutely no sense of such a quiet, peaceful and above all traditional country life, and she didn't even have to get out of the car to do so.

Eri could not deny that she was nervous when she rang the doorbell. At least Legolas seemed to feel the same way. After all, he had the prospect that he could soon be back in his homeland and that this unusual adventure would come to an end.

You could hear pots rattling. Someone was shouting something in a language that Eri thought was Irish. Then steps were heard and the door was opened. A small, elderly lady, who had certainly already reached her eightieth birthday, opened it for them. She was wearing a floral pattern cooking apron and a hairnet on her head, which tamed her grey curly hair. On her nose she wore thick horn-rimmed glasses. She looked at the two strangers from top to bottom and at first seemed unable to classify them.

"Hello, Mrs. McDuff," Eri greeted her. "Sorry we're a little late, but the sat nav couldn't find your address. My friend Jack has already spoken to you and you had invited us for tea today."

"The accent's British," remarked Mrs. McDuff, with an Irish accent that was strong in her turn. "Ah! Then I remember!" Her gaze lingered on Legolas. Suddenly, her eyes grew larger and larger. "Well, that changes everything! But come in first. I'm delighted to have visitors from abroad. And that's to my old age. The tea is already warm, but the cake is still in the oven. Apple strudel with apples from my garden, my mother's recipe."

Legolas gave Eri a questioning look, but she just shrugged her shoulders and followed Mrs. McDuff into the house. They wiped their shoes off the mat and took the slippers Mrs. McDuff gave them. Apparently they were knitted slippers.

"It's a bit cold in there," said the old lady. "I don't have anything as modern as underfloor heating in this old house, you know, and carpet isn't laid everywhere. Come into the living room and make yourself at home. I'll be right back with your tea."

Eri wanted to protest that the old lady didn't have to go to all that trouble for her, but every objection was nipped in the bud. They gave in and sat down on the sofa in the living room. An old wall unit made of dark wood dominated the room, and on its numerous shelves sat fairy figurines in various designs. In between were numerous fairy tale books. Eri could also make out a Stone Age tube television set, whose picture diagonal was certainly not much larger than that of her notebook.

Shortly afterwards Mrs. McDuff came back and carried a tray with a teapot and several cups. She placed the cups on the table in front of them and poured tea for them. Finally, with a sigh, she let herself sink heavily into the armchair.

"Earl Grey," she said, "Not really my taste in tea, but you are English. Well, I'm Aimee McDuff, but you can call me Aimee, dear. Your friend Jack has already told me a bit about you and your concern, Mrs O'Kelly." Then she turned to Legolas. "But with you, I'm very sure that your name isn't really Mike and that you actually have a different request than the young gentleman told me on the phone."

Legolas blinked confusedly and looked to Eri for help. But she was equally taken by surprise.

Mrs McDuff laughed inside herself. "Don't pretend, dear," she said friendly. "I know someone of the Silent People when they stand before me. I have been dealing with them all my life. Put a bowl of fresh milk on the windowsill in the evening, leave a loaf of bread in the field at harvest time and all that. People always think I'm a quirky old woman, but they just don't have a clue."

"Then I am pleased to introduce myself to you as Legolas Thranduilion," Legolas now took the floor.

"Oh dear!" exclaimed Mrs McDuff, and clasped her hands over her head. "Then you have a real problem."

"You could say that," he agreed with her.

"We haven't really got to the bottom of it on our own yet and hope that you can help us there," said Eri. Now they could play with their cards on the table anyway, even though she was surprised that the old lady immediately recognised who she was dealing with. "Legolas would like to return to his homeland for obvious reasons."

"I think I can help there," said Mrs McDuff. "But first there's cake and then you can tell me all about it from the beginning. The details are important."

Aimee MyDuff forbade them to help her take the cake out of the oven and into the living room. Then she disappeared into the kitchen. They heard it rattling again. Meanwhile, a cat came sneaking out of one of the other rooms, stroking their legs first and then settling on Legolas' lap to be stroked purring. As Eri reached out for her, the cat rose, turned its back to her, making it clear that it only wanted to be stroked by Legolas. Eri was mortally offended.

"The cat likes you more than me, that's unfair," she complained, but had to grin at the animal.

"Quite clearly", he agreed with her. "But tell me, Eri, what do you think?"

"I don't know, what should I think?" she replied, "She seems nice, and she was the only one who realised from the beginning, before we said a word, that you are an elf. And she knows you too. Well, at least since Jackson's filming most people know your name. I think that could be a good basis for moving forward."

In the meantime the cake was ready and Mrs. McDuff carried another tray with the cake in. Plates and cake forks were quickly distributed and each of them had a neat piece of cake on the plate.

"With or without cream?" asked Mrs McDuff, but the question seemed to be rhetorical, as they immediately had a good dash of cream on their plates.

When she had sat down again, and her guests had assured her that the apple strudel would taste delicious, she said: "At least the apples are good for that. The tree only carries small, wormy, sour apples, but these are in masses. But now tell me your story. Right from the beginning. And don't forget: The details are important."

So Legolas told what was the last thing he remembered in Middle-earth and what they had found out in London since then. Aimee McDuff listened attentively and made no attempt to show that she thought it was all a hoax. She seemed to believe every word they said, and Eri was very happy about that. One worry less.

When Legolas ended, Mrs. McDuff just nodded and remained silent for quite a while, while she thought about what she heard. Legolas waited for her answer with visibly growing concern. He had never shown any signs of particular haste since he had been with Eri (at least not what humans would call haste), but now that his return home seemed within reach, he seemed to be getting nervous after all.

"This is something I have never heard of before," Mrs McDuff finally said. When Legolas was already slumped down, she added: "But that doesn't mean I have no idea how to fix it. First of all, you should know what it's like with fairies these days. More tea?"

Without waiting for an answer, she gave Eri and Legolas more and put a piece of the apple strudel on their plates. Eri saw herself rolling back into the car.

"Not all of your people sailed West then, Legolas," Mrs. McDuff continued. "That is, of course, still in your future, if you like. But there were some who stayed. However, they changed over the years, they disappeared, so to speak, and became characters from fairy tales and legends for the people". She pointed to her book collection. "These are our testimonies of them. Much of it is outright nonsense, nice stories for children who made up superstitious people and those with too much imagination. But if you look closely enough, you can see the truth in them."

"So there are still elves who can help me." Legolas was all excited.

"Yes, if you know where to look," said Mrs McDuff. "But you may not recognise them as members of your people. As I said, they have changed. We humans have made this world subject to us and there is no room for magical beings in it any more. That has changed them, made them wilder than they had been before. It's no coincidence that the mischief and the evil spirits in all the fairy tales are there. But if you leave them a little bit of their own table, they are nicer. Not even that is something anyone does nowadays. But wondering when the socks disappear in the washing machine. What nonsense!

"I think there is something else you should know for everything else. There's a reason you ended up here, in the most inappropriate place imaginable."

Legolas gave Eri a telling look. As if he wanted to tell her that he had told her so. "We asked ourselves the same thing: Why this happened to me," he said. "Do you know anything about it?"

"I don't know, I'm just an old woman," she said, "but I know a lot of other things, so I can make a guess that I'm very sure is correct. However, you will not like it. You died in your homeland."

For a moment there was silence, where all you could hear was the purring of the cat and the soft ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner.

"Dead?", Legolas breathlessly whispered.

"But... this cannot be!", protested Eri. "He's sitting here next to me and he's real, not some ghost!" She demonstratively drilled a finger into his side. No, that just couldn't be right! How could there be a way back for him when he had died?

"You have read Tolkien, haven't you?" Mrs. McDuff turned to her, "Then you know that the spirit of the elves comes to Mandos after their earthly demise. They can be reborn and receive a new body."

Legolas seemed to have recovered his composure surprisingly quickly. "I think I know what you are getting at," he said. "So the wound I received in battle was fatal, but my desire to help my homeland even after the War of the Ring war was so strong that my fae did not find their way to Mandos and strayed here."

"Where you received and continue to receive the help you need to find your way back" Mrs McDuff ended. "Right. Míriel did not want to return to her earthly shell after she had passed away because of Feanor, but firstly you did not give birth to such a child and secondly you want to go back to take your second chance in this world. And you wouldn't have ended up here if you hadn't been given a second chance."

"I don't quite follow," Eri said confusedly. It all happened too fast for her.

"The body is only a shell for us elves," Legolas explained to her, "what really makes us is our fae, our soul, you might say. The body can decay, the soul cannot. It is immortal. If our earthly bodies are destroyed, we return to Mandos and after a time we can receive a new body. This is rare, especially in Middle-earth, but can happen. Remember what you read about Lord Glorfindel."

"So you throw yourself off the next best cliff and that's it?" she asked, still confused.

"I don't think it will be that easy," he said. "That my fae got lost in this time at all, I can only explain to myself by the fact that it also suffered a wound in battle that had to be healed first and that was only possible here."

"And? Is it healed?"

He smiled. "Yes, I think so."

"Okay..." Eri still couldn't quite picture it all, but Legolas seemed pretty sure of it and that was what mattered.

"The cliff will not help us," Mrs. McDuff now confirmed. "But I know where to find the fairies, and as luck would have it, there is a fairy hill nearby, one of their homes. Have you ever heard of Brí Léith? They call it síd, which simply means home. There you will find a passage to Thierna na oge, to the other world, and there you should also find your way back to your home."

"Can we go there today?" asked Legolas, and the hope of soon being back home seemed to make him shine.

"Sure, it's not far," said Mrs McDuff. "Mrs O'Kelly, you have such a fancy car. Would you be so kind as to give us a lift if I showed you the way? I'm no good on foot any more, especially when it's across a field."

Eri saw her Bentley already covered in mud all over, but still she nodded without hesitation. Legolas' joy at being back home soon was contagious. Gone was her bad mood from the morning.

They couldn't get away, of course, without having another cup of tea and eating some more of Mrs McDuff's apple strudel.

"You have a good Irish name," she said to Eri. "You have Irish ancestors, don't you?"

Eri nodded. "I'm named after my grandmother because I'm the first (and only) daughter," she said.

"According to tradition then," Mrs. McDuff said. "Good. You just can't get away from the old country. And the first name fits. You know, in my family we say we're named after MacDuff. You know, Shakespeare. I almost believe fate has brought the three of us together." She laughed.

It was already dark when they finally went off to look for Brí Léith. Eri was not entirely comfortable driving her Bentley through any fields in the dark, but Mrs McDuff thought that was the best time.

"And foggy autumn too! They especially love that," she emphasised once again.

Legolas looked as tense as a bow and almost reminded Eri of a panther in a cage, ready to jump at any time. He seemed extremely eager to take his chance and she hoped so much for him that they would succeed. But she forbade herself to think any further than this.

She drove slowly through the twilight and then through the night, following Mrs McDuff's directions. At some point the old lady said she could park the car on a dirt road and walk the rest of the way as it was not far away.

"But it's best not to take anything from this world," she told Legolas. "You have your clothes from home with you, don't you?"

Legolas nodded and quickly changed behind the car. Then they walked together across a field in the dark. Legolas gave Mrs. McDuff an arm so she wouldn't stumble, and Eri had pulled out her mobile phone and turned on the camera light to see something in the dark. She could make out a shadowy elevation in the field somewhere in front of her.

"The farmer goes round and round, and he's always cursing like a washerwoman," said Mrs McDuff."That's his land, after all, he says. But even he has not yet dared to level the hill. He'd be lucky, or he'd be in big trouble, and not only from me!"

Meanwhile Eri noticed that fog had come up, although he hadn't been there a few minutes ago.

"I'm going to sing an old song now," said Mrs. McDuff. "This should call out the Silent People. They always liked music."

She started a simple melody and repeated a series of simple words. Eri wasn't even sure if it could really be called a song: "Da Luna, da Mort, da Luna, da Mort, da Luna, da Mort augus da Cadine."

She noticed Legolas grabbing her hand and keeping a firm hold of the old woman. I wonder what he was thinking. Eri, for one, could not help but be sceptical, having been so carried away by her enthusiasm about the prospect of his imminent return. She squeezed his hand and smiled encouragingly at him. But should she encourage him at all? What if this was all just a silly farce?

The fog grew thicker. And then, to Eri's boundless amazement, she heard the delicate ringing of little bells, and it was as if it wasn't quite of this world. Like Legolas.

"Ai! Na vedui!," he exclaimed joyfully and beamed all over his face.

"It was easier than ever," Mrs McDuff said, rubbing her chin. "They must have noticed you. Quickly, go into the fog and you will find your way home."

Legolas turned to Eri and now took her other hand. "This seems to be the moment of our farewell," he said. "I thank you with all my heart for all you have done for me. And please also convey my deepest thanks to Jack. Without you two, I wouldn't be here now."

Eri could not stop tears from streaming into her eyes. The joy was over, the pain of parting flared up in her chest. If she was completely honest with herself, she had hoped that this moment would be a little longer and not just a little fog and a funny song.

"Write me a postcard from Valinor, will you?" she sniffed. "It was great with you. But I understand that you have to go. I'll miss you, too."

"Eri ..." he said so incredibly gently that something broke inside her and she wrapped her arms around his chest, sobbing. Gently, he lifted her chin with a finger and bent down to her. She thought he wanted to kiss her on her hair, but instead she found herself in a kiss, tender elf lips on hers.

"Nothing would have become of us two, it would not have gone well," he whispered in her ear. "Go back to Jack, you two belong together. I must go now. But I will not forget you. I will never forget you."

Then he disappeared.

Eri crumpled her blazer in tears, not caring that they would have ugly wrinkles the next day.

"I won't forget you either, Legolas…"

Ai! Na vedui! – Ah! At last!, Sindarin

That little song is from one of the fairy tales, I've read for this text.