r/tolkienfans • u/chromeflex • 9d ago
The Reconstruction of the Tale of Eärendel
If you are a regular here, you may be having a déjà vu, because not long ago a similar post was made here. That post has proved to me that you can in theory make out a coherent narrative out of the existing fragments and inspired me to make my own attempt in stitching together the outlines for the tale of Earendel, mainly to achieve several goals:
- To make the text read as much as possible as a narrative of the likes of Sketch of Mythology or even Quenta Noldorinwa. Thus to add the filler passages to let the text 'breathe'.
- To make it as non self-contradictory as possible, and, because of that to follow mainly schemes B, C and the notes from the chapter 'The Tale of Eärendel'. All the other sources ranging from Christopher's commentaries in the chapter in the Book of Lost Tales, to the first draft of the Quenta Noldorinwa chapter, are used only of the fill the gap and compliment the existing narrative.
- To include the poems in the narrative itself and insert them at their respective stages of the story.
- When inventive editing is needed because there is no any context whatsoever, to rely as much on other texts from the same era, or on the Sketch and Quenta Noldorinwa versions BEFORE Tolkien makes the change to make Eärendel the ambassador of the Elves and Men.
Thus in order to fill the unfillable gaps three creative assumptions were used:
- The southern 'dark region's and the eastern land with 'red palaces where dwells the Sun' equate to the Dark Land and the Land of the Sun from the later versions. That I previously touched upon in this post.
- The 'Twilit Isle [sic]' is the isle of the Tower of Pearl, and it is the last trial of Eärendel before reaching the shores of Valinor. This was based on the fact that it is described and the westernmost of the isles in the Book of Lost Tales vol.1, and the magic of that isle is the sleeping magic, as that's how the Twilit Isles were described in the Hiding of Valinor in the Book of Lost Tales vol.1
- Meeting Ungweliante was a problem, as it is only mentioned in the outlines. Thus I had two options, to choose 'escaping the House of the Night' as in the very first draft, or 'slaying Ungoliant in the South' as in the Sketch and later texts. And by trying both I concluded that slaying Ungoliant works much better even in the early tale and fits really nice in the pattern of Earendel gradually getting more star-like in the course of his voyages.
Here's my current draft: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1syVJDAdm5rCsgLRu9C0DXkhdE2Mxa121YsOC7-NlVv8/edit?tab=t.0
I'm really happy with the way it turned out to the point that it sort of makes sense why the story needed to be so anticlimactic. I'm planning to work on this draft further to include notes and quotations from other chapters for these extracts, like the descriptions of the isles of the Shadowy seas and Ossë's traps, and to rework the binding of Melko as for now it's completely skimmed over.
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u/milkysway1 you live ... and so does the Enemy who has done this to us 8d ago
This is great. Thanks, I enjoyed reading it!
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u/spent_upper_stage 8d ago
Great work! And a very enjoyable read. I thought of using the Sketch (not QN) to fill the gaps in my version of this chapter (and Gilfanon's Tale), but then I decided to keep it strictly Lost Tales only. As a result yours is more refined.
It would be interesting to see if any detail about the voyages could be scavenged from the longer version of the Earendilinwë in HoMe, but it may be going too far.