The Lost Road and Other Writings. Christopher Tolkien

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This note is of particular interest in that it shows my father combining the old story of the voyage of Ælfwine to Tol-eressëa and the telling of the Lost Tales with the idea of the World Made Round and the Straight Path, which entered at this time. With the words about the difficulty of breathing cf. FN §12, where it is said that the Straight Path ‘cut through the air of breath and flight [Wilwa, Vista], and traversed Ilmen, in which no flesh can endure.’

My father then (as I judge) roughed out an outline for the structure of the book as he now foresaw it. Chapter III was to be called A Step Backward: Ælfwine and Eadwine^* – the Anglo-Saxon incarnation of the father and son, and incorporating the legend of King Sheave; Chapter IV ‘the Irish legend of Tuatha-de-Danaan – and oldest man in the world’; Chapter V ‘Prehistoric North: old kings found buried in the ice’: Chapter VI ‘Beleriand’; Chapter VIII (presumably a slip for VII) ‘Elendil and Herendil in Númenor’. It is interesting to see that there is now no mention of the Lombard legend as an ingredient: see p. 55.

      This outline structure was sent to Allen and Unwin with the manuscript and was incorporated in the typescript made there.

Apart from the Anglo-Saxon episode, the only scrap of connected writing for any of the suggested tales is an extremely obscure and roughly-written fragment that appears to be a part of ‘the Galdor story’ (p. 77). In this, one Agaldor stands on a rocky shore at evening and sees great clouds coming up, ‘like the very eagles of the Lord of the West’. He is filled with a formless foreboding at the sight of these clouds; and he turns and climbs up the beach, passing down behind the land-wall to the houses where lights are already lit. He is eyed doubtfully by men sitting at a door, and after he has gone by they speak of him.

      ‘There goes Agaldor again, from his speech with the sea: earlier than usual,’ said one. ‘He has been haunting the shores more than ever of late.’ ‘He will be giving tongue soon, and prophesying strange things,’ said another; ‘and may the Lords of the West set words more comforting in his mouth than before.’ ‘The Lords of the West will tell him naught,’ said a third. ‘If ever they were on land or sea they have left this earth, and man is his own master from here to the sunrise. Why should we be plagued with the dreams of a twilight-walker? His head is stuffed with them, and there let them bide. One would think to hear him talk that the world had ended in the last age, not new begun, and we were living in the ruins.’

      ‘He is one of the old folk, and well-nigh the last of the long-lived in these regions,’ said another. ‘Those who knew the Eldar and had seen even the Sons of the Gods had a wisdom we forget.’ ‘Wisdom I know not,’ said the other, ‘but woe certainly in abundance if any of their tales are true. I know not (though I doubt it). But give me the Sun. That is glory … I would that the long life of Agaldor might be shortened. It is he that holds [??nigh] this sea-margin – too near the mournful water. I would we had a leader to take us East or South. They say the land is golden in the [??domains] of the Sun.’

Here the fragment ends. Agaldor has appeared in the original outline for The Fall of Númenor: ‘Agaldor chieftain of a people who live upon the N.W. margin of the Western Sea’ (p. 11), and later in that text it was Agaldor who wrestled with Thû, though the name was there changed at the time of writing to Amroth (p. 12). That this is a fragment of ‘the Galdor story’ seems to be shown by a pencilled and partly illegible scrawl at the head of the page, where Galdor appears; but the story is here significantly different.

      Galdor is a good man [?among] the exiles (not a Númenórean) – not a long-liver but a prophet. He prophesies [?coming] of Númenóreans and [?salvation] of men. Hence holds his men by sea. This foreboding passage heralds the Ruin and the Flood. How he escapes in the flood ..... of land. The Númenóreans come – but appear no longer as good but as rebels against the Gods. They slay Galdor and take the chieftainship.

      There is very little to build on here, and I shall not offer any speculations. The story was abandoned without revealing how the Ælfwine-Eadwine element would enter.

      Turning now to ‘the Ælfwine story’, there are several pages of very rough notes and abandoned beginnings. One of these pages consists of increasingly rapid and abbreviated notes, as follows:

      Ælfwine and Eadwine live in the time of Edward the Elder, in North Somerset. Ælfwine ruined by the incursions of Danes. Picture opens with the attack (c. 915) on Portloca (Porlock) and Wæced. Ælfwine is awaiting Eadwine’s return at night. (The attack actually historically took place in autumn, œt hærfest).

      Conversation of Ælfwine and Eadwine. Eadwine is sick of it. He says the Danes have more sense; always pressing on. They go west. They pass round and go to Ireland; while the English sit like Wealas waiting to be made into slaves.

      Eadwine says he has heard strange tales from Ireland. A land in the North-west filled with ice, but fit for men to dwell – holy hermits have been driven out by Norsemen. Ælfwine has Christian objections. Eadwine says the holy Brendan did so centuries ago – and lots of others, [as] Maelduin. And they came back – not that he would want to. Insula Deliciarum – even Paradise.

      Ælfwine objects that Paradise cannot be got to by ship – there are deeper waters between us than Garsecg. Roads are bent: you come back in the end. No escape by ship.

      Eadwine says he does not think it true – and hopes it isn’t. At any rate their ancestors had won new lands by ship. Quotes story of Sceaf.

      In the end they go off with ten neighbours. Pursued by Vikings off Lundy. Wind takes them out to sea, and persists. Eadwine falls sick and says odd things. Ælfwine dreams too. Mountainous seas.

The Straight Road . . . . . water (island of Azores?) off. Ælfwine [?restores?restrains] Eadwine. Thinks it a vision of delirium. The vision of Eressëa and the sound of voices. Resigns himself to die but prays for Eadwine. Sensation of falling. They come down in [?real] sea and west wind blows them back. Land in Ireland (implication is they settle there, and this leads to Finntan).

I add some notes on this far-ranging outline. Edward the Elder, eldest son of King Alfred, reigned from 900 to 924. In the year 914 a large Viking fleet, coming from Brittany, appeared in the Bristol Channel, and began ravaging in the lands beyond the Severn. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle the leaders were two jarls (‘earls’) named Ohtor and Hroald. The Danes were defeated at Archenfield (Old English Ircingafeld) in Herefordshire and forced to give hostages in pledge of their departure. King Edward was in arms with the forces of Wessex on the south side of the Severn estuary, ‘so that’, in the words of the Chronicle, ‘they did not dare to attack the land anywhere on that side. Nonetheless they twice stole inland by night, on one occasion east of Watchet and on the other at Porlock (æt oþrum cierre be eastan Wæced, and æt oþrum cierre æt Portlocan). Each time they were attacked and only those escaped who swam out to the ships; and after that they were out on the island of Steepholme, until they had scarcely any food, and many died of hunger. From there they went to Dyfed [South Wales] and from there to Ireland; and that was in the autumn (and þis wæs on hærfest).’

Porlock and Watchet are on the north coast of Somerset; the island of Steepholme СКАЧАТЬ