2004.02.05 So you've read J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, and perhaps The Hobbit. In the background of those works, like mountains glimpsed on the edge of the horizon, is a large body of myth. Tolkien, blessed with only the lifespan of a Mortal never got to finish that mytholology, but his son, Christopher, has spent a lifetime compiling what was written; it can be found in The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, Lost Tales, and the rest of The History of Middle-earth series. Those tales, though fragmentary, are full of vast beauties and fascinating characters. This is a quest into those less-read works, and with a little luck, it may throw some light on them for those who feared to venture into those shadowy seas.

You're off the edge of the map now...here there be dragons...

but don't worry, it helps when you've got a

Faithful Sidekick

(a musing on an obscure character without whose help

many things in Middle-earth would not have come to pass)

A dark dank cave strung with spider webs, faint, phosphorescent, eerie blue light, a scuttling of feet...non-human feet. A frightened Hobbit too far from home to ever go back. He is alone against the daughter of darkness. Shelob slithers into view, attacks, and Frodo raises his hand, holding a glass vial.

"Aiya Earendil Elenion Ancalima!" he shouts. The vial blazes with light, and Shelob backs off.

That's the theatrical version. In The Book, Sam is by Frodo's side, and they have been blundering blindly through utter darkness, darkness that cannot be shown onscreen (unless you turn the movie into a radio play). They hear "a sound, startling and horrible in the heavy padded silence." The sound of Shelob's spidery feet. They realize that Gollum has led them into a trap. Then in the blackness of Frodo's despair and anger he remembers a light: "a light when all other lights go out"...the starglass of Earendil given by Galadriel.

Shelob is the descendant of Ungoliant, ancient weaver of darkness who took the form of a giant spider in the earliest legends of Middle-earth, as told in The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, and Lost Tales (all compiled from Tolkien's scattered notes by his son Christopher). Ungoliant went with Morgoth (the orginal Dark Lord) to the Blessed Realm and poisoned the Two Trees of the Valar; Laurelin and Silperion, the trees of the Sun and Moon, the trees that held the original light of creation. And they died, taking their light with them.

But not quite all of it. Already in existence were the Silmarils; gems made by a genius Noldorin craftsman, Feanor; most beautiful, most blessed of the High Elves who awakened in Middle-earth, and returned to the Blessed Realm at the summons of the Valar, there to grow in wisdom. Feanor had captured the light of the Two Trees in those three amazing gems called Silmarils.

And Melkor, the Vala, lusted after them.

Melkor, or as he is later known, Morgoth, is a fallen Vala, the original Bad Boy of Middle-earth (Sauron of LOTR is a mere Maia, an understudy of Morgoth's); even in the song of creation Morgoth sang his own tune. And ever since he has gone against the will of Eru, Illuvatar, The One, The Creator. He weaves a plot to destroy Feanor and end the friendship of the Valar and the Elves.

And he does. There are many chapters of the Silmarillion which tell of The Kinslaying, where Feanor's folk went against the will of the Valar, killed the Teleri and stole their ships, and sailed back to Middle-earth, chasing Morgoth and the stolen Silmarils. Of the darkening of Valinor, when the Two Trees are killed. Of the terrible oath of Feanor and his sons; vowing to pursue with vengeance to the ends of the World Vala, Demon, Elf or Man as yet unborn, or any creature, great or small, good or evil...whoso should hold or take or keep a Silmaril from their possession. Of Galadriel's flight to Middle-earth across the Grinding Ice (yes THAT Galadriel). And of Yavanna's drawing forth of the last two fruits of the Trees: the Sun and Moon. Of the Hiding of Valinor: when "the Enchanted Isles were set, and all the seas about them were filled with shadows and bewilderment. And these isles were strung as a net in the Shadowy Seas from the north to the south, before Tol Eressea, the Lonely Isle, is reached by one sailing west. Hardly might any vessel pass between them, for in the dangerous sounds, the waves sighed forever upon dark rocks shrouded in mist. And in the twilight a great weariness came upon mariners and a loathing of the sea; but all that ever set foot upon the islands were there entrapped, and slept until the Change of the World. Thus it was that as Mandos foretold to them in Araman the Blessed Realm was shut against the Noldor."

The door is closed. None of the Elves in Middle-earth can ever go home again.

Until Earendil. Earendil who found a way West, who asked for pardon and help of the Valar. Who sails the heavens as the evening star, a Silmaril bound upon his brow. Who gave his light to Frodo's starglass.

Who wouldn't have existed without Voronwe the Faithful.

The threads of story in Middle-earth weave themselves into a vast tapestry; pull any one of those threads and the whole thing unravels. Take Frodo's vial; without the light of Earendil, he likely would have wound up as yet one more late night snack for Shelob the Mighty Hungry. The ring would have lain in wait for another few millenia...or one of Sauron's orcs would have found it and...

Well, it didn't. Frodo had the handy dandy Flashlight of the Valar, and he made it to Mount Doom after all.

He never would have done it without Sam, of course.

Or Voronwe.

Who?

We'll start with that Earendil guy. Earendil was the son of Tuor, a human hero, and Idril, daughter of the Elvenking of Gondolin. You may have heard of Gondolin. If you read The Hobbit carefully, you may remember Elrond's words to thirteen Dwarves and one pudgy little Hobbit burglar, as Elrond peers at some swords they have brought from the trolls' hoard (the very trolls Frodo later encounters, in stone, in his own travels): "These are not troll-make. They are old swords, very old swords of the High Elves of the West, my kin. They were made in Gondolin for the Goblin must have come from a dragon's hoard or goblin plunder, for dragons and goblins destroyed that city many ages ago. This, Thorin, the runes name Orcrist, the Goblin-cleaver in the ancient tongue of Gondolin; it was a famous blade. This, Gandalf was Glamdring, Foe-Hammer that the king of Gondolin once wore. Keep them well !" Sting also came from that hoard, and is of elven make. The High Elves Elrond speaks of are the Noldor, kin of Galadriel and Feanor, the exiles who came back to Middle-earth from the Blessed Realm. The Goblin Wars he speaks of are the battles against Morgoth, fortressed in Thangorodrim in the North of Middle-earth. The destruction of Gondolin is recounted in a very early Tolkien writing: "The Fall of Gondolin", finally published by Christopher Tolkien in "Lost Tales 2". As Tolkien wrote The Hobbit in the 1930s, his earlier mythos (some scribbled in the trenches of WW1) materialized in the background like a ghost city seen through ancient mists, setting the stage for the last tale: Lord of the Rings

.

Back to that Earendil guy; half-Elf Earendil married Elwing (also of both races; Elven and Mortal Man), and had twin sons. One, Elros, chose the path of Men, and founded the line of Numenoreans, the folk whose last descendants wander about as Rangers of the North; one in particular...some guy known as Strider...reclaims the throne and returns those people to their former glory after the War of the Ring.

The other twin chose the path of the Elves, he ends up in Rivendell, forming a Fellowship to aid a Hobbit in carrying the One Ring to Mount Doom. And marrying his daughter off to the aforementioned Ranger of the North. When Elrond is explaining the lineage of those swords to Gandalf and Company, he never mentions that the Elvenking who originally wore Glamdring is his great-grandfather; his father's (Earendil) mother's (Idril) father (Turgon).

And none of them would have got to where we find them in LOTR if it hadn't been for Voronwe.

What, who?

Tolkien says of Earendil in a letter to Milton Waldman of Collins Publishing:(late 1951, "Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien") "He is important as the person who brings the Silmaril to its end, and as providing in his offspring the main links to persons in the tales of later ages. His function, as a representative of both Kindreds, Elves and Men, is to find a sea-passage back to the Land of the Gods..." The Valar listen to his pleas on the behalf of Elves and Men. And they come.

"But Morgoth himself the Valar thrust through the Door of Night beyond the Walls of the World." The Way West is opened again, and there ends the great saga called The Silmarillion. There are other tales to tell, including the Akallabeth, the Downfall of Numneor, in which the World is bent and the Way West concealed to all but the Elves. And darkness rises again in the form of a lesser power, that of Sauron the Maia. And even there, Earendil's light echoes down through the ages in Elrond's wisdom, in Aragorn's strength, and in Galadriel's gift.

After his great voyage west, Earendil is given a ship to sail the heavens, with a Silmaril bound upon his brow, as the evening star. It is the only Silmaril ever recovered; torn from the iron crown of Morgoth, in the depths of his realm by Beren and Luthien (ancestors of that Strider guy, as is Earendil). The Silmaril itself travels a long and twisted road, but eventually it finds its way to Beren and Luthien, and to their son Dior. He marries Nimloth, and their daughter is Elwing, who marries Earendil. Which is how he gets a Silmaril stuck on his forehead.

And he wouldn't be up there, sailing the night sky with this glowy thing on his forehead (making it kind of hard to see) without Voronwe.

Ok, we now know the whole history of Earendil, but that's not who this is about. Who's this Voronwe guy?

I first met him back in the late 70s, after I realized that Professor Tolkien had written more than just LOTR and The Hobbit. I picked up a copy of The Silmarillion, and plowed through that epic tale of biblical proportions. I found a few characters that I really liked. One was Voronwe.

In chapter 23 of The Silmarillion (published in 1977), we find; "Of Tuor and the Fall of Gondolin". That tale tells little of the actual destruction of the hidden Elvish city, but does tell of how Tuor came to find it, and marry the daughter of its king. In Unfinished Tales (published in 1980) I found more of the Tuor tale, and more about Voronwe. In "The Book of Lost Tales 2", (published 1984, my paperback in 1992) we at last find the entire tale: "The Fall of Gondolin", the earliest bits written in 1916-1917, one of Tolkien's Middle-earth legends that he mentions over and over in his Letters, a tale that was once delivered as a reading to his Oxford contemporaries (who heard it as thefallagongolin, he tended to mumble). The problem with any of the tales of Middle-earth after LOTR, is that they are as fragmentary as Tolkien's scattered notes. His son, Christopher, has done an awesome task; gathering the scattered fragments, like a shattered Silmaril, and piecing them together.

But you still have to read several books to get the whole known history of one character.

So who is this Vorowne?

In the Silmarillion, we hear of Huor, the brother of Hurin (father of the tortured hero Turin, another tale featuring yet another favorite obscure character), who dies in the Battle of Unnumbered Tears. In the winter of that year, his wife Rian bears a son, Tuor, in the wilds of Mithrim. He is taken to foster by Annael of the Grey-Elves (Sindarin, the same folk as Thingol father of Luthien, Thranduil the Elvenking of The Hobbit, and Legolas of the Fellowship...I remember Annael, because his name spelled backwards, is nearly mine.) Tuor has a long and rough history: his Elven companions are assailed by orcs and Easterlings, and he is taken captive, made a slave by an Easterling, escapes, and becomes an outlaw, living in the wilderness, picking off Morgoth's evil minions one by one.

The Valar have mostly removed themselves from the affairs of Middle-earth at this point, allowing Feanor's rebellion and its repercussions to play themselves out in their own good time. Alone of the Valar, Ulmo, Lord of Waters, has not entirely forsaken the Noldorin exiles, though his underling; Osse, Maia of the sea, has. Ulmo dwells, not in Valinor, but in all the seas and rivers of the world, and has done so since the Begining. He has watched the Noldor wage war upon Morgoth, and from time to time has offered counsel to those he thinks will understand it.

He has a Plan. And it involves Tuor. He sets a desire in Tuor's heart to travel.

And Tuor comes to Nevrast, and looks upon Belgaer, the Great Sea. He eventually follows the silent promptings of Ulmo to a deserted elven city: Vinyamar, a city once held by Turgon.

And if all this tangled myth has left you going; "heh?" Turgon's the guy who fled with his people to a hidden realm known as Gondolin. The guy with the swords named Glamdring and Orcrist and Sting, the one with the daughter named Idril, mother of Earendil.

Tuor enters the deserted city of Vinyamar, and finds a lot of really nice armour. It's not there by accident, Turgon left it there, with a sword and helm and shield and spear, long ago, at the prompting of Ulmo: "...from Nevrast, one shall come to warn thee, and from him beyond ruin and fire hope shall be born for Elves and Men. Leave therefore in this house arms and a sword, that in years to come he may find them, and thus shalt thou know him, and not be decieved." The armour is left there before Turgon leaves Vinyamar. Before the founding of Gondolin. And if it seems strange for someone to leave a lot of perfectly good expensive Elvish Armour (about the price of a new Mercedes at the local Armour Swap Shop) lying about for a few hundred...or thousand...years, remember, these are Elves, and this is all but one ripple in the stream of time for them.

Tuor arrays himself in that armour, and goes down to the shore. A great storm arises out of the west (west, the land of the Valar, also it's kind of hard to have a sea storm rising out of the east, because there is very little water in that direction). Out of the waters rises Ulmo, Lord of the Sea. This time, Ulmo delivers his message in no uncertain terms; in the midst of storm and wind and leaping wave (most impressive) he tells Tuor to find the hidden city of Gondolin. It's time to warn Turgon; the dark powers are about to uncover his hidden realm and overrun it. And Ulmo adds: "I will send one to thee out of the wrath of Osse (Maia of the sea, Ulmo's wayward servant), and thus shalt thou be guided: yea, the last mariner of the last ship that shall seek into the west until the rising of the Star (Earendil's star)."

Morning comes, and with it warm sun and quiet sea and the call of gulls. And there, at the edge of the sea is someone; hunched on the sand, cloak sodden and torn, hair and clothes full of sand and sea-wrack. Dazed, beyond hope, cast up on the shores of Middle-earth, alone, with only a short sword and a packet of lembas, in a world beset by creatures of evil and darkness. The reader knows nothing about him at that moment, he is only a sodden shape on the sand. A bit of storm wrack cast up by the Sea which stretches west to the Blessed Realm. The west closed against the Noldor, because of Feanor's rebellion. The West protected by shadowy seas and enchanted islands. We do know this about this stray lone sailor, if we remember Ulmo's words: "the last mariner of the last ship that shall seek into the west". The one on the beach has traveled far through impossible dangers, seen every ship and every companion swallowed by those great heartless waters. This sailor was part of a fleet sent on a quest to find a path home.,

They failed, utterly. And died. All of them. And they were immortals, Elves, people who would have lived to the Change of the World otherwise. Now their spirits will wait long, wrapped in their shadowy memories, in the Halls of Mandos.

This one survived. His odyssey would have been terrible. His loss more terrible. And his guilt at being the lone survivor? We can only guess.

Tuor looks down from the sea-wall and a name, untaught, comes to his lips.

"Welcome Voronwe, I await you!" The soggy Elf turns and 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".

Voronwe sees above him, on the sea-wall, a vision of majesty, arrayed in the armour of Noldorin kings. He looks on this vision with fear and wonder, and the two study each other's faces, trying to make sense of it all. At last Voronwe bows before Tuor's feet, "Who are you lord? Long have I laboured in the unrelenting sea...have great tidings befallen since I walked the land? Is the Shadow overthrown? Have the Hidden People come forth?" For all that he's been through, he has not had all hope dashed from him. He shows some of that brightness, lightness of spirit that we see in Legolas when things are darkest for the Fellowship.

"Nay." says Tuor.

Only then does Voronwe see past the armour, and the great shadowy cloak of Ulmo, and see that the one he bows to is a Mortal Man. With Tuor's "nay" and the realization that he is only a Man, Voronwe might have been dismayed, losing hope once more. But instead his amazement grows as he hears Tuor's tale; of escaping thralldom, of meeting with Ulmo, and of Tuor's need to find the Hidden City of Gondolin.

Here he balks. "But were you the highest of your folk, no right would you have to seek Turgon, and vain would be your quest. For even were I to lead you to his gates, you could not enter in." For Voronwe is one of the folk that Turgon sent out from Gondolin to seek a way to the Uttermost West. He is not about to betray his people to a total stranger, no matter how awesome in appearance or lineage, no matter that he invokes the name of Ulmo.

Right here, things in Middle-earth could grind to a halt. Voronwe could say "screwit crazy human", and go find himself some nice safe willow mead to live out his eternal life in.

Tuor says; "I do not bid you to lead me further than the gate...will Turgon forget that which (Ulmo) spoke to him of old? 'Remember that the last hope of the Noldor cometh from the Sea? When peril is nigh one shall come from Nevrast to warn thee.' "

And Nevrast is where Tuor hath cometh frometh.

Tuor's words to Voronwe are an inspiration from Ulmo. Tuor has never heard them before, but Voronwe has. Those words are known to the Hidden People of Gondolin. "but he (Voronwe) turned away, and looked toward the Sea and sighed."

"Alas! he said. I wish never again to return. And often have I vowed in the deeps of the sea that, if ever I set foot on land again, I would dwell at rest far from the shadow of the North (where Morgoth has his stronghold), or by the Havens of Cirdan (the shipwright who keeps the Grey Havens of LOTR), or maybe in the fair fields of Nan-tathren, where the spring is sweeter than heart's desire." He is weary of questing, worn out, burned out, and he wishes only for peace. His is a gentle, poetic heart. But he continues; "But if evil has grown while I have wandered, and the last peril approaches them, then I must go to my people. I will lead you to the hidden gates, for the wise will not gainsay the councels of Ulmo." His is also a wise heart, and one respectful of the Powers. Even if they have closed the West to him.

They make their plans on faring in the wild, and passing the harbourless winter. Voronwe says to Tuor, "You know the strength of Men. As for me, I am of the Noldor, and long must be the hunger and cold the winter that shall slay the kin of those who passed the Grinding Ice." He does not say these words with pride, they are but a simple statement of fact. Humility is a quality you can see in Tolkien and his most sucessful characters. The ones who fail, or come to tragic ends are the ones who succumb to Pride, like Tuor's cousin Turin, or Feanor, who started the whole Silmaril mess.

Voronwe also carries a small waterproof pouch of lembas:"Yet how think you we could labour countless days in the salt wastes of the sea?" Once again this near magical waybread enables our heroes to undertake impossible journeys.

One thing you will notice in The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, and Lost Tales, is the language: as LOTR becomes more poetic and less light and silly than The Hobbit, these later published tales become even more mythic in their tone, forsooth. Downright biblical even. In LOTR, the camera is right in there, on top of the characters, following their every move. In these later tales, it has stepped back; the people are seen through the Mists of Time, few of their conversations are recorded. It is more like reading an ancient newspaper account than watching a movie. But the characters still live and breathe, and with some effort, you can figure out who they are.

They set out; an Elven mariner, quick and agile and strong enough to trim a sail in a storm, on a tree-tall mast swinging wild arcs as the ship bucks beneath it on monster waves. A Man hardened by slavery, and experienced in living off the land. though he has misgivings about that; "...not in all lands is it safe to hunt...and hunters tarry on the road."

Voronwe likely has the skills of all Elves when it comes to the natural world; a spiritual connection with all things "the elvish way with all good beasts" that we see in Legolas (as well as his tendency to talk to trees and the odd rock), and in Beleg (Unfinished Tales) who tracks Turin through the wild ("too well did I teach this child of Men craft in wood and field"). Beleg can read a bent blade of grass better than any Ranger, and can hear the "rumour of the passing of Men among the wild things with whom he could speak". In The Hobbit chapter "Fire and Water" we read: "The Elvenking had recieved news from his own messengers and from the birds that loved his folk..." That Elvenking is of course Thranduil in LOTR, father of that archer guy in the Fellowship, who says lines like; "Only I hear the stones lament them..."

It is Tuor here who is the archer (carrying something like Aragorn's hunting bow from the film), but Voronwe has only a short sword, likely no bigger than the "long white knife" Legolas uses. Doesn't sound like much, till you remember (bookverse) Legolas at Helm's Deep, knifing orcs as they come over the wall. An eerie image of Elvish skill and stealth.

A short sword may be all the weaponry Voronwe needs.

Lest you imagine Tuor clanking about the wilderness in unwieldy gothic plate armour, like a great noisy orc-magnet, I should clarify that the armour he found is a hauberk (sort of an oversized t-shirt) of mail. Elvish mail, like untarnished silver glinting with gold. It is likely very light (remember Frodo's mail shirt). His shield, though, is long and tapered, not the handy round shield Boromir carries in LOTR. It is painted with a blue field with a white swan's wing upon it, the imagery seen in Gondor in a later age.

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About that swan imagery:

Tuor is aided and guided on his quest (before he meets Voronwe) by swans. They bow before him at one point, each plucking out one flight feather and laying it before his feet. He puts those reverently in his new-found helm.

If you're used to thinking (as I was) of swans as those serene cutesey things floating about on ponds, picture postcards, and the odd Inspirational Poster...look again...

Notes in "Ted Andrews' Animal-Speak Calendar" (Dragonhawk Publishing, 2004) resonate with other things I have read on swans: "The swan is a bird of great magic. It has ancient ties to the Faerie Realm and other magical dimensions..." It is associated with dreams, with quests, with innumerable faerie and folk tales.

Tolkien knew this, and used the imagery widely. Swans generally mate for life (so do geese and hawks and owls, and ravens). They are "the totem of the child, the mystic, the poet and the dreamer...that part of us which knows our possibilities."

The swans I have met personally were formidable: the Swan of Doom who guarded the pond of a local wildlife rehabber, beating off foxes, stray dogs and the odd volunteer. He was killed by lightning in a thunderstorm, and his wings and feathers graced several fundraising items: dance fans, dreamcatchers and the like. There was also the Attack Swan who guarded a stretch of one of the local kayaking streams. Swans paddle nearly as fast as I can, and they can fly a whole lot better. Both of these were the non-native mute swans, the ornamental variety imported from Europe, and likely much like Tuor's swans. In the marshes of Assateague Island, I saw a tundra swan take flight, and understood why they are also called whistling swans; the rush oif their wings would have struck awe into the heart of the Noldor themselves. (These are the native north American ones: the more common tundra swan, and the trumpeter swan of the northwest.) The wobbly skeins of wild geese in flight, with their haunting calls, have been likened to the hounds of hunting gods (Araw in Sindarin), but they have none of the power of a phalanx of white tundra swans appearing out of the silver haze of a spring sky.

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They travel through some dangerous orc-infested country, staying hidden as much as possible; Voronwe has an Elvencloak, and Tuor one given by Ulmo, both of which help as camoflage. Tuor asks Voronwe about Turgon's city, and Voronwe redirects the conversation, talking instead about other places he has loved in Middle-earth. He speaks of how he was sent from Gondolin, one of several messengers, to Cirdan in the Bay of Balar. Voronwe is young in years among the Eldar, he was born in Middle-earth, his father of the Noldor, but his mother of the Sindar; the Grey Elves who are kin to the Teleri whose ships were stolen, and burned, whose kin were killed by the Noldor led by Feanor.

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About those Elves:

In The Silmarillion there is a geneology chart showing the divisions of the Quendi (all of the Elves) like the branches of a great tree. It is best understood as a picture, but here is the manner of its growth:

First there are the Quendi, all of the Elves, the Firstborn Children of Illuvatar who are awakened by the Creator (Illuvatar, Eru, the One) in Middle-earth by the waters of Cuivienin.

They are divided into the Eldar (Elves of the Great Journey from Cuivienen, the Waters of Awakening)...and the Avari (the Unwilling, the Elves who refused the Great Journey)

The Great Journey is the well-meaning attempt by the Valar to gather up the Elves and keep them safe in Valinor, Aman, The Blessed Realm, The West. Safe from the Dark Lord and his minions. Like trying to keep your teenager away from wild parties and fast cars, it didn't work very well.

The Eldar (alias the Calaquendi, or Elves of the Light, for they have actually seen the light of the Two Trees) are divided into Vanyar (who went to Aman and stayed, possibly hanging out on the beach and partying)...the Noldor (who went to Aman, got their phd in silmarilli 101 and went back to middle-earth to kick Morgoth's butt)...and the Teleri who went to Aman, settled down by the sea, built some nice ships and had them stolen by the Noldor.

Some of the Teleri never made it to Aman; those were the Sindar who got as far as Beleriand by the Sea, and got distracted and never sailed West. Also the Nandor, who bailed out earlier, somewhere east of the Misty Mountains, and a few of their kin, the Laiquendi who eventually wandered into Beleriand. All of these Teleri (Sindar, Nandor and Laiquendi) who stayed in Middle-earth are called Umanyar (the Elves who are not of Aman), and are numbered also among the Moriquendi (the Elves of the Darkness) for they have never seen the light of the Two Trees. Those silvan Elves mentioned in LOTR are actually Nandor according to the New Tolkien Companion (by J.E.A. Tyler, 1980). Some of these silvan Elves are the ones who end up as the Mirkwood Elves and the Galadhrim of Lothlorien: though the leadership in both places is Sindarin (except Galadriel who is Noldorin). Some of the Mirkwood Elves and Galadhrim may be Avari.

The East-Elves, sometimes called wood-Elves, sometimes dark-Elves are the last group; the Avari, who were quite content to hang out in the forests without any of that messy Great Journey stuff. Some of them got kidnapped by the Dark Lord at the beginning, and were mutated into orcs, though in the earliest accounts (The Fall of Gondolin) orcs were said to be bred by Melko out of the subterranean heats and slime.

Yuck. Just like in the movie.

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"I have the sea-heart of my mother's people." Voronwe says. Legolas speaks of the sea-longing, which lies buried in the hearts of his people; the Sindar. Voronwe's Sindar are already people of the sea; they are skin to Cirdan the Shipwright himself, and live on the shores of the Great Sea. And in this part of the history of Middle-earth, no one can sail West, so the Sea-longing Legolas speaks of has no real meaning here. Voronwe's task though, is to get Cirdan's help in building ships, so some of the Noldor can sail West and ask for pardon, and for the way to be opened.

"But I tarried on that way." In an earlier account of Tuor's journey (The Fall of Gondolin, in "The Book of Lost Tales 2") it is Tuor who tarries on his journey till Ulmo gets annoyed with his procrastination and appears before him; "and for dread he came near to death".

Voronwe is another great procrastinator, the original spacey, absent minded, attention deficit Elf. I suspect, after reading several Tolkien biographies and Letters by J.R.R. Tolkien, that he was describing himself with characters like these. "For I had seen little of the lands of Middle-earth, and we came to Nan-tathren in the spring of the year. Lovely to heart's enchantment is that land." Voronwe is rather like Legolas entering Fangorn for the first time: wide-eyed with wonder, forgetting his true mission he tarries knee-deep in grass and listens; "In that land Narog joins Sirion and they haste no more, but flow broad and quiet through living meads; and all about the shining river are flaglilies like a blossoming forest, and the grass is filled with flowers, like gems, like bells, like flames of red and gold, like a waste of many-colored stars in a firmament of green. Yet fairest of all are the willows of Nan-tathren, pale green or silver in the wind, and the rustle of their innumerable leaves is a spell of music: day and night would flicker by uncounted, while still I stood knee-deep in grass and listened. There I wandered, naming new flowers or lay adream amid the singing of the birds, and the humming of bees and flies; and there I might still dwell in delight, forsaking all my kin, whether the ships of the Teleri, or the swords of the Noldor, but my doom would not so. Or the Lord of Waters himself maybe, for he was strong in that land."

Here's a guy after my own heart; he finds beauty in a marsh; the sort of place that sends most people running for the 100% DEET and the air conditioning. I have floated in a sea kayak on the broad reaches of the Susquehanna River, on small slow-moving creeks, in the salt marshes of Assateague Island, feeling every ripple of the water under my seat, hearing every rustle of daylilly and reed, the ratcheting call of the kingfisher, the croak of a blue heron. I know the beauties of which Voronwe speaks. Salt or fresh water, the edges of rivers, or barrier islands are rich nurseries of life. They are resting places for migrants, from waterfowl to raptors to butterflies. Young fish and young birds start their lives here. Sediments flow down from the land and settle, forming a rich substrate for life. Mosquitoes take the blood of large lifeforms and recycle it back into the life of the marsh, as they themselves are eaten. As for Voronwe, even the buzz of flies is beautiful to him. The whole rich web of life that he is experiencing down to its smallest part fascinates him, and it is in sharp contrast to the darkness that lurks like a shadow to the north.

Ulmo will not have his plans so easily botched. Voronwe tells Tuor: "It came into my heart to make a raft..."

He floats it out on the "bright bosom of Sirion". You can almost see Ulmo's grin...

Aha! I have you now!

Water is the most powerful stuff on earth, and the Vala of the Waters is not to be trifled with. Even a deceptively broad, slow current can be more powerful than even the mightiest paddler or the best boat. You can't fight water, you must dance with it.

Voronwe's raft is blown downriver to the Sea. "Thus I came last of the messengers to Cirdan." Ah yes, been there, done that. I was born late. I think (she says hopefully) that it is the sign of a creative mind. It is also the sign of a time when clocks and factories and offices did not exist, when the world ran on the rythms of sun and moon and tide and season. When the texture of the snow under your feet had more meaning than where the second hand was. When the direction of the wind meant more than being at a meeting at precisely ten. In the various historical recreation groups I have belonged to, none paid much attention to clocks. Native American People comment about running on "Indian Time"...that's whenever you get there.

Of the seven ships that Turgon asked to be built, all but one were finished by the time Voronwe arrives. And one by one, they set sail into the West.

"But the salt air of the sea now stirred anew the heart of my mother's kin within me, and I rejoiced in the waves, learning all ship-lore as were it already stored in the mind...and I feared not, for the ships of the Teleri no water may drown." I had originally pictured these as sort of extreme viking longships; long, narrow, sea-worthy vessels with one mast and a square-rigged sail (and no belowdecks). The film ships had lateen rigged sails; the yard holding the sail angled sharply, the hull longshiplike. A friend of mine, who knows a bit more about ships that I ever could, suggests that the Numenoreans (who learned their sea-craft from the Elves) had a highly advanced sea-going culture. So the Elves, who had many millenia to perfect their skill, must have had something more akin to the extreme clippers that appeared just before the Age of Steam brought an end to the clouds of canvas harnessing the wind.

"But the Great Sea is terrible...and it hates the Noldor...worse things it holds than to sink into the abyss...I will not darken your heart, son of Middle-earth, with the tale of my labour seven years in the Great Sea from the North even unto the South, but never to the West. For that is shut against us."

Voronwe is the sole survivor of that odyssey (My Webster dictionary claims the epic poem by Homer about the wanderings of Odysseus took place in the ten years after the fall of Troy, so the original odyssey was a bit longer than Voronwe's). Perhaps Voronwe was chosen by Ulmo because his blood combines the two peoples, Noldor and Teleri, who are at the roots of the conflict.

The final blow in Voronwe's awful odyssey comes within sight of land, of home; the last ship has survived and returned, then the storm to end all storms blows up, and "the waves hunted us like living things filled with malice..." The unsinkable ship is broken and Voronwe is lifted by a great wave and deposited by the Vinyamar seawall, where Tuor finds him.

Voronwe began his quest young, inexperienced, a bit naive. He began with hope. The bright hope of the young who have never had their dreams dashed against the rocks. Now he has endured an odyssey of "loathing and loneliness, madness, terror of wind and tumult, and silence, and shadows where all hope is lost and all living shapes pass away. And many shores evil and strange...and many islands of danger and fear..." He has endured the bitter loss of "all my friends that went with me so long and so far, beyond the sight of mortal lands." But even so, he has memories of glimpsing mountains from afar, mountains at the far far edge of the world. Were they the mountains of his long home, of the Blessed Realm? He knows not."Far far away they stand, and none from mortal lands shall come there again, I deem..."

Little does he know that at the bitter end of his rope, in the depths of his failure, he is beginning a quest which will send Earendil to those far mountains and beyond. Hope is not, after all lost.

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In The Fall of Gondolin:

(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 wierd 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.

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Back to the versions found in 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 descisions in patience and with an ear to the will of the Valar, Turin makes descisions 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.

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 decieved...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."

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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.

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"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.

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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.

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"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.

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 Idrl'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 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 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 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.

One day she marries Earendil.

And one day Earendil himself sails west, and legend is made.

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 say 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 couseled,' 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.

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in the tradition of Tolkien

we bring you the sprawling expanse of the...

APPENDIX

(pancreas, cerebellum, whatever)

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Elvish art, scrivenings, stories, underwater pumpkin carving,

barfing vultures, manic mustelids and other wierdness at:

makenuk

more tales and essays at

. ?userid=290949

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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.(which is how I remember it).

""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 he 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 shiipwright, 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."

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The author is a serious student of Tolkien's works and...ok, well not really, but I have read farther than the Silmarillion, and have nearly collected all the dreaded HoME stuff. (I first read LOTR half a lifetime ago in 1978...you do the math). I belong to an excellent online LOTR book discussion group group/lotr_inklings who have given me far more insight into my favorite bit of literature with their intelligent discussions (which go waaaay beyond, "wow, Orli's really hot, isn't he...").

Uh, yes. He isss, my presssciousssss.

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, Makenuk'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 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.

. ?userid=290949 ( .net go to "search" look under author's name: "Teanna". Various stories and essays centered around LOTR.

group/lotr_inklings (an online book discussion group, I have several essays and other random scrivenings in the archives)

.net ( an excellent site for all things Tolkien, Of mine they have random writings and art, under "Teanna", and the original epic poem: Viagraquenta)

.org a webring for Tolkien's languages, the excellent gwaith-i-phethdain site gwaith contains many poems, songs and bits of prose, as well as info on the Elvish languages, and an excellent Sindarin/English/Polish dictionary can be ordered from Mr Ryszard Derdzinski.