Snowflake 2021: Day 5
In your own space, promote a canon/talk about a part of canon that you love. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.
On a time of night Eärendil at the helm of his ship saw her come towards him, as a white cloud exceeding swift beneath the moon, as a star over the sea moving in strange courses, a pale flame on wings of storm. And it is sung that she fell from the air upon the timbers of Vingilot, in a swoon, nigh unto death for the urgency of her speed, and Eärendil took her to his bosom; but in the morning with marveling eyes he beheld his wife in her own form beside him with her hair upon his face, and she slept.
[Of the Voyage of Eärendil and the War of Wrath]
Something in that last line makes me shiver every time: this is true magic, the big, visible kind, but then she was Lúthien's granddaughter.
Somehow with all the blood and horror going on back at Sirion, the power of this thread of the story almost gets lost. Eärendil gets lambasted for never being home, Elwing is cursed for neglecting her children (Do we know she neglected them? Do we know she didn't try and hide them or send them to safety with a trusted servant? No, we just assume the worst). And yet they were the true heroes of the First Age.
Eärendil was at sea so often because he was seeking a passage west with the idea of reaching the Undying Lands and begging for help. No one else was doing this and some one had to. He was also keeping an eye out for his (in the case of his father, elderly) parents, who had gone off on a similar fool's errand. When Elwing reached him, flying against the wind, dropping finally to the deck almost dead from her efforts (and she probably had the form of an albatross, not a seagull, seagulls just don't go that far that fast), they had two choices: they could go back to Sirion, which Elwing had left in flames, their children's fate out of their hands, or they could go on. And they had the one bargaining chip the Valar might be impressed by, fastened around Elwing's neck. They went on.
They went on through storms, through mysterious mists and illusions, the light from the Silmaril cutting through the unnatural gloom. And finally, they breached all the magical barriers set up against them and reached Elvenhome. They did not, at that point, know they would never be allowed to leave and that their eternity was set to be very, very strange. It was a huge price - their youth (they were both very young), their children, everything and everyone they had ever known was gone. But that paid for the Army of the West and Morgoth's eventual downfall. To me it makes them as brave as, or braver, than any of the sword-wielding warriors who came before them. Also, they won.
(and they would see one of their sons again, after the ages of the world had turned and turned again, and grandsons, and before that they would meet the woman their son had married, and Idril and Tuor were there and I don't care what canon does or doesn't say about that bit).
[posted from DW, comments welcome either side]
On a time of night Eärendil at the helm of his ship saw her come towards him, as a white cloud exceeding swift beneath the moon, as a star over the sea moving in strange courses, a pale flame on wings of storm. And it is sung that she fell from the air upon the timbers of Vingilot, in a swoon, nigh unto death for the urgency of her speed, and Eärendil took her to his bosom; but in the morning with marveling eyes he beheld his wife in her own form beside him with her hair upon his face, and she slept.
[Of the Voyage of Eärendil and the War of Wrath]
Something in that last line makes me shiver every time: this is true magic, the big, visible kind, but then she was Lúthien's granddaughter.
Somehow with all the blood and horror going on back at Sirion, the power of this thread of the story almost gets lost. Eärendil gets lambasted for never being home, Elwing is cursed for neglecting her children (Do we know she neglected them? Do we know she didn't try and hide them or send them to safety with a trusted servant? No, we just assume the worst). And yet they were the true heroes of the First Age.
Eärendil was at sea so often because he was seeking a passage west with the idea of reaching the Undying Lands and begging for help. No one else was doing this and some one had to. He was also keeping an eye out for his (in the case of his father, elderly) parents, who had gone off on a similar fool's errand. When Elwing reached him, flying against the wind, dropping finally to the deck almost dead from her efforts (and she probably had the form of an albatross, not a seagull, seagulls just don't go that far that fast), they had two choices: they could go back to Sirion, which Elwing had left in flames, their children's fate out of their hands, or they could go on. And they had the one bargaining chip the Valar might be impressed by, fastened around Elwing's neck. They went on.
They went on through storms, through mysterious mists and illusions, the light from the Silmaril cutting through the unnatural gloom. And finally, they breached all the magical barriers set up against them and reached Elvenhome. They did not, at that point, know they would never be allowed to leave and that their eternity was set to be very, very strange. It was a huge price - their youth (they were both very young), their children, everything and everyone they had ever known was gone. But that paid for the Army of the West and Morgoth's eventual downfall. To me it makes them as brave as, or braver, than any of the sword-wielding warriors who came before them. Also, they won.
(and they would see one of their sons again, after the ages of the world had turned and turned again, and grandsons, and before that they would meet the woman their son had married, and Idril and Tuor were there and I don't care what canon does or doesn't say about that bit).
[posted from DW, comments welcome either side]