April 5, 2011
Ælfwine was a mortal mariner of Old England in Tolkien’s early concept of the mythology (The Book of Lost Tales),
known also as Eriol, Ottor Wǽfre, and Lúthien. (Eriol
meant, in various stages of the mythology, ‘iron-cliffs’ after his
homeland and ‘he who dreams’ and ‘the single one’. The Elves of
Tol-Eressëa gave him this name. Ottor Wæfre was his original
birth name, and Lúthien meant ‘friend’, ‘man who comes from the
Isle of Friendship (Luthany; this was the Eressëan name for
England)’. Ælfwine sailed to Eressëa and there drank
limpë, a drink of the Elves that, among other things, gave the
drinker understanding of and joy with the Elves. Afterward he wedded
Naimi, an Elf, and had a son, Heorrenda. However, the mariner loved
England and the sea, and, as the ruler of the isle (Meril-i-Turinqui)
had warned him, he longed for these. However, concerned about a
essaying of the future to the World of Men, Meril refused to let him
leave. (This ‘Faring Forth’ would unite Men and Elves and the Trees of
Valinor would be relit for all the world. However, none might leave the
isle till the essaying, ‘lest the Faring Forth should fail’.)
All Elvish in this story is Quenya Elvish.
There is an old story of Tuor dating from the time
of the story of Ælfwine, that Tuor, possessed with longing for
the sea, sailed off as an old man, bidding farewell only to his wife
and son. Tolkien never completed this story, so I have taken liberty to
construct my tale’s ending in a way reminiscent of this story.