Deviation Actions
Literature Text
It was an evening, the Hobbit mused, of which you could hope it would never end. The air was warm despite the evening falling, the water was singing in the brook nearby and the wind lay asleep in the grass - and there were Elves about, Elves telling tales and singing and dancing as light as the mists danced over the meadows.
She looked to the darkening sky, pointing out one glistening like a jewel in the dusk.
"The stars are coming out now, lady Nimlith. What of your story?"
The Elven lady smiled gently at the Hobbit. "I shall tell it in time, if you can wait a bit." She turned towards the north-east, looking up at the sky, humming under her breath.
"Soon we shall see them. But tell me, what do you know of the stars?"
The Hobbit smiled. "I know a few stories."
"Then you must surely know of Menelmacar, the huntsman of the winter sky. He who awaits the final battle..."
The hobbit shook her head, looking awed.
"Ah, so it is told among our people. A myth, perhaps..." The elf smiled, turning to look at the Hobbit again. "But then again, this might not make it untrue."
She laughed gently, picking up the harp that was sitting in the grass next to her. A hush fell over the place as the gathering prepared to listen to the storyteller.
"But it is not of the winter sky I shall tell tonight, but of the summer sky. For there, too, are stars set out among the others to form pictures and stories."
Lifting her slender arm, she pointed out three bright stars, rising above the north-eastern horizon.
"These three stars, and the constellations they belong to, are united by story, as told by the Eldar. Three star-pictures are there, each of which bears one of the bright stars, and of the three I shall tell.
See you the one in the east, a tall man with a bright crown of stars on his brow?"
Her finger traced a cross, starting with the bright star on the long end of the triangle. She was silent for a moment, waiting for them to follow her gaze, finding the pattern of stars in the sky.
And suddenly it was almost as if the picture was painted upon the sky: a man with broad shoulders, a crown on his head, his eyes bright and fierce. The Elf's soft voice spoke on, murmuring in the dark.
"He stands, with the crown on his brow, first of the great kings of men. Yet the Mariner was not a man, for his mother was one of our kind, the Eldar. Eärendil he is called, the lover of the sea.
He dwelt in Beleriand ere it fell, a long time ago. And indeed he lived by the sea, and the sea was his love..."
They could hear her harp now, picking out the melody of the sea. "Círdan the Shipwright taught him his arts, and he soon built his own vessels, to sail the seas. Vingilotë his ship was called, the foam-flower in the language of old. And he would sail often, not coming back to the lands for months.
Yet he had not abandoned his people; for in his stead in the havens his wife Elwing would rule, and she was a flower of no less nobility than himself, and no less wisdom. And instead of a crown she bore a jewel of her own, a star no less bright..."
Suddenly the elf's voice was full of sadness, the harp whispering a sorrowful lament. "But it was this jewel that became her doom, for it was one of these that have made elf turn against elf from the beginning of days. Others coveted this jewel... and while Eärendil was away to sea, they laid siege to the city, slaying each and every one at last. And Elwing, the last to stand, stood beside the sea, refusing to relinquish the jewel that was hers..."
She sighed. "And she was noble, and would not be captured. Faced with her doom, she threw herself and the jewel into the sea.
But just as all seemed lost, she was saved; for it is said the lord of the sea himself, who has always been a friend to our people, caught her and turned her into a white bird, and as a bird she rose above the waves again."
She took her hand off the strings of the harp, pointing to the bright star in the north-east, nearer the horizon.
"And as a swan she flew, carrying the jewel across the sea, and so Eärendil saw her, shining as a cloud in the night, the jewel upon her breast."
And there it was, a great cross of stars in the sky, larger than the first, a swan with outstretched wings: and the bright star was a jewel, laying on the swan's breast.
"And when she reached her husband's ship she fell exhausted onto the timbers; and Eärendil took her in, unknowing who the bird was. Only in the next morning the spell had lifted and to his surprise he recognised his wife, telling him of what had befallen.
And they did not return that day, but sailed on west, through the great sea and past the islands. And finally they saw the towers of Valinor glinting in the morning sun on the horizon.
So it came that Eärendil and Elwing were the first men to reach Valinor on their own ship, trespassing the ban of the Valar - but they were not punished, for the Valar heard their plight. Not for their own gain had they taken this perilous journey but to plead for Men and Eldar alike, for both were born of both peoples.
Instead they were praised; and their ship, the foam-flower, was set amongst the stars as were their own images, to join the fleet of the Eldar in aid of the Free Peoples.
And the people of Middle-Earth saw it from afar and rejoiced; and they knew not its name but it shone as a bright star to them, and they called it Gil-Estel, the star of high hope."
And for the third time the storyteller lifted her hand. The final star of the triangle shone brightest, glittering with a blue-white fire. Underneath it there was the body of a great ship, swimming amongst the stars as upon a black sea.
"And still it sails among the stars, until it and the mariner are said to return to aid the last battle, in the end of days."
