When that tide again forsook the Hungry Sands the Man of the Sea bade Жlfwine go look at that new-come wreck, and going he saw it was not hurt; but there were within nine dead men who had not long ago been yet alive. They lay abottom gazing at the sky, and behold, one whose garb and mien still proclaimed a chieftain of Men lay there, but though his locks were white with age and his face was pale in death, still a proud man and a fierce he looked. ‘Men of the North, Forodwaith, are they,’ said the Man of the Sea, ‘but hunger and thirst was their death, and their ship was flung by last night’s storm where she stuck in the Hungry Sands, slowly to be engulfed, had not fate thought otherwise.’

‘Truly do you say of them, O Man of the Sea; and him I know well with those white locks, for he slew my father; and long was I his thrall, and Orm men called him, and little did I love him.’

‘And his ship shall it be that bears you from this Harbourless Isle,’ said he; ‘and a gallant ship it was of a brave man, for few folk have now so great a heart for the adventures of the sea as have these Forodwaith, who press ever into the mists of the West, though few live to take back tale of all they see.’

Thus it was that Жlfwine escaped beyond hope from that island, but the Man of the Sea was his pilot and steersman, and so they came after few days to a land but little known.³⁴ And the folk that dwell there are a strange folk, and none know how they came thither in the West, yet are they accounted among the kindreds of Men, albeit their land is on the outer borders of the regions of Mankind, lying yet further toward the Setting Sun beyond the Harbourless Isles and further to the North than is that isle whereon Жlfwine was cast away. Marvellously skilled are these people in the building of ships and boats of every kind and in the sailing of them; yet do they fare seldom or never to the lands of other folk, and little do they busy themselves with commerce or with war. Their ships they build for love of that labour and for the joy they have only to ride the waves in them. And a great part of that people are ever aboard their ships, and all the water about the island of their home is ever white with their sails in calm or storm. Their delight is to vie in rivalry with one another with their boats of surpassing swiftness, driven by the winds or by the ranks of their long-shafted oars. Other rivalries have they with ships of great seaworthiness, for with these will they contest who will weather the fiercest storms (and these are fierce indeed about that isle, and it is iron-coasted save for one cool harbour in the North). Thereby is the craft of their shipwrights proven; and these people are called by Men the Ythlings,³⁵ the Children of the Waves, but the Elves call the island Eneadur, and its folk the Shipmen of the West.³⁶

Well did these receive Жlfwine and his pilot at the thronging quays of their harbour in the North, and it seemed to Жlfwine that the Man of the Sea was not unknown to them, and that they held him in the greatest awe and reverence, hearkening to his requests as though they were a king’s commands. Yet greater was his amaze when he met amid the throngs of that place two of his comrades that he had thought lost in the sea; and learnt that those seven mariners of England were alive in that land, but the ship had been broken utterly on the black shores to the south, not long after the night when the great sea had taken Жlfwine overboard.

Now at the bidding of the Man of the Sea do those islanders with great speed fashion a new ship for Жlfwine and his fellows, since he would fare no further in Orm’s ship; and its timbers were cut, as the ancient sailor had asked, from a grove of magic oaks far inland that grew about a high place of the Gods, sacred to Ulmo Lord of the Sea, and seldom were any of them felled. ‘A ship that is wrought of this wood,’ said the Man of the Sea, ‘may be lost, but those that sail in it shall not in that voyage lose their lives; yet may they perhaps be cast where they little think to come.’

But when that ship was made ready that ancient sailor bid them climb aboard, and this they did, but with them went also Bior of the Ythlings, a man of mighty sea-craft for their aid, and one who above any of that strange folk was minded to sail at times far from the land of Eneadur to West or North or South. There stood many men of the Ythlings upon the shore beside that vessel; for they had builded her in a cove of the steep shore that looked to the West, and a bar of rock with but a narrow opening made here a sheltered pool and mooring place, and few like it were to be found in that island of sheer cliffs. Then the ancient one laid his hand upon her prow and spoke words of magic, giving her power to cleave uncloven waters and enter unentered harbours, and ride untrodden beaches. Twin rudder-paddles, one on either side, had she after the fashion of the Ythlings, and each of these he blessed, giving them skill to steer when the hands that held them failed, and to find lost courses, and to follow stars that were hid. Then he strode away, and the press of men parted before him, until climbing he came to a high pinnacle of the cliffs. Then leapt he far out and down and vanished with a mighty flurry of foam where the great breakers gathered to assault the towering shores.

Жlfwine saw him no more, and he said in grief and amaze: ‘Why was he thus weary of life? My heart grieves that he is dead,’ but the Ythlings smiled, so that he questioned some that stood nigh, saying: ‘Who was that mighty man, for meseems ye know him well,’ and they answered him nothing. Then thrust they forth that vessel valiant-timbered³⁷ out into the sea, for no longer would Жlfwine abide, though the sun was sinking to the Mountains of Valinor beyond the Western Walls. Soon was her white sail seen far away filled with a wind from off the land, and red-stained in the light of the half-sunken sun; and those aboard her sang old songs of the English folk that faded on the sailless waves of the Western Seas, and now no longer came any sound of them to the watchers on the shore. Then night shut down and none on Eneadur saw that strong ship ever more.³⁸

So began those mariners that long and strange and perilous voyage whose full tale has never yet been told. Nought of their adventures in the archipelagoes of the West, and the wonders and the dangers that they found in the Magic Isles and in seas and sound unknown, are here to tell, but of the ending of their voyage, how after a time of years sea-weary and sick of heart they found a grey and cheerless day. Little wind was there, and the clouds hung low overhead; while a grey rain fell, and nought could any of them descry before their vessel’s beak that moved now slow and uncertain over the long dead waves. That day had they trysted to be the last ere they turned their vessel homeward (if they might), save only if some wonder should betide or any sign of hope. For their heart was gone. Behind them lay the Magic Isles where three of their number slept upon dim strands in deadly sleep, and their heads were pillowed on white sand and they were clad in foam, wrapped about in the agelong spells of Eglavain. Fruitless had been all their journeys since, for ever the winds had cast them back without sight of the shores of the Island of the Elves.³⁹ Then said Жlfheah⁴⁰ who held the helm: ‘Now, O Жlfwine, is the trysted time! Let us do as the Gods and their winds have long desired—cease from our heart-weary quest for nothingness, a fable in the void, and get us back if the Gods will it seeking the hearths of our home.’ And Жlfwine yielded. Then fell the wind and no breath came from East or West, and night came slowly over the sea.

Behold, at length a gentle breeze sprang up, and it came softly from the West; and even as they would fill their sails therewith for home, one of those shipmen on a sudden said: ‘Nay, but this is a strange air, and full of scented memories,’ and standing still they all breathed deep. The mists gave before that gentle wind, and a thin moon they might see riding in its tattered shreds, until behind it soon a thousand cool stars peered forth in the dark. ‘The night-flowers are opening in Faлry,’ said Жlfwine; ‘and behold,’ said Bior,⁴¹ ‘the Elves are kindling candles in their silver dusk,’ and all looked whither his long hand pointed over their dark stern. Then none spoke for wonder and amaze, seeing deep in the gloaming of the West a blue shadow, and in the blue shadow many glittering lights, and ever more and more of them came twinkling out, until ten thousand points of flickering radiance were splintered far away as if a dust of the jewels self-luminous that Fлanor made were scattered on the lap of the Ocean.