‘Then is that the Harbour of the Lights of Many Hues,’ said Жlfheah, ‘that many a little-heeded tale has told of in our homes.’ Then saying no more they shot out their oars and swung about their ship in haste, and pulled towards the never-dying shore. Near had they come to abandoning it when hardly won. Little did they make of that long pull, as they thrust the water strongly by them, and the long night of Faлrie held on, and the horned moon of Elfinesse rode over them.

Then came there music very gently over the waters and it was laden with unimagined longing, that Жlfwine and his comrades leant upon their oars and wept softly each for his heart’s half-remembered hurts, and memory of fair things long lost, and each for the thirst that is in every child of Men for the flawless loveliness they seek and do not find. And one said: ‘It is the harps that are thrumming, and the songs they are singing of fair things; and the windows that look upon the sea are full of light.’ And another said: ‘Their stringйd violins complain the ancient woes of the immortal folk of Earth, but there is a joy therein.’ ‘Ah me,’ said Жlfwine, ‘I hear the horns of the Fairies shimmering in magic woods—such music as I once dimly guessed long years ago beneath the elms of Mindon Gwar.’

And lo! as they spoke thus musing the moon hid himself, and the stars were clouded, and the mists of time veiled the shore, and nothing could they see and nought more hear, save the sound of the surf of the seas in the far-off pebbles of the Lonely Isle; and soon the wind blew even that faint rustle far away. But Жlfwine stood forward with wide-open eyes unspeaking, and suddenly with a great cry he sprang forward into the dark sea, and the waters that filled him were warm, and a kindly death it seemed enveloped him. Then it seemed to the others that they awakened at his voice as from a dream; but the wind now suddenly grown fierce filled all their sails, and they saw him never again, but were driven back with hearts all broken with regret and longing. Pale elfin boats awhile they would see beating home, maybe, to the Haven of Many Hues, and they hailed them; but only faint echoes afar off were borne to their ears, and none led them ever to the land of their desire; who after a great time wound back all the mazy clue of their long tangled ways, until they cast anchor at last in the haven of Belerion, aged and wayworn men. And the things they had seen and heard seemed after to them a mirage, and a phantasy, born of hunger and sea-spells, save only to Bior of Eneadur of the Ship-folk of the West.

Yet among the seed of these men has there been many a restless and wistful spirit thereafter, since they were dead and passed beyond the Rim of Earth without need of boat or sail. But never while life lasted did they leave their sea-faring, and their bodies are all covered by the sea.⁴²

The narrative ends here. There is no trace of any further continuation, though it seems likely that Жlfwine of England was to be the beginning of a complete rewriting of the Lost Tales. It would be interesting to know for certain when Жlfwine II was written. The handwriting of the manuscript is certainly changed from that of the rest of the Lost Tales; yet I am inclined to think that it followed Жlfwine I at no great interval, and the first version is unlikely to be much later than 1920 (see p. 312).

At the end of Жlfwine II my father jotted down two suggestions: (1) that Жlfwine should be made ‘an early pagan Englishman who fled to the West’ and (2) that ‘the Isle of the Old Man’ should be cut out and all should be shipwrecked on Eneadur, the Isle of the Ythlings. The latter would (astonishingly) have entailed the abandonment of the foundered ship, with the Man of the Sea thrusting it to shore on the incoming tide, and the dead Vikings ‘lying abottom gazing at the sky’.

In this narrative—in which the ‘magic’ of the early Elves is most intensely conveyed, in the seamen’s vision of the Lonely Isle beneath ‘the horned moon of Elfinesse’—Жlfwine is still placed in the context of the figures of ancient English legend: his father is Dйor the Minstrel. In the great Anglo-Saxon manuscript known as the Exeter Book there is a little poem of 42 lines to which the title of Dйor is now given. It is an utterance of the minstrel Dйor, who, as he tells, has lost his place and been supplanted in his lord’s favour by another bard, named Heorrenda; in the body of the poem Dйor draws examples from among the great misfortunes recounted in the heroic legends, and is comforted by them, concluding each allusion with the fixed refrain pжs ofereode; юisses swa mжg, which has been variously translated; my father held that it meant ‘Time has passed since then, this too can pass’.⁴³

From this poem came both Dйor and Heorrenda. In ‘the Eriol story’ Heorrenda was Eriol’s son born in Tol Eressлa of his wife Naimi (p. 290), and was associated with Hengest and Horsa in the conquest of the Lonely Isle (p. 291); his dwelling in England was at Tavrobel (p. 292). I do not think that my father’s Dйor the Minstrel of Kortirion and Heorrenda of Tavrobel can be linked more closely to the Anglo-Saxon poem than in the names alone—though he did not take the names at random. He was moved by the glimpsed tale (even if, in the words of one of the poem’s editors, ‘the autobiographical element is purely fictitious, serving only as a pretext for the enumeration of the heroic stories’); and when lecturing on Beowulf at Oxford he sometimes gave the unknown poet a name, calling him Heorrenda.

Nor, as I believe, can any more be made of the other Old English names in the narrative: Уswine prince of Gwar, Йadgifu, Жlfheah (though the names are doubtless in themselves ‘significant’: thus Уswine contains уs ‘god’ and wine ‘friend’, and Йadgifu йad ‘blessedness’ and gifu ‘gift’). The Forodwaith are of course Viking invaders from Norway or Denmark; the name Orm of the dead ship’s captain is well-known in Norse. But all this is a mise-en-scиne that is historical only in its bearings, not in its structure.

The idea of the seven invasions of Lъthien (Luthany) remained (p. 314), and that of the fading and westward flight of the Elves (which indeed was never finally lost),⁴⁴ but whereas in the outlines the invasion of the Ingwaiwar (i.e. the Anglo-Saxons) was the seventh (see citations (20) and (22)), here the Viking invasions are portrayed as coming upon the English—‘nor was that the last of the takings of Lъthien by Men from Men’ (p. 314), obviously a reference to the Normans.

There is much of interest in the ‘geographical’ references in the story. At the very beginning there is a curious statement about the breaking off of Ireland ‘in the warfare of the Gods’. Seeing that ‘the Жlfwine story’ does not include the idea of the drawing back of Tol Eressлa eastwards across the sea, this must refer to something quite other than the story in (5), p. 283, where the Isle of Нverin was broken off when Ossл tried to wrench back Tol Eressлa. What this was I do not know; but it seems conceivable that this is the first trace or hint of the great cataclysm at the end of the Elder Days, when Beleriand was drowned. (I have found no trace of any connection between the harbour of Belerion and the region of Beleriand.)

Kortirion (Mindon Gwar) is in this tale of course ‘Kortirion the Old’, the original Elvish dwelling in Lъthien, after which Kortirion in Tol Eressлa was named (see pp. 308, 310); in the same way we must suppose that the name Alalminуrл (p. 313) for the region about it (‘Warwickshire’) was given anew to the midmost region of Tol Eressлa.

Turning to the question of the islands and archipelagoes in the Great Sea, what is said in Жlfwine of England may first be compared with the passages of geographical description in The Coming of the Valar (1.68) and The Coming of the Elves (I.125), which are closely similar the one to the other. From these passages we learn that there are many lands and islands in the Great Sea before the Magic Isles are reached; beyond the Magic Isles is Tol Eressлa; and beyond Tol Eressлa are the Shadowy Seas, ‘whereon there float the Twilit Isles’, the first of the Outer Lands. Tol Eressлa itself ‘is held neither of the Outer Lands or of the Great Lands’ (I.125); it is far out in mid-ocean, and ‘no land may be seen for many leagues’ sail from its cliffs’ (I.121). With this account Жlfwine of England agrees closely; but to it is added now the archipelago of the Harbourless Isles.