No other ‘connected’ account of the Tale of Eдrendel exists from the earliest period. There are however a number of separate notes, mostly in the form of single sentences, some found in the little notebook C, others jotted down on slips. I collect these references here more or less in the sequence of the tale.
(i) ‘Dwelling in the Isle of Sirion in a house of snow-white stone.’—In C (p. 254) it is said that Eдrendel dwelt with Tuor and Idril at Sirion’s mouth by the sea ‘on the Isles of Sirion’.
(ii) ‘The Oarni give to Eдrendel a wonderful shining silver coat that wets not. They love Eдrendel, in Ossл’s despite, and teach him the lore of boat-building and of swimming, as he plays with them about the shores of Sirion.’—In the outlines are found references to the love of the Oarni for Eдrendel (D, p. 259), the coming of the mermaids to him (E, p. 260), and to Ossл’s enmity (C, p. 254).
(iii) Eдrendel was smaller than most men but nimble-footed and a swift swimmer (but Voronwл could not swim).
(iv) ‘Idril and Eдrendel see Tuor’s boat dropping into the twilight and a sound of song.’—In B Tuor’s sailing is ’secret’ (p. 253), in C ‘Idril sees him too late’ (p. 254), and in E Eдrendel is present at Tuor’s departure and thrusts the boat out: ‘he hears a great song swelling from the sea’ (p. 260).
(v) ‘Death of Idril?—follows secretly after Tuor.’—That Idril died is denied in C: ‘Tuor and Idril some say sail now in Swanwing…’ (p. 255); in D Idril swam after him (p. 260).
(vi) ‘Tuor has sailed back to Falasquil and so back up Ilbranteloth to Asgon where he sits playing on his lonely harp on the islanded rock.’—This is marked with a query and an ‘X’ implying rejection of the idea. There are curious references to the ‘islanded rock’ in Asgon in the outlines for Gilfanon’s Tale (see I.238).
(vii) ‘The fiord of the Mermaid: enchantment of his sailors. Mermaids are not Oarni (but are earthlings, or fays?—or both).’—In D (p. 259) Mermaids and Oarni are equated.
(viii) The ship Wingilot was built of wood from Falasquil with ‘aid of the Oarni’.—This was probably said also in D: see p. 260.
(ix) Wingilot was ‘shaped as a swan of pearls’.
(x) ‘The doves and pigeons of Turgon’s courtyard bring message to Valinor—only to Elves.’—Other references to the birds that flew from Gondolin also say that they came to the Elves, or to Kфr (pp. 253, 255, 257).
(xi) ‘During his voyages Eдrendel sights the white walls of Kфr gleaming afar off, but is carried away by Ossл’s adverse winds and waves.’—The same is said in B (p. 253) of Eдrendel’s sighting of Tol Eresseдa on his homeward voyage from Kфr.
(xii) ‘The Sleeper in the Tower of Pearl awakened by Littleheart’s gong: a messenger that was despatched years ago by Turgon and enmeshed in magics. Even now he cannot leave the Tower and warns them of the magic.’—In C there is a statement, rejected, that the Sleeper in the Tower of Pearl was Idril herself (see note 6).
(xiii) ‘Ulmo’s protection removed from Sirion in wrath at Eдrendel’s second attempt to Mandos, and hence Melko overwhelmed it.’—This note is struck through, with an ‘X’ written against it; but in D (p. 260) it is said that ‘Ulmo forbade his quest but Eдrendel would yet sail to find a passage to Mandos’. The meaning of this must be that it was contrary to Ulmo’s purpose that Eдrendel should seek to Mandos for his father, but must rather attempt to reach Kфr.
(xiv) ‘Eдrendel weds Elwing before he sets sail. When he hears of her loss he says that his children shall be “all such men hereafter as dare the great seas in ships”.’—With this cf. The Cottage of Lost Play (I.13): ‘even such a son of Eдrendel as was this wayfarer’, and (I.18): ‘a man of great and excellent travel, a son meseems of Eдrendel’. In an outline of Eriol’s life (I.24) it is said that he was a son of Eдrendel, born under his beam, and that if a beam from Eдrendel fall on a child newborn he becomes ‘a child of Eдrendel’ and a wanderer. In the early dictionary of Qenya there is an entry: Eдrendilyon ‘son of Eдrendel (used of any mariner)’ (I.251).
(xv) ‘Eдrendel goes even to the empty Halls of Iron seeking Elwing.’—Eдrendel must have gone to Angamandi (empty after the defeat of Melko) at the same time as he went to the ruins of Gondolin (pp. 253, 255).
(xvi) The loss of the ship carrying Elwing and the Nauglafring took place on the voyage to Tol Eressлa with the exodus of the Elves from the Great Lands.—See my remarks, pp. 258–9. For the ‘appeasing’ of Mоm’s curse by the drowning of the Nauglafring see the Appendix on Names, entry Nauglafring. The departure of the Elves to Tol Eressлa is discussed in the next chapter (p. 280).
(xvii) ‘Eдrendel and the northern tower on the Isle of Seabirds.’—In C (p. 255) Eдrendel ‘sets sail with Voronwл and dwells on the Isle of Seabirds in the northern waters (not far from Falasquil)—and there hopes that Elwing will return among the seabirds’ in B (p. 253) ‘he sights the Isle of Seabirds “whither do all the birds of all waters come at whiles”.’ There is a memory of this in The Silmarillion, p. 250: ‘Therefore there was built for [Elwing] a white tower northward upon the borders of the Sundering Seas; and thither at times all the seabirds of the earth repaired.’
(xviii) When Eдrendel comes to Mandos he finds that Tuor is ‘not in Valinor, nor Erumбni, and neither Elves nor Ainu know where he is. (He is with Ulmo.)’—In C (p. 255) Eдrendel, reaching the Halls of Mandos, learns that Tuor ‘is gone to Valinor’. For the possibility that Tuor might be in Erumбni or Valinor see I.91 ff.
(xix) Eдrendel ‘returns from the firmament ever and anon with Voronwл to Kфr to see if the Magic Sun has been lit and the fairies have come back—but the Moon drives him back’.—On Eдrendel’s return from the firmament see (xxi) below; on the Rekindling of the Magic Sun see p. 286.
Two statements about Eдrendel cited previously may be added here:
(xx) In the tale of The Theft of Melko (I.141) it is said that ‘on the walls of Kфr were many dark tales written in pictured symbols, and runes of great beauty were drawn there too or carved upon stones, and Eдrendel read many a wondrous tale there long ago’.
(xxi) The Name-list to The Fall of Gondolin has the following entry (cited on p. 215): ‘Eдrendel was the son of Tuor and Idril and ’tis said the only being that is half of the kindred of the Eldaliл and half of Men. He was the greatest and first of all mariners among Men, and saw regions that Men have not yet found nor gazed upon for all the multitude of their boats. He rideth now with Voronwл upon the winds of the firmament nor comes ever further back than Kфr, else would he die like other Men, so much of the mortal is in him.’—In the outline associated with the poem ‘The Bidding of the Minstrel’ Eдrendel ‘sets sail upon the sky and returns no more to earth’ (p. 261); in the prose preface to ‘The Shores of Faлry’ ‘to Eglamar he comes ever at plenilune when the Moon sails-a-harrying beyond Taniquetil and Valinor’ (p. 262); in outline C ‘he cannot now return to the world or he will die’ (p. 255); and in citation (xix) above he ‘returns from the firmament ever and anon with Voronwл to Kфr’.
In The Silmarillion (p. 249) Manwл’s judgement was that Eдrendel and Elwing ‘shall not walk ever again among Elves or Men in the Outer Lands’ but it is also said that Eдrendel returned to Valinor from his ‘voyages beyond the confines of the world’ (ibid. p. 250), just as it is said in the Name-list to The Fall of Gondolin that he does not come ever further back than Kфr. The further statement in the Name-list, that if he did he would die like other Men, ‘so much of the mortal is in him’, was in some sense echoed long after in a letter of my father’s written in 1967: ‘Eдrendil, being in part descended from Men, was not allowed to set foot on Earth again, and became a star shining with the light of the Silmaril’ (The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien no. 297).