The Lost Road

A name for the Straight Road, the memory as it were that the World holds of what it was before the ways were bent. To those that are permitted to sail upon it, the earth seems to fall away beneath the water, while the water grows thin and milky, until at last the air ceases and they sail into black space overlaid with ghostly white waves; and then the air returns and real water slaps the sides, and Tol Eressea is reached.

The Lost Road is also the name of a time-travel work that Tolkien only wrote four chapters of, but various fragments, songs and outlines give a pretty clear picture of the envisaged structure. Recently a fan named James Farrell has undertaken to complete this book, using these. The description that follows is of his version; a description of the fragmentary structure follows.

This begins with Alboin and his son Audoin in modern Cornwall, the last of a series of father and son pairs whose names meant Elf-friend and Bliss-friend, recurring through history. Each of them has strange dreams of the past. The father, Alboin, dreams of languages, fragments of words, until he assembles two complete languages, Beleriandic and Eressean. The son dreams of images. A recurring theme is the omnious clouds shaped like eagles rising from the west. At last in his sleep Alboin is summoned by the ghost of Elendil, the first "Elf-friend", to travel into the past with his son, for he is the ears and Audoin is the eyes. He reluctantly decides to travel, and finds his son chose so as well. They ascend to a grey place outside Time, and suddenly see through the eyes and hear through the ears of those who walked before, reliving what had happened, while physically still in the study at home.

The first such "step" backward in time takes them to the Saxon age, to the son of King Alfred, Eadweard, where they see through the eyes of Aelfwine and Eadwine. Aelfwine wakes up in the great hall, where men are drinking after hunting Vikings, and sings to the King the legend of King Sheave, a mysterious figure who arrived in a ship bearing corn and culture, out of the West, and who after he died was sent back there in his ship. Eadwine and Aelfwine talk of sailing west, searching beyond, the hunger that drives wanderers. St. Brendan and Maelduin are mentioned, and Aelfwine sings of the voyage of St. Brendan, who saw a mysterious volcano (the Meneltarma) and came to the edge of the Straight Road, seeing Valinor afar like a star. Aelfwine and Eadwine sail in search of the Lost Road. Vikings chase them into a Harborless Isle that eats ships, where Aelfwine cast alone meets a huge stranger. He calls himself Ancient son of Eru, Man of the Sea, and frees a Viking ship for Aelfwine, laying blessings on it. It is revealed that he is really Ulmo Lord of Waters. In this Aelfwine sails to Tol Morwen, where stands the Stone of the Hapless among petrified trees, and picks up the rest of his crew. They sail the Straight Road to Elvenhome, Tol Eressea, where they are welcomed and taught much lore and bring home many of the Elves' works. As they return Aelfwine sings a song of Elvenhome

The second "step" is to Lombard times, where King Audoin and his son Alboin fight the Gepids, and the evening of the battle Alboin, in order to win a seat at his father's table, goes to the Gepids to recieve arms from a foreign prince. The defeated king, whose son Alboin had slain that day, seats him at his side. Halfway through the meal his feelings break out, inciting the Gepids to taunt the Lombards and the Lombards to reply in kind; but the Gepid king springs between before they can draw swords.

The third step is to the Baltic Sea, in Old Norse days. Among barren stones by the sea, bitter Alfuin and his browbeaten son Niutrvin eke out a living in the shadow of Harbjarg hill, a mysterious place, eerie and filled with deep silence and haunting distant singing. Slowly the singing draws them to climb the hill, where they find Elendil's gravestone (Harbjarg is a corruption of Halifirien, one of the beacon-hills of Gondor, burial-place of Elendil). There Alfuin is captured by a barrow-wight and freed by two Elven singers, Daeron and Maglor, and the barrow is revealed to be of the Seven Sleepers: the crewmen of Earendil, and Amandil of Numenor, father of Elendil, and his crew.

The fourth stop is to prehistoric Ireland, at the time of the coming of the Tuatha De Danaan. Coiceilsida and his son Finboiceile are of the enslaved remnant of the Fir Bolg, ruled now by the Fomor pirates. Finboiceile is captured by the Fomor and his father seeks out Finteine, the oldest man alive, a kinsman of Noah who survived the Flood. He tells of the Flood, and that his Elf-name is Narkil "White-fire" on account of the sword Anduril he bears. Finteine takes Coiceilsida to the main camp of the Fomor to await the expected invasion of the Grey Elves of Lindon, who during the Flood sailed to Iceland. Riding upon clouds sent by the Valar--eagle-shaped clouds--comes a vast army of Elves, led by six champions: King Nuada Silver-hand bearing the sword Kaladbolg, Mannanan Son of the Sea, Dagor (Dagda Mor), Dana Magrusaig (the Morrigu), a shapeshifting Red Elf from whom the Tuatha De Danaan get their name; Lure Dark-weather (Lugh of the Long Hand) with the Spear Aiglos of Gil-galad; and Angol "Ironcliff" (Angus Og), son of Dagor. Coiceilsida and Finteine rescue Finboiceile from the camp of Fomor. Then is fought the Battle of Magh Turied. Druids aid the Fomor, sending first trees then poisoned grass then moving mountains against the Elves; but the Elves make the trees sing and put down root, and make the mountains fasten in place. The Druids call up rivers and fire, which the Elves counter. Then Balor of the Fell Eye mounts the hill and lifts his eye, freezing the host of Elves in place. King Nuada battles him and is slain, but Lure (Lugh) drives the eye out of Balor's head with the Spear Aiglos, and it destroys the Fomor behind Balor. Finteine foretells the fading of the Elves into the underground Fairies, the Sidaige, with the coming of the Gaels.

The fifth stop is to the time of the Ice Age. Two shepherds, Tel-gilda and Hermegilda his son, pasture cattle at the foot of a cliff of ice above a dry river, once Anduin; the ice has advanced as far as Emyn Arnen and consumed Minas Tirith. Mummified kings from Rath Dinen have been found by the primitive Ru-aida (forerunners of Druids) priests, imprisoned within clear ice, and are worshipped as the Dead Gods. Tel-gilda sings to his tribe the Sgarshoth the true version of Bilbo's Earendil song. He shows in secret the Dead Gods to his grown son, running afoul of the Ru-aida, for he doubts the godhood of the buried kings. The Ru-aida pursues them with weather and tame sabertooth tigers up the chasms within the Ice, and the two men climb up a fragment of one of the carven kings of Argonath for refuge, dislodging it and killing the Ru-aida. They find cave paintings depicting the coming of Elendil.

The sixth stop is to the Third Age, Lord of the Rings times. A tribe of Men ruled by a seer named Agaldor is held near the Sea, away from the influence of Angmar and the strife of the North-kingdom. But a Ringwraith is lurking in the forest of Eryn Vorn, forming a "Witch-king cult" among the youth, particularly Hardor the son of Meldor (Elf-friend). Meldor and Agaldor shadow Hardor one dark night and stumble upon the cult's meeting. The Wraith slays Agaldor but is disrobed by him, to flee back to Angmar. Meldor becomes leader, to lend his people's strength in the last battle of the North-kingdom.

The seventh stop is The Fall of Gil-galad. It begins with Elendil at the Elf-towers west of the future Shire awaiting the arrival of Gil-galad's host, and his vision in the palantir of Valinor. He and his son Isildur gather the host of the Last Alliance and battle Sauron's horde at Dagorlad and beseige Barad-dur. Elendil challenges Sauron, mocking him so that Sauron cannot but issue out. He and Gil-galad duel Sauron. Gil-galad's head is crushed by Sauron's burning black hand, but Narsil wounds him, and Sauron gives Elendil his death-wound, so that as he stumbles backward the red-hot Narsil snaps. But Sauron falls to hand and knee, even as Isildur finishes him off. And Elendil dies.

The eighth stop takes us to Numenor. Elendil, walking in his gardens, is oppressed by the shadow upon his mind. He speaks with his son Herendil and slowly persuades him of the dreadful times they live in under Sauron's dominion of Numenor. He tells Herendil of Sauron's coming, of the Shadow, of the evil that Numenor now brings to Middle-earth. At the last Herendil joins him. Valandil/Amandil speaks of the peril of the White Tree, relating the Tale of the Sun and Moon. And Herendil invades the king's court and steals a fruit from the White Tree, from which cause he is named anew Isildur. Sauron burns the Tree in the Temple. The Great Armada is prepared. Eagles come out of the West; in each stop so far, the "Elf-friend" of the father-son pair sees omnious clouds like eagles rising from the west, and mutters "The Eagles of the Lords of the West are coming upon Numenor", but only now is it apparent what this means. For the eagle-clouds grow fiercer and more terrible, sending lightning to shear apart the temple dome; but Sauron defies them and is unharmed. Elendil journeys in secret to the west of Numenor and sees the Armada. He readies his own ships and prepares for flight. The Downfall of Numenor comes, and Numenor is swallowed in storm as lava bursts from the mountain in the center the Meneltarma, and the world is bent and made round, and a gale and mountain-waves bear Elendil into the west. Past mixes with present in the storm, and Elendil falls away from Alboin, but too shaken is he to make the necessary motion of will to return, and his son Audoin is Ring-burned and cannot help him. At last they summon strength and return to the present, and behold a hurricane is raging, with giant ghostly waves passing over the land without trace or damage, bearing great black ships with silently wailing men: the past is irrupting into the present. They crawl to shelter, and there the book ends.

This, however, is not how Tolkien left it. A letter  or  two  of  Tolkien's  indicate  that  the  structure  was  to  be  a  recurrence  in  human  families,  time  and  again,  of  which  the  father  is  named  Elf-friend  and  the  son  Bliss-friend  (and  often  a  grandfather  named  God-friend),  which  letter  goes  on  to  sketch  the  outline  of  the  story,  together  with  a  short  list  of  myths  to  be  visited. In this  is  indicated  "the  Lombard  legend",  which  is  not  mentioned  in  the  outline  sent  to  Allen  &amp;  Unwin,  as  well  as  Aelfwine  who  sailed  the  Straight  Road,  a  Norse  story  of  ship-burial,  "Fintan (  white-fire)  and  the  oldest  man  alive",  which  another  outline  indicates  as  "the  Irish  tale  of  the  Tuatha  De  Danaan"; "The  Ice Age--great  figures  in  ice"  or  as  another  outline has  it  "old  kings  found  buried  in  the  ice.",  the  "Galdor  story" of  the  Third  Age,  finally  to  Elendil  in  Numenor. Farrell concludes  it  was  Tolkien's  intention  to  work  in  between  these  the  mysterious  tale  of  the  Fall  of  Gil-galad,  never  once  described  in  full  in  any  of  his  works. For a  full  description  and  analyzing  of  these  notes  please  see  Christopher  Tolkien's  "The  Lost  Rd  &amp;  other  stories"  in  the  History  of  Middle-Earth  series.

The first  chapter, which  ends  with  Alboin  and  Audoin  beginning  their  travel,  was  written by  Tolkien. Farrell only  added  one  or  two  words  where  needed,  and  inserted  the  Aduniac  fragment  from  "The  Notion  Club  Papers"  ("Sauron  Defeated",  History  of  Middle-earth)  and  altered  the  names  that  the  young  Alboin  makes  up,  from   (which  was  destroyed  in  the  Silmarillion  and  could not  possibly  have  survived  into  modern  England)  to    the  Tower  Hills;  and   (or )  to  as  the  latter  seemed  more  geographically  appropriate  to  Cornwall. He reasons that  North  Lindon  seperated  to  become  Ireland,  while  the northern  part  of  the  Blue  Mountains  became  Britain  and  the  southern  Blue  Mts  became  Cornwall. So  is  technically  correct  (barely)  but    is  more  accurate.

The Aelfwine  tale  was  a  mass  of  fragments. There were  two  versions  of  the  hall  scene  and  both  a  prose  and  lined  version  of  the  Sheaf  song,  a  conversation  outline  between  Aelfwine  and  Eadwine, the  song    from  "Notion Club Papers",  the  Harborless  Isle  part  and  the  arrival  in  Tol  Eressea  from  the  old  Lost  Tales  version  of  Aelfwine  coming  to  Elfhome,  the  Anglo-Saxon  rhyme, and  three  successive  versions  of  the  poem    concerning  Tol  Eressea.

The Lombard  legend  was  taken  from  the  account  by  Paul  the  Deacon,  from  whom also came  the  Seven  Sleepers. The Norse  episode  however was  entirely the invention of Farrell. For the  Irish  tale, of  the  coming  of  the  Tuatha  to  Ireland  607  years  after  the  Flood  of  Noah,  Farrell  drew  on  the  tale  of the  Battle  of  Magh  Turied,  as  well  as  various  elements  in  the  myths  of  the  Fomor's  wars  with  the Tuatha.

The Dead  Gods,  indicated  by  Tolkien's  outlines as  containing  cave  paintings and  kings  buried  in  the  ice,  was  also  primarily  Farrell's.  The  Earendil  song  however  is  Tolkien's  final  version  of  Bilbo's  song  of  Earendil  as  meant  to  be  published  in  the  Fellowship;  but  an  earlier  copy  was  printed  by mistake  and  the  true  final  version  published  by  Christopher  Tolkien  in  "War of the  Ring",  History  of  Middle-earth.

For the  Galdor  story  a  fragment  exists,  the  opening scene  as  far  as  the  doubtful  mutterers  on  the  doorstep.

For the  Fall  of  Gil-galad  Farrell  had  to  collect  countless  references  and  notes  in  other  works,  such  as  "Sauron's  hand  burned  like  fire,  and  thus  Gil-galad  was  destroyed"  and  the  accounts  of  the  march  of  the  Last  Alliance. The challenge  of  Elendil  was Farrell's  invention,  but  a  logical  one:  why  else  would  Sauron  have  come  out? He would  certainly  not  need  food.

The first  Numenor  chapter  was  written  by  Tolkien  completely;  Farrell  inserted  some  comments  to  bring  it  up  to  date  with  the  final  version  of  his  mythology,  but  that  was  all. The other  chapters  as  far  as  the  final  catastrophe  are a  expansion  of  "The Akallabeth"  from  the  Silmarillion,  as  well  as  "A  Description  of  Numenor"  in  Unfinished  Tales. The ending  scene  where  the  storm  bursts  into  reality  are  integrated  from  Notion  Club  Papers.

The full text of Farrell's version of "The Lost Road" is posted at present on fantasy-writers.org under the username Stoneking.