The Lost Road

The Lost Road by Silinde ar Feinie

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 Eressëa 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 ominous 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 Eressëa, 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 receive 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 Dínen 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 Palantír of Valinor. He and his son Isildur gather the host of the Last Alliance and battle Sauron's horde at Dagorlad and besiege Barad-Dûr. 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 ominous 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 & Unwin, as well as Aelfwine who sailed the Straight Road, a Norse story of ship-burial, "Fintan (Narkil 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 & 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)

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 Death of Brendan 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 Eala Earendel, and three successive versions of the poem The Nameless Land 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 chapter involving 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. 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. 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.

External links

• The Lost Road at the LOTR Fanon Wiki boasts full dialogues.
• | The Lost Road and Other Writings; the sixth volume of The History of Middle-earth.