The Song of Eriol is a poem that was written by J.R.R. Tolkien in 1917. The poem was was published within The Book of Lost Tales Part Two.[1]
First stanza[]
Eriol made a song in the Room of the Tale-fire telling how his feet were sect to wandering, so that in the end he found the Lonely Isle and that fairest town Kortirion.
In unknown days my fathers' sires
Came, and from son to son took root
Among the orchards and the river-meads
And the long grasses of the fragrant plain:
In other versions[]
The Wanderer's Allegiance[]
Tolkien wrote the first version of the poem on March 16 in 1916, originally titling it The Wanderer's Allegiance. This original version may have been split into multiple parts like the other versions, but this remains untold.[1]
The Sorrowful City[]
Two days later, Tolkien changed the overarching title of the poem to The Sorrowful City and split it into three parts: Prelude, The Inland City', and The Sorrowful City.[1]
The Town of Dreams and the City of Present Sorrow[]
In November of that same year, Tolkien revised the poem for a third time while staying at Birmingham. He changed the overall title to The Town of Dreams and the City of Present Sorrow with the three parts being changed to: Prelude (or Foresang in Old English), The Town of Dreams (or pæt Slǽpende Tún in Old English), and The city of Present Sorrow (or Seo Wépende Burg in Old English). A note on the poem identifies the town as "Warwick, on the River Avon" and the city as "Oxford, on the Thames" during World War One. There are multiple fragmentary later texts that seemingly treat parts of the the sections The Town of Dreams and The city of Present Sorrow as separate poems, with the part of The Town of Dreams being renamed to The Town of Dead Days: An old town revisited and the part of The city of Present Sorrow being renamed to The Sorrowful City. This was then changed to Wínsele wéste, windge reste réte berofene, an adaptation of lines 2456-7 of Beowulf.[1]
Further revisions[]
The poem and all its versions and parts were eventually reworked between 1917-8 through three manuscripts into The Song of Eriol. The Prelude of the original version remained. The second part of the poem was possibly written in Easington.[1]
See also[]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 The History of Middle-earth, Vol. II, The Book of Lost Tales Part Two, VI: "The History of Eriol or Ælfwine and the End of the Tales", pgs. 295-300