With Revelry of Children by Lindariel

With Revelry of Children

Read With Revelry of Children

On the morning before Nost-na-Lothion, the Elves of Gondolin spilled down from the city onto the plain of Tumladen as if in imitation of the recently melted snows. To the north of Amon Gwareth stretched a nearly unbroken blanket of celandine in full bloom, a sight that never failed to clutch at Melessë's heart, so closely did it resemble the gardens of Vána that she had loved so well in Aman. She stopped for a moment on the last staircase, sighing in mingled joy and homesickness at the sight of so many golden blossoms before clutching Eärendil's tiny hand tighter. She stepped off again slowly, matching her speed to his determined but rapidly tiring legs. He thought he was too old to be carried, and that was going to slow down her entire day if he stayed stubborn.

Idril and Tuor caught up with them, burdened with a large hamper and several clever folding seats. "He was in too much of a hurry to wait for the rest of the gear," Idril explained to Melessë, nodding at Tuor. "Come, ancalima, walk with Atto and me. We will go more slowly and let Melessë hurry to where she needs to be now. We will see her soon."

The tiny hand slipped from his nurse's grip. "I will slow down for you, Amya," replied the elfling, clutching his father's sleeve. Melessë looked back gratefully over her shoulder as she sped away; Idril smiled back at her as Tuor sent his son an amused look.

Melessë swung right and joined the stream of people headed north. As her eyes drank in the undulating golden landscape, her feet took her straight to the plot of ground traditionally allocated to the House of the Swan, where she shed her pack basket in a grassy area. She pulled out a rug and spread it on the ground, then sat on it as she dug in the basket. All around her people were coming and going, but none stopped near her; they were from other households. She pulled out an apron and put it on, then rummaged for the pruning shears before getting up to go to work. Most of the ground nearby was covered with low, fleshy mats of dark green leaves dotted with little rayed yellow flowers beyond counting. Melessë considered for a moment, and then began systematically harvesting the flowers.

By the time her charge, his family, Tuor's majordomo Maneséro, three porters, and a cart arrived at the household plot, Melessë had accumulated an apron full of flowers which she laid carefully in the pack basket while she helped erect the tent. A large blue and white striped pavilion furnished with rugs, hangings, trestle tables, benches, folding leather chairs, and a chest full of warm cloaks for later soon dominated the area. Tuor's blue banner with its white wing rippled on a tall pole on one side of it, while Idril's white banner with its cornflower matched it on the other side, tallest of all the banners rising on the plain save only the king's.

Eärendil ceremoniously hammered at the last stake with his elfling-sized hammer as Tuor held it steady for him. The ground was still soft from its snowmelt flooding, and the stake went in so easily that Tuor had to adjust its angle to increase its resistance to wind. The spring breeze would have two days and nights to worry at the tent ropes, and they needed to be well set.

Once the pavilion was erected the party had a quick lunch from Idril's hamper. They ate thin flatbreads covered with creamy fresh cheese drizzled with oil and chopped herbs, spreading the cheese with spears of new cucumbers harvested from the glass-roofed growing houses of which Turgon was inordinately proud. Strips of dried meat, little handheld pastries filled with the remnants of last fall's apple harvest, and draughts of cool lavender yulda rounded out the picnic.

By the time they had finished eating, other porters had arrived. Household pavilions in many colors began to mushroom all over the plain, clustering around banners, whether of high or lesser House. The heraldic display on the field of Tumladen at Nost-na-Lothion, at peace under a clear spring sky, was the fairest array of Elvenkind ever to be seen on the Hither Shores.

Melessë sat at a table with her harvest of fresh flowers, looking around at the nearby activity often as she began to work. She took several willow osiers out of her pack basket and began fashioning them into two hoops. She lashed them together crosswise, like the quadrate skeleton of a sphere, and laid the sphere by on the table. Then she began working with the celandine blossoms. She plaited the little golden sunbursts into long strands which she wrapped around each rib of the sphere until all the wickerwork was thickly covered with the ropes of yellow flowers. Idril brought Eärendil over to inspect the work. "See, ancalima, Melessë has made for us a Vána's Garden!"

"It is pretty, Amya. Who is Vána?" asked Eärendil, reaching out a careful finger to touch the flower-covered object.

"Vána the Ever-Young is the Valier who is Queen of Spring Flowers," replied his mother. "We celebrate her at Nost-na-Lothion."

Melessë had been twisting more of the flower ropes together. She held up a little poppet made from the ropes. "And now we put the Queen in her garden, so!" She sat the doll in the center of the sphere and laced together the ropes from the doll and the sphere until they were one. Eärendil clapped his hands, and Idril began to sing.

All flowers spring as she passes,

Melessë's voice joined Idril's as both Tuor and Eärendil cocked their heads at the unfamiliar harmonies in a mode Tuor the harper had seldom heard, even in Gondolin. Tuor could guess this was an ancient song of Aman.

and open if she glances upon them,
and all birds sing at her coming.

The tune seemed to curl through the air long after Idril and Melessë ceased to sing, like a bright green vine sprouting new leaves that were vibrating invisibly. From a nearby thicket shy birds began to warble loudly, elaborately, and at length, then flew away in a little cloud of smoky tan and white feathers as the unseen vine of song finally quieted.

Eärendil stirred, arms and legs suddenly twitching with energy. Tuor, recognizing the signs, led him on a run to one of the areas where Melessë had been harvesting flowers. Maneséro was leading a group of people from his household as they dug up tubers from the denuded plants and threw them into buckets of water to wash. "Would you like to help dig?" Tuor asked Eärendil, "or would you rather help wash the tubers?"

"Wash!" said Eärendil. "And maybe dig later." He stepped closer to the nearest bucket, which was unattended.

Tuor laughed, saying "Water before dirt? I think you have that backwards, my son!" as he sat down beside the bucket and plunged his hands into the water. Together the two of them scrubbed tubers and flung them onto a cloth to dry. Eärendil was a good washer for such a young elfling, but he also spent a lot of time slapping the water with his open hands and studying the waves in the bucket. The pile of cleaned tubers rose and spread across the cloth until the pile was taller than the sitting elfling's head. Finally Tuor stood and said "this looks like enough."

Maneséro said "yes, lord, this will be plenty. We should leave the rest to the celandines so they grow back properly for next Nost-na-Lothion. Thank you for helping with the labor." He knelt to look Eärendil in the face. "Thank you also, calima. You have quite a way with water!"

Eärendil, still splashing in the now very muddy bucket, said "thank you, Maneséro. That was fun!"

"Would you like to help us empty the buckets now?" asked Maneséro. "We will give the water and the dirt back to the ground so it can make more plants."

Eärendil nodded eagerly and leapt to his feet as Tuor winced. Maneséro, the father of three, just laughed as he handed Eärendil a half-empty bucket and the mud-sloshing commenced.

When Tuor and a very tired Eärendil made it back to their pavilion, everything there looked quite different. A kitchen pavilion had been erected as well as many sleeping tents. The main pavilion had been set for a feast, with tables and benches in a hollow square surrounding the Vána's Garden laid out amid greenery on a small table. Idril, partway through spreading a sleeping pallet in another tent, took one look at the two of them and sent them straight off to the wash tent, after which Eärendil could barely hold his head up. Idril took him on her lap in her big chair and fed him bites of apple pastry with cheese as he told her about his watery adventures. When he began to yawn, she carried him to his little tent painted inside and out with great swans and covered him with a cloak. "When you wake up, it will be time to lay the bonfire," she whispered, kissing his forehead as he fell asleep.

When Eärendil awoke, it was late afternoon. He lay looking at the swans on his tent walls and listened to what was happening outside. He heard clinking from the big pavilion, a lot of low conversation from the kitchen pavilion, and a lot of people coming and going from an area a javelin's throw away from the pavilions. He heard the voices of children running back and forth and the click of wooden balls bumping one another on the ground. There was a lot going on, and he was missing it! He jumped up and ran outside.

Maneséro and Tuor were standing beside a large pile of wood, directing several people who were carefully stacking the wood for a bonfire. Between the bonfire pit and the kitchen pavilion lay the cloth with the tubers Eärendil had helped wash; the corners of the cloth had been tied together to keep the tubers clean and contained. Eärendil paused. Did he want to go play ball or help build the bonfire? Then Maneséro caught his eye and called to him. "Ho, calima! Come and help us!"

"All right," said Eärendil, "for a little while. But then I want to go play ball." He helped his father carry half a dozen logs to the stackers, one at a time, then dashed off to play ball. The elflings were playing a game of marksmanship on a grassy area. Each player tried to roll their ball closest to a target ball. The more the balls hit one another, the better the elflings liked it, and Eärendil was soon running and shouting as boisterously as the others.

As the sun touched the western peaks of the Echoriath, a single horn call rang out. Eärendil, startled out of paying attention to the ground, looked up and around. The horn was coming from the big red and gold pavilion with his grandfather's flag next to it. Before it quit sounding, Melessë was at his side. "Come, child, it is time to prepare for the feast." Other children were being called away too, Eärendil noticed, as he became aware that he was very hungry.

Melessë took Eärendil to his parents' tent, where his mother ushered him to a chased silver basin set in a wooden frame. He washed his hands and face with soap that smelled like the light sweet flower scent of his mother. His mother dried his face with a thick, soft linen towel woven with borders of cornflowers. "Now go put on your good clothes," Melessë said, standing aside from the doorway so he could leave, "and then wait for me in your tent."

Eärendil dressed in his best clothes which had been laid out on his pallet while he was out playing. They were the blue of his mother's cornflower emblem, with tiny silver swan's wings embroidered all over them. By the time he had worried his feet into his new blue boots, Melessë was calling his name at the tent flap. He came out of the tent into the growing dark, heading for the large pavilion lit by strings of yellow and white Fëanorian lamps. He looked for his mother and then saw her standing with his father, both dressed in the same blue and silver as he was wearing. He ran to them and there was an interval of hugging and kissing out of which he emerged to discover that the tent was full of people sitting around the tables.

Melessë, still standing nearby, showed him to his seat beside his father. Next to him was Anambo, and across from him was Laitane. He was glad he had these other children to talk to; this feast seemed like it was going to be big and long and boring. His mother stood to offer an invocation to Queen Vána, holding up a great silver chalice in the shape of a lily, and then the food began to appear. Eärendil completely forgot to be bored. There were skewers of roasted lamb, fresh green peas with mint and leeks, roasted asparagus, little egg tarts with six herbs, wheat buns in the shape of roses, and strawberry fool, and that was just what the children were served. When he looked at what his parents and the other adults were eating, he could not even count the kinds of fresh vegetables he saw. His cup held lavender yulda, but his parents were drinking herbed wine with strawberries in it.

When Eärendil spooned up his last dollop of fool, his father said "ready for the bonfire?" Eärendil nodded, still chewing, and stood up. Idril took Tuor's left arm and offered Eärendil her own left arm. They walked out of the tent, Eärendil remembering to walk slowly and deliberately like the grandson of a king as the crowd followed them to the bonfire pit. Maneséro stood ready with a lit torch, which Tuor took and thrust into the center of the pile. The flames roared up right away, for a moment taking the shape of a swan to the sound of cheering that turned to singing as pipers began to play merrily. And then the dancing began, and that was all Eärendil could remember when he woke up the next morning.

After Melessë tucked the worn-out elfling into bed, Idril and Tuor presided over the opening of the season's first miruvórë, then set out to visit each of the other great Houses of Gondolin. At each House they admired the clever shape of the house's bonfire and tasted the House's finest beverage. In this fashion most of the adults of Gondolin spent much of the night, taking turns offering the hospitality of their Houses and wandering from bonfire to bonfire accepting the hospitality of other Houses. Lively conversations rose, fell, and began afresh comparing the quality of each House's offering. One thing was certain, though: no matter whose ale or wine or mead or miruvórë one preferred, the House of the Hammer of Wrath always had the best bonfire. Those smiths really knew how to build a fire, and every year it flickered in a different set of colors.

Late in the night, when their bonfire had burned down to a thick bed of coals, Maneséro supervised the roasting of the tubers. The coals were raked away and the tubers laid down in a bed of ash, then the coals were raked back over them to slowly cook the tubers as they burned down to ash overnight. Each bonfire across the plain brooded over just such a clutch of tubers until morning came.

Breakfast in the field was something very new and exciting to Eärendil. Tuor helped him dig a big bowl's worth of tubers from the warm ashes of the bonfire pit. After taking a damp cloth to his ashy face and hands, Melessë split and peeled three of the tubers onto a plate without getting a speck of ash on the flesh. She added a triangle of crumbly fried barleycake with butter and a cold six-herb tart from the night before. She scooped out some warm compote of dried fruit beside the bread, then gave him the plate along with some warm honeyed milk. He ate perched on his mother's chair at the center of the longest table while Melessë sat next to him and told him about some of the Nost-na-Lothion observances he could expect to see today.

"Do you see all the baskets over there?" she asked him, nodding to a nearby table covered with racks holding tiny baskets. Each one was trumpet-shaped like his mother's lily chalice and held a small bouquet of celandine flowers. "Those are for gifting. If there is someone you care about, you offer them a basket. If someone offers you a basket, you must thank them, take the basket, and place it on the table that is Vána's Garden. You will see the table has been moved out from under the pavilion, into the sunshine. By the end of the day, all the baskets will have been presented in love and then given to the Queen of Flowers whose garden will overflow. So do we show Her our appreciation for the beauty of the flowers in Arda. After you finish eating, you may take a basket from the table and go offer it to your mother, and then one for your father. Later this morning I will take you to the king your grandfather so you may offer him one also. You may give out as many others as you wish.

"At noonday there will be a procession of young people followed by dancing on the south side of Amon Gwareth. You are too young to join the procession yet, but you may try the Bell Dance if you like; it is easy and you get to make a lot of noise with bells on a stick. In the afternoon there will be jumping games and kite flying. I believe your grandfather has made you a special kite. His household will also be offering frittered elderflowers to everybody all day. They are served hot, with a drizzle of honey, and you may eat as many as you like. But there will also be plenty of proper food and drink here, so we will come back here whenever you are hungry or thirsty." Eärendil nodded, his mouth full of barleycake. "But the way you are eating, I think you will not be hungry for the next three days," she chuckled, concluding the royal briefing.

"As many fritters as I like?" he inquired, swallowing the last bite. "With honey?"

"Yes, calima. On Nost-na-Lothion, there are so many flowers that we even eat and drink them," she said fondly.

Eärendil climbed down from the table and went over to the baskets of flowers. He considered for a moment, selected one, and brought it back to the table. "I love you, Melessë," he said, holding out the basket to her.

"And I you, calima," she replied, taking the basket from him with a smile. "Thank you for the gift of flowers." She rose and took the bouquet out to the table where Vána's Garden waited amid many empty racks.

Eärendil watched attentively. "It is right that you should place the first offering," he said, "as you made our Vána's Garden."

She held up the basket with both hands, facing toward the sphere of flowers, and repeated her words, "thank you for the gift of flowers." A tear fell sparkling onto the basket as she placed it in one of the holders.

After Eärendil had gifted his parents and other members of his household with flowers, Melessë and Eärendil set out to visit his grandfather the King, trailed by two maidens; one carried a heaping tray of flower baskets, another an empty tray. It was a longish walk to his grandfather's encampment, one broken up by several encounters that involved giving a bouquet from the full tray or accepting one and putting it on the other tray. Eventually they drew near Turgon's great gold-and-red striped tents. Eärendil saw the Vána's Garden under the round pavilion out front, on a great table surrounded with heaps upon heaps of bouquets. At Melessë's encouragement, he took the bouquets that had been gifted to him and placed them on the table, thanking the Queen of Spring Flowers for her gift to Arda. Melessë and the two maidens did likewise before seeking out the King in the dining pavilion.

Turgon sat in state on a carved throne of some dark red wood inlaid with patterns of gold flowers that looked like sunbursts. Instead of his usual white, today he wore red and gold to match his gold belt and garnet crown. Eärendil blinked at the warm, radiant sight of his beloved grandfather as Turgon held out his arms in invitation, then snatched a bouquet from the tray and ran to climb onto Turgon's knee. "I love you, Taratar!" he cried, holding up the bouquet.

Turgon took the bouquet, smiling fondly at the nickname no one but Eärendil would ever dare call him. "Thank you for the gift of flowers," he replied, reaching for a bouquet from the tray to his right. "I love you too, ancalima," he said, and handed Eärendil the bouquet.

"Thank you for the gift of flowers," Eärendil replied, hugging his grandfather one-armed.

"Shall we offer them together?" Turgon asked, sweeping Eärendil into the crook of his left arm and rising from the throne. Eärendil clung to his arm and nodded vigorously as Turgon carried him back out to Vána's Garden. Eärendil squirmed down from Turgon's arm to make his offering, then watched his grandfather standing silent for a moment, eyes closed, lips moving. Turgon gently placed the bouquet amid the profusion of other bouquets, repeating the formal phrase "thank you for the gift of flowers" to the Queen of Spring Flowers as if, Eärendil thought, he were speaking to someone he loved.

"Now then, ancalima, would you be hungry for a plate of elderflower fritters?" asked Turgon. "You can eat them while I send for your new kite."

"Oh, yes please, Taratar! I would be hungry for six fritters," said Eärendil ambitiously, holding up six fingers.

"Six, is it? Very well then, six you shall have," declared the king, gesturing to his steward and then at the chair beside his throne. "Come sit beside me." No sooner had Eärendil sat in the chair than the steward placed a little table before him. A smiling lady brought out a red and yellow glazed dish holding a great mound of frittered elderflower corymbs and a little bowl of honey and put it on the table. Then she took the fine linen towel that hung from her arm and tied it around Eärendil's neck securely.

Eärendil patiently endured this babyish treatment, but only because he understood that he was being given leave to be very messy. "Thank you," he said, and reached toward the plate. Before he could take up the first fritter, movement and murmuring off to the side distracted him. He looked up and saw a swan come floating toward him.

As it got nearer Eärendil saw that two of the king's guards were bearing a kite above their heads. It was shaped like a swan that was also a ship, swimming on the air with gracefully curved neck, wings raised and folded back below a large rectangular sail. He had sailed tiny boats like this in the fountains of Amon Gwareth with his father, but never had he seen one as large as this. He stared at the gleaming silver-white kite, fritters utterly forgotten.

"This is Fanyalótë, the Cloud-flower, and she is my gift to you," said the king. "After you have eaten your six fritters, we shall find your father and he will teach you how to fly her."

"Oh, thank you, Taratar! She will be the most beautiful kite in the air!" cried Eärendil as the two carriers put Fanyalótë down beside his chair. His eyes traced the silken ropes of the rigging, lingered on the tiny silver clench-nails holding together the planks, and noted the steerboard shaped like a trailing swan's foot. How perfect she was!

"Hurry and eat, then, so we can see how she flies," said Turgon, a glint of anticipation in his eyes.

Eärendil, eager to see the swan rise, bit into a still-warm fritter, saying "thank you for the gift of flowers" around his first sticky mouthful as Turgon laughed.

---

Chapter End Notes

calima (Q) -- "bright"
ancalima (Q) -- "very bright" or "brightest"
Melessë (Q) -- Meleth's name in Quenya; I have assumed the nursing of the king's grandson would have been entrusted to a Noldorin rather than a Sindarin, likely a long-time member of Turgon's staff. In my version of Gondolin the Noldorin nobility habitually speak Quenya among themselves although they have been comfortably bilingual since their sojourn in Nevrast.
yulda (Q) -- drink, something drunk, in this case herb tea

The yellow flowers are celandine (Ficaria verna which grows on periodically waterlogged plains like Tumladen), the same flower embroidered all over Glorfindel's mantle in "The Fall of Gondolin." Their tubers were roasted and eaten in Europe as far back as the Bronze Age.

Most of the holiday practices and many of the foodways in this story were inspired by traditional European activities for May Day/Beltane, which has its own tradition of celebrating flowers.