A Sense of History: Straight Road
The next in a series of articles about ships passing to and from the West, Simon uses "The Fall of Númenor" to attempt to arrive at Tolkien's reading of the exordium to "Beowulf."
The waves of the ocean lapped at his toes, he hardly noticed it these days. It had been so long since this journey had first started and now he stood here, on the middle of the ice before the sea swallowed the world. There was nothing here. Only ice and sea and behind him the lands he had wandered for well over three ages.
He sat down, finally accepting the truth. For him there was no mercy, no relief, no way home. He was left behind in lands now empty of his kin, forgotten remnant of a time long past.