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."
There was a moment with any new creation where you were unsure if it would work as intended. Curufinwë knew this well. Unfortunately, he was young enough – and as yet inexperienced enough, Atto always stressed that experience was a teacher like any other – that as often as not, he found himself unable to bring his visions to fruition.
This time, though… The wings were a thing of beauty. Making three sets rather than two had been no great bother, particularly not when Turvo helped. He was rather good at carving, though he’d had to be dissuaded from attempting individual feathers.