Telling Tales by StarSpray

Telling Tales

The sun-kissed waves of Balar washed gently up over the sand, and gulls wandered along the waterline nearby as Eärendil regaled his small sons with tales of his travels. They sat on the picnic blanket, wide-eyed and enchanted as he described where his last voyage had taken him.

“…and we came past islands were grow the most marvelous spices, and in the distance we saw another shore where there were mountains that seemed to be burning…”

Elwing sat nearby and smiled at her sons’ delighted gasps, and Eärendil’s sparkling eyes. His stories were their favorites, and provided fuel for their games of imagination when he was gone again. Already Elros insisted that he would join Eärendil upon Vingilot someday soon. The sea called to him as it did Eärendil, and had to Tuor before him.

If only the winds had taken him west, this time, instead of south.

.

“And there Eärendil met Arien herself, where she came down from her sky voyages to walk among the Sun-dwellers, as they called themselves in her honor. And the fire-mountain was where the fruit of Laurelin was set for safe-keeping. In its light the seas seemed to turn red, and the lands were warm and dry…” Elros gestured widely, seeming to sketch pictures in the air with his hands as he told the tale to an enraptured audience. The journey from Middle-earth to the promised Star Isle was long, and the days were passed in storytelling and song.

When questioned, Elros always insisted that even the most fantastical tales of Eärendil’s many travels were true. “For he told them to me himself, whenever the winds brought him home!”

In the western sky Eärendil himself, soaring upon Vingilot with the Silmaril, seemed to twinkle as though in agreement.

.

A nightingale trilled outside the window as Bilbo pored over some old manuscripts. “Master Elrond, who wrote all these tales?” he asked finally. “They seem utterly fantastical. Tree-men and red seas and fire-mountains—that last one sounds rather like the Lonely Mountain when Smaug was in residence!”

Elrond smiled as he glanced up from his own book. “Those were written down by Valandil’s nurse, who said they were tales told in Númenor since the time of Elros Tar-Minyatar.”

“But is there any truth to them?”

“There are some changes in detail,” Elrond allowed, “but in the main they are almost the same as what our father told us himself.”

“Told you himself!” Bilbo exclaimed.

“Where did you think Elros heard them?” Elrond laughed.

“I beg your pardon, Master Elrond. I’m still unused to living among folk for whom the legends of the Elder Days are childhood memories!”