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."
For Silm40. JRR Tolkien begins the Silmarillion.
The notebook lay open in front of him, waiting to be filled with the mythology and languages that lived in his head. Convalescing in the countryside of Great Haywood with Edith encouraging him and the war ever-present in the background meant one thing: he could no longer wait. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien picked up the pencil and wrote, “Then said Littleheart son of Bronweg, ‘Know then that Tuor was a man who dwelt in very ancient days in that land of the North called Dor Lómin or the Land of Shadows, and of the Eldar the Noldoli know it best.’”
Author’s Note: The quote is the opening sentence from “The Fall of Gondolin” in The Book of Lost Tales. It is the first story Tolkien wrote in what would become The Silmarillion.