You may have been asked at some point if you prefer mountains or the sea, an entry in the "would you rather?" category of questions that seeks to dichotomize people as one or the other. I live in the mountains but very much prefer the sea. Part of the reason is the passing ships. I connect to Tolkien's description of Fëanor having hands and mind seldom at rest because that's me too, yet I will sit on a beach or stand on a pier and do nothing but watch ships passing for as long as you allow me. This odd interest/hobby always felt vaguely Tolkienish for reasons I couldn't quite articulate. (It is not as though a container ship poking along on the horizon is carrying Elves to Valinor! Cheap sneakers to Montreal, maybe, but not wearied souls to rest and healing in the Undying Lands.)

Simon J. Cook's latest installment in his series about towers for A Sense of History begins to explain why. For exactly a year now, Simon has been exploring towers across Tolkien's work, focusing mostly on the tower analogy in Tolkien's lecture "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" but also the many towers that dot the landscape of Middle-earth in his more familiar works.

This month's article, "Passing Ships," is just as the name suggests. Returning to the tower analogy of "Monsters and the Critics," Simon considers why the ability to look up on the sea in that analogy is so important. He considers the exordium to Beowulf, which he describes as a myth "framed by two ships" related to the mythic heathen king Scyld Scefing. Even in these days, Simon claims, the significance of these two ships, coming and returning over the sea from the west, has been lost, the poem offering a glimpse back at that forgotten tradition.

You can read Simon's article "Passing Ships" here.