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She wandered in the woods, and of the brown Elves and the green a few gathered to her, and they
departed for ever from the glades of Hithlum and got them to the south towards Sirion’s deep waters,
and the pleasant lands.
And thus did all the fates of the fairies weave then to one strand, and that strand is the great tale of
Eärendel; and to that tale’s true beginning are we now come.
*
There follow in the Quenta Noldorinwa passages concerned with the history of Gondolin
and its fall, and the history of Tuor, who was wedded to Idril Celebrindal daughter of
Turgon king of Gondolin; their son was Eärendel, who with them escaped from the
destruction of the city and came to the Mouths of Sirion. The Quenta continues, following
from the flight of Elwing daughter of Dior from Doriath to the mouths of Sirion (pp. 236–7):
By Sirion there grew up an elven folk, the gleanings of Doriath and Gondolin, and they took to the
sea and the making of fair ships, and they dwelt nigh unto its shores and under the shadow of Ulmo’s
hand . . .
In those days Tuor felt old age creep upon him, and he could not forbear the longing that possessed
him for the sea; wherefore he built a great ship Eärámë, Eagle’s Pinion, and with Idril he set sail into
the sunset and the West, and came no more into any tale. But Eärendel the shining became the lord of
the folk of Sirion and took to wife fair Elwing, the daughter of Dior; and yet he could not rest. Two
thoughts were in his heart blended as one: the longing for the wide sea; and he thought to sail thereon
following after Tuor and Idril Celebrindal who returned not, and he thought to find perhaps the last
shore and bring ere he died a message to the Gods and Elves of the West that should move their hearts
to pity on the world and the sorrows of Mankind.
Wingelot he built, fairest of the ships of song, the Foam-flower; white were its timbers as the
argent moon, golden were its oars, silver were its shrouds, its masts were crowned with jewels like
stars. In The Lay of Eärendel is many a thing sung of his adventures in the deep and in lands untrod,
and in many seas and many isles. . . But Elwing sat sorrowing at home.
Eärendel found not Tuor, nor came he ever on that journey to the shores of Valinor; and at last he
was driven by the winds back East, and he came at a time of night to the havens of Sirion, unlooked
for, unwelcomed, for they were desolate . . .
The dwelling of Elwing at Sirion’s mouth, where still she possessed the Nauglamír and the
glorious Silmaril, became known to the sons of Fëanor; and they gathered together from their
wandering hunting-paths.
But the folk of Sirion would not yield that jewel which Beren had won and Lúthien had worn, and
for which fair Dior had been slain. And so befell the last and cruellest of the slaying of Elf by Elf, the
third woe achieved by the accursed oath; for the sons of Fëanor came down upon the exiles of
Gondolin and the remnant of Doriath, and though some of their folk stood aside and some few
rebelled and were slain upon the other part aiding Elwing against their own lords, yet they won the
day. Damrod was slain and Díriel, and Maidros and Maglor alone now remained of the Seven; but the
last of the folk of Gondolin were destroyed or forced to depart and join them to the people of
Maidros. And yet the sons of Fëanor gained not the Silmaril; for Elwing cast the Nauglamír into the
sea, whence it shall not return until the End; and she leapt herself into the waves, and took the form of