Éalá Éarendel Engla Beorhtast

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Éalá Éarendel Engla Beorhtast (an Old English title, rendered in modern English as The Last Voyage of Eärendel) is an early poem by J.R.R. Tolkien (according to Christopher Tolkien "the first of the mythology"[1]). It is published in full in The Book of Lost Tales Part Two[2].

The poem was originally titled The Voyage of Éarendel the Evening Star (with the Old English version Scipfæreld Éarendeles Ǽfensteorran) and was written at Phoenix Farm in September 1914[3][4]. Under this title Tolkien read the poem at the Oxford Essay Club in the November of the same year, as referenced in Letter 2. By the latest revision, written at an unknown date but "substantially later"[2] than the first, the newer title was given in its Old English form only.

It was the first poem on the subject of Eärendil and describes his voyage from "Westerland", through "the darkling West" and ultimately beyond the world itself[2]. The fourth verse describes the movements of the Sun and Moon in a way which anticipates cosmology of the The Hiding of Valinor and the Tale of the Sun and the Moon[2].

See also

References