Saxo Runesinger
Member
I was surprised in session 119 when, without specific comment, we stepped past what might be the pivotal moment in Tolkien’s canon.
Remember that the lines in the Crist written by Cynewulf:
éala éarendel engla beorhtast / ofer middangeard monnum sended
"Hail Earendel, brightest of angels, over Middle-earth* to men sent"
are reported to be the wellspring from which the Legends of Middle Earth arose. One could imagine that the entirety of the writings of the First Age could be directed toward the moment wherein Earendel get his wings, and here it is, tucked blithely into Bilbo’s cheeky poem.
This poem may be the only place in which this particular gift is bestowed on one of the Children of Iluvatar, and if this is the case, then Earendel becomes our cultural archetype of the winged being of heavenly light, and it may be the only place in Tolkien’s writing where the wings themselves are mentioned.
*this may also be the origin of the term Middle Earth
Remember that the lines in the Crist written by Cynewulf:
éala éarendel engla beorhtast / ofer middangeard monnum sended
"Hail Earendel, brightest of angels, over Middle-earth* to men sent"
are reported to be the wellspring from which the Legends of Middle Earth arose. One could imagine that the entirety of the writings of the First Age could be directed toward the moment wherein Earendel get his wings, and here it is, tucked blithely into Bilbo’s cheeky poem.
This poem may be the only place in which this particular gift is bestowed on one of the Children of Iluvatar, and if this is the case, then Earendel becomes our cultural archetype of the winged being of heavenly light, and it may be the only place in Tolkien’s writing where the wings themselves are mentioned.
*this may also be the origin of the term Middle Earth
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