“Messengers”?

Good post SwallowedUpInVictory,

I agree that Earendil's primary job as 'messenger' is to carry a message to the Valar. He thereafter, however, is a messenger again, when he sails the heavens as 'Flammifer of Westernesse', a message of hope to Middle-earth.

The same will be true of Frodo, as he is immortalized, not as a star, but in the Red Book of Westmarch.
 
Reading your last comment, I thought of dreams where you know you are supposed to do something, but you can't remember what, and all these other things keep happening - and how like the Errantry poem these dreams are. But that brought me to realize that Earendil in the poem does much the same thing when he gets to Elvenhome:

He tarried there from errantry,
and melodies they taught to him,
and sages old him marvels told,
and harps of gold they brought to him.
They clothed him then in elven-white,
and seven lights before him sent,
as through the Calacirian
to hidden land forlorn he went.
He came unto the timeless halls
where shining fall the countless years,
and endless reigns the Elder King
in Ilmarin on Mountain sheer;
and words unheard were spoken then
of folk of Men and Elven-kin.
Beyond the world were visions showed
forbid to those that dwell therein.


He doesn't forget his message, but he certainly gets distracted; how long does all that take exactly? And we don't know for sure whether he gets to deliver his message, although he must, whether in words or not, since they send him back with a message of hope.

It must be easy to be distracted from
 
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