Note: This version of the poem was published 1933, around the same time that Tolkien was publishing other poetry, including “The Adventures of Tom Bombadil” and “The Mewlips”.
The overall rhyme shape is the same, with multisyllabic terminal rhymes on the second and fourth lines, as well as between the end of lines one and three and the middle of two and four.
Though the structure is the same as in the Eärendil poem, the overall sound is very different.
The structure is more prominent, and the internal rhymes are much closer and stronger rhymes.
The lines are more enjambed and the sentences cross over the quatrains. This causes the reader to continue on more quickly and without any pauses. The whole first stanza is one sentence.
The alliteration is stronger and falls on the stressed syllables, which makes it more prominent. The overall feel is bouncier and more whimsical and is designed to be read very fast.
Note: Tolkien left instructions as to how to recite this poem, and those were to do so as fast as possible, and even accelerating as one goes along, similar to Gilbert and Sullivan patter songs like “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General” from The Pirates of Penzance.
The story of the Errantry poem:
He is identified as a passenger, which implies that he is not driving his boat. He is also identified as a messenger and a mariner, which tells us about his job, but not that he’s in charge.
A gondola is a small river boat, which is not made for epic voyages. What’s emphasized is how he has decorated and perfumed it and filled it with nice but impractical food for wandering.
Note: The choices of food and perfumes seem to have been chosen just because they rhyme.
Why would a messenger be wandering? This seems to be a problem from the beginning.
Note: What are argosies? This is prominent in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice and refer to large merchant ships, so the winds would be the trade winds. “Argosies” comes from the Jason’ ship, the Argo, from Greek mythology.
Gondolas don’t usually have sails, so calling for winds is odd, and it seems out of place for a riverboat to need to cross rivers rather than travel on them.
This poem seems to indulge in deliberate nonsense and is more concerned with the sound.
Sigaldry and smithying:
The alliteration and consonance are very strong, as well as the assonance and rhymes. This allows the lines to flow along and seems to be more important that the content.
He seems to have left his boat and is now wandering overland. The message seems forgotten.
Note: Tolkien seems to have invented the word “sigaldry” and uses it several times here.
Why does he propose to a butterfly? What does this say about his identity? Is he human? We don’t have answers to these questions at this point, or even know how big he is.
His desire to study wizardry and so on seems to be out of a desire to catch the butterfly.
Note: It’s possible that his gondola is actually the kind that is underneath a balloon or airship, and this is why he needed the winds to push him over the rivers. This would also accommodate the cargo of oranges and other foods.
A failed courtship:
The enjambment is less prominent in stanza four, which makes the reading slow down.
He makes wings for himself to pursue the butterfly, which leads to her capture. All of his study of magic has been to catch the butterfly, as his spurning would not do.
This is a cautionary tale about the main character, and he definitely gives an impression of diminutive size, as he seems to be on the same scale as the butterfly and flowers.
Note: There is a parallel with stories like those about Tom Thumb, and this is very much a fairy-story by Tolkien’s own definition, even though he generally opposed the use of diminutive fairies from the Victorian era and spoke with scorn of them, though in his early poetry he used small fairies quite a bit. This can be seen in The Book of Lost Tales, where Tolkien explains the large fairies of older legends becoming the small fairies later. and even echoes in The Lord of the Rings, in Galadriel’s speaking of diminishing. Though she means taking a lesser role and power, it echoes the idea of diminishing size from the earlier legendarium. “Errantry” is in this tradition. Tolkien’s wife Edith was very fond of diminutive fairies, and his early poems were often for her.
This impression of diminutiveness is supported by his battles with dragonflies and others.
Note: The “scabbard of calcedony” is the only line that survives all versions of the poem.
The description of his armor and weapons is evocative, though often illogical and nonsense.
Note: A “dumbledore” is an older word for a bumblebee, which shows that everyone in this poem is diminutive. Even the Golden Honeycomb is a small version of the Golden Fleece.
This ship of leaves is the third vessel he has built in the poem, including his earlier gondola and the carvel he built for the butterfly. It’s possible that the third was also an airship.
Note: The mention of Attercops is echoed in The Hobbit, which gives the impression that maybe Bilbo had heard this poem before going on his adventure. Tolkien later credits Bilbo as the author within the fictional frame, but this predates Bilbo in Tolkien’s real writing history.
Only after returning home does he remember his job as a messenger and starts out all over again. This poem is meant as a joke and is intended to be started again after the end.
On the Rivendell version of Errantry:
Note: Tolkien decided to give this poem to Bilbo in The Lord of the Rings, seemingly because he thought that this would be appropriate to Bilbo’s taste and character, but he need to revise it.
This version is less bouncy, though it still contains the whimsical word choices and overall sound.
There is more of an emphasis on the gallantry of the main character, and even the boat is more practical, as it has oars to navigate the river.
Unlike before, mariner does not land, but rather is castaway on the Sea and beyond the world.
He wakes to find himself in Faerie, specifically in Valinor, having come upon the “straight path”.
Like Eärendil, he is taught lore and music by the residents of Faerie and is armed and armored in a similar way as the later version. This is not the diminutive character from “Errantry”.
Therefore, this character seems more like a mortal man who has come to Faerie and is now prepared to go forth and fight the enemies he learns of from the Elves.
It seems to be Elves themselves who arm and equip him, as “they” is used in conjunction with it.
Unlike the insects he was fighting earlier, he has been recruited and equipped to fight Ungoliant.
Note: In the verse version of “The Lay of Leithian”, Tolkien uses similar language as here to describe Beren’s adventures in Nan Dungortheb, where he fights spiders descended from her. There is a hint that the dragonflies from “Errantry” are recalled in Eärendil’s final fight against Ancaligon the Black, the greatest of the flying dragons, in The Silmarillion.
The character is made the champion of the Elves, in contrast to the whimsical battles before.
A turn toward the epic:
Note: “Levin” is an old English word for lighting, so this tree seems to be made of the lightning which shines on his face and later transforms him from within.
In this version, there is no Silmaril, and it the character himself who is made radiant.
Note: Tolkien shifted Elvish pronunciation conventions over time, and earlier he kept the “c’s” soft, and used “k” for the hard sounds. Later, he made the “c” hard, and removed the “k’s”.
It’s not clear who Melineth is referring to, as the other named female Valar already existed.
The story of this version is much more clearly defined and is in line with the convention that no mortal can pass through Faerie unchanged. He is made something almost divine by the end.
Like Eärendil later, he is laid with doom that means that he can never go home. This is the cost of the elevation caused by an encounter with Faerie, even though he didn’t choose it.
The evolution to the Eärendil poem:
Who is the main character? It seems possible to associate him with Eärendil, as he kills Ungoliant, which was planned for Eärendil’s story consistently, though never written.
Tolkien had planned out three phases for the story: one, his adventures as a mariner, two, his delivery of the message to the Valinor and the War of Wraith, and three, his career as a star.
In the published version of The Silmarillion, Ungoliant consumes herself, but in the early concepts, Eärendil is a kind of Elvish messiah, and his killing of Ungoliant was part of that.
This version of the poem seems to evolve as it goes along, as it retains some of the whimsy of “Errantry” at the beginning.
It changes from a Victorian-style fairy-story to the kind that Tolkien describes in “On Fairy-stories”, and then to an epic fantasy romance within his larger legendarium.
By the end of this version of the poem, he’s become Eärendil and takes on his adventures.
By the time that Bilbo gets his version, the poetry matures more, and the silliness is lost, and the story is explicitly that of Eärendil from the beginning,
However, it retains the motif of a mortal wandering into Faerie and the consequences of that.
This theme has significance for Bilbo himself, as he has wandered into Faerie in Rivendell, and can never go home again because of the Ring and the Council’s worries about him.
Frodo will also never be able to return home in truth, though he does physically for a while.
Both Saruman and Gandalf point out that they have grown in stature to be one of the great, like Eärendil, but this makes their return to normal hobbit life impossible.
