In the West a pale light lingered?

[Flammifer]

There was a lot of discussion in the class last week (which I missed, due to thinking it would not occur) about the word ‘lingered’ and what a ‘lingering’ light in the West might mean.

I connect it to a reference in Appendix A (iii), “At the Grey Havens dwelt Cirdan the Shipwright and some say he dwells there still, until the Last Ship sets sail into the West. In the days of the Kings most of the High Elves that still lingered in Middle-earth dwelt with Cirdan, or in the seaward lands of Lindon. If any now remain they are few.”

Can anyone with an e-version, and a fancy search engine, find other references which combine ‘West’ and ‘lingered’?

I take this (of course) as bolstering my uncertain supposition that Boromir looked for Imladris in Lindon and the Ered Luin. It is fairly easy to see how Boromir might connect a 'lingering light in the West' with tales of Cirdan (who has lingered longest), and accounts of Cirdan from the records of Earnur's campaign against the Witch King of Angmar.

However it also shows a connection between ‘lingering’ and the ‘High Elves’, and between the ‘West’ and primarily Elvenhome, but, also possibly the Grey Havens.

 

[Arnthro]

I found this on Oxford Learner's Dictionary online: [intransitive] linger (on) to stay alive but become weaker.

Because of your post and the above, I am certainly led to think of the Elves passing into the West, diminishing, and the time of Men at hand.

 

[Matt DeForrest]

I’d add one quick observation: One lingers in a doorway at the end of a meeting or a party when waiting to have a quick word with someone before departing. Part of the sense, to my eye, is that the light is waiting and not departing as it should (With the implication, of course, that the darkness cannot overcome it.) to make its pronouncement when the dreamer is finished looking around and getting his bearings.

I’d draw a connection to Galadriel‘s observation that she will diminish and go into the West. The light, in contrast, does not diminish.