Earendil
 

The Silmarillion says that once Earendil landed in Valinor, he did not set foot in mortal lands anymore. But later, it describes him at the last battle for Beleriand and says that he defeated the greatest of the winged drakes. How does that work?

he flew [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

[ February 09, 2003: Message edited by: Skiltet ]

He did not set foot on mortal lands but fought in the war of wrath because his boat was placed in the sky and flew. It was in this manner that he killed Ancalagon the Black.

did he ever land in Valinor? texts hint at it, but never actyally say he does...

Yes. He landed and walked around in Valinor. The texts pretty much actyally say that.

How would one walk around a city in Valinor without setting foot on it? Of course he landed.

Why didn't Tolkien wrote more about Earendil and the War of Wrath? Was it perhaps too difficult to make it consistent with his later developments of the Silmarillion. The ideas that he became a star and that his wife became a bird were present in BoLT, which is much more primitive that the later Sil.

I know. The War of Wrath lasted 40 odd years-it must have at least been kind of intresting. Apart form the primitive tales in BoLT, I can find little else about Earendil or The War of Wrath, though I liked young Earendil in FoG.

Part of the problem is that Tolkien died. Nobody plans their life work, it's something they do throughout their lives... until it stops.

The tale of Earendil in BoLT was going to span over seven chapters. Compare this to the few pages we got in the published Silmarillion. I think this is more sad than for example that he didn't finished the rewriting of the Fall of Gondolin. In that case we at least have the old version in full. But the tale of Earendil was never written at all. C.T. did a good job when wrote the last chapter. Still I feel something is wrong. It is like reading the first two LoTR books in full and then a 10 page version of the Return of the King.