Welcome Gazing! I hate to welcome
and quibble, but...
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Originally Posted by Gazing
(...) In fact, it appears from p. 13, that Eriol (in this first version of "The Cottage of Lost Play") is to be seen as the actual, "flesh-and-blood" son of Earendel, or so I interpret the passage:
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I still question a 'son of Earendel' in what sense? Passing over your references to Eriol as a Man, and where he is called a son of Earendel, and arriving at...
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In fact, this first version gives us the further information that Earendel, far from being an immortal "half-elf," has long since died, died a mortal's death, after seeing, and hearing, and dreaming of the Fairy Realm. But, just like the Mortal Man "loony" in the poem, "The Sea Bell," Earendel died still trying to find Faerie: "Now all his life was he restless, as if a longing half-expressed for unknown things dwelt within him; and 'tis said that he died among the rocks on a lonely coast on a night of storm -- and moreover that most of his children and their children since have been of a restless mind -- and methinks I know now the truth of the matter" (BOLT-1, p. 20)
So, what we have here, if we restrict ourselves to just this text in BOLT-1, pp 13 - 21, is a tale of two MEN, who travel by the same "straight path" over the sea toward the same Fairy Land, and they are father and son, Earendel and Eriol.
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I don't think this passage refers to Earendel but rather
'one of our father's fathers' who died among the rocks, and it's noted that this person (it is implied) had travelled the Path of Dreams as a child.
If I recall correctly, here and elsewhere there is no certain association with Earendel to this character. If there is, please post it of course; but so far I can't agree that this is necessarily Earendel.
In
very early poetry (written in 1914 according to Hammond and Scull), Earendel launches a ship into the sky, though in this version Tolkien is not quite sure what the poem is all about. JRRT will continue to write poetry about Earendel in any case, starting again in this same year.