[Formendacil]

If I may begin with an aside, it intrigues me how so many of these recently necromanced threads (that's not a complaint, by the by--seriously, it's good to see activity on the forum and activity that gets the old Huorns active again. Besides, necromancy seems a fitting activity for Barrow-wights) here in the Books forum are the sort that, nowadays, would seem more suited to Novices & Newcomers. It's like looking at a layer of an archaeological dig...

Anyway, to the topic at hand--since I do have something to say about it--my personal favourite poem in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings is "Eärendil was a Mariner." Part of this is sheer technical dazzlement, since it takes me the better part of a day to compose a line of iambic pentameter, let alone anything more rhythmically complicated than that--to say nothing of rhyme scheme (my own best efforts would probably have a "limerick" effect).

But it's also a matter of topic. This poem is the latest treatment of the Eärendil legend in Tolkien's writings that can be said to be in a finished state, and possibly because of this, I find it to be especially effective as a glimpse into the remoteness of ancient legend. This is in contrast to Aragorn's poem on Beren meeting Lúthien, since we have numerous treatments of that story.