Smith of Wootton Major in Middle Earth?

[littlemanpoet]

Reading the Letters of Tolkien, I came across an interesting description in Letter #131 (one of the longest in the book). It said:

In those days [the Númenóreans] would come amongst Wild Men an almost divine benefactors, bringing gifts of arts and knowledge, and passing away again - leaving many legends behind of kings and gods out of the sunset.

There's a little episode in Smith of Wootton Major that this sparked to my memory (accompanied by an amazing Pauline Baynes illustration):

[Smith] stood beside the Sea of Windless Storm where the blue waves like snow-clad hills roll silently out of Unlight to the long strand, bearing the white ships that return from battles on the Dark Marches of which men know nothing. He saw a great ship cast high upon the land, and the waters fell back in foam without a sound. The eleven mariners were tall and terrible; their swords shone and their spears glinted and a piercing light was in their eyes. Suddenly they lifted up their voices in a song of triumph, and his heart was shaken with fear, and he fell upon his face, and they passed over him and went into the echoing hills.

There is enough difference so that my snappy thread title is revealed as a bald attempt to get your attention.

But if Middle Earth is part of the Realm of Fairy, who knows? Is this just an example of one of those common themes that haunted Tolkien's mind? What think you?