Tol Eressea

[Arvegil145]

Originally Posted by Mithadan

When I wrote Tales from Tol Eressea, now about 20 years ago, I did study BolT and JRRT's later works in an attempt to divine the island's geography. Unfortunately, all that is mentioned post-Bolt is the city and port of Avallone on the eastern side of the island and the Mindon in that city. While I included Tavrobel in my Tales, there is nothing after BoLT that mentions that town (with the possible exception of the Etymologies and the first Quenta, both dating back to the 1930s, and the poem from the 1920s). Nor is there any clear mention of any other places, such as the rivers I recall being mentioned, in Eressea post-Bolt.

I am working from memory so others may have more information.

Tavrobel (or rather Tathrobel) is indirectly mentioned in the preamble (namely Ælfwine's note) to the Later Quenta (Morgoth's Ring, pp. 199-200) - mind you, it's not mentioned by name since CT states that the preamble is essentially the same as the one in the old QS found in The Lost Road (pp. 202-3).

Likewise, Cortirion appears at the end of the 1937 QS:

Here endeth The Silmarillion: which is drawn out in brief from those songs and histories which are yet sung and told by the fading Elves, and (more clearly and fully) by the vanished Elves that dwell now upon the Lonely Isle, Tol Eressëa, whither few mariners of Men have ever come, save once or twice in a long age when some man of Eärendel's race hath passed beyond the lands of mortal sight and seen the glimmer of the lamps upon the quays of Avallon, and smelt afar the undying flowers in the meads of Dorwinion. Of whom was Eriol one, that men named Ælfwine, and he alone returned and brought tidings of Cortirion to the Hither Lands.

- Lost Road, 'Quenta Silmarillion', 'Conclusion', §33, pp. 333-4

This paragraph also mentions the mysterious 'meads of Dorwinion' on Eressea, as well as the 'quays of Avallon' (which was another name for Eressea as a whole at the time - not to be confused with the city of Avallone).

Also, for what it's worth, in the War of the Jewels (pp. 243-7), we see a copy of the last 30 or so paragraphs of the 1937 QS that Tolkien made in the late '50s - or rather, CT simply lists the changes that Tolkien made to it, none of them involving the last paragraph. Not that that means Tolkien retained the idea of Cortirion or Dorwinion on Eressea post-LOTR - he might as well have simply overlooked the paragraph, or couldn't be bothered with it.


P.S. There's also the poem The Trees of Kortirion, a '60s revision of the much earlier Kortirion among the Trees - however, judging from its contents, it's clear that the later Kortirion is not the one on Eressea. For example, in the new version it was the Edain who built Kortirion and not the Elves.


I also recommend (a bit of shameless self promotion of sorts) the 'Tol Eressea' category on TG: https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Cate...l_Eress%C3%ABa - it contains virtually every location on Eressea that I could find in HoME or PE.

[Findegil]

I have said it before and still stick to it: I am a combiner.
In my case that means, I view the legendarium a bit like the first Map to the Lord of the Rings: A 'picture' that Tolkien started at some time on a single sheet. Than he found that what he wanted to tell reached over the edges of that sheet and glude additional extensions to the first sheet. Later he found that he had got parts wrong and made corrections. Some slightly so that the original layer would just be altered to his new undertanding. Some more profoundly by glueing new paper onto the orginal sheet.

For questions like the one posted here, that means: as long as details from older texts are not altered or denied by a later text, I would assume they are valid as representing what Tolkien imagined. If you like you could exchange age of the texts in question by priority as defined in the rules of this project.

And I would argue that legendarium as we have it shows some hints that Tolkien saw it in a similar way: Once he had told a story in great detail he needed either some outer force (like the demand of his publisher e.g. rewritings of LotR) or some really great changes in the story to make him work it out completly (e.g. The later Tuor that pattered out when he reach the already very impressivly told Gondolin part, or the later Turin that concentrates on parts that where not covered by the Lay).

That said, I fear the incooperation of the describtion of Tol Eressea from the Eriol stuf of The Lost Tales is not an easy task under our rules. But if we can work it out it would be a worthy addition.

Resprctfully
Findegil