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| 'Moored' by West Gate. Photo copyright Julie Sincliar |
The Lord of the Rings is perhaps his best-known book, and it contains many allusions to the sea, ships, and seafaring, especially in its Appendix A (see below for more about the great legend of Numenor and the Dunedain). But the most detailed story of seafaring in the main text of LotR involves Aragorn. With the help of his companions, and the ghostly Oathbreakers, he takes over the Black Ships of the corsairs and sails them up the great river Anduin to relieve the beleaguered forces defending Minas Tirith. Is this truly seafaring? The ships have come from the distant coastal region of Umbar, and only on the last part of their journey are they sailing on a river. Aragorn worries about the lack of wind to fill the sails of the ships and these are slave galleys, not simple rowing boats. So the ships at least can be said to have been seafaring.
Angela Nicholas of the Southfarthing has commented on Aragorn's seafaring:
Although the actual ships of the corsairs were seafaring, Aragorn himself didn't intercept them until Pelargir which was nearly 150 miles up river. However near the end of LotR Appendix AI (iv) some more light is shed on this. When Aragorn was in his forties he served Ecthelion Steward of Gondor under the incognito of Thorongil. Thorongil is described as “a great leader of men, by land or by sea”. He realised the threat of the corsairs and persuaded Ecthelion to let him gather a small fleet. He then sailed to Umbar and attacked by night taking the corsairs by surprise. Having destroyed a lot of their ships he then overthrew the Captain of the Haven in battle on the quays. His own fleet suffered only small losses. This episode was right at the end of his service in Gondor so he must presumably have acquired a lot of seafaring experience in the years leading up to it to be capable of leading a fleet.
Aragorn saw himself as a sea-king - at his coronation he repeated the words spoken by Elendil when he landed on Middle-earth: “Out of the Great Sea to Middle-earth I am come...”
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| Black-headed gull. Photo copyright David Forest-Hill |
Aragorn was not the only member of the Company of the Nine Walkers for whom the sea was significant. Legolas the Elf from Mirkwood far in the north of Middle-earth found the Lady Galadriel's prophecy coming true as he accompanied Aragorn into Pelargir. She had warned Legolas to beware of the crying of the gulls, after he heard them his mind was never free of a 'sea-longing'.
Angela adds two further observations:
I guess one could say that Queen Beruthiel and her cats were seafaring - though unwillingly so! (Unfinished Tales, Note 7 in the chapter on the Istari).
Círdan and his ship-building had a crucial role in Tolkien’s seafaring activities. There is an incredibly poignant passage in HoM-e V12 (Part Two Chapter 13 in a short section headed Círdan) describing how Círdan longed to sail West with the rest of the Teleri in the First Age, but received a message from the Valar telling him to remain in Middle-earth and perfect his ship-building which would be of great importance in the years to come. This was followed by a vision of Eärendil's ship sailing across the sky.
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Among Tolkien's many other tales we could begin by looking at Roverandom, the story of a little toy dog who is lost at the seaside by his Boy. During his adventures Roverandom (the name of the toy dog) goes on a sea journey in the company of Uin the whale.
This charming story is perhaps less well known than the stories of seafarers in The Silmarillion. The most famous of these are the stories of Eärendil and Elwing, and of the seafarers of Numenor.
Eärendil eventually sails up from the seas into the sky wearing on his brow the white gem that is the last Silmaril. Ever after, he sails as the brightest star across the sky. Elwing was his wife, and when Eärendil sailed away, she turned into a white sea bird so she could follow him.
Eärendil's mother, the elf-maiden Idril Celebrindal was involved in seafaring when she married Tuor of the race of Men because he had had a deep desire for the sea, being a messenger for the Lord of Waters to Idril's father. When the hidden valley in which they dwelt was over-run by orcs and other evil things Idril and Tuor and their son Eärendil settled near the coast and took to building ships and seafaring. Eventually in old age Tuor sailed away into the West, an honour reserved for those of the elvish kindreds was thus bestowed only on this one Man.
The fate of one of the great seafaring Elvish kindreds is also told in 'The Flight of the Noldor', in The Silmarillion. In this chapter the white swan-ships of the Teleri are burned by their kinsmen under the command of Feanor, the impetuous creator of the Silmarils.
Of all the stories that Tolkien created, one links most profoundly the great mythology of The Silmarillion with the legendary romance of The Lord of the Rings, and that is the story of the great island of Numenor.
The story of Numenor is long and complex. Tolkien wrote a number of versions of the stories set on the great island realm. The Fall of Numenor has been regarded as Tolkien's version of the Atlantis myth. The stories surrounding have biblical, historical, and mythical echoes.
The Numenoreans in their heyday included Men who were explorers. Some sailed in great ships to the East, discovering the lands of Middle-earth where much of The Lord of the Rings would be played out in a later age. Other Numenoreans were arrogant and intent on contesting the will of the great power that dwelt in the far West. For this disobedience the whole island was destroyed, sunk beneath the waves in a cataclysmic event that changed the shape and form of Middle-earth.
Those Numenoreans, or Dunedain (Men of the West), who escaped the destruction sailed to the lands already discovered and settled there. The last survivors of this race participate in the battles of the Third Age. Without their seafaring skill none of the race of Numenor would have survived. However, their colonisation of the lands that we know as Gondor and Arnor was not without controversy as they supplanted other races.
Fragments of the story of Numenor and its inhabitants can be found throughout The Lord of the Rings, but for the Drowning of Numenor see The Akallabeth, in The Silmarillion.
Of all the stories set in Numenor, the tale of Aldarion and Erendis is most poignant, as his love of seafaring and exploration slowly destroyed their love. This story is found in Unfinished Tales.
One of the more unusual stories of seafaring in Tolkien's work is found in The Notion Club Papers. The 2 parts of this story have been edited by Christopher Tolkien and can be found in Sauron Defeated, part 4 of The History of the Lord of the Rings.
The Notion Club Papers are unusual in their form and content as they blend Tolkien's scholarship in Anglo-Saxon with contemporary geography and history, and references to the characters and places in his Legendarium. There are also references to Imram, Tolkien's poetic version of the death of St Brendan the Voyager (see the section here on Poetry), but the characters who make up the Notion Club also go seafaring, travelling to Cornwall, Devon, Ireland and Scotland, as far as Mull.
There are many other references to seafaring of all kinds in most of Tolkien's major works, and to the mariners to undertake hazardous voyages out of pride, despair, or love. No summary or overview can do justice to the beauty of Tolkien's prose and poetry when he is writing of the sadness of separation that often accompanies his stories of seafaring.
