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Of Finrod and Bëor  by losselen

A manuscript of this translation of The Lay of Felagund was brought from the library of Elrond in Imladris by King Elessar in FA 22. Copies were made of much Elven-lore in Imladris, to be studied and preserved in the North and South Kingdoms. A second translation of Finrod and Bëor survives as well, but only in smaller fragments. The beginning is rendered thus:

In eastern lands there once a wood
that under Ered Luin stood,
dense with boughs and thickets grey;
and in its eaves did Finrod stray.

Unhorsed he wandered under trees
by flowers nodding in the breeze
he trod the valley’s secret ways
in woodlands of the Elder Days.
He walked in streaming waters cold
when spring was young upon the mould.
He silent passed its walls of stone
in Thargelion, he walked alone.

As dusk and dawn both passed him by
in wheeling stars in eastern sky
rose bright the Sun and cold the Moon.
The ever-changing night and noon
alike fell yet on Finrod-king:
Of marks of lordship, save a ring
in flowing gold-work, he wore none;
though of his ring now songs are sung.



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Author's Notes:


This monstrously long poem took almost 10 years to write!

Several phrases, rhymes and lines are borrowed from various Tolkien poems—e.g. “grey the Norland waters [run]” (Bilbo’s Song of Eärendil) and “silver fire / of old that Men did call the Briar” (used several times in the Lay of Leithian), among many others. Of course the writerly reason is that sometimes I can’t resist how beautiful the imagery are, or that I’m not sufficiently inventive myself. And yet I think these lyric echoes are also true in a in-universe sense: in Medieval ballads can be found similar stock phrases or allusive echoes to older or contemporaneous poems. Therefore it’s nice to think of these echoes as evincing the poem’s literary lineage.





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