Ælfwine (Tolkien)

In The Book of Lost Tales, begun early in Tolkien's writing career, the character who becomes Ælfwine was initially named Ottor Wǽfre (called Eriol by the Elves).

[3] Tolkien felt that this complex "double textuality" was critically important, giving the effect of being a real mythology, a collection of documents assembled and edited by different hands, whether Ælfwine's or Bilbo's or those of unnamed Númenóreans who had transmitted ancient Elvish texts, over a long period of time.

One likely source for such a treatment, remarked by scholars including Tom Shippey, Flieger, Anne C. Petty, and Jason Fisher, is Elias Lönnrot's Finnish epic Kalevala, admired by Tolkien, which had been compiled and edited from a genuine tradition.

[9][6] The Hobbit Frodo Baggins, a central figure in The Lord of the Rings, is given the informal title "Elf-friend" by an Elf, Gildor, whom he meets and addresses in Elvish.

[T 4] The Tolkien scholar Verlyn Flieger notes that this associates him with Ælfwine; she comments further that in the discussion between him and Sam Gamgee, Aragorn, and Legolas about the nature of time in the Elvish realm of Lothlórien, it endows him with a special authority as someone "unusually sensitive" to its mood, and in particular its "timeless quality".

For example, the Narn i Hîn Húrin, which Christopher Tolkien dates to the period after the publication of The Lord of the Rings,[T 5] has this introductory note: "Here begins that tale which Ǽlfwine made from the Húrinien.

"[T 6] Tolkien never fully dropped the idea of multiple 'voices' (such as of Rumil or Pengolodh in their "Golden Book") who supposedly collected the stories of both Mannish and Elvish sources over the millennia of the world's history.

[3] According to Christopher Tolkien, the Akallabêth, which was written in the voice of Pengolodh, in a version that his father had entitled "The Downfall of Númenor", begins "Of Men, Ælfwine, it is said by the Eldar that they came into the world in the time of the Shadow of Morgoth ..." He admits in the History of Middle-earth series that removing this destroyed the whole story's anchorage in the lore of the Eldarin elves, and led him to make changes to the end of the paragraph that would not have met with his father's approval.

[T 7] This later Ælfwine was from England, and travelled west to reach the Straight Road, where he either visited the Lonely Island (Tol Eressëa) or only saw its Golden Book with the stories about the Elder Days, the time before the rule of Man, at a distance, or dreamed about the Outer Lands (Middle-earth).