Seeking the Wayward Children of Numenor
© Michael Martinez
Something should be said about the founding of Arnor and Gondor, but it's not easy to assign the establishment of the Dunadan realms in exile their proper place in the Tolkien legendarium. In letter 276, written to Dick Plotz of the Tolkien Society of America in 1965, JRRT said, "...Of all the mythical or 'archetypal' images this is the one most deeply seated in my imagination, and for many years I had a recurrent Atlantis dream: the stupendous and ineluctable wave advancing from the Sea or over the land, sometimes dark, sometimes green and sunlit."
One gets the impression that Tolkien was immensely moved by this legend, and yet only the year before he had told Christopher Bretherton, in letter 257, "Another ingredient, not before mentioned, also came into operation in my need to provide a great function for Strider-Aragorn. What I might call my Atlantis-haunting. This legend or myth or dim memory of some ancient history has always troubled me. In sleep I had the dreadful dream of the ineluctable Wave, either coming out of the quiet sea, or coming in over the green inlands. It still occurs occasionally, though now exorcized by writing about it. It always ends by surrender, and I awake gasping out of deep water. I used to draw it or write bad poems about it...."
Here again he admits to being moved by it, and yet concedes that it only entered the world of Middle-earth as a resolution for his "need to provide a great function for Strider-Aragorn." The incorporation of the Atlantis legend was easy enough in that respect. Tolkien had already written an early version of the Downfall ("The Drowning of Anadune") and he had the primary characters defined. But he had yet to contrive the aftermath of the Downfall, and to work it fully into Middle-earth. Elendil's kingdom, for example, started out in Beleriand (more of which had survived in early efforts to map out this strange new world than eventually decided upon for the published stories).
A common though occasional question asked by Tolkien readers is how many people Elendil could have fit upon his nine ships. In "Akallabeth" it is made clear that Elendil and his people stayed in ships in the harbor of Romenna for some considerable period of time.
But Elendil did all that his father had bidden, and his ships lay off the east coast of the land; and the Faithful put aboard their wives and their children, and their heirlooms, and great store of goods. Many things there were of beauty and power, such as the Numenoreans had contrived in the days of their wisdom, vessels and jewels, and scrolls of lore written in scarlet and black. And Seven Stones they had, the gift of the Eldar; but in the ship of Isildur was guarded the young tree, the scion of Nimloth the Fair. Thus Elendil held himself in readiness, and did not meddle in the evil deeds of those days; and ever he looked for a sign that did not come. Then he journeyed in secret to the western shores and gazed out over the sea, for sorrow and yearning were come upon him, and he greatly loved his father. But naught could he descry save the fleets of Ar-Pharazon gathering in the havens of the west.
The copyright of the article Seeking the Wayward Children of Numenor in J.R.R. Tolkien is owned by Michael Martinez. Permission to republish Seeking the Wayward Children of Numenor in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
