The Elf's Lullaby by Anérea
Fanwork Notes
Inspired by The elf's lullaby, a melody composed and played by Aprilertuile on harp.
Aprilertuile's instrumental piece along with her photo of the wood triggered a poignant childhood memory of a traditional rhyme, Babes in the Wood, that affected me deeply as a young child. I had felt such strong empathy for the babes in the illustrations, who looked about my own age, that I cut them out of my sister's Treasury of Poetry so I could cuddle and comfort them. Fortunately the pictures were rescued and taped back in the book.
I set out to cuddle and comfort the babes again here, but I discovered they had their own tale to tell…
~*~
My immense appreciation to my betas Raiyana and Idril's Scribe for valuable suggestions and some choice phrases, and without whom a time-machine would have been required to navigate my tenses. All remaining flaws are due entirely to my naive stubbornness.
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Summary:
A pair of young twins are lost in the wood.
In the tradition of folktales changing over time, I've written three endings, narrated in different voices. So this tale comes in three sizes: happy, medium, and sad. (And I'm not entirely sure myself which is which.)Major Characters: Original Character(s), Original Female Character(s), Original Male Character(s), Maglor, Men
Major Relationships:
Artwork Type: No artwork type listed
Challenges:
Rating: Teens
Warnings:
Chapters: 3 Word Count: 2, 119 Posted on 31 December 2021 Updated on 12 January 2022 This fanwork is complete.
Table of Contents
These are Edain children, descendants of the House of Hador which retained its ancient tongue, and since Tolkien derived Taliska from Gothic, I'm doing my best to follow suit, although these are very simple and rather anonymous.
• Mageth is derived from magaths meaning girl or maiden in Gothic
• Magor is derived from magus for boy (although it also means 'swordsman' in Sindarin and was the name of Malach's son/Adanel's brother)
A different version of events is related...
(The narrator is no poet. I’m sure the bard's original version was absolutely beautiful, and utterly heart wrenching.)
Yet another, rather more fanciful, version of events...
(By this stage it would seem the tale has gone through many iterations over the years of retellings, merging with a few other bits of Mannish folklore as well.)
Comments
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Anérea has requested the following types of constructive criticism on this fanwork: Characterization, Description/Imagery, Mood/Tone, Organization/Structure, Pacing, Plot, Point of View, Sensitivity Read, Setting, Spelling, Grammar, and Mechanics, Style, Worldbuilding. All constructive criticism must follow our diplomacy guidelines.