History, Legend, Myth, Truth by Lferion
Fanwork Notes
Written for Silmarillion Writer's Guild On a Different Page challenge, for the prompt: "Legend and History have met and fused." ~ "On Fairy Stories" and the Fan Flashworks challenge Brush, posted here.
On AO3 here.
Many thanks go to Zhie & Runa for encouragement & sanity-checking.
The Feanturi (the four Valar not present in this piece) have their own poem: Feanturi Sequence
- Fanwork Information
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Summary:
Fingon writes a poem and thinks about truth of various kinds.
Major Characters: Fingon
Major Relationships: Fingon & Manwë
Genre: Fixed-Length Ficlet, General, Poetry
Challenges: On a Different Page
Rating: General
Warnings:
Chapters: 1 Word Count: 412 Posted on Updated on This fanwork is complete.
History, Legend, Myth, Truth
Read History, Legend, Myth, Truth
Brush aside the withy-stems
The yellow willow flowers
Look between the slender twigs
And see the dancing Powers
Vana and Yavanna step
A counter-point of hours
Gold and silver shining forth
On meadow-lark and bowers
O clamber midst the singing stones
Where roots and pebbles scour
The little pathways lizards run
The rocks where slithers cower
Tulkas and Orome ride
Through light and shadow dour
Watchful in both wood and field
Where distant mountains lour
Leaf and blossom scent the glade
Where the darkness never glowers
Figures glimmer, reach and turn
That such vigor might be ours!
Nessa, dancing love and war
Swiftly moves, unveils, empowers
Este, healing all who ask
Athelas despair devours
Look beyond the peaks and plains
The waters sweet and sour
Where kindreds gather, make and dream
Of ships and shipwrights, mills and flour
Aule, Maker, Ulmo, sea,
Snowmelt, stream, mist and shower
Forge and fire, knowledge, strength
Stone and mortar make a tower
Starlight shimmers in the wind
All of heaven Varda's dower
Manwe's Eagles wheel and soar
Ears alert to every vower
What is Myth, what history
Where legend sings of power
Art all true, now, near and far
In present moment, distant hour
Fingon looked at what his pen had wrought. His long-ago tutors would call it over-wrought, excessively flowery and downright frivolous. But not untrue. How could they, when the Valar were palpably present in the land they lived in. Aule taught Elves, Nessa danced in many groves, he knew beyond any doubt that the air in Middle Earth was Manwe's breath. But most in Middle Earth did not have that surety.
What was he, after all? Only a tale, a myth, a legend, a hero of songs. What did song-Fingon have to do with history-Fingon? Very little, even when they were both him, and he knew the truth of both in his bones, his blood, his fea. And he could -- he often did -- walk down the streets of Tirion, of Cir Ondolinde, of Valmar, Alqualonde and Avallone unrecognized. Only a Noldo, no-one important.
Flowery or severe, old-fashioned or up-to-the-minute, songs, tales, poems spoke truths that remained. That were still true, as myth, as legend, as windows on history. The words were about more than the Valar. Slowly, deliberately, Fingon dipped his pen in the ink and scribed in a strong hand across the top of the sheet:
History, Legend, Myth, Truth
I wonder if it occurs to…
I wonder if it occurs to Fingon that his long-ago tutors might think differently now? Even if they didn't go to Beleriand, history and experience impact everyone...
Lovely poetry!
Thank you! I'm glad the…
Thank you! I'm glad the poetry spoke.
If he thought about it, I think Fingon would figure that they might have different opinions/attitudes now. He might even ask them, should the opportunity arise. That could be interesting. Thank you for the idea!