Seeds of Lies by bunn  

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Quite a party

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There had been singing, dancing and feasting all that day, the seventh day of Finarfin’s new Feast of Reuniting, in the great green half-tilted bowl of land, like a huge scoop out of the side of the cliff, that looked out towards the blue waters of the Bay of Avallónë .  It had been almost a natural stage to start with, and Gil-galad and Finrod working together had sculpted the land until the acoustics were perfect and the wide valley side could accommodate a great host, looking down on the performers below them outlined against the sea. 

Now, the sun was going down in the west behind Valinor, hidden from the crowds by the tall heights of Tol Eressëa.  Out in the east, the sky was still a clear blue, turning to a crystal green where it met the sea, but across the island, the long evening shadows were falling.

A choir of golden-haired Vanyar out of Valimar had just finished singing, and elves were busy below, bringing out gold and silver lamps to light the stage and the long terraces that swept up towards the woods.  

Beyond the stage on the sheltered water of the bay, many small craft of the Falmari were lying at anchor, filled with people who had come to hear the music. On the little ships, too, the lights were pricking into life, one by one as the sunlight on the sea faded. 

Celebrían and Finrod her uncle were waiting together for the next singer to come on, looking down from the second terrace, as Fingolfin, Finarfin and the rest of their families and people arrived and began to arrange themselves along the terraces nearby.   Galadriel and Elrond were seated not far away with their hobbit friends. 

“I’m feeling more than slightly amazed,” Finrod said to Celebrían. “Everything has fallen neatly into place.  Nobody has argued yet, and everything is in the right place at the right time.”

Celebrían smiled “Gil-galad was always very good at that!”

“I see now how Gil-galad had such success against Sauron. He is formidably well-organised!   And wonder of wonders,  it even seems that Maglor actually listened  when I asked him to wear something suitable to perform in, lest anyone be insulted that he appear in plain black before my father and Fingolfin.”

Looking down, they could see Maglor, waiting for the lights just below them.  He was wearing a long cloak of a deep glowing blue, patterned with the shapes of holly leaves, fastened with an elaborate cloakpin set with great white stones. Under it he wore a fine black velvet tunic and two great red-gold armrings, marked with Fëanorian stars, that sparkled as he moved.  There were gemstones in his hair too.  

“It’s an enormous relief to my mind,” Finrod said. “I spent absolutely ages working out the most tactful way to bring it up, then when I finally spoke to Maglor about it, he nodded rather vaguely and wandered away humming to himself!” 

Celebrían laughed.  “I don’t think it was all his idea, I’m afraid,” she said.  “The people of the Fëanorian Quarter of Tirion brought gifts with them. You didn’t suggest it to them?  I assumed it was you, since we had discussed how to speak to Maglor tactfully about wearing some good clothes to perform in.”

Finrod shook his golden head. “Not me.  But I might have guessed they would not need much prompting.”

“I don’t know where we’re going to put it all. My house is full of boxes!  If Maglor wants to walk around in the finest silk and velvet with eight-pointed silver stars on everything he wears for the next year, he probably still won’t manage to wear everything they brought him.  I think he is trying to be seen in as many of their gifts as he can manage, though. This is the most impressive yet. Those armrings are very nice.”

Finrod rolled his eyes.  “I bet they have been making them for years, in hope of one day being able to give them to him.  Fëanorians!  Do you know what he’s going to play?  He wouldn’t tell me.”

Celebrían shook her head.  “I do, but I can’t tell you. He made me promise!  I think you won’t be disappointed though.” 

Maglor had stepped out before the crowd into the middle of the stage. He waited, and little by little the crowd fell to quiet, until there was no sound anywhere nearby, save for the sighing of the waves. 

Then the greatest singer of the Noldor began to play.  

He sang first the song of the Downfall of the Noldor, that he had made long ago.  That song tells of darkness falling, kinslaying, division, and fear.  It had never been much sung in Tol Eressëa, for it was made in Middle-earth, and it was never sung lightly, for it carries a great grief with it. But it was familiar to many who gathered there to listen. 

The last notes faded, and now the sky above was dark. Without pausing,  Maglor began to sing a new song, unfamiliar to all. Slow golden notes shining against the darkness, the Defense of the Noldor.  He summoned up a fading hope of peace, shining swords against the dark, and told a tale of the fall of three great kings, Fingolfin, Fingon, and last of all, Turgon of Gondolin.   

Many of those there wept to hear it, for there had been no songs made of Fingolfin’s fall. For too long, that grief had been too great to sing of.  But Fingolfin who had been their High King in Middle-earth was returned to them at last, and now the time for song had come. 

The third song was new as well.  That song was named Return Beyond Hope, and it began in sorrow, with the death of Finrod and of Orodreth, and the loss of Nargothrond.  But then the melody brightened to shining silver as he told of Eärendil and Elwing, of the coming of the Host of Valinor to Beleriand, that Finarfin the High King of the Noldor of Aman had helped to lead, that the Teleri ships of Olwë had carried to the relief of Middle-earth. It told of the victories of that great host, the fall of the Enemy, their return to Aman, and the great work that Finarfin, Eärwen and Finrod, returned from death, had done there, bringing the Noldor back to their white city on the hill and reuniting them with their kin at last.  

A bright theme to end on, that caught at the mind and tongue.  By the second repeat of the chorus, people were starting to sing along with it, and at the end, when Maglor bowed to the audience, they went on singing joyfully, voices filling the great bowl of the hillside, and out on the water beyond the Lonely Isle, lifting high from small boats and great white ships alike, the voices of the Falmari too took up the song beneath the stars.

. . . . . .

It was well past midnight. Across the wide gentle sweep of the open hillside and far off into the scattered birch trees further inland, fires were burning bright beneath the stars. Dancers wove among them, making dark shapes against the flames.  All the hillside was filled with clear voices singing, pipes and lutes and harps playing, and behind the music, the deeper sighing song of the sea.

Elrond wove his way through the fires, greeting old friends and many newfound relatives.  The relatives seemed to be all getting along rather better than he had feared, at least so far. 

He came through an arch of birch-trees, woven with small bright lamps like tiny stars, and found himself caught up in a line of dancers, between his great-great grandmother Anairë and his grandmother Nimloth. 

 Finrod was dancing further down the line, next to someone that Elrond did not know but who from her face and hair was probably his daughter, Faniel. Next to them were Orodreth and his daughter Finduilas, who, someone said, had returned only recently from the Halls of Mandos. Elrond smiled at them, thinking of Arwen, who might dance like this in Gondor. Not with him, not any more, but she and Aragorn would be happy there.  

He wondered where Celebrían had got to.  There could be no risk to her, of course, on Tol Eressëa, far from orcs and wolves, but still perhaps he should reach out to call her and...

No.  Celebrían had lived here for five hundred years, and was so much better now.  Arwen was quite safe, and Aragorn too, and Elladan and Elrohir were... well probably not safe, knowing them, but certainly well able to look after themselves. Erestor was over there, dancing with old friends from Lindon, and those few of Elrond’s people from Rivendell who were not among the dancers or talking around the fires had taken Bilbo safely home to bed. 

There was no need to worry any more. He must lose the habit. 

The dance was an energetic one, and after they had circled the trees three times, Elrond made his excuses and went towards the nearest fire to find something to drink. 

The harpist near the fire was Finrod’s wife, Amárië of the Vanyar, playing quicksilver notes on a harp that was definitely not her own, for it was marked prominently with the eight-pointed rayed Star of Fëanor.  

Elrond waved at her and got a smile in return, helped himself to a cup of water from a jug,  then looked around for the harp’s owner. He was sitting sprawled across a fallen treetrunk, not far from Amárië, talking to the returned High King Fingon.  Next to him was his aunt Lalwen, dressed more for riding, in fine blue leather, than for feasting as the others were, but with a crown of woven daisies set upon her braided hair.  Elrond bowed politely, and Fingon saluted him in return with his cup. 

“You aren’t playing, Maglor?” he said. 

“Oh, Elrond no!”  Maglor said rather wildly. 

“Though all my crimes should be retold,

 I’ll play no more on harps of gold!

Atone for no more sins today.

I’ve no more woeful words to say!

My fingers ache, my throat is sore.

My mind makes circles more and more

I’ve lost count of all that I’m apologising for! ”

Elrond laughed.  

“The greatest singer of his race

Has no more words to ask for grace

And all his songs have gone astray?

I never thought I’d see the day!” he replied.

“Oh no! Don’t encourage him!” Fingon exclaimed. 

Maglor made a face. “I’ve heard too much of Finrod’s verse,” he said. “It climbed into my head! It is the worst!” 

“Maglor!” Amárië objected, laughing over the sound of the harp.  “If you are rude again about my husband’s poetry, I shall stop and make you play the harp again instead!”  

Maglor gave her a horrified look.

“Oh Vanyar lady, kindly playing

I beg, excuse this singer swaying

I can only turn to the last High King

I swore to serve, to his feet cling

And sue for mercy!”

He suited the action to the word and threw himself dramatically down on the grass in front of Fingon.

“It is comfortable here, by Fingon’s feet,” he said indistinctly. “Instead of apologies, I might just sleep.”

Fingon looked up at the stars and laughed.  “He is very drunk,” he told Elrond, unnecessarily. “It might be safest if he does not apologise to anyone else today.  I dread to think what he might say.  Oh no, now I’m doing it!” 

“See?  I told you he was good at kinging,” Maglor declared, from the ground. “Of all the many Noldor Kings, you are my favourite, Fingon.  Don’t tell anyone!”

Fingon shook his head in mock despair.  “I too am drunk, but obviously the House of Fëanor has to do it better.”

Maglor peered up at Elrond looking down at him. “We should have just given them the crown to start with,” he told him. “They’re naturally good at it!  It’s probably the Vanyar bit. The Vanyar are good at kinging kings.  But terrible at making rings and things!”

Fortunately, Lalwen, Amárië and the formidable Fingon only looked amused. “I see what you mean,” Elrond said to Fingon. “I was only wondering where you had got to, Maglor!  I wasn’t going to suggest any more apologies.”

“Good,” Maglor said. “You can be my favourite hostage, Elrond.” 

Fingon prodded Maglor affectionately with a foot. “Shush, Maglor,” he said.  “If you go on talking, you might say something undiplomatic and have to start apologising again!”

“Shushing!” Maglor said. He settled his face on his arms and closed his eyes.  

 

“You may have to carry him, if you want to take him home,” Lalwen said to Elrond, looking amused.   “He may still be able to rhyme, more or less, but then, he seems to do that without thinking, as he does breathing. I doubt he can walk without falling over.” 

Elrond shook his head. “It’s a clear night and a long walk back to Avallónë.  I wasn’t planning to go back myself.  I was looking around for Celebrían, in fact, not Maglor.”

Fingon gave Elrond a dubious look that did not look at all drunken.  “And you have not come to watch your kinslaying cousin?”

Elrond shrugged, a little surprised.  “As distinct from you, my kinslaying great-grand-uncle?  Or my kinslaying great-great-grand-aunt? We’re reuniting here, are we not and forgiving old hurts?”

“We must be.  You have come to the fire of the kinslayers tonight,” Lalwen said.  “Apart from Amárië, of course.”  

Fingon wrinkled his nose in distaste, speaking quietly, below the harpsong. “We presented our apologies to Olwë.  But Maglor is different, isn’t he?”

“The Valar pardoned him,” Elrond said, meeting Fingon’s eyes levelly. “Why should Maglor be different?”

Maglor appeared to be asleep, or at least, if he was still listening, he had his eyes closed and did not move.   

“Oh, come,” Fingon said softly, but there was an edge to his voice.  “Don’t give me that. How many of your kin did he slay?  Can you even count them?”

Elrond considered for a moment.  “I haven’t counted, and it would be hard to be sure about my cousins from the House of Hador anyway. Nobody was keeping very careful track, for a few generations in Hithlum after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. There were not so many escaped the trap of Hithlum to reach the Havens and die there.” 

Fingon narrowed his eyes. “It was the best hope we had left, to attack. Hithlum would have fallen anyway, one way or the other.”

Elrond shrugged. “Of course it would.  I could hardly hold a grudge against you, for going to your death and leaving Hithlum unprotected, and I blame Maglor for attacking the Havens very little more. I blame Morgoth.”

“Do you indeed? Unexpected, that, since it was not Morgoth who attacked the Havens.”  

This was uncannily like having a discussion with Maedhros himself, Elrond thought.  The same sense that the other person was looking at the conversation from several different angles at once, without any real indication which angle was his own.  He wondered if it had been Maedhros or Fingon who had started it.  If this had been Maedhros he was talking to, he would have grinned and asked him, but Fingon was an unknown quantity. Instead he took his time for thought before replying. 

“I have some grasp of strategy, by now, I hope.  In a battle that left a hill of the slain, the enemy were led by dragons and balrogs. There were seven sons of Fëanor leading the Eastern force.  Nobody could call them over-cautious, yet not one of them was killed or captured —  though the Enemy made very sure to get rid of both of you.” He nodded to Lalwen.  “I suspect someone wanted them alive, to use as his tools against us.  That is an approach I saw the master of the Nazgûl use again later on a number of occasions.”

“Perhaps,” Fingon said, looking at him through sceptical, half-closed eyes.  “Though odd things can happen in any battle.”

“True.  But I saw the effect of their oath on both of them, too.  It’s not reasonable to heap blame on someone forced to choose between torments. Particularly not Maedhros.” 

“You don’t think they should have chosen death?” Lalwen threw in.

Elrond raised his eyebrows. “I’m sure my kinsman Húrin would have preferred death to years of torment too, but Morgoth didn’t let him choose, any more than he let Maedhros. Maedhros was rescued once against all hope. For all that I wish he had not attacked the Havens, I can’t honestly blame him for being reluctant to return and be suspended by the other hand, can you? ”

Fingon for the first time seemed unsettled. He winced.  “When you put it like that...Poor Húrin. ”

“Yes. One can only blame the Enemy: he’d be delighted to think we were still blaming each other, don’t you think?  I forgave Maglor and Maedhros for Doriath and the Havens long ago. I would have tried to forgive Elros’s descendants, if they’d given me the chance.” He looked doubtfully at the former High King of the Noldor. “Surely you don’t still blame them? I remember Maedhros saying you’d have sharp words for him, but later, I thought that might just be Maedhros being Maedhros. Or at least, I hoped so.”

A smile crept across Fingon’s face in the firelight. “I think I like you, Elrond,” he said. “I have spoken with Maedhros in the Halls of Mandos. I forgave him: there seemed no point in carrying a grudge.  Though you might say it’s easy for me to say that, I’m a kinslayer too...  But I wasn’t sure, at first, why you brought Maglor with you.   It seemed an odd choice for Elwing and Eärendil’s son.  It crossed my mind when we first heard of it, to wonder if you were his friend, or his gaoler.”

“Really,” Elrond said, very unimpressed. “Well, now you know.”

  

“So I do. Yet the House of Fëanor is followed by the wrath of the Valar.  Mandos has foretold that Fëanor will stay in the Halls until the breaking of the world.  That’s how his story runs.”

“The wrath of the Valar follows them still, across seven thousand years and more?” 

Maglor turned over restlessly on the grass and put his arm across his face.  

Lalwen sipped her wine and made an annoyed face.  “I, and Fingolfin’s house, were honoured guests in the Halls of Mandos, though guests not yet allowed to choose to leave.  The House of Fëanor are prisoners. There is a difference. You see why we wondered about Maglor. The Oath and Doom sets them apart. It set my brother Fëanor apart, even before his sons attacked Doriath.”

“Even Celebrimbor,” Elrond said unhappily.  The news that Celebrimbor was still in the Halls of Mandos had troubled him since he had first heard it.  “Celebrimbor only hoped a little too much that evil was over and forgotten, and there was time to build the world anew.  Surely it’s clear to everyone why he, of all people, followed that hope!  No matter what Sauron did to him, I can’t imagine Celebrimbor choosing to sit idle forever.”
 
“He’s of the House of Fëanor,” Lalwen said grimly. “The rest of us had the choice to do what my little brother Finarfin did and turn away.  I suppose that really is what we’ve done now, Fingon, even if they don’t count anything that went before.” 

Fingon, topping up his cup with wine from a tall blue jug marked with the flames of the House of Finarfin, nodded. 

 “The House of Fëanor don’t have that choice.  Mind you, I don’t think they would choose it if they could.” Fingon looked down at Maglor sprawled on the grass near the fire.  “Much as his father annoys me, I don’t think they should have to,” he said, and frowned. 

 

“And yet the Valar pardoned Maglor and let him return here,” Elrond said.  “I hope they will allow Maedhros and his brothers to do the same —  if they wish to return.  I wanted to speak to you both about that.”

Fingon shook his head.  Gold-wrapped braids shifted and glistened in the firelight. “Mandos has only once been moved to pity, and that was not for the House of Fëanor. Perhaps the Valar are divided, it’s not unknown. Who did you ask about Maglor?”

“Ulmo, of course.  Our part of the family all speak to Ulmo.”  

Lalwen said. “Of course. And if any of the Valar would be prepared to agree to such a request, remembering who it was that asked,  it would probably be Ulmo. Ulmo, or Nienna.”

“Or Manwë?” Fingon suggested. 

“Manwë was prepared to help my most notorious nephews, after all.  Perhaps Manwë himself then,” Lalwen said and gave him a smile. “But, Elrond, is it possible that Mandos considers he has only agreed that Maglor could be left in your custody?  Mandos has not forgiven my brother Fëanor, nor his children.”

“I hope that’s not how Maglor sees it,” Elrond said, troubled. It seemed all too likely, on consideration, that Maglor might see it that way, too. “I asked Maglor to come with me to Aman as one of my family,  a friend, not a prisoner!”  He paused for a moment to calm his mind.  “Perhaps we could speak more of this later.  I’d like to ask Maglor what he thinks, and it seems unfair to wake him.  Also he’ll give clearer answers when sober and not looking for a rhyme! I would like to hear Celebrían’s opinion of what you have said, and Finrod’s.” He looked across the fire “And Amárië’s too, perhaps?”

“Well,” Amárië said across the harp.  “I must say, it is nice to be asked, for once. Thank you, Elrond! You know, I would have come to Middle-earth with Finrod, if it had been my choice. I was not permitted, and ever since, people have been assuming I have no opinion.  I am not sorry to have missed the horror of it, mind you.  But I shall certainly come along and offer my uninformed views!  I’ll expect to be told I’m wrong, but the chance is far too good to miss.” 

“Oh, well,” Lalwen said drily.  “It’s a mistake,  waiting for them to ask, or waiting for permission.  You won’t catch Galadriel doing that.  Or me, for that matter.”

“Noted,” Amárië said, a little coolly.  Lalwen shrugged and sipped her wine.

“Shall we meet at my house then, in three days time, to take counsel?” Elrond suggested.  Fingon nodded. 

“You’ll want Fingolfin, too,” Lalwen said. “There’s no point asking Findis or my mother about anything involving Fëanor or his sons. But I’ll bring Fingolfin and Anairë.”

“Finrod will want to come,” Amárië said, her fingers still moving on the harp. 

“Very well then,” Maglor said, without moving from where he lay on the ground beside the fire. 

“I thought you were asleep,” Elrond said to him. 

“It turned into the kind of conversation that I find sobering. Hard to sleep through.”  Maglor’s usually clear resonant voice sounded unusually harsh and choked, and his face in the firelight shone wet.  

“I’m sorry, Maglor,” Elrond said, concerned. “We could have left this for another time.”

“Don’t you start, or we shall never be done with apologies.”  Maglor pulled himself up to a sitting position and leant rather precariously against the fallen tree that Fingon was sitting on. “I have drunk too much.  I was trying to weep only for those we killed. Shouldn’t be weeping for the kinslayers.”

Fingon looked down at him, then slid down to sit on the grass next to Maglor, and put his arm around his shoulder.  “Someone should,” he said.  “They aren’t only kinslayers.”*  

“I thought you said you found my father annoying?” Maglor said, looking rather stiff and ready to be offended.  Fortunately, Fingon seemed not at all taken aback. 

“Maglor, don’t be daft.  I find my father annoying sometimes. That’s what fathers are like! Particularly our fathers! It doesn’t mean I didn’t weep for him.  You weep if you want to.  Then, in three days,  we’ll have our council, and make a plan.”  

Maglor looked at him for a moment, then slumped a little against his cousin, and put his face in his hands.  “I’m glad you came back,” he said through his fingers, to Fingon. “Rescuing people is your thing, not mine.  I was never any good at it.  Even in that last battle. Tears unnumbered.  We did try, Fingon, honestly we did, all of us, not just Maedhros.  We couldn’t get through to you.  It all went wrong after that.”

“Shush, Maglor,” Fingon said again, and squeezed his shoulder. “We said no more apologising tonight.”

“I’ll get you some water,” Elrond said to Maglor. “You are probably going to have a headache.”  

******

Maglor walked in a dream as crystal-clear as memory along the long-vanished quays of the Havens of Sirion, smelling the smoke, hearing the cries of Men and Elves long dead, seeking the Silmaril.  In his hand a bloody sword, at his back a little group of Noldor whose wary smudged faces mirrored his own in the red morning light.  Behind him, the bodies of Elves and Men that he had slain lay strewn across the quayside.  The smell of the blood mixed with the smell of drying seaweed.  Ahead, he could hear new voices calling out to one another and his head went up, ready to give chase.  They had not found Elwing, yet. 

The voices did not sound afraid.  He untangled himself from the dream as quickly as he could, becoming alert.  He should be able to get away unseen if he moved slowly and stayed low.  Elves did not usually come so far north along the shore. They would not be expecting to see him, so with luck, they would not. 

One of the voices was not right.  There were no Halflings at the Havens of Sirion, or on the far shores north of Lindon.  It was saying his name. 

“Maglor?  Did you want to come and have breakfast? Tithen has cooked some excellent mushrooms.” 

He shivered into full wakefulness, and blinked.  Oh, yes. Tol Eressëa.  

Frodo was looking down at him looking rather amused.  “You know, the Tooks have songs about people who went off with the Elves and woke years later on some cold hillside.  You look rather as though that has happened to you.  I didn’t think it was supposed to happen to the Elves themselves!” 

Maglor sat up and shook his head.  Someone had put a blanket over him.  He was on a grassy hill not far above the sea.  Up above there were tents and pavilions and a cheerful smell of breakfast, and the voices he had heard were mostly coming from there.  Some of the voices were rather closer, from a group of people who had once been riders on the fields of Lothlann, who were now doing a terrible job of pretending they had not appointed themselves to be his unofficial bodyguard.  

“Save me some mushrooms!” he said to Frodo.  “I will just go and wash.”  

He gave the unofficial bodyguard the most severe look that he could muster.  “You lot are supposed to be proving you can talk civilly to the Gondolodrim and the Doriathrim, without causing poor Finrod headaches,” he said to them.  “Go on.  Find some Gondolodrim and share breakfast with them.”   

Elior, who was certainly not their captain because they were not at war and would not be again, gave Maglor, who was definitely not his lord any more, an ironic salute. Maglor gave him a suitably reproving look, and headed down to the sea.

He wondered, uncomfortably, if they had not died in Dagor Bragollach or Nirnaeth Arnoediad, which of them would have turned on him at the Havens, and whether he could have killed Elior, if he had needed to.  Probably he would have done.  It was best  not to think too much about that. 

He went to find Frodo instead, to ask about the songs of the Tooks and find the breakfast of mushrooms.  He found him just finishing off a second breakfast in company with Elrond, sitting on a stool outside a tall white pavilion that was decked with Celebrían’s banners, and joined them. 

“Well, I don’t suppose the songs are true!” Frodo said, when Maglor asked.  “Any more than the story that one of the Tooks once took a fairy wife.  But it makes for a good tale to tell.”

“What is a fairy?” Maglor asked him, intrigued.  Frodo had used the Westron word, as he often did when he did not know the term in Quenya, but on this occasion, Maglor could make no sense of the image that ran across the surface of the hobbit’s strange mind. 

“Fairies... Oh well.  They are supposed to be something like a small elf, I believe, with wings.”  Frodo considered, looking up at Maglor over the mushrooms.  “A very very small elf.  Smaller than a hobbit. ”  

“A hobbit-elf?  With wings?  I never heard of such a thing! Are there many of them? Where do they live?”

“I’m not sure they live anywhere, really,” Frodo admitted smiling.  “There are a lot of stories about Elves in the Shire, and of course, there have been Elves travelling through to the Grey Havens since long before the Shire was the Shire.  But I think the wings might be someone having a bit of fun.   Like the Took stolen away by the Elves, who woke on the cold hillside.  I don’t suppose it was really years later.  A couple of weeks, more likely!  Time can seem a little peculiar when there are Elves about, for us. But surely, not that peculiar.”

“But you don’t remember which part of the story is true? Is that not very inconvenient?”

Frodo laughed. “ I suppose it is, but no, we often don’t remember, I’m afraid.  It’s hard to tell with these traditional stories that are handed down over the years.  Nobody remembers quite how they got started, or which bits of them might have a kernel of truth to them.  And some of them are definitely just made up just for fun. Aren’t your songs like that?” 

“Well, there are parts that are not intended literally, of course,” Maglor said. “Not in the sense of fine detail. Songs can tell the stories that can shape the world.  Sometimes the shaping is not for precision, but for the heart.”

“Some of our songs do have a great number of different inconsistent versions,” Elrond said.  “That was why I first started to ask for them to be written down, to collect them into a library.  It became clear that there were a great number where nobody could remember how they were true.  Memory is no longer a sure resource when so many have died.” 

 
“Your story says you never came back among the Elves,” Frodo pointed out to Maglor.  “And you are definitely among the Elves now.  That doesn’t seem like a fine detail.”
 
“I suppose I am.  Perhaps the story is true as it is first sung, either to shape the world or to reflect it, until it changes into something else?  When the tale was written down, it was quite true that I never came back among the Elves.  But then Elrond wrote a new verse.  All things change, even Elves and mountains.  I wonder if the changes come faster by the shores of the Sea, which remembers all things, but changes them constantly?” 
 
“There’s a version of your story that one of my librarians recorded in the early days in Lindon which said you had thrown yourself into the sea with the Silmaril,” Elrond put in. “It gave me a most unpleasant shock when I read it.” 
 
“I wonder where that one came from? Wishful thinking, probably!  I suppose that it is true, in a sense, as well.  But the shores of northern Lindon are not so daunting.  The beaches are sandy, and the currents not, in late summer or early autumn, dangerous. The water is a little cold, admittedly, but still, I threw myself into the Sea on many occasions!  Though not quite like that. Then I got out again and dried off. That last bit is most unpoetic, admittedly.  I would never put someone climbing out of the sea and jumping up and down to get warmed up, into a song.”
 
“Unless it was intentionally comic, perhaps?”  Frodo asked, laughing.  “We have a lot of comic songs in the Shire.  Some of them, I am sure cannot be true.  The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late, for example.  That’s one of Bilbo’s and I’m sure there’s no truth in it at all!”

Of course, then they had to hear Frodo tell The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late all the way through, and try to work out if any of it could possibly be true. It seemed unlikely, though Tilion, the pilot of the Moon,  did of course have something of a taste for unconventional behaviour, so it was not quite impossible that he might have left the Moon somewhere that a cow could jump over it.  

“Surely the Elves do sing comic songs too?” Frodo asked. 
 
“Of course we do,” Maglor told him “I thought they were something of a speciality in Rivendell?  A song can be comical and true at once, I think.  I have not written many comic songs myself. Perhaps I should try it.  I’d much rather be in a comic song than in a tragedy. ”  
 
Elrond gave him a doubtful look. “I don’t believe you have ever been in a comic song in your life!”   
 
“That’s all you know,” Maglor said, and laughed, partly at the look on Elrond’s face, and partly because despite everything, here he was among friends again at last, and after all, he had not had to kill Elior, even though he had killed the others.  He would go and find Elior, in a little while, and tell him about Tooks and fairies and the Man in the Moon. It would make him laugh.  “Did I never sing you the one about the pigs, that Fingon made?  I was young once, too, you know!  I’ll sing it for you.”