Author's Notes

Númenor
While the scene that I have written is my own, all other details of this come from 'Aldarion and Erendis' from Unfinished Tales. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend that you do, if, for nothing else, to glimpse one of Tolkien's most fleshed-out marriages. There it is noted: "Of Erendis it is said that when old age came upon her, neglected by Ancalimë and in bitter loneliness, she longed once more for Aldarion; and learning that he was gone from Númenor on what proved to be his last voyage but that he was soon expected to return, she left Emerië at last and journeyed unrecognised and unknown to the haven of Rómenna." There, it seems, she met her fate; but only the words 'Erendis perished in water in the year 985' remain to suggest how it came to pass.

Thanks to Aerinniel for the Quenya 'falling-star' term.

Buckland, Chapter 2
The tune that inspired Mirabella's song is The Ash Grove, a traditional Welsh tune. A poet I am not, but I hope that it does sound remotely like a hobbit song that has been around for awhile.

Baskets of thanks to 'my' Hamish: for his Hobbit surname list, his ideas for names of Bucklandish taverns (which I used), and for not minding me inserting his name in this chapter, which seems surprisingly hobbitish.

Thanks also to Mordomin for beta-reading this, giving very helpful comments, and 'getting' all of the disguised Tolkien-canon references scattered through the stories.

---

Return to Fanfiction listings

Home