Written for and first posted in the thread Eluchil’s Tea Room on the Prancing Pony forum

Eluchil sings a plaintive melody. He switches seemlessly to the elven tongue. After a few verses he stops and the patrons look up suprised.

“That song is lovely but in the Silvan speech now known to few. I will try to render it into the Common tongue so that you can hear the story as well as the emotion.”

Eluchil stums the lyre and picks a slightly different key as he continues:

“The land was lovely wide and green

The woods were yet young and unspoilt

Never was shadow frightening seen

When elves yet freely walked abroad.

They sang with joy for young they were

And spoke the secret tongue of trees

No hideousness to frighten here

Amid the world of woven trees.

And yet the shadow did assail

Great hosts of men walked far and wide

The elves they hid to no avail

Their forest home it would not last.

So now they seek the vanished West

Their hope now lies beyond the world

Yet in these lands they did their best

Their brightest banners here unfulred.

Alas for that which could not be

For more than the appointed days

Now fair lands new sorrows see

And catch the suns last dying rays.”

He finished exhausted and sang no more that evening but played on for a time with slow sad chords that tugged at the heart of those who heard.

This was first written for and posted to the epic Freedom thread on the Prancing Pony forum

As he walked under the speading mellyrn he began to sing. It was a song of the most ancient of days before the Sundering of the elves–before the knew nought of darkness or fear. The song was in the elven tongue. Indeed the Sylvan speech of his youngest days, not the Sindarin of the West Elves, but this is how it ran in the Common Speech near enough:

By the twilit mere of Cuiviénen the first Elves awoke

With young and joyous voices the first three Fathers spoke

Imin, Tata, and Enel were named the Fathers three

And with their wives the belhed the stars–a glorious sight to see

Now merrily the walked about and found the parentless elves

And thus a hearty people formed, of like mind with themselves

They sang and spoke and learned and made; they were happy young and free

Before in fear they fled away and marched down toward the Sea

The people of Imin, the Minyar, were the fairest of them all

With golden hair and shining eyes they were glorious and tall

The people of Tata, the Tatyar, were dark haired and wise

The seeking for knowledge and study of words was to them a prize

The people of Enel, the Neldar, loved to laugh and sing

They always dwelt by the waterfall and heard its mighty ring

They are named the Lindar, the Singers loud and strong

Singing with words or without them they make a merry throng

And thus the tale of the ancient elves draws, alas, to a close

For darkness spread about the world and terror their hearts froze

Yet ever does the memory of the rivulet and the fall

By which the forst three elves awaoke dwell in the heart of them all”