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The summer I turned twenty-nine, when my brother Almeon was just newly twenty, our store of amusements was beginning to run dry. Our cousins, who had until then been our family’s most intimate friends — for our fathers were brothers, and our mothers twin sisters — had moved south to Alqualondë, and in their absence our peaceful fishing village seemed to grow stale and unstimulating. What fun now was there in seeing who could skip stones the furthest out to sea (for I always won), or playing tag with only one person to chase in the long beach-grasses, or climbing up the high sheer cliff-face to keep watch each evening for the return of our mother’s fishing-ship?

It was inevitable, I suppose, that we would befriend the lady in the tower sooner or later.

Elwing was her name — an odd name, to go with certainly the oddest person we had ever met. The tower she dwelt in was tall and white, and lay some miles to the north of our village: barely more than an hour’s walk, for two bored children in search of adventure, and yet certainly more isolated than anyone else we knew. We liked to stand one at each end of the narrow, winding staircase, and listen to the echoes of our voices ringing against the stone. At the top of the tower the stairs opened up into a little turret room, bare and simple, with a neatly made bed tucked against one wall and a small clay oven beside the other. That was, at first, the main draw: for Elwing was a prodigious baker, and generous with the fruits of her labour. When first she sighted us playing on the cliffside she gave us warm sweet pastries flecked with nuts, and many times after a loaf or two of fresh bread — to carry home to our mother, she said, although more often than not it had disappeared by the time we arrived.

“Coimas,” our mother murmured, the first time a loaf survived the journey to be passed reluctantly into her hands. “Who gave you this?—Marillë! Speak truthfully.”

“The lady in the tower,” Almeon piped up behind me — he was never as afraid of our mother’s sharp tongue as was I. “She gave us three loaves.”

Our mother did not look pleased at that news. But all she said was, “So you have run into Lady Elwing on your wanderings? Take care not to trouble her overmuch. She has enough sorrows already.”

I did not much like to hear that our mother knew who the lady was, in honesty. It made her seem real, a flesh-and-blood Elf rather than some apparition out of our own daydreams. But in the hours we spent sitting up in that old turret room, munching on her cakes and listening to her stories, we had grown fonder of Elwing than we had thought possible, missing our cousins as we did.

I blamed Almeon at first, heedful as I was of our mother’s warning. “She might not wish to see us today,” I’d argue, trailing after him up the northward trail. “You got breadcrumbs all over her floor yesterday — she might still be cross.”

“She wasn’t cross at all,” Almeon pointed out blithely. “She just said it was nice for the birds.”

Of course that was one of the most obviously strange things about Elwing: the sea-birds all loved her so, and thronged about her tower in their hundreds. You could hear them from a mile away, and yet the rocks nearby were always immaculately clean, as though the birds took especial care to defecate away from where the lady dwelt. Often she would have a gosling or a tern perched on her shoulder, chirruping something sweet into her ear. (There was nothing so very odd about this, of course — every sailor’s daughter knows that birds are your first and best hope when lost at sea, and you ought to learn to follow a little of their tongue before setting out on long journeys — but that could not have prepared me for the first time I watched Elwing chirp back.)

The birds, it was true, had treated Almeon’s mess as quite the feast, and pecked very contentedly at Elwing’s floor for a while: still I was not willing to surrender the argument so quickly. “She might think we bother her,” I said, “and is only too polite to tell us outright — she might think we ask her too many questions.”

“If we bothered her, why wouldn’t she say so?” Almeon countered, unruffled. Of course he was still too young to understand subtlety, I reminded myself, and tried to be patient.

“Because she wouldn’t want to hurt our feelings,” I explained, as slowly as I could. “But that doesn’t mean we ought to impose on her every single day — and eat all her bread too—”

“Marillë,” said my brother, “why don’t you ever want to be happy?”

Well, it was hard to argue with that. So I told myself that it was only to keep an eye on Almeon, and make sure he did not misbehave or speak too impertinently, that I went each day to Elwing’s tower, and stayed until the Sun began to sink onto the horizon; but in truth I was in very little hurry to leave, myself.

She left the little door to the tower open as a rule, and so we would climb up without announcing ourselves, although of course she heard us coming long before we reached the top of the staircase. Once I asked her why she left the door open all the time — in lessons recently we had been talking about craft, and how all things had an intended purpose, and the Noldo schoolmaster who had been brought in to discuss the theory with us had explained that it was only respectful to use a material when some Elf long ago had put such thought and care into its making. Surely a door was made to be opened and closed, as its owner desired? But Elwing had bristled. “I’ll not spend my days fearing theft,” she declared, raising her chin; “as long as I dwell here the door shall be left open to all who please to enter.”

Hastily I explained that I had been thinking more about the risk of drafts, for the winds were strong on this northern stretch of shore, and she subsided immediately. Still I was withdrawn the rest of the afternoon — for had not I done just what my mother had warned me against, and troubled the lady? — but as I was leaving she had pressed a cookie baked into the shape of a seashell into my palm, and winked, and I had understood that my blunder was forgiven and forgotten both. That was the thing about Elwing — she was always unfailingly kind. Even then I wondered at it.

It was the products of her oven that had first drawn us to her door, tired and hungry and out of sorts after a long day of fruitless wandering; her baking had soothed our stomachs then, and the next day, when we had come back for more. But after all it was not bread we hungered for: and the true draw of Elwing’s tower was in her stories.

She had been born, she told us, far away in the lands across the Sea; we knew not then whether or not to credit her, for certainly we had never met anyone else born in that wild uncivil country, and in our vague and muddied understanding we knew that Beleriand was drowned anyway. But it could not be denied that the stories Elwing told were quite unlike anything else we had heard, from our parents at bedtime or our cousins when we played upon the beach. She told us of the silver king in the woods and his fairy-queen; of Lúthien their daughter, fairest of all the children of Ilúvatar, and Beren the mortal Man she loved and their Quest for the Jewel. That was our favourite: Almeon liked to hear the part with the dread lord Gorthaur, and how he met with his defeat at the hands of noble Huan; for my part the cruel lords who held Lúthien in bonds always made me shudder, and when she escaped them I would always exhale a sigh of exhilarated relief.

Heroic elf-maids were the subject of many of Elwing’s stories, for which I was glad: at home Almeon’s taste ran more to pirate-stories and sea-monsters, in which maidens were scarce. But Elwing told us of the hidden city of Gondolin, and the cunning princess who had saved those of its people she could; she told us of Men too, of Morwen Eledhwen and tragic Nienor her daughter, of Emeldir the Man-hearted who had led her people to safety when their land had burned, and older, stranger stories, which she said had been the tradition of Men long centuries before they ever came West, or spoke with the Eldar. It was all very hard to grasp; Almeon and I had heard tell of Men, of course, but we lived in the Blessed Lands where none should ever sail but for pain of instant death.

“None but one,” Elwing said at that, and smiled a swift tender little smile that disappeared almost as soon as I had seen it.

She never told us much of her own history. It must not be very interesting, we concluded, and besides my mother’s admonition rang yet in my ears. We did not press her for it.

So it came that one afternoon, a few months into our acquaintance with her, we were sitting in Elwing’s tower room, replete with warm fresh salt-crusted bread slathered generously with butter Elwing had churned herself, and a little bored. Elwing was engaging in grave and serious converse with a sparrow perched on the windowsill, and the trill of chirps made what was admittedly a very sweet music; but this was not enough to satisfy Almeon, who was wandering around the turret room, poking half-heartedly at the one chest that held all Elwing’s worldly possessions, and generally being a nuisance. My pointed looks did nothing to dissuade him; nor did the emphatic little prod I gave him mind-to-mind. He was simply in the frame of mind to be a nuisance.

“Elwing,” he said, when at last the sparrow had taken its leave and flown away, “will you tell us a story?”

“Assuredly, little gull,” said Elwing, with a smile. “What will you hear? Shall I tell you the Tale of Tinúviel the elf-maiden, and her Quest with Beren her love into the dark fortress of the Enemy?”

“Boring,” Almeon complained, “we’ve heard the Lay of Leithian billions of times. Don’t give me looks, Marillë, it’s the truth.”

“Very well,” said Elwing, amused, “then what of Bëor the Father of the Edain, and the time he awoke one night—”

“—to find King Finrod Felagund playing upon his harp? We’ve heard that one too,” said Almeon. “I want a new story.”

“A new story?” Elwing repeated. “Well, let me see what I can do. Heard you ever of the maiden who had been a swan, and the elf-prince who loved her?” And when we shook our heads, fascinated, she said, “Take another twist of bread each — this is a long story, and might take us some days to hear in full. But it would not do to listen to it on an empty stomach!”

There was once, (said Elwing), a colony of swans who lived by the Sea. Larger and fairer than any swans you have ever laid eyes upon, I’d wager — for there was sheen of mother-of-pearl on their white feathers, such that when they rose all in flight the very sky seemed to sparkle. At maturity they might reach fully half the width of a sailing-ship, and their wingspan was such that three grown Elves could ride abreast upon them. Not that any ever had! For the swans were secretive, for all their conspicuity, and liked little to converse with the Elves who dwelt further along the shore, or inland. They are a proud and guarded sort of bird, many have said: you may judge for yourselves whether or not that is true. But whether it was indeed for pride, or some more justifiable reason, the swans kept their colony some days’ hike from the nearest elvish town, past some near-impassable jagged rocks, and this suited them all very well.

The King of Swans had a daughter, the fairest and most tender-hearted of all their great bevy. She was a seafarer by nature, and loved little better than to go soaring far out over the open ocean, and come home at the end of a long day with her beak full of fish for her brother and cousins; and even as a cygnet, more than once were search parties sent out for her because she so liked to nestle on the little nooks and crannies of the cliffside and gaze out over the water. Some said indeed that she had been made of sea-foam and saltwater rather than feathers and flesh; for her movement in flight was so fluid and graceful that even the other swans remarked upon it, and it seemed to her father that she was a temperamental child, prone perhaps to fly so far out to sea that she would be lost to their colony forever, or else to become a spirit of the water, a handmaid to Uinen the Lady of the Sea herself.

But the swan-princess laughed, when her father expressed these worries to her, and assured him that she was perfectly content in herself and her home, and would not let the sea breezes carry her too far away.

Now I have spoken already of the Elves who dwelt some distance from the territory of the swans. They too had a King: an unhappy one, rather less fortunate in his children than the King of Swans was in his. For the King’s eldest son was a cruel prince, who bore little love for his younger brothers, and was not shy to show it. Yes, Almeon, he was vicious indeed: I daresay he pinched them viciously, and spoke harsh words to them too. But for all his cruelty the King loved him, and favoured him over his younger sons in every thing, and then wondered daily why they two gazed at him with such resentment. The middle son especially grew proud and angry under this daily mistreatment, and returned the eldest’s cruelty with jabs of his own, and all the while the foolish unhappy King looked on at the discord brewing in his very house and wrung his hands in misery.

But his youngest son was a gentle-hearted prince, who loved and pitied both his brothers — yes, even the eldest, for all his harshness. And it grieved him to watch the way they turned upon each other, when in his heart he knew they were much more similar than either suspected: and it sorrowed him also to watch how his father the King grew wan and tired in the face of the daily quarrelling. He himself had been the least-loved, easiest-forgotten youngest child for as long as he could remember — so perhaps he did not even know what he longed for, but certainly not one of the Elves his father ruled over would ever suspect how often their youngest prince went to his bed with tears in his eyes.

So it came that the prince took to wandering far from that unhappy palace, and learned much of the lands surrounding the elvish city. He grew adept at traversing the sheer rocky cliffs and the steep-tumbling streams; but his heart, he found, compelled him seawards, towards the clean salt breeze and the cawing of the ocean-birds. Yet he held in himself the warning that had been instilled in him as a young child: Do not, his father had said, dandling the prince on his knee, trespass on the Swan-King’s land — for he is a proud and mighty bird, and will bear no great love for thee.

The prince had cherished that advice, for he had few such memories of his father’s undivided attention: and moreover it seemed to him, being a keen and thoughtful youth, that there had been some ring of foresight to those words, and his heart foreboded him that the King of Swans would cause him some great anguish were he to forget his father’s warning. So he took care not to drift so far north in his wanderings as to come near to the swans’ territory. Nor, indeed, being governed foremost by the spirit of obedience, did he wish to do so.

But the strife in his home grew yet more unbearable day by day: and his eldest brother, not content with the torment he visited upon the middle prince, began to turn more regularly upon the youngest prince as he came of age. Usurper he named him often, and brat, and mewling infant — all of which the youngest prince could shrug off without too much trouble — but the day his brother first called him coward stung most. Was he truly, he wondered? For certainly he did not often find the courage to defend himself against his brother’s mockery, nor even to stand up for his middle brother, who in childhood had been his closest confidant; nor did he make any attempt to soothe the quarrel for his father’s sake. It disturbed him to think of himself so, as nought but a passive bystander.

His eldest brother, who coupled his cruelty with a keen sense of penetration, saw that this taunt had hit its mark; and thereafter he mocked the young prince for his faintness of heart regularly. “Craven,” he would jeer, “shalt thou hide whimpering behind thy mother’s skirts forevermore?” And the prince would flush with shame: but mindful of his father’s silent misery, he forbore from reacting to his brother’s words.

But one day his brother’s cruelty went too far: and he said, “O soft and spineless youth, trouble me no more with thy timorous looks: has thou not even the spirit to be away from this place, and explore the lands over which my father rules?” And when the young prince dared to say that he had wandered far from their home, his brother scoffed and said, “Methinks thou hast dared not even to spy upon the wicked Swans that dwell to the north, and learn whether or not they plot to make war against my father.”

Now the young prince had never heard the swans named wicked as such before, but he knew certainly that they were dangerous, and bore no fondness for trespassing Elves — but when he pointed this out his brother laughed derisively, and turned away from him in contempt.

The prince knew better than to think he could earn his brother’s admiration — even his love — through any such feat as visiting the swan-colony; but his heart was stung nonetheless, perhaps more by his father’s lack of regard for his brother’s hurtful words than for the words themselves. Late that night he lay awake and brooded over the challenge implicit in them: and when the Sun rose, and found him yet hot-eyed and white-faced, he knew what he had decided.

And speaking of the Sun, she is long-since set! You two had better be off to bed, before your parents come searching for you.

“But it’s a trap!” Almeon cried. “The evil brother is trying to get him killed by the swans!”

“Is that what you think?” Elwing asked, with the secret smile of a storyteller. “Well, you will have to come back tomorrow to hear more, will you not?”

“Can you not finish it today?” Almeon pleaded. “Our parents won’t worry if we’re out late. And I want to know how it ends!”

“Certainly not!” said Elwing, before I could open my mouth to scold my brother. “This is a very long story, and it will take me some days to tell it all in full — unless you would rather I did not do it properly?”

“Of course not,” I said hastily. “And please don’t mind Almeon, Lady Elwing — he is grown very impudent recently. We ought not be troubling you this late.”

The mock-severe frown on Elwing’s face softened instantly. “You are no trouble, Marillë,” she said; “and I will be very happy to see you again tomorrow. Here, a loaf of seaweed-bread for your mother.” There was a little knowing twinkle in her eyes as she pressed the warm loaf into my hands, and I wondered briefly whether the bread was really intended for my mother at all.

(It was, we discovered on the long walk home, very salty and moreish, and far too good to save.)

“I like this new story,” Almeon told me, bounding into my room long after his own bedtime. “Do you think Elwing is making it all up herself?”

“I don’t know,” I said thoughtfully. “It’s different from her other stories. None of the rest of them are set beside the Sea.”

An odd detail to notice — you might claim — but Almeon and I were Falmari. The ocean breeze was our first inhalation, its water our blood: before Elwing, and her tales of forest-kings and mountain-fortresses, we had never heard a story that did not revolve around the Sea. But I had observed already that for all her long hours spent watching over the water, Elwing did not much like the Sea. She seldom went down to the beach herself, relying on her bird helpmates to bring her seaweed or shellfish if she required them; and once when Almeon and I had turned up at her door shivering and waterlogged after mistiming the tides, she had clucked over us for far longer than we had expected, insisting on wrapping us both in her warmest towels and feeding us three bowls each of hearty broth before she would let us leave. So this new story was a departure, certainly.

It had captured Almeon’s imagination, for he sat chattering to me of the swan-king and how angry he was sure to be when the young prince came blundering into his lands, and of the elder brother’s cruelty, until I shooed him out at last; and the next morning he tugged me out of the house and on the path that led to Elwing’s tower before I had even finished breaking my fast.

“You can eat when we get there,” he said confidently, when I protested. I thought my mother caught that last comment, for she lifted her head quickly from where she was mending one of her fishing-nets, and after that I was keen enough myself to escape before she might question me.

“Well, good morning, Marillë, Almeon,” said Elwing with a laugh, when we emerged, slightly breathless, into her little turret room. “You two have arrived rather too early to sample the poppy-loaf I am making today — the dough must proof another two hours before it is ready to bake.”

“We can wait,” Almeon said graciously. “Elwing, won’t you tell us more of the story?”

“Almeon has been talking of nothing else since we left you last,” I added, with what I thought a very grown-up, confiding sort of smile.

“Is that so?” said Elwing. “Then certainly we must not withhold it any longer. I recall where we left off, the young prince had come to a decision.”

His brother, the prince had concluded, would never look upon him with any sort of affection; and being perhaps more perceptive than their middle brother, he had no mind to strive ever after for the eldest’s notice. But the sting of his father’s indifference yet lingered; for were not his youngest children as worthy of his love — nay, far more — than his harsh, capricious eldest? The prince resolved that he would earn it back, for his unhappy middle brother as much as for himself. He was no craven! He would go alone to the land of the swan-king, and determine once and for all whether they had any mind to make trouble upon the Elves.

That decided, he set out from the palace early in the morning, before any in the household had yet risen. His feet at first carried him along familiar parts, towards the salt air of the Sea, and the quiet loveliness of the untamed beaches — yes, though it may shock you both, the Elves over whom his father ruled were not seafarers, and had no knowledge of boat-building or fishing. So the prince had always found solitude here. But he hardened his heart and set his course north, and walked to the very borders of his father’s lands, further than he had ever dared to tread before, until he came at last close to the territory of the great swans.

He walked for some hours more interrupted; and he began to fear that he was in truth as incompetent and foolish as his brother claimed, and had misread his map, and wandered into some other land entirely: but in truth the swans, seeing his approach, had fled by secret ways, tunnels dug through the cliffsides and winding inlets, to congregate at the swan-king’s capital. And his daughter, returning from a journey over the Sea of some days, alighted to a scene of great chaos.

There were some among the swan-king’s court, birds who had advised her father for long years before she was born, who insisted that the intrusion was no less than a declaration of war by the elf-king. For why else, they argued, should the Elves break an accord that had lasted for near as long as both peoples had been settled along this stretch of coastline? They should fly all in a rush at the trespasser, it was suggested, and dive at him with their great strong beaks, and raise up a terrible cawing noise until he was frightened away and never returned. But there were others — and the swan-king himself was of this mind — who pointed out that the accord had only ever been an unspoken understanding, and perhaps the wandering elf was merely lost, and all they need do was hide in their nests until he had departed from their lands once more.

But still others were afraid, and wondered if the intruder had come to break their great eggs — for in his haste the young prince had not studied the ways of the swans before setting out on his journey, and it was nesting-season — and drink down the golden yolks of their young, and then use the eggshells that remained to make fine plates and ornaments. (It was an occasional habit of the Elves to do so, should they find scraps of giant eggshell that had fallen off the swans’ feathers in flight: they had not the slightest idea that this caused the swans great offence, and merely thought that so strong and lovely a sort of ivory ought not to be left to waste.) In their fear these swans thought even that perhaps the young prince ought to be slain, and an example made of him, so that the Elves would know better than to threaten their eggs again. But these kept silent and spoke not of what was in their hearts, knowing that the swan-king, who was peaceful and forbearing by nature, would not approve.

Between all these arguing groups it took a little time for the swan-princess to make herself heard. “Why,” she asked at last, “can we not send an ambassador to speak with the elf and find out his purpose before he comes too near the nesting mothers? I will go.”

Of course at this there was a great outcry: but for all her gentle manner the princess would not be swayed, and it was agreed at last that she would intercept the elf as soon as possible. But there was a difficulty that even the swan-king in all his wisdom could not see how to overcome: how was the princess to speak with the intruder? For swans, of course, do not call out to each other in any elvish tongue.

(“You can understand them, anyway,” said Almeon.

Elwing laughed, and did not respond except to continue with her story.)

Then the arguing began all over again, for once again the camp who wished to scare the elf away were putting forth their case, and pointing out that this at least could be accomplished without speech.

But the swan-princess, in her wanderings, had become a little acquainted with the Lady Uinen, who loved the swan-colony dearly. Often, when skimming low over the waves so that she could feel the salt spray upon her wings, had the lady appeared to her — not in the form we most often see her, the elf-maiden with hair of seaweed and eyes of pearl, but as a great and queenly swan herself. The swan-princess had never actually spoken to the lady, but she had seen enough of her to know that she might call upon her aid in her hour of need. So she went to the seashore and called out to the lady, and explained her plight. And Uinen, admiring her fortitude and determination, appeared to her to offer her a boon: three times in her life might she choose, as the Ainur do, to take the form of an elf-maiden and speak with our speech. But when at last she chose to return to her original form for a final time, never again would her body be able to change.

The swan-princess accepted these terms without hesitation — for she did not imagine that she would have any desire to speak with the prince more than once, and anyhow she loved her bird-form too much to ever give it up. For what pleasures, she reasoned, could induce her to give up the rush of delight that came from soaring high above the Sea she loved, or diving from the high rocks on which the colony nested to pluck an unlucky fish from the waters?

But she thanked the lady graciously for her boon, all the same, and then went immediately to where the elf-prince was still making his slow determined progress north through the swans’ lands. In truth the prince was beginning to doubt his resolve — so far from the lands of his birth their flaws seemed softened to him, his brother’s capricious cruelty perhaps merely good-natured teasing, his father’s inaction a noble sort of restraint when looked at in a different light. He had been foolish, perhaps; taken a lighthearted jest too earnestly, as was ever his way.

He was just wondering whether he should begin to consider turning back when a great shadow to the north blotted out the Sun above him. Gaping in shock, the prince glanced up to see one of the very swans he sought descending from the sky to meet him. Up close her wingspan was in truth wider than a tree was tall; and the daylight on her feathers dazzled his eyes so that he must have been momentarily blinded; for when he could see again there was no swan, but a fair slender elf-maiden no older than himself, with long hair that shone spun-silver in the sunlight, standing poised on the tips of her toes as though ready any moment to take flight.

The swan-princess — swan-princess no more! — was no less astonished than he. It is, I am sure you will agree, a very great change, to be a bird near as large as a fishing-boat, and be suddenly compressed into the body of a mere Elf! The form Uinen had chosen for the princess was very fair, but she was struck nevertheless by the loss of her beautiful feathers, and her strong powerful beak, and most of all her great wings.

For some time then the two merely gazed at each other, until at last the elf-prince found his voice — he was at an advantage here, of course, having spoken the elf-tongue all his life. Hesitantly he told the princess that he was lost, and looking for the lands of the great and fearsome swans that lived to the north — had she perhaps seen them? He had not realised there were any Elves who dwelt so far north as this.

The swan-princess was relieved to see this evidence that Uinen’s boon had worked as promised, and gifted her the ability to understand elf-speech as well as to speak it: and, carefully, her tongue shaping out the unfamiliar sounds, she demanded of the elf-prince his purpose in her father’s lands, when for so long the elves had left the swans in peace.

Now the elf-prince, realising that the maiden’s transformation had been no trick of the light, and it was the daughter of the swan-king himself who stood before him, found himself momentarily speechless. How now could he admit that his purpose had been to spy on the swans, and carry tales of their doings back to his father the king in order to win his favour for good? It seemed to him suddenly a cheap, dishonourable mission, unworthy of one who had always prided himself on his gentleness of heart.

Besides — and this was yet harder to admit — he was struck by the swan-princess’s beauty, and was finding it rather hard to concentrate.

After some hesitation he introduced himself — with all his formal courtly manners, which looked very silly indeed to a swan! — as the youngest son of the elf-king, but claimed to the princess that his father had sent him on a friendly mission, to impart his goodwill to the swan-king and his people.

Now you might think that anyone would be able to see through this falsehood — but after all the princess had not been an elf for very long at all, and did not know much of elvish looks or turns of phrase. She took the elf-prince at his word, and offered straightaway to bring the prince to her father that he might convey his message of friendliness directly.

The prince was a little afraid, but heartened also. For was this not what he had wanted: a chance to make his own way in the world, and show his family that he too was an elf of substance? And perhaps he was, also, more than a little intrigued by the unearthly loveliness of the swan-turned-elf-maid who spoke to him so very sweetly. He agreed to accompany her to the swan-colony.

And there we must leave them, for today! It is time for me to bake this loaf, and the room will get dreadfully hot. Go and play down by the rock-pools, and see if you can bring me up some fine fresh clams, and then we shall have quite a feast over our luncheon.

We arrived at Elwing’s tower so early the following morning that the Sun was only just setting out on her morning’s journey, lighting up the sky in peach-pink-gold and gleaming off the quiet Sea. I was content merely to gaze at it in contemplative silence, but of course Almeon wished to chatter. “Look, the Evening Star is coming home after his night’s work,” he said, pointing to where the brightest star in the sky was waxing in radiance. In his most formal classroom-Quenya he called out, “Aiya Eärendil elenion ancalima!”

“Well, it would be the Morning Star then, wouldn’t it?” I said, but Almeon ignored me.

It must have been just that Elwing’s story was in my head, and I had dreamed the last night of the swan-princess descending from the sky in all her majesty to settle before the prince; but for a moment in the early-morning haze I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, and it seemed to me that docked at the very top of Elwing’s tower was a great white ship, her sails all woven cloth-of-silver and her lovely prow shaped like a swan. When I blinked again, it was gone, and my brother appeared to have seen nothing.

I was getting fanciful, I told myself severely, in the voice in my head that always sounded like my mother’s, my head stuffed full of fairy-stories and half-truths. Ships could not fly, except for holy Eärendil’s which had passed over our heads as we walked.

As usual we did not call out to Elwing when we reached her tower, the sound of our footsteps being warning enough of our presence; but to our surprise she seemed a little flustered when we reached the turret home at the top, her hair a little dishevelled. “Children! You are here early today,” she said.

Immediately I felt self-conscious. “We can come back later,” I began, but Almeon spoke over me, saying, “Who is that?”

I elbowed him sharply in the side for his rudeness, and then he elbowed me back, and I almost forgot to look to the back of the room, where there was indeed a second person: a tall Elf dressed in simple sailor’s clothes, with golden hair and cloudy blue eyes. His bronzed skin seemed to shimmer as he moved, as though every inch of him had been dusted with starlight.

“Marillë, Almeon, this is my husband — Ardamírë,” said Elwing. Plainly neither of us could conceal our astonishment, for she added with half a smile, “Yes, I am wed! Are you very surprised?”

“Well, you are very pretty,” Almeon said candidly, “so I suppose it makes sense. But you’ve never mentioned a husband before, and anyhow this room is too small for two people to live in it.”

The stranger Ardamírë laughed. His voice was deep and rich and very pleasant. “See? Even the child agrees with me, Elwing,” he said. “You might have chosen any palace in Aman to dwell in.” He did not speak Falmarin with the same lazy ease as did Elwing — his vowels clipped, his thorns sibilant in the manner of the Noldor. I could not make out where he might be from, nor how lovely, dainty Elwing might have come to fall in love with him, for all his radiance.

“Well, I like living here,” said Elwing, with a good-natured roll of her eyes, as though this was an argument she and her husband had held many times without any expectation of convincing the other. “Would either of you like to help me make some ginger-cookies? They are Ardamírë’s favourite.”

I liked baking with Elwing, for she let me lick mixing-spoons and nibble at cookie dough when it was possible, and taught me all sorts of interesting recipes that she claimed had come from across the Sea, so I jumped up to volunteer.

“Won’t you carry on with the story, Elwing?” Almeon pressed, as I set to stirring ingredients together. “The elf-prince had just agreed to go with the swan-princess and speak with her father.”

“What’s this about a swan-princess, then?” Ardamírë asked, a grin in his voice that I could not quite decipher.

“I am telling the children a story,” said Elwing, flicking flour playfully at her husband’s nose. I had never seen her so relaxed in her own skin before. “You may stay and listen, if you behave.”

I did not glance up. It seemed to me somehow as though Ardamírë would begin to sting my eyes should I look at him too long, the way my mother always warned us not to gaze overlong at Arien when she was at her peak.

“Ardamírë and I have some affairs to attend to later today,” Elwing said, “but I think we can hear a little more of our tale while these cookies bake, at least. Marillë, might I trust you to grate up this ginger as finely as possible? Now — the elf-prince had indeed just agreed to meet with the swan-king himself…”

Need I speak in detail of the three days’ journey on foot that the elf-prince and the swan-princess made to reach the colony of the swans? Almeon, I fear, will grow a little bored should I do so! But suffice it to say that it did not take very long for the elf-prince and the maiden to know that they were each very deeply in love with the other, and that nothing would do but for them to marry at once. In truth there were very few people who had ever spoken to the prince with such kindness — nay, such interest in him, even — as the swan-princess-who-was-not-a-swan; and when she told him gravely that she thought his eldest brother a cruel person, unworthy of the title of prince, and his father a coward, he knew he loved her. As for the swan-princess, she had been accustomed to thinking of Elves as a difficult, meddlesome people, who thought too much of crowns and titles and borders in the sand, and did not even know what it was to fly. But here was the son of the elven-king himself, and as gentle and bashful as a silver-downed cygnet! (Yes, the swans were born with soft down of pure silver, and it was a mark of great maturity when the last of this was covered with their adult feathers, which were pearl-white.)

I will give the pair some privacy, then — for lovers say foolish things to each other when alone, and ought not to be eavesdropped on (here Elwing and Ardamírë shared a smile) — and return to our tale once the three days had passed, and the prince and princess stood hand-in-hand before the swan-king. Now since the princess had departed on her errand there had been a great flurry of consternation in the colony, which had only increased as the days had lengthened: for certainly the princess ought to have made the journey to where the intruder had last been spotted in no more than a few hours, and nobody could understand why she had not yet returned. Her elder brother, returning home from a long journey north along the coast and learning over-late of what had taken place in his absence, was indeed ready to fly out after her and attack the trespasser himself, for he insisted that the intruder must have meant to do the fairest of all their people harm.

You can imagine, then, that when two elves appeared right in the heart of their secret colony no one was very relieved! But the swan-princess discovered to her relief that Uinen’s boon was true, and even in her strange new shape she could still call out to her kin in their own tongue. For a long time then the prince watched entranced as the sweet trumpeting cry of the swans came issuing from his love’s own slender long throat, and as the bevy of swans around them responded energetically.

At last he was permitted to convey the message of goodwill he claimed to carry from his father, which the princess would translate for him; but, of course, he had no message, for his father did not know he was there — had not, in all probability, even noticed his absence. For a moment the young prince thought the surge of resentment in his heart might overwhelm him entirely; then he fell to his knees before the swan-king in his majesty, and begged forgiveness for his lie, and declared that the Elves were a selfish, uncaring people, one and all, and he would disavow them all if he could.

Of course none of the swans could understand what he was saying, but nonetheless there was a great deal of consternation at the prince’s obvious distress, and the swan-king reached out tentatively to cover his small body with one great wing. The princess, moved nearly to tears by her love’s unhappiness, translated his words as best as she could, and added in what she had grown to understand of his brother’s cruelty and his father’s indifference, and the swans murmured angrily amongst themselves. They had heard before of the strange caprices of elves, but to turn upon one’s own nestmate was a grievous crime indeed to those who guarded their young with such care.

When the swan-king came to understand, also, that the young prince loved his daughter, and she him, he grew very silent for a while, and then took off with one beat of his great wings to the exposed crag where he liked to sit and think of an afternoon. The swan-princess was afraid then, but she was stubborn also, and she sat curled up beside the prince, holding his hand, and promised him quietly that they would not be parted. Many of the other swans stood watching them, and murmured uneasily to themselves: for to be kind to this small stranger was one thing, and to lose their fair princess to him quite another. The prince was for a time too miserable to pay attention to their hard looks upon him, but although he could not understand their speech he began after a time to feel the weight of their disapproval, and curled up into a yet smaller ball upon the rock.

The swan-princess’s brother had been silent since she had reappeared hand-in-hand with the elf-prince, but he spoke to her now. Since her cygnethood he had been a doting elder brother, and yet indulgent of all her odd wild ways; certainly she had never heard him as severe as he was now, pointing out the loss of her beautiful wings and feathers, and her proud neck and fine webbed feet. The princess did not know how to counter all his arguments, especially while the elf-prince’s hand trembled in her own: but neither would she be swayed, and would merely say again and again that she loved the prince, and would not leave him for any thing.

At last the swan-king returned from his private contemplation; and even the elf-prince, unaccustomed to reading the body language of those great birds, could tell his mind was troubled. But he announced after a moment that his heart too was moved to pity for the unhappy prince, and that he saw now that the elf was no spy after all; and given his daughter’s steadfast insistence on the young prince’s goodness of heart, he too would be willing to take the prince under his wing, and allow him to dwell with the swans for so long as he may desire. At this many of the other swans flew away in disapproval; but the elf-prince, once he was made to understand what had been said, was thankful, and promised to love the swans as his own people (and their fair princess best of all). But the swan-princess’ brother said nothing, and merely looked coolly at the young pair of lovers.

So the young lovers dwelt together in the colony of the great swans for ten months and a day; and in all that time their adoration for each other only waxed, and they went about from morning to evening utterly inseparable. The swan-princess grew used in time to her elvish form — helped certainly by the prince’s warm praise of it, for she was without doubt the most beautiful maiden he had ever laid eyes upon — and together they spent long hours scrambling up and down the rocky cliffsides, or in footraces through the shallows on the beach.

Almost as gladdening to the prince’s heart as the love of the fair princess was the affection of her kin; for as time passed the colony began to warm to the prince, alien as he was to them, and to accept him as one of their own. Being observant and studious by nature, it did not take him long to learn the language of the swans; and thereafter he won the heart of the swan-king, and of many others of the bevy, near as swiftly as he had won the princess’s. In time even her brother’s suspicion of him eased: for he was not a cruel bird, as so many often suppose of swans, but merely a guarded one, and his sister’s happiness was ever first in his mind. In his heart he did fear that the elf-prince would prove false, or else ask the princess to become something she was not — and he yet misliked the change in her form, no matter how often she reassured him it was not permanent — but ultimately the elf-prince was winsome, and sweet, and before many months had passed moved as though he was half a swan himself, and so the princess’s brother laid his doubts aside.

Almost from the first the lovers had spoken of their desire to wed; but the swan-king, being both wise and patient, and sceptical moreover of how deep a passion might have arisen between them at first meeting, forbade the match until a year had passed since the prince first joined their colony. A part of him, although he had grown to love the elf-prince almost as a second (albeit flightless) son, still wondered whether this summer love story would bear out the winter storms that were to follow: for the swans suffered in the colder seasons, when Ossë’s storms buffeted the seas so that they could not fish, and their young shivered in the chill winds. But these doubts, too, turned out to be fruitless: for the elf-prince proved invaluable, with his swift small feet and nimble fingers, in grooming cygnets and mending small holes in nests and all manner of such tasks. And it had been, as I said, ten months and a day of his sojourn with the swans, and spring was beginning to give way once again to summer, when the Elves came.

And there we must end for now — for these cookies are cooled sufficiently to eat, I think, and I imagine that will take up all our attention for a while.

Ardamírë liked the cookies even more than Elwing had claimed; he ate more than half the batch by himself, and then gave Elwing a smacking kiss on the mouth and proclaimed her the loveliest and most talented of wives to ever live; then from his pocket he produced a fine pink conch-shell, which shimmered faintly in the same manner as his skin, and presented it to me very formally. “For the cookies were half your work too, Marillë.”

Of course I was really too old to take delight in little sailors’ trinkets — but the shell was certainly prettier than any in my collection, and I said so when I thanked him.

Ardamírë was casting rather longing looks towards Elwing’s bed in the corner of her room, and so I gathered Almeon up (he always seemed to scatter various flotsam and jetsam from his pockets over the surface of any room he spent much longer than five minutes in) and took our leave of them both. To our surprise, Elwing offered to walk us downstairs, and followed us down the winding staircase lost in quiet contemplation. At the bottom of the stairs she flashed us one of her prettiest smiles. “I am sure you have questions,” she said.

“What are the Elves coming for?” Almeon asked.

“She meant questions about real life, Almeon, not the story,” I said severely. Then I hesitated. It seemed odd to press Elwing for details about the husband she had never mentioned before. “Have you been married very long, Elwing?”

“Yes, indeed,” said Elwing; “since before I came to these shores.”

This piqued my interest. “So Ardamírë was born across the Sea, too?”

“He was,” said Elwing. “In Gondolin, in fact, before its fall. I have told you both of Gondolin, have I not?”

“Yes,” I said eagerly, “and the clever princess. I liked that story.”

“I like this one,” said Almeon. He had wandered a little away from us to crouch down in the grass, where he was no doubt studying some bug with great fascination. “Can we go home now, Marillë?”

Elwing was watching me closely. “Ask it,” she said. “I can see it is on your mind.”

I paused, and then blurted out, “Do you have children?”

Elwing’s eyes were sad, but not surprised. “I do,” she said, “two. They do not dwell on these shores.”

I almost said, Do you miss them very terribly? But sense kicked in just in time, and instead I wished Elwing good-night, and then called for Almeon to begin our homeward journey.

In truth it was strange to think of Elwing with children. Had she made cookies with them, too, and told them the same fairy-stories she told us, and looked at them with that same indulgent sparkle in her eye?

“You are distracted,” observed my mother, watching as I baked that evening — bread this time, a loaf to eat with the fish stew my father was preparing for dinner.

I shrugged uncomfortably.

“You and your brother still spend a great deal of time at Lady Elwing’s tower, do you not?” my mother continued. “What do you find to fill the time?”

I thought of the swan-king, who had loved the elf-prince as his own son.

“We do not bother her, as you reminded me,” I said, hoping it was true.

“That is not what I asked,” said my mother.

I wanted to say, Does it trouble you, that your children spend so much time with another? Do you want us to stay home instead? Were I selfless I would have managed the words; but I could not quite manage them. And the thought of spending all my days at home, mending sails and sorting to the catch each evening, set a queasy twinge running through me.

My mother sighed, and looked suddenly tired. “Keep kneading, Marillë.”

We had not got that far in the story, of course, but I wondered suddenly if the foolish elf-king had missed his youngest son while he was gone. The next morning I brought it up to Elwing — uncharacteristically, for it was more often Almeon who mentioned the story.

“A good question indeed,” said Elwing. Ardamírë and all traces of him had vanished as swiftly as he had come, and her turret room was returned to its usual state of austere tidiness. “Settle down, then, if you would like to hear more.”

The elf-king was, as we have seen, a foolish father, and an indifferent one to his younger sons: but even he could not fail to notice that his youngest had been missing for near a year. The middle brother, who missed his sole ally dearly, had oftentimes urged his father to send out search parties for the missing prince, but the eldest brother — secretly, cruelly amused to find that his taunt had worked as he had hoped, and his nuisance youngest brother had likely been killed by the King of Swans — had argued that the prince was merely hiding away in shame, and would show his face again when he had made something of himself in the world.

But at last the king had been stirred to action, after a blistering speech from the middle brother pierced his wax-stuffed ears at last: and he put together a scouting-party, and rode himself at the head of it into the swan-king’s lands, with both his remaining sons in his entourage. And the loud silver trumpets sounded out over cliffs that had heard naught before but the songs of swans in flight.

The swans, who had sighted the lone elf-prince approaching from so far away, could not fail to notice these new trespassers from almost as soon as they had crossed into their territories. Then indeed a gale of fury rose against the young prince, with the swan-princess’s brother at its head: for surely, it was argued, he had summoned these elves here to attack the very kingdom that had taken him in, brought the father of his blood against the father of his choosing — and it took many earnest pleas from the prince before anyone would believe otherwise. But the wise swan-king trusted his foster-chick utterly, and would not hear any objections; and under his guidance it was agreed that a party of swans would fly out to meet the Elves, and see what they desired. After all, the swans assured themselves, even if the Elves did mean them harm they could not truly have any means of attacking birds so much greater than themselves, and the swans could fly away before any blow was landed on them. So the swan-king selected the more peaceable of his advisers to take with him: and then ran into a problem, for both his daughter and the elf-prince had naturally assumed that they were each to be among the party, and were dismayed to learn both of the other’s intentions and of the swan-king’s absolute dismissal of the idea.

In vain did the elf-prince argue that as he had surely brought all this trouble upon them, he ought to be the one to diffuse it; in vain did the princess point out that Uinen’s boon to her would be most invaluable in communicating with the Elves. The swan-king would not hear a word of their protestations; and, leaving the unhappy pair of lovers behind, he set out with his party to confront the Elves.

The swan-princess had grown accustomed in time to her elvish form, grown even to like her new nimbleness and fleetness of foot: but this was, she thought, a desperate time, and so she let go of the body she had dwelt in these many months, and took up again her swan-form, stretching out her arms to great wings and letting out a cry of delight as her neck stretched up and up and out. Then she told the awestruck prince — who had only ever seen her as a swan for the briefest of moments, after all — to climb upon her back, and they set off in pursuit of the swan-king.

By flight the journey was not long, and they arrived just as the other swans were setting down all around the astounded elves like a flurry of icebergs descending from the sky. (What is an iceberg? Oh, it is a great pillar of ice floating by itself in the Sea — you will not have seen them, for they appear only in the very coldest waters in the very north of the world. Ardamírë has sailed past them many times, and tells me they are quite a wonder to behold.)

The elf-king recognised his missing son at once; and sliding off his mount at once he surged forward with a cry of delight. But the prince stayed clinging to the swan-princess’ back, wary of this sudden uncharacteristic affection, and his eldest brother, sensing yet another opportunity to sow discord, called out to his father to be ware of a trap prepared by the vicious swans.

Then indeed the prince was stung to speech, and sitting proudly between his love’s great bristling wings he told the Elves that they were a shallow, selfish people, and he wished to dwell amongst them no longer — that indeed he had not been taken captive by the swans, but had gone to stay with them of their own accord, and fallen in love with the swan-king’s fair daughter. You might imagine how the eldest prince laughed at that! He named his brother a madman, and wondered aloud whether he had started to hallucinate from the fumes of the swans’ droppings, and many other such uncouth things: until at last the youngest prince, scarlet with fury, dropped down from the swan-princess’s back to the ground, and came swinging at his brother with his fists raised. Then the elf-king, who had perhaps changed less than he might claim to, came to stand in front of his eldest, and the youngest prince must draw back or else raise a hand against his own father.

Now the swan-king had been rather embarrassed by all these proceedings — for he loved his children, and they him, and he could not imagine ever bearing witness to such discord among his own kin as the elf-king had allowed to flourish. But he called out in his proud strong trumpet, and told the prince to inform his father that he was happy indeed to give his fair daughter’s wing in marriage to the prince, if the elf-king too would consent; and that he could attest to the pair’s love for each other, and to the young prince’s happiness living in the swan-colony. Then the elf-king’s elder sons found each a rare ally in the other: for the eldest prince, reading keenly on the youngest’s face how dearly he wished to go away and live forever with the swans, took capricious glee in warning his father of how foolish he would look to all his subjects, should he allow such a match; whereas the middle prince, who could not bear the thought of his favourite abandoning him to the unfriendly chill of the elf-city forever, appealed to his father’s sense of paternal affection, and pointed out how deeply the king had missed his son in just the past ten months, and how much more painful would an eternal separation be.

Then the foolish king would weep, and cling to his son, and alternately scold him for the shame he wished to bring upon the royal family and berate him for wanting to leave his kin who loved him; and no one knew how long this might go on for, for the gentle-hearted prince had begun to weep too at his father’s distress, and cast miserable looks at the swan-princess where she sat listening, and yet declare that he could not be parted from his love — until at last the princess took matters into her own wings, and, taking her elven-form again, declared that she would come to live with the prince in the elves’ city, and be as an elf-princess, if only they two could be wed.

This suggestion was misliked by many: the swan-king chief among them, and her brother also, although he did not speak up in the outcry that followed the princess’s words. The eldest prince, too, had not expected his sneering remarks to be parried so swiftly and simply, and he too was reduced to a glaring silence. But the effusive joy of the elf-king, who declared with tears brimming in his eyes that he had always longed for a daughter, and the awed gratitude of the prince himself, who knew first-hand the peaceful existence his love had chosen to relinquish for the less certain joy of city life, swung the case; and it was agreed that the young couple must wed at once, and the celebrations should usher in a new era of peace and regard between their two peoples.

So it was that the swan-princess came to live in the royal palace, and took up her elf-maiden form for good; and she learned in time not to snap up fish from the king’s ornamental ponds with her teeth, nor to greet her husband by twining her neck around his. To be sure, the elf-prince did not forget what she had given up for him, and never wished for her to change herself in any way; but whenever he told her this she laughed sadly, and told him that she had already changed herself for him, and irrevocably so.

All the same they were happy in those times: for they loved each other dearly, and each took the greatest joy in the other’s company. And over the years that followed the swan-princess bore the prince three handsome sons, tall and golden-haired; and each had also from their mother Uinen’s great boon, so that they might take up the form of a swan when they chose, and fly low over the Sea to let the salt-spray fleck their wings. But it was their uncle the swan-princess’s brother from whom they learned flight, and not the swan-princess herself: for, bound by Uinen’s edict, she remained in her borrowed elvish body, no matter how she longed to feel herself airborne once more. So as her sons would become distant dark specks in the summer sky the swan-princess would stand hand-in-hand with her husband and watch them fly away, and try not to weep.

There came a time however when the ache of longing in her chest grew too great for her to bear; and, telling her husband that she wished to see her kin, she took up her own great bird-form again, and flew north to dwell a season in her father’s lands. The elf-prince, who knew how the weight of sorrow on his wife had grown those past years, wanted little more than to join her: but he had business to attend to in the city, where (to no one’s surprise, I am sure) his eldest brother was still whispering poison into the king’s ear, and all the dull business of governing became to him a daily battle as a result. So the swan-princess went alone to her father’s home.

She was welcomed there with every gladness; and in time the veil of grief on her grew lighter, and she began to take joy once again in flying far out over the Sea as she had done as an unencumbered princess, and in cooing over the littlest cygnets in the colony. Her father and brother, in particular, were pleased beyond measure on seeing her peaceful and content; indeed her father’s only lamentation was that she had not brought the elf-prince whom he loved so with her. But her brother said to her that he wished rather that she would stay, and not return to the lands of the elves.

But soon the princess’s flight grew slow and heavy again, and her motion flaccid; and her kin began to worry that her weariness had returned to plague her, although her spirits still seemed high. Then all became clear: for before much longer had passed she produced a great egg, quite the most beautiful egg ever made, and all the swans came together to wonder over it. For its shell was the colour of pearls, and shone all over with a delicate iridescent sheen, so that it seemed to have hundreds of thousands of little rainbows embedded on its surface; and it was marvellous cool to the touch, like a soft breeze on a hot summer’s day. The swan-princess, of course, was very proud of her treasure, and built for it a fine nest of birch and driftwood and alder. Then indeed she missed her husband the elf-prince with a pang yet greater than any that had preceded it: for among the swans it is the male’s duty, you see, to help with the construction of the nest, and although she had loving and attentive kin enough to help her move the branches as she desired it was not quite the same thing. But after all there was no elf who could lift the great heavy branches that made up a swan-nest, and the prince would have been of little help. Then for the first time her heart became conscious of the singular nature of her misfortune; and silently she grieved that she had been so unlucky as to give her love to one so very different from herself — and that his love had changed her so.

She absorbed herself then in caring for her magnificent egg, and never was there a swan-mother more devoted to an egg’s warmth, its position in the nest, the glossy polish of its shell. Indeed the princess was too much beloved by her people for any to comment on her adoration in her hearing; but privately many were heard to say that, for all the princess’s blitheness of spirit, the cygnet could not be as extraordinary as that.

They were all of them wrong: for when the egg hatched there emerged no swan-chick at all, but the very tiniest of elf-maids, curled up among the shards of eggshell and little tufts of abandoned down as though they were a royal cradle. Now this child was indeed extraordinary. Her hair was golden in some lights, and silver in others, and shimmered when she moved like her eggshell had before her. Her cries were loud and squalling, strong enough to sound out over the noise of the colony, several hundred swans strong; and her little fists beat in the air with such fervour that even her proud grandfather the swan-king did not wish to come too close to her.

It was instantly clear to the swan-princess that the cliffs where she had passed her own cygnethood so happily were no place for a delicate elf-child; and so she bid goodbye to her kin at last, and setting her little daughter on her back flew swiftly back to the Elves’ city. Then she took up her elvish form for the third time, and cradling the baby in her arms presented her to her overjoyed father.

The elf-prince was elated to have his wife returned to him, as fair as ever, and with a new bloom of colour in her white cheeks. He proclaimed his daughter the loveliest, most bewitching infant to have ever been born, and her brothers too were both delighted and fascinated by her; and the city rejoiced to have the fair swan-princess returned to her place in the royal family, and all, it seemed, was well.

But the shadow on the swan-princess’s heart lingered; and so the years passed.

That afternoon was the uilë-nutie, the seaweed-tying; it was my favourite festival, when we would all gather together on the beach with long strands of dried seaweed and weave out of it lovely things. Baskets and mats were the commonest, of course, but in our village there was always a prize for whomever of the children had been the most creative. Last year I had won for making a very pretty hat decorated with seashells, although now of course I was too old to take the competition seriously.

In Alqualondë the whole day would be declared a feast-day; here in the remote north affairs were by necessity more restrained, and I found myself wondering whether Elwing would turn up on the beach, or if she would prefer a grander celebration instead. Then it occurred to me that she might not have any plans to mark the uilë-nutie at all: I had grown so used to thinking of her as one of the Falmari that I had almost forgotten she was not from these shores at all. But when I asked her if she would attend the festival, she nodded, and then said with a faraway look in her eyes, “We marked a very similar feast in Sirion.”

I had not heard of Sirion before, but I gathered that it was a place across the Sea, and perhaps Elwing named it so sorrowfully because it had drowned along with all of lost Beleriand, and she mourned it yet. I did not dare to ask, and merely told her shyly that I would be glad to see her on the beach in an hour or two.

But when the time came, and I glanced up from my careful seaweed-plaiting to glimpse Elwing standing on the other end of the beach, there was no chance of speaking with her; for an awed murmur was spreading through the crowd, and all eyes were focused not on Elwing herself but the lady beside her, whose shining fair hair was wrapped in a crown-like braid about her head, and whose neck glimmered with pearls.

“The Noldotári,” my mother murmured, awestruck. “I never imagined she would make the journey here! But then I suppose—”

“If she’s the Queen of the Noldor,” Almeon asked sensibly, “what’s she doing here?”

But the lady certainly did not seem to share many features with few Noldor I had seen in my life, all of whom were tall and dark-haired. Her clothes were fine, but loose and simple, and she walked across the sandy beach with the sure, swift steps of one who had been doing so since she was a child. But it made even less sense to me why any one of the Falmari — for so she must be — would leave the music of the seashore to go and be queen in faraway Tirion.

I had set the puzzle aside to enjoy the uilë-nutie instead, reasoning to myself that I was unlikely to ever see the lady again; but to my surprise Almeon and I came across her the next afternoon when we climbed up into Elwing’s turret room. Even Almeon was startled into silence.

“Marillë, Almeon,” said Elwing with a smile, seemingly perfectly at ease, “might I introduce you both to the Noldotári? She is my kin, and often comes to celebrate the uilë-nutie with me.”

“Oh!” I said, flustered, and began to stumble through a greeting in formal Quenya; but to my surprise the Noldotári said gently, in Falmarin so lilting and unstudied that it could only be her native tongue, “At ease, children! Elwing speaks of you often — I am very glad to meet you at last.”

“It was hardly avoidable,” Elwing laughed, pausing in her practised domestic whirl to drop a delicate kiss upon the head of a little petrel chirruping on the windowsill. “Marillë and Almeon are here morning to night most days! I am telling them a story.”

“I see,” said the Noldotári, with an indulgent smile. “Might I stay and listen to a little as well, daughter? Or shall I be lost, starting only in the middle of the story?”

“I think not,” said Elwing, with a smile I could not quite decipher. “This is a story about the daughter of the King of Swans, and the elf-prince to whom she gave her heart. Here, little gulls, have a crumpet each — and let us continue. The swan-princess had returned with her daughter to the elf-prince…”

You may well be wondering what mischief the elf-prince’s eldest brother had been conspiring in those years of peace; and he had not been idle! In those days the youngest prince had gained more of courage than he had had as a tender youth, and refused to tolerate his brother’s cruel words any longer; and his wife was ever by his side in this, and encouraged him not to follow his weak-willed father’s example. So the eldest brother, resenting this — as bullies do — set to spreading rumours about the swan-princess in the city, murmuring that she was poisoning the youngest prince against his father, and spying on the Elves for the swan-king, and that her children were monstrous abominations, and their bird-forms only proved that they were all in secret servants of the Shadow that mars Arda. For the most part the Elves paid these whispers little due, although the more foolish among them did not know quite what to make of the swan-princess’s daughter, who people said had been born from an eggshell, and ate food regurgitated from her mother’s own mouth.

But there came a time when a darkness fell across the hearts of the Elves, and they fell to quarrelling more amongst each other: and they would go about wearing the colours of either the eldest or the middle brother, and swear allegiance to one of the princes, and draw blades on each other in the street. It is hard to say what caused this disquiet: but when the swans tell such stories, they warn of the cruel black crows who dwell to the south, even so far as Avathar, and of the unease that multiplies under the shadow of their wings. So perhaps these birds, who had ever been enemies of the swans, were keen to cause some new trouble. Certainly you might draw your own opinions about who exactly was responsible, when one day the eldest prince came across his father lying slain in his own study, and a single black feather lying on the floor beside his body.

Now the eldest prince, ever jealous of his father’s affections (and knowing in his heart, perhaps, that none but the elf-king had ever found it within them to love him), was sent into a frenzy of rage by this discovery. At first he came storming up to the middle brother in the city marketplace, and drawing a sword upon his own brother accused him of having murdered the elf-king; and such was the way the younger princes, who had been walking together, learned of their father’s death. But then the eldest prince’s suspicion was turned, for the youngest prince intervened in the brawl, and dragged his eldest brother bodily off the middle one, only to be turned on himself. For the eldest prince then declared to the shocked and frightened crowd that the swan-king, having used his daughter as a pawn to worm his way into the affections of the elf-king, had then grown jealous of the Elves’ beautiful city, and decided he desired it for his own; and he had sent some assassin to slay the unsuspecting elf-king where he stood, so that the swans might come and take over the city, and turn all their tall proud stone buildings into messy nests, and enslave the Elves and feed them to their chicks’ gaping mouths.

Yes, you might well laugh! Anyone with sense could see that these words were ridiculous; but fear is a powerful weapon, it turns out, and the eldest prince had always been above all things clever with his tongue. Now he whipped up all the Elves into a fury, and called upon them to take up what weapons they had and march north to take vengeance on the swans; and then he went further even than that, and declared that it was not fair that the swans alone should have the power of flight, and they the Elves, who were a superior people in every way, ought to be able to fly across the Sea should they desire it, too.

In vain did the youngest brother protest that the swans were a gentle, peaceable people, who would never have murdered the elf-king so cruelly; in vain did the middle brother call for peace. The eldest prince, who now named himself the king of all the Elves, would not be dissuaded, and declared that any who spoke against him now was a traitor, and would be banished from the realm for ever. And he warned the Elves that should any not be ready to depart on the march north in three mornings’ time then they would be an outcast from their people.

Now the swan-princess had never told the elf-prince of the exact nature of Uinen’s boon; and so he was under the impression that she, like their children, might transform into a swan as and when she wished, and had frequently been known to question her on why she did not take up her bird-form more often, considering how deeply she missed it; and then she would weep, and turn her face away. Now he came hurrying to her, and told her that she must fly north at once to her father, and warn him of the danger that approached, for he knew he did not have it within him to stop the horde his brother had whipped up.

But the swan-princess knew that should she take up her bird-form again it must be for ever: three times already had she been an elf-maiden, and that was all the number of changes Uinen had granted her. The Lady is kind, and generous, but temperamental also: and certainly the swan-princess knew better than to test her patience by asking her to extend her boon, especially after her gift had been given so unexpectedly to her children also. And despite her unhappiness she loved her husband yet, and would not be parted from him: so she said instead that her daughter, the swiftest and boldest of all their children, might go in her place, and warn the swan-king of what was to come.

Meanwhile the prince went hastening from house to house, pleading with any Elf who would agree to speak to him to stay this madness, and remain in their homes rather than join in this fruitless quest with the swans who had been their friends these many years; but more often than not people spat in his face, and called him a traitor and a swan-lover, one who had brought the enemy into the heart of their own city, and many other worse things besides. For the eldest brother’s hatred had fallen on fertile soil, and taken deep root very quickly.

Moreover their middle brother could not be persuaded to remind behind; for he insisted to the youngest prince that whatever the eldest prince’s follies, he was still their brother and their king, and deserved their loyalty in his grief. And he told the youngest prince that he was duty-bound to follow along on the march, and try to prevent the planned violence from breaking out in any way he could. Moreover the three golden-haired sons of the elf-prince and the swan-princess were all close as brothers with the middle prince’s sons, and would not be parted with them for any thing; and for all their parents’ sorrow they insisted they must join the march as well. Then the youngest prince with heavy heart saw that there was no use in remaining behind in an empty city, for there was no one that would heed his quiet, sensible words — and he yielded to his sons’ insistence, and agreed at last to join the march. And the swan-princess covered her shining silver hair with a dark veil, and so obscured from sight she joined the march, where none could point her out as a traitor or turn against her. And so the Elves set out from their city in a great march two miles long. Many of them bore torches of flame, for it was a dark day, and the Sun for sorrow would not show her face. But the eldest prince marched at their head, intent on violence.

All the hopes of the elf-prince and the swan-princess were pinned now upon their daughter, and whether or not she had managed to warn her grandfather of the army that was marching now towards the swans. And secretly they prayed that a great host of swans might stop them as soon as the Elves crossed the border into the swans’ lands, and drive them back to the city. But there was naught but an eerie quiet as the Elves marched forth in the dark; for the Moon, too, would not give his blessings to their evil quest, and allow his light to fall upon them who were so intent on walking a path of darkness. But the eldest prince merely laughed, and said it was no matter, for they had light enough to see by from the fire of their torches.

All this time the swan-princess said not a word to the elf-prince; but she would take his hand sometimes as they walked, and her fingers were always deathly cold. The elf-prince was himself too troubled in his heart to comfort her much; for he loved the swans, and could not bear the thought of them being hurt, and even less that his own brother might be the one to do it. So they walked in unhappy silence.

At last the Elves came across the great rocks where the colony of swans nested; and all was dark but for the flickering red light of the torches, and silent but for the distant lapping of the Sea against the cliffs. Then the eldest prince leapt upon an outcropping, and called out a challenge to the swan-king: he named him murderer, and thief, and a false treacherous friend, and bade him come forth and answer to the Elves for his crimes.

Then the swan-king appeared alone, his long proud neck bowed down with sorrow: but he spoke with courtesy to the mad prince, and asked him why this army stood in his very home with torches in their hands and their faces alive with hatred; and he reminded the prince that since the marriage that had united them the swans had always considered themselves friends of the Elves, and he was willing to give the eldest prince any aid he required should he merely ask for it.

But the eldest prince laughed wildly, and declared that no mere foolish swan could bring his murdered father back to life: and he declared again that the elf-king’s death had been orchestrated by a conspiracy of the swans, and that he would exact his price for that betrayal, and many of the Elves at the head of the great march, who had been most fired up by his furious words, set up a roar of approval as he spoke. Then the prince said that this had ever been an unequal friendship between their two peoples; for the swans could fly, and the Elves could not, and the only way the swan-king could begin to set the great wrong that had been done to the Elves right was by giving up all his colony’s lands to them, and for the swans to consent to allow Elves to ride on their backs as they chose and direct them like mindless beasts, and give the Elves the power of flight at last.

Now the swan-king of course could not consent to this; but he still spoke gravely, and told the eldest prince that he sympathised with his sorrow, but these were not the words of the wise, and he could not agree to them. But he promised the swans would ever be allied with the Elves in their troubles, and lend every help they could toward the hunt for the elf-king’s murderer. But the eldest prince, who had brooded on violence for so long, could not now be placated: and he drew his bright sword and rushed towards the swan-king, declaring that he would slay him, and bring all the monstrous swans under his dominion.

Then the other swans, who had been hiding away while the discussion took place, emerged from the rocks all at once, in the manner of a great blizzard descending suddenly from clear skies, and many of the Elves rushed forth to join the fight, and for a long time after there was naught but shouting and the ringing of metal and the screams of dying swans.

The youngest prince gathered together his three sons and did what he could to break apart the violence — but he was haunted by the knowledge of his past failures, for what good could he who had not ever been able to calm the feud between his brothers do to stop a great battle between their peoples? And perhaps there were lives saved by his actions, on both sides of the fight — but it mattered little. For when the darkness cleared at last, and the Sun rose for the first time in many days, her light fell upon rocks stained and splattered with blood, and the corpses so numerous that they lay piled several deep. The eldest prince had been slain in all the confusion, for which (I must confess) no one mourned very greatly; but there were other, greater sorrows. The swan-princess’s brother, who had loved her so dearly, had died pierced in the throat by an elvish arrow; and it seemed to her as she laid her small white hands upon his body that she had slain him herself with her perversity and her stubbornness, and her eyes burned too deeply for weeping.

In their frenzy the Elves had been cruel indeed; they had wrenched little cygnets from their parents’ nests and driven them out to die alone in the cold, and more than one of them had clambered upon the smaller half-grown swans (who were about the size of horses) and broken their backs attempting to ride them. And the swans who had survived, led by their bleeding king, raised up their voices in keening lamentation of those who had been lost. But the swan-princess stood apart from the rest, and was silent.

Among the Elves who had survived there was great conflict and distress; for although the middle brother, like the youngest, had tried to temper the violence, he learned that even his own children had joined in the bloodshed. Then there were those who turned on him, and declared that had he only shown stronger leadership none of this would have come to pass, for they would then have followed him instead.

As they were debating in hushed tones what was to be done — a debate in which the youngest prince took no part, for he was watching his wife with anguished eyes, and yet dared not go to her — there came suddenly from the Sea a great rumbling; and then from the surface of the water burst a towering figure, taller even than the room in which we stand! Here was Uinen the Lady of the Seas; but no gentle mermaid was she, nor even the wise goddess of swans who had given the princess her boon. She was a pillar of water itself, with whirlpools for eyes and the gaping Void for her mouth; and in booming voice she declared to all, cowering elves and grieving swans alike, that any of the elf-kind whose hands had been bloodied were banished from these peaceful lands for ever, and must depart as exiles or else face the wrath of the Sea until the end of time. And as though in demonstration of her point she plucked two elves — the eldest and cruellest of the mad prince’s seven sons — from the crowd, and with one gulp of her endless black mouth they disappeared from the circles of this world for ever.

Then the middle brother, who could not in his heart abandon his bloodied children, declared that he would take up the mantle of the kingship of the Elves, and lead them north to cross the Sea by the Grinding Ice, and hence make their way to new lands where they might wash away their folly and their sin. And he took the youngest prince’s hands in his and told him gravely that he must remain behind to rule those innocents of the Elves who had not taken part in the bloodshed. But the youngest prince looked at him blankly and made no response; for his sons would not be parted from the cousins they loved — even cousins who had murdered their own kin — and would insist on making the treacherous journey northwards, and even his fair daughter, whose warning to the swans must have prevented far greater loss of life, declared that she had no desire to remain in a land so ravaged by grief, and with her heart forever torn in two, and that she too would join the exiles.

Then the elf-prince went at last to his stunned and grieving wife, and told her that she was a queen now, but must remain a barren one, for her children were all departing this land. But the swan-princess spoke at last, and declared that she would be no queen to the Elves, who had betrayed her people, and no mother to the children who were so faithless as to follow their murderous kin, and no wife to him the prince, who had ever chosen his cruel family over her. And for the final time she cast off her elvish form, and now towering over him in the shape of a swan she told him in her own tongue that their marriage was void, and never again would he take her hand in his.

So it was that the Elves parted ways, and the greater part of them followed the middle brother northwards — and they do not come into our story again. But to the elf-prince’s sorrow, and his wife’s bitterness, their children joined the northward march, and were parted from their parents.

Then the prince led his diminished following back to the elf-city, without his wife and children; but the swan-king spoke to him before he departed, and told him that he had loved the young prince as a son once, and in return had lost his own son, and watched his people die one by one. But the swan-princess said nothing more, and did not stay to watch him leave.

A heavy part of our tale today! And now the Sun is hiding her face again, for it is very late. You had both best be off to bed!

The Noldotári’s face was grave. “A heavy tale, indeed, daughter,” she said.

“Oh, I am sorry,” said Elwing, looking at her with earnest concern, her eyes repentant. “I know that—”

“Do not worry! I am not over-troubled,” said the Noldotári. She glanced over at me and Almeon as though just recalling we were there, and then said in a brisker, more cheerful tone, “It was a delight to make your acquaintance, Marillë, Almeon. Call upon me if you are ever in Tirion.”

We thanked her politely — even Almeon awed into courtesy, for a change — and then hurried down the stairs as quickly as we could. The Noldotári must not have realised how well sound carried down the staircase, for I very distinctly heard her say, “Does speaking of such a deed not grieve you too, Elwing?”

“We can’t actually visit her in Tirion, I hope you realise,” I informed Almeon, once we were out of earshot.

“Of course not,” my brother said peaceably, “Tirion’s miles and miles and miles away. Further than Alqualondë, even.” (Almeon had never been to Alqualondë, although I had once when I was very small, before he was born.) “I’ll go and say hello to her if I ever am there, though.”

I decided not to explain to him that he had missed the point.

Elwing was alone when we went up to see her the next afternoon, which I had to admit I liked best. Her visitors always seemed to illuminate some unfamiliar edge to her, the way moonlight, when it struck the surface of the Sea just right, could penetrate down into the unknown black depths below. I wanted Elwing to be ours, and only ours: wanted her to be the kind lady in the tower who baked better than anyone I knew and sang along with the birds in the mornings. It did not feel fair that there were parts of herself she did not share with us, that there was nothing I could do to ease the quiet sadness that sometimes settled in her eyes. It felt too much like growing up, knowing it.

But her smile that day was sweet and open. “I have been waiting for you,” she said cheerfully, at once assuaging my fears that we had trespassed on her hospitality the day before. “Are you ready for the end of our tale?”

“Yes,” Almeon said eagerly. “But I don’t see how it’s supposed to have a happy ending now.”

“Well,” said Elwing, “perhaps it does not.”

“All stories have happy endings,” Almeon said dismissively. “They aren’t ended otherwise. Can I have a cheese-biscuit, please?” I gave him an approving look, for this seemed to me a definite improvement in his manners, but he was not looking in my direction.

“Certainly you may,” said Elwing, passing him the biscuit-tin. “And let us continue!”

Now came the darkest and most sorrowful years that had ever befallen those blessed lands. The elf-prince — in truth a king now, although he did not claim the title, in mourning yet for his murdered father — began the business of ruling what few of his people remained to him. And in time he found that, for all his reluctance to take up the crown, he was a wise king, and a just one, and under his rule the Elves found peace again, and some of the horror of guilt began to fade from their hearts. And the prince was glad to see them well once more: but he took no pleasure in governance, and it seemed to be often that the words of his dead eldest brother rang in his ears, accusing him of scheming to steal the crown from its rightful owner. And his heart was sick and heavy with the absence of his wife and children.

When three years had passed since the terror at the swan-colony, it came about that there was a need for a small party to be sent to treat with the swans. In all this time the elves had rightfully avoided any such reason to enter the swan-king’s lands, but they discovered now that a blight upon their sweet-grass was spreading northwards, and thought it would be remiss not to warn the swans of the trouble before their own plants began also to sicken. So the elf-prince took two of his most trusted advisers and rode north, his heart aching with the memory of other times he had made this journey.

Of course the swans, grown mistrustful, stopped the three elves as soon as they had passed the border between their two lands, and demanded first that they cast down any weapons that they were carrying. Only slightly mollified on seeing that they had none, they agreed eventually to bring the party before the swan-king himself.

The elf-prince had in truth no wish to speak to the swan-king, whom he had loved so; but he did not think it fair to ask any of his subjects to do what he was unwilling to do himself, and so when he was brought into the swan-king’s presence he knelt and bowed his head, and conveyed his news in as brief and humble a manner as was possible. Then the gentle-hearted swan-king, who had grieved the loss of two sons those past years, thanked him for the information, and gave the party leave to depart without further questioning.

So it would have been; but as the elf-prince raised his head again he noticed a familiar shadow in the sky above, and he watched as the silhouette of the swan-princess grew larger and clearer, and as she alighted with all her old grace on the rocks behind her father. And he beheld her in all her glory, as he had not done in the years she had lived with him in elvish form: but here now was that white elegant neck, those gleaming pearly wings, that proud unforgiving beak. Swiftly he bowed and took his leave before she could call out to him; and yet he did not fail to notice that she said nothing as he rode away.

But he was assailed now by new torment; for he had set all thoughts of his wife aside, and reminded himself that his people had slain hers, and he was worthy of her no longer. He had not expected, coming across her so unexpectedly, to yet find her so strikingly beautiful. And it stung his heart also to have seen how contented she was in her own people and her own form, the salt-spray gleaming silver and gold upon her feathers and her every motion full of supple strength. How far that proud and lovely swan from the frail elf-maiden he had taken to the city to wither! And he cursed himself for having changed her so from her true nature, and cursed himself still more for loving her yet. Then he would vow to himself by day that he would leave her where she belonged, and trouble her no longer; and then at night new doubt would seize him, and he would recall once more the clear sweet trill of her laugh, and the tenderness of her arms around him, and long for her anew.

At last he could bear his struggle no longer, and determined that he would go once more to the swan-king, and beg an audience with his daughter no matter how long he might have to wait. And with his resolution made he set out again the next morning, and soon was admitted once more to the swan-king’s presence. But the swan-king was gently adamant. The marriage was over, and his daughter had taken her swan-form up for good; their children had flown the nest, and there was nothing now binding him. The elf-prince ought now to give his love up, and choose a wife more like himself instead. And although the prince wept, and proclaimed his enduring love for the swan-princess over and over, the king would not be moved. “For,” said he, “my daughter has grown tired of changing herself for another, and will remain now with her kin where she belongs.”

Now the swan-princess had been standing just out of sight behind a rock as she listened to this audience; and seeing her once-husband weep stung her heart somehow only to further bitterness. For she had wished to weep, too, seeing her brother killed, and yet her own grief had run too deep for tears. And in her anger she prayed again to Uinen the Lady of the Sea, and wished that she might only stand before the elf-prince in the form he knew her best one more time, so that he might look her in the eyes and know what he had lost. And Uinen, hearing her, granted her wish; and in the form she had grown to so detest the swan-princess came down to stand barefoot in her father’s pretty ornamental pool, and told the elf-prince that she had given up too much for him already, and would not do so again; and the very reflection of her elvish face repulsed her, and she declared that she would shed this form like moulted plumage, and think of it no longer, for it had only ever been as a mask she wore to please the treacherous Elves. And she invoked the names of her lost children also, and told the elf-prince that he had taken them from her, and moulded them into people she knew not, and that she would not forgive it.

But the elf-prince did not quarrel with her words, and looking her in the eye told her only that she was right, and he had told himself much of this over the long years that were passed; and then the swan-princess was ashamed, for anger is a bitter drink, and leaves a foul taste in the mouth. But she bade him leave, and darken her father’s lands no longer; and the swan-king ruffled his feathers, but said nothing.

Then the elf-prince told his wife that he would leave, and give up on their marriage for good, could she only look him in the eye and declare that she loved him no longer. And so the swan-princess tried; but the words would not come to life in her mouth, and she knew to her resentment that she loved her elf-prince yet, and that his sorrow, in ageing him, had made him only more gravely beautiful, lent the silver edge of wisdom to his fair youthful features. Then she said only, “But I am giving up Uinen’s gift for good, and so we must part for ever, whether or not we wish it.”

Then the elf-prince bowed his head again, and bade her and her father farewell: but there was more of hope in his heart than he had dared to nourish through all the long years since first they had been parted. And after some weeks more of thought (for he had learned a harsh lesson about haste, and considered every thing now before he did it) he appointed his three wise advisers to watch over the elf-city, and warned them that he may not return to his people for a very long time. Then he went to the stretch of coastline that belonged to the Elves, and called there upon Uinen again; and although the Lady still harboured a great anger against the Elves, she appeared to him in her terrible tsunami-guise, and asked him in a booming voice what business he had with her.

And the elf-prince hesitated, and then asked that she might extend her boon to the swan-princess as she had done for their children, and allow them to live together as husband and wife once more. But Uinen laughed, and the elf-prince’s ears bled from the pressure; and she told him that that would be no boon to the swan-princess, who had declared many times that she had no love for her elvish form, and wished to cast it off. And she told the elf-prince moreover that should he truly ask this of her then he did not love his wife, and would never understand her.

Then like a ray of clear moonlight peeking out between the clouds did the answer come to the elf-prince in one glorious illumination; and he told Uinen that if her patience and generosity could be extended only a little further, then he would take up the body of a swan, and dwell among his wife’s people instead. And Uinen smiled: but she told him that she would grant him this change only once, and should he accept it he would be trapped in the body of a swan for ever. But the prince insisted that this would be no trap for him, and he loved the swans too well to ever regret becoming one of them. Then Uinen pointed out that the swan-princess may still refuse to take him as her husband again, and then he would have nowhere to live and no-one to love him: but the prince once again said that he was willing to risk this, for the chance of dwelling with his wife once more.

So it was done — and, ungainly and hesitant in his new form, the prince flew north one last time, heading for the swan-king’s colony to profess his devotion to the swan-princess. But he found he did not need to fly so far after all: for the swan-princess had sighted his approach from long before he reached the colony, and came to meet him halfway, and alighted beside him on the grass. Then the prince told her what he had done, and that he did not want her to change any longer — that he never ought to have taken her away from the family she loved, and asked her to give up so much for his own cruel kin. But he promised that he was willing now to change for her, should she desire it (and said nothing of how his change was permanent, for he did not want to alarm her before her decision was made). And for a long moment the swan-princess was silent; but then she laughed her raucous laugh, and declared that she loved him yet, and would not now be parted from him again. And she told him how glad her father would be to welcome him into the colony for good; but before they went north, might the prince come flying far out over the Sea with her, and feel at last the pleasure of a salt breeze on his wings?

The prince agreed at once; and so out they went, far over the water, the fairest of all the great swans of the seashore, and the only elf who ever did learn to fly.

“Is that the end?” Almeon asked.

“Yes,” Elwing said slowly. She looked out of the window for a long moment, and then engaged in a chirruping exchange with the robin perched on the sill; then at last she turned to us with a smile, and said, “Did you like it?”

“It was interesting,” Almeon said matter-of-factly. “But I think the prince and princess ought to have seen their sons and daughter again. It seems silly that they just went away and won’t ever come back.”

“Sometimes,” Elwing said softly, “life is like that.” Then she smiled at us. “You have been here late again! Run along home, before your mother accuses me of stealing you away.”

“It isn’t really possible, though,” Almeon said, as I packed up our things to leave. “People can’t just turn into swans.”

Elwing laughed. “Of course not! It’s only a story,” she said. “But I hope you enjoyed it anyway. I will see you tomorrow, children.”

Almeon was quiet as we walked down the spiral staircase and set out on our homeward journey; perhaps, like me, he was contemplating the quiet melancholy in Elwing’s smile as she bade us goodbye. After some time, he said, “Look: the Evening Star is out tonight, and bright.”

On some whim I turned around and looked back the way we had come. Elwing’s tower was a soft dark shadow against the golden sky; and it must have been merely a trick of the shifting evening light, but for a moment I thought I glimpsed a great white swan, soaring out towards the ocean, shining, rose-stained in the sunset.