🧝Earendil was too late

[Coelacanth]

I'm almost finished with my second ever read-through of the Book of Lost Tales, and I was reminded how funny it was to me that, in an earlier version of the tale of Earendil, he arrives at Aman only to find it empty, because the birds of Gondolin already brought the message about the trouble in Middle-Earth. All of the prophecies, the build up, Ulmo working everything out to get Earendil there, and it's just like "never mind, the birds took care of it" lol. I can imagine Earendil wandering around saying "Hello? Where is everyone?"

 

[wondering]

Yeah, that was rather odd. I understand why Tolkien changed it in later versions.

The idea even survived the Lost Tales phase, in one of the early Silm versions in HoME IV, it's said that due to the Hiding of Valinor "emissaries of the Gnomes in after days came never back to Valinor – save one, and he came too late” - though Tolkien then changed that to "save one, the mightiest mariner of song".