The passing of time has not lessened the sense of awe that filled me as an elf-child, when I first beheld the high towers and slender spires of Mithlond! The twin city of Círdan is vast and bewildering to my mind, a maze of stone streets that run between stone walls that rise up like great stone cliffs into the windswept sky, higher still than the flight of the wailing white gulls that soar about their peaks. Beneath my feet the flagstones are cold and unyielding; in my ears is the murmur of the lapping sea, like a wind blowing over the leaves of my forest home; and in every breath is the tang of brine. Here the eye sees more grey than green, which is startling when that eye belongs to a woodland elf!
   Neither the Grey-elves nor the Green- build with rock and stone as is the fashion of the High Elves,¹ and my heart is eager to behold yet other mighty works made by their cunning hands (though I have no mind to sleep beneath a roof that is not green, glad and starlit!) But I am told that the kindred of Men shape solid stone into towers and strongholds also, which are almost equal in grace and splendour to those of the Noldor, but that the handiwork of the Dwarven-folk surpasses all; and I would fain learn what manner of art or craft is needed to carve the living rock from the mountainside and shape it thus! My heart tells me that my wandering feet shall one day lead me to such discovery.

   Towards this purpose fate has gifted me a boon, for amongst the many books and scrolls of lore within the hoards of Garthron Goluher, a High Elf once of Nargothrond in the Elder Days, I found not only a map of all the Middle lands, but I there befriended Camaen, a Sindar scribe, who deigned to fashion for me a likeness thereof. Upon this I have marked the places of the Elven-realms I seek, and it is clear that Evendim is nearest, as either the eagle flies or the Green-elf wanders!
   But my thought had not guessed how wide the world is beyond the tall walls of Ered Lindon! (Which are in all the Westlands called the Ered Luin, I am told.²) For Camaen has shown me the working of the "scale" of this map, which is the reckoning of the distance drawn on the parchment to the like span of leagues upon the green earth; and my mind is filled with wonder by the learning of this, but my heart is daunted by the vastness of the lands beyond!

   Now to my mind it would seem best to fare northwards along the Rhûn and skirt the southernmost feet of Emyn Uial and thence onwards to Evendim, but tidings have come to me that gives hope to my heart, yet divides my mind. For I have learned of the wandering companies of High Elves that make pilgrimage to Emyn Beraid, twenty leagues eastwards of the Havens; in Autumn and in Spring they journey from as far afield as Imladris nigh the Mountains of Mist.
   For upon those hills stand three White Towers, built by Gil-galad Ereinion for Elendil, the High King of men. And within the high walls of the tallest of the three, Elostirion, is housed the Stone of Elendil: a Seeing Stone of old which looks westwards back along the Straight Road to the Undying Lands, and with which can be descried from afar the Tower of Avallónë on Tol Eressëa!

   Tol Eressëa! Tol Eressëa, wherein my heart yet dwells! But would a glimpse of the isle ease my heart, or make it yearn to cross the Sundering Sea and rejoin my friend? Thus is my mind divided: Emyn Beraid or Nenuial, whither should I go?
   But my heart says nay, there is no need to choose, for I could make but one road of the two and fare to each in turn, and on my map the span of leagues is well nigh the same; and though there is little chance (or, most likely, none) that I may glimpse the fair face of Fethurin³ from afar, it is my thought to follow the counsel of my heart.

*      *      *

1.  In many parts of the land the Noldor and the Sindar became welded into one people, and spoke the same tongue; though this difference remained between them, that the Noldor had the greater power of mind and body. and were the mightier warriors and sages, and they built with stone, and loved the hill-slopes and open lands. But the Sindar had the fairer voices and were more skilled in music, save only Maglor son of Fëanor, and they loved the woods and the riversides; and some of the Grey-elves still wandered far and wide without settled abode, and they sang as they went."
   - The Silmarillion, "Of Eldamar and the Princes of the Eldalië”

2. " ... wherefore the Noldor named that country Lindon, the land of music, and the mountains beyond they named Ered Lindon, for they first saw them from Ossiriand."
      - The Silmarillion, "Of Beleriand and It's Realms"
[I imagine that the long association of the Noldor with the Laegrim in Ossiriand would have led to the inhabitants using the Noldorin name; also, in Third Age Lindon, I think the Green-elves, at least, would retain this old name out of ancestral and ethnic pride.]

3. "Fethurin" is the Nandorin rendering of the Doriathrin name "Faethurin".

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