The Middle Days¹ draw nigh, signalling that a full löa² has passed since my last begetting day;³ and on that day of mirth, by rite of passage and a merry feast beneath the shining stars, I was deemed full-grown by the elders of my clan. Therefore today marks my first and fiftieth season of Autumn⁴ in Middle-earth; alas that I am sundered from my kin, and must find what merriment I can in Celondim!

   In my beloved forest home the leaves will be shimmering red and gold in the autumn sun, and the acorns upon the gilded oaken boughs will have grown brown and ripe; the winds that blow down from Ered Lindon will be growing cooler ere the cold snows of winter mantle their lofty peaks, and the forest birds and beasts will be readying their their nests and burrows for their winter sleep.
   And by now my clan will have followed the course of swift Brilthor down into the fertile foothills nigh the sea, to aid with harvest-time. Thither do we wandering Lindi remove each autumn to visit the abode of our farming kin: those elves who settled there long ago, and dwell in scattered homesteads between the running rivers that flow down from the mountains to water the verdant fields.
   Never before have I forgone the harvest merrymaking; indeed I was born soon before such a journey, in the shelter of the leafy boughs of our home-forest ere the clan departed for the unwooded lands where the crops grow gladly. Now autumn births are uncommon among Elvenkind, for it is chiefly in the green days of Spring that elf-children are begotten and are born,³ and are thus old enough to travel by the autumn-time,  carried in a sling wrapped snugly to the breast of their parent. It happened that my birth stayed our departure, and the clan was bound to linger restlessly as the moon waxed to fullness; yet I alone was not the sole delay, for I came into the waking world but a single day before Fethurin,⁵ my friend, and thus it was both our births wherefore they tarried. (And ever have did they name us together in jest, 'the Last-comers',⁶ in the High-elven speech!) And newborns though we were, we journeyed westwards with our elf-clan along the foaming river and were therefore wandering elves ere we could walk!⁷

   Alas, I speak falsely when I say I have never forgone the harvest, for there came one cheerless day in Narbeleth⁸ some thirty years ago, when my parents and I stood not in the glad rich fields of ripened crops, but on the wet stone-wrought quay of the Grey Havens, and our hearts were heavy with sorrow.
   For ere Fethurin was taken by his mother, Aeweneth, over the Sundering Seas, our two families dwelt merrily together in love and friendship; but then, alas, after one and twenty years of bliss, Dimaethor, father of Fethurin, perished while hunting in the deepwoods. He was by all of us beloved, and great was our grieving at his loss; but our sorrow was made all the greater when we had also to bid farewell to our dearest living friends.

   Little joy was to be found within the hearts of my kin for a long while afterwards, burdened as they were with bitter thoughts of death and loss. For though the doom of the Firstborn is deathlessness unto the ending of the world, yet do we perish in Middle-earth and, it is said, our unhoused spirits are summoned to the Halls of Awaiting. Thither our souls gather and their fate is judged  by the Doomsman of the Valar, and thence they are reborn in the Blessed Realm.⁹
   Thus it is said, but in Middle-earth the reborn do not dwell, therefore no one ever that I meet can tell me verily that this is so, and the truth must wait until I myself take a grey ship to the Uttermost West. (Or meet death in this waking life!) Nevertheless, heavy is the elf-heart filled with grief and pity when a loved one is lost, and yet somehow there is within a deep emptiness too.
   Yet this is also how the heart feels when parting upon the quays of the Grey Havens! (To think I have but one and fifty short years of living memory, and therefore my heart is mostly untouched by grief; I cannot fathom how the world-weary hearts of my elders ever endure the burden of their long, long memories!)

   Heavy are my thoughts, yet fate has not been unkind and I should be more cheerful. This is but my second day in Celondim, and the trials of yesterday have blown away with the clouds and a hopeful sky of blue shines fair upon the land of Falathlorn (yet my heart yearns for the canopied telain¹⁰ of my woodland home, and to sleep in my hanging bed high above the deep red carpets of the moonlit forest floor!)

   For it has come to pass that my doom is set, at least for a time. For unbeknown to me, the healer Maegamel is a friend to Thavroniel, and she spoke on my behalf, and so today I once more stood before Thavroniel and endured her piercing High-elf gaze; but now she made a test of my mind with her thought, and after an uncomfortable time she at last deemed me able! For it is the thought of Maegamel that besides elven herb-lore, I might also learn the Common Tongue from her friend; Thavroniel is of the same mind, yet she said that it is best done mind-to-mind,¹¹ hence her scrutiny.
   And so it is to be that both will teach me! For when Maegamel said that one last errand remained to her ere she, too, departs over the Sea, it is I who am that errand, for she deems that my mother has passed on to me the skill of elven-healing (and indeed she has given me guidance in the art) and Maegamel would see this training well complete. However, Thavroniel bewilders me, for suddenly she is  kind and friendly to me, yet my heart does not misgive me; and thus I wonder what it was she saw within my mind that has utterly changed her mood towards me?
   Now when they stand together the two healers indeed look like they are clad as forest bluebells in the spring-time, and in my mind a question is growing: is their attire a livery of sorts, and if so, for what or whom? For Gwaloth is garbed alike, yet I deem she is no healer, so it cannot be a fellowship thereof. Perhaps one day, when we are more familiar, I may ask.

   In these glad tidings, there is but one drawback: in Celondim I now must linger for an unknown time, and my wandering is thus restrained. Yet the thought comes to me that it would indeed be best to travel northwards in the warm green days of spring or summer, and depart thence ere the icy winter winds begin to blow. And perhaps time will also allow me to learn a little of the jewel-craft of Haldan?

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1. (Quenya.) Enderi; (Sindarin) Enedhoer (4 October through 6 October in the Shire Reckoning, or 25 - 27 Sept in our modern calender)

2. (Quenya): a (seasonal) year, (lit.) (time of) growth, blooming

3. "As for the begetting and bearing of children: a year passes between the begetting and the birth of an elf-child, so that the days of both are the same or nearly so, and it is the day of begetting that is remembered year by year. For the most part these days come in the Spring."
    - Morgoth's Ring, 'The Laws and Customs Among the Eldar'

4. (Sindarin) Iavas, (Quenya) Yávië

5. "Fethurin" is the Nandorin rendering of the Doriathrin name "Faethurin", a jest between the two friends.

6. Teleri: "the Last-comers", "Hindmost"

"The name Lindar was not forgotten, but in Noldorin lore it was chiefly used to describe the whole clan, including the Avari among them. Teleri meant 'those at the end of the line, the hindmost', and was evidently a nickname arising during the March, when the Teleri, the least eager to depart, often lagged far behind."
   - The War of the Jewels, C. The Clan-names: Lindar (Teleri)

7. "The Eldar grew in bodily form slower than Men, but in mind more swiftly. They learned to speak before they were one year old; and in the same time they learned to walk and to dance, for their wills came soon to the mastery of their bodies."
   - Morgoth's Ring, 'The Laws and Customs Among the Eldar'

8. (Q. Narquelië) "Sun-fading" or "Sun-waning", the season of late autumn; another name for Firith (Q. Quellë)

9. The Silmarillion, "Valaquenta: Of the Valar" and "Quenta Silmarillion: Of the Silmarils and the Unrest of the Noldor"

10.  (Sindarin) plural of talan, flet (Old English word meaning ‘floor')

11. "Authority may also lend force to the thought of one who has a duty towards another [...] Yet we may mark also how the “affine” may more quickly understand the lambe [language] that they use between them, and indeed all that they would say is not put into words. With fewer words they come swifter to a better understanding. There can be no doubt that here ósanwe [interchange of thought] is also often taking place; for the will to converse in lambe is a will to communicate thought, and lays the minds open.[...] The affine will reach an understanding more swiftly than strangers upon matters that neither have before discussed..."
   - Ósanwe-kenta (”Enquiry into the Communication of Thought”)

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