Here was the place that those fair Elves bethought them to dwell, and the Gods named that hill Kфr by reason of its roundness and its smoothness. Thither did Aulл bring all the dust of magic metals that his great works had made and gathered, and he piled it about the foot of that hill, and most of this dust was of gold, and a sand of gold stretched away from the feet of Kфr out into the distance where the Two Trees blossomed. Upon the hill-top the Elves built fair abodes of shining white—of marbles and stones quarried from the Mountains of Valinor that glistened wondrously,8 silver and gold and a substance of great hardness and white lucency that they contrived of shells melted in the dew of Silpion, and white streets there were bordered with dark trees that wound with graceful turns or climbed with flights of delicate stairs up from the plain of Valinor to topmost Kфr; and all those shining houses clomb each shoulder higher than the others till the house of Inwл was reached that was the uppermost, and had a slender silver tower shooting skyward like a needle, and a white lamp of piercing ray was set therein that shone upon the shadows of the bay, but every window of the city on the hill of Kфr looked out toward the sea.
Fountains there were of great beauty and frailty and roofs and pinnacles of bright glass and amber that was made by Palъrien and Ulmo, and trees stood thick on the white walls and terraces, and their golden fruit shone richly.
Now at the building of Kфr the Gods gave to Inwл and to Nуlemл a shoot each of either of those glorious trees, and they grew to very small and slender elfin trees, but blossomed both eternally without abating, and those of the courts of Inwл were the fairest, and about them the Teleri sang songs of happiness, but others singing also fared up and down the marble flights and the wistful voices of the Noldoli were heard about the courts and chambers; but yet the Solosimpi dwelt far off amid the sea and made windy music on their pipes of shell.
Now is Ossл very fain of those Solosimpi, the shoreland pipers, and if Ulmo be not nigh he sits upon a reef at sea and many of the Oarni are by him, and hearkens to their voice and watches their flitting dances on this shore, but to Valmar he dare not fare again for the power of Ulmo in the councils of the Valar and………. the wrath of that mighty one at the anchoring of the islands.
Indeed war had been but held off by the Gods, who desired peace and would not suffer Ulmo to gather the folk of the Valar and assail Ossл and rend the islands from their new roots. Therefore does Ossл sometimes ride the foams out into the bay of Arvalin9 and gaze upon the glory on the hills, and he longs for 1the light and happiness upon the plain, but most for the song of birds and the swift movement of their wings into the clear air, grown weary of his silver and dark fish silent and strange amid the deep waters.
But on a day some birds came flying high from the gardens of Yavanna, and some were white and some black and some both black and white; and being dazed among the shadows they had not where to settle, and Ossл coaxed them, and they settled about his mighty shoulders, and he taught them to swim and gave them great strength of wing, for of such strength of shoulder he had more than any [?other] being and was the greatest of swimmers; and he poured fishy oils upon their feathers that they might bear the waters, and he fed them on small fish.
Then did he turn away to his own seas, and they swam about him or fared above him on low wing crying and piping; and he showed them dwellings on the Twilit Isles and even about the cliffs of Tol Eressлa, and the manner of diving and of spearing fish they learned there, and their voices became harsh for the rugged places of their life far from the soft regions of Valinor or wailing for the music of the Solosimpi and sighing of the sea. And now have all that great folk of gulls and seamews and petrels come into their kingdom; and puffins are there, and eider-duck, and cormorants, and gannets, and rock-doves, and the cliffs are full of a chattering and a smell of fish, and great conclaves are held upon their ledges, or among spits and reefs among the waters. But the proudest of all these birds were the swans, and these Ossл let dwell in Tol Eressлa, [?flying] along its coasts or paddling inland up its streams; and he set them there as a gift and joy to the Solosimpi. But when Ulmo heard of these new deeds he was ill-pleased for the havoc wrought amid the fishes wherewith he had filled the waters with the aid of Palъrien.
Now do the Solosimpi take great joy of [?their] birds, new creatures to them, and of swans, and behold upon the lakes of Tol Eressлa already they fare on rafts of fallen timber, and some harness thereto swans and speed across the waters; but the more hardy dare out upon the sea and the gulls draw them, and when Ulmo saw that he was very glad. For lo! the Teleri and Noldoli complain much to Manwл of the separation of the Solosimpi, and the Gods desire them to be drawn to Valinor; but Ulmo cannot yet think of any device save by help of Ossл and the Oarni, and will not be humbled to this. But now does he fare home in haste to Aulл, and those twain got them speedily to Tol Eressлa, and Oromл was with them, and there is the first hewing of trees that was done in the world outside Valinor. Now does Aulл of the sawn wood of pine and oak make great vessels like to the bodies of swans, and these he covers with the bark of silver birches, or…… with gathered feathers of the oily plumage of Ossл’s birds, and they are nailed and [?sturdily] riveted and fastened with silver, and he carves prows for them like the upheld necks of swans, but they are hollow and have no feet; and by cords of great strength and slimness are gulls and petrels harnessed to them, for they were tame to the hands of the Solosimpi, because their hearts were so turned by Ossл.
Now are the beaches upon the western shores of Tol Eressлa, even at Falassл Nъmлa (Western Surf), thronged with that people of the Elves, and drawn up there is a very great host indeed of those swanships, and the cry of the gulls above them is unceasing. But the Solosimpi arise in great numbers and climb into the hollow bodies of these new things of Aulл’s skill, and more of their kin fare ever to the shores, marching to the sound of innumerable pipes and flutes.
Now all are embarked and the gu1lls fare mightily into the twilit sky, but Aulл and Oromл are in the foremost galley and the mightiest, and seven hundred gulls are harnessed thereto and it gleams with silver and white feathers, and has a beak of gold and eyes of jet and amber. But Ulmo fares at the rear in his fishy car and trumpets loudly for the discomfiture of Ossл and the rescue of the Shoreland Elves.
But Ossл seeing how these birds have been to his undoing is very downcast, yet for the presence of those three Gods and indeed for his love of the Solosimpi that had grown by now very great he molested not their white fleet, and they came thus over the grey leagues of the ocean, through the dim sounds, and the mists of the Shadowy Seas, even to the first dark waters of the bay of Arvalin.
Know then that the Lonely Island is upon the confines of the Great Sea. Now that Great Sea or the Western Water is beyond the westernmost limits of the Great Lands, and in it are many lands and islands ere beyond their anchorage you reach the Magic Isles, and beyond these still lies Tol Eressлa. But beyond Tol Eressлa is the misty wall and those great sea glooms beneath which lie the Shadowy Seas, and thereon float the Twilit Isles whither only pierced at clearest times the faintest twinkle of the far gleam of Silpion. But in the westernmost of these stood the Tower of Pearl built in after days and much sung in song; but the Twilit Isles are held the first of the Outer Lands, which are these and Arvalin and Valinor, and Tol Eressлa is held neither of the Outer Lands or of the Great Lands where Men after roamed. But the farthest shore of those Shadowy Seas is Arvalin or Erumбni to the far south, but more northerly do they lap the very coasts of Eldamar, and here are they broader to one faring west. Beyond Arvalin tower those huge Mountains of Valinor which are in a great ring bending slowly west, but the Shadowy Seas make a vast bay to the north of Arvalin running right up to the black feet of the mountains, so that here they border upon the waters and not upon the lands, and there at the bay’s innermost stands Taniquetil, glorious to behold, loftiest of all mountains clad in purest snow, looking across Arvalin half south and half north across that mighty Bay of Faлry, and so beyond the Shadowy Seas themselves, even so that all the sails upon the sunlit waters of the Great Sea in after days (when the Gods had made that lamp) and all the throngs about the western havens of the Lands of Men could be seen from its summit; and yet is that distance counted only in unimagined leagues.