crowned with foam-crests flying in the wind.

Then the channel, drowning it in de ep water, and the rolling of the boulders was like thunder as it passed. Thus Tuor was saved by the call o f the sea-birds from death in the rising tide; and that was very great because of the season of the year an d of the high wind from the sea. But now Tuor was dismayed by the fury of the strange waters, and he turned aside and went away southward, and so came not to the long shores of the Firth of Drengist, but wand ered still for some days in a rugged country bare of trees; and it was swept by a wind from the sea, and all that grew there, herb or bush, leaned ever to the dawn because of the prevalence of that wind from the We st. In this way Tuor passed into the borders of Nevrast, where once Turgon had dwelt; and at last at unawares (for the clifftops at the margin of the land were higher than the slopes behind) he came sudde nly to the black brink of Middle-earth, and saw the Great Sea, Belegaer the Shoreless. And at that hour th e sun went down beyond the rim of the world, as a mighty fire; and Tuor stood alone upon the cliff wit h outspread arms, and a great yearning filled his heart. It is said that he was the first of Men to reac h the Great Sea, and that none, save the Eldar, have ever felt more deeply the longing that it brings. Tuor tarried many days in Nevrast, and it seemed good to him, for that land, bei ng fenced by mountains from the North and East and nigh to the sea, was milder and more kindly than the plains of Hithlum. He was long used to dwell alone as a hunter in the wild, and he found no lack of fo od; for spring was busy in Nevrast, and the air was filled with the noise of birds, both those that dwelt i n multitudes upon the shores and those that teemed in the marshes of Linaewen in the midst of the hollow land ; but in those days no voice of Elves or Men was heard in all the solitude. To the borders of the great mere Tuor came, but its waters were beyond his reach , because of the wide mires and the pathless forests of reeds that lay all about; and soon he turned a way, and went back to the coast, for the Sea drew him, and be was not willing to dwell long where he could not hear the sound of its waves. And in the shorelands Tuor first found traces of the Noldor of old. For a mong the tall and seahewn cliffs south of Drengist there were many coves and sheltered inlets, with beaches of white sand among the black gleaming rocks, and leading down to such places Tuor found often winding stairs cut in the living stone; and by the water-edge were ruined quays, built of great blocks hewn from the cliffs, where Elven-ships had once been moored. In those regions Tuor long remained, wa tching the everchanging sea, while through spring and summer the slow year wore on, and darknes s deepened in Beleriand, and the autumn of the doom of Nargothrond drew near. And, maybe, birds saw from afar the fell winter that was to come; 5 for those th at were wont to go south gathered early to depart, and others that used to dwell in the North came from t

heir homes to Nevrast. And one day, as Tuor sat upon the shore, he heard the rush and whine of great wi ngs, and he looked up and saw seven white swans flying in a swift wedge southward. But as they came ab ove him they wheeled and flew suddenly down, and alighted with a great plash and churning of water. Now Tuor loved swans, which he knew on the grey pools of Mithrim; and the swan m oreover had been the token of Annael and his foster-folk. He rose therefore to greet the birds, and called to them, marvelling to behold that they were greater and prouder than any of their kind t hat he had seen before; but they beat their wings and uttered harsh cries, as if they were wroth with him an d would drive him from the shore. Then with a great noise they rose again from the water and flew above his head, so that the rush of their wings blew upon him as a whistling wind; and wheeling in a wide circle they ascended into the high air and went away south. Then Tuor cried aloud: "Here now comes another sign that I have tarried too long !" And straightway he climbed to the cliff-top, and there he beheld the swans still wheeling on high; but when be turned southward and set out to follow them, they flew swiftly away. Now Tuor journeyed south along the coast for full seven days, and each morning h e was aroused by the rush of wings above him in the dawn, and each day the swans flew on as he follow ed after. And as he went the great cliffs became lower, and their tops were clothed deep with flow ering turf; and away eastward there were woods turning yellow in the waning of the year. But before h im, drawing ever nearer, he saw a line of great hills that barred his way, marching westward until they e nded in a tall mountain: a dark and cloud-helmed tower reared upon mighty shoulders above a great green cap e thrust out into the sea. Those grey hills were indeed the western outliers of Ered Wethrin, the north-fen ce of Beleriand, and the mountain was Mount Taras, westernmost of all the towers of that land, whose head a mariner would first