I dreamt of a ship with golden sails. It floated serenely past, bow slowly rising and falling as the sea flowed under its keel. But as it sailed on its way the trees along the coast began to fall, leaving the land barren where once majestic forests grew, and a great flotilla of logs filled the blue waters in the craft's wake, following as if by their own sails. Where the forests had stood, stone towers now sprang forth from the ruined trees' roots and covered the land. Darkness filled the sky once, twice, then utter blackness reigned as the towers shook and crumbled. A light flashed from the North and I strained to see, knowing it was sent to push back the dark, but it was hidden from me...
I opened my eyes in the chill dawn and looked about. My forest still stood above me and the myriad sounds of the morning surrounded me with their song. A voice murmured nearby and I turned to see my father with a single tear upon his cheek.
'A Lúcelindë, Lúcelindë! Gin melathon an-uir!'
This was his daily ritual, greeting the dawn with his profession of love for my mother, taken from us in Beleriand. Always when he called to her, it was by the name given by her parents rather than the name she later took when the two gave up their own languages for the Sindarin tongue. He spoke but little of her language, other than her name and the few phrases he had once needed to get by in Gondolin's shops and barracks.
To ease his pain and give him something to occupy his mind, I told him of my dream. He turned his gaze seaward, deep in thought. Edhellond lay in the distance. After long minutes, he sighed and cast a penetrating look in my direction. He then smiled and suggested that perhaps I was spending too many nights beside the fires of the Drúin in the hills near our home, claiming guidance from visions as their leaders were wont to do.
We laughed and spoke of it no more but I would think upon it at times when I wandered far from home. Centuries passed and on a cloudless day I found myself far to the east, overlooking a great river. No ford was found, and I began following the coast back from whence I had come. I paused for a time upon a high bluff to watch the seabirds as they hunted, when movement caught my eye far out upon the waves. A ship it was, with sails of gold.
I followed as it made its way eastward, and watched as a boat was put over the side and the sailors pulled for the shore. They were Men, but unlike any who lived in Middle Earth at that time. Tall they were, tall and comely with accoutrements all aglitter when the sun shone upon them. I spied upon them as they entered a local village, seeming as kings when compared to the rustic Men they found there. Bright steel and gold and silver upon chests and helms standing among the homespun tunics and leather garb of the villagers.
Eventually they returned to the sea and sailed on, out of my sight. Over the years that followed, I found that they had made several such landfalls and word passed among those whom I traded with in the far places that these were Men of a great western realm, the descendants of the folk of Beleriand.
I watched as they began to build colonies, trading posts grew up, and they began to spread out from the shore. Even I would eventually begin to visit some of these outposts, though they looked upon me with awe and suspicion.
Many of the original folk I'd known since first coming to Edhellond were pushed out from ancestral homes, or intermingled with the newcomers. The Drúin were driven from their lands and treated as beasts. Ever a solitary people, they began to hide in deeper woods where only I knew to look. I began to think more and more upon my dream, and what its meaning could be. In time, I would solve its mystery, but that is another tale.
For now, it is enough that you know how the great realms of Men began in Middle Earth, and perhaps you may imagine the sighing of the winds of change as they began to blow once more through our world...winds that brought a ship with golden sails.
