"Then suddenly the
sea-longing took him as though a great hand had been laid on his throat, and his heart hammered, and his breath was stopped."
Aldarion looking out over the
Great SeaUnfinished Tales Part Two II
Aldarion and Erendis
A powerful sense of longing for the Sea that could descend on Elves and Men alike. Mythologically, at least, it was said to originate from hearing the sound of the Ulumúri, the great seashell horns of the Vala Ulmo.1 Often the simple sight and sound of the Great Sea would be enough to awaken the Sea-longing, and once awakened it was hard to quell, even in those with no hope of travelling across the Sea.
The Sea-longing was said lie in the hearts of all the Elves, and especially those of the Eldar. The High Elves in Middle-earth had at one time dwelt beyond the Great Sea in the bliss of Valinor, and so for them the source and depth of the longing is perhaps most evident. It was not confined to the High Elves, however, and other Elves, too, could experience the longing. Legolas was not one of the High Elves, and had never seen the Sea until he came to Pelargir during the War of the Ring. When he heard the cries of gulls there, the Sea-longing rose within him (and eventually - long afterward - he would make the journey across the Great Sea into the West).
The Sea-longing was powerful within the Elves, but it was not unique to them. The tales of the Elder Days tell of certain Men who came under Ulmo's spell and yearned to cross the Sea. In particular, Tuor (who was said to have been the first of all Men to see the ocean) and his son Eärendil the Mariner were both filled with the longing. They were also enmeshed in a fate toward which Ulmo was actively working, and this no doubt accounts for in some measure for their Sea-longing. In time, each of these two Men made themselves a vessel and departed from Middle-earth into the West.
The Sea-longing arose in later generations of Men, too, most notably in Aldarion of Númenor, a renowned mariner who made many voyages to Middle-earth. Aldarion was in fact a descendant of Tuor and Eärendil (he was Eärendil's great-great-great-great-grandson), which tends to imply that, at least at times among Men, the Sea-longing was something that could descend through a bloodline.
Notes
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This idea that the Sea-longing was awakened by the Ulumúri must be meant metaphorically in at least some sense, perhaps representing the power of Ulmo expressed through the sounds of the Sea (as when the Sea-longing of Legolas was awakened by the cries of gulls). A further explanation is offered by the Ainulindalë, which claims that the sounds of the Sea captured some part of the Music of the Ainur, so that '...many of the Children of Ilúvatar hearken still unsated to the voices of the Sea, and yet know not for what they listen'.
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- Updated 4 May 2022
- Updates planned: 1
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