Ælfwine of England

Ælfwine was a fictional character found in the various incarnations of J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium. He was an Anglo-Saxon of the time just preceding the 5th century Anglo-Saxon invasion of Great Britain and the first Man to find the Straight Road and visit Tol Eressëa after many millennia.

The name Ælfwine simply means "Elf-friend", and is the Old English equivalent of Elendil. The name "Alvin" is a modern form. It is possibly intended as a cognate of Alboin.

Ælfwine is also given as the author of the various translations in Old English that appear in "The History of Middle-earth" Series. His Old English texts are often given in the Mercian dialect, which was Tolkien's favourite.

Conceptual origins

In the continuity of "The Book of Lost Tales", the character's real name was Ottor Wæfre (called by the Elves Eriol). He found Eressëa with the directions of an old man on an island, and the Elves hosted him and narrated their tales to him. He afterwards learned from the Elves that the old man he met, was actually "Ylmir".

The character "Ælfwine" of the later continuity was not invented until sometime after the writing of "The Book of Lost Tales".

Canonicity in the later continuity

There is no such framework in the published version of "The Silmarillion"; Tolkien eventually changed the intended framework of the saga, altering its mode from tales told by Ælfwine to one based around Bilbo Baggins's Red Book translations of "Elvish lore".

However the later writings of Tolkien indicate that he didn't fully abandon the idea of a framework akin to the Ælfwine-tradition, far into the latter years of his life; there may be some evidence, that even after the time of the "Red Book" concept, Ælfwine was to somehow remain in the tangled-web of history surrounding the transition of "The Silmarillion" and other writings from Bilbo's translations into Modern English.