Rosamond and the Lost Road to Troy

J.R.Tolkien’s ‘The Lost Road’ begins thus; “Alboin. Alboin!”

Alboin means ‘Elf-friend’. When I was eighteen I had Hippie elf-friends who I found in Tolkien’s Trilogy. One of them was Christine Wandel. One day she came into my small attic room with no window, lay down on the floor where I lie on a mattress reading by candlelight, and after resting her head on my stomach, she asked;

“Tell me a story!”

I beheld her flaxen hair lit by my candle, and in less then a minute, my story began.

“There once was a hermit that lived deep in the woods. His name was Tristan Tanopoli ‘The Keeper of the Forest.”

Tolkien died before The Lost Road was finished. His son, Christopher, picked up the thread and finished this tale that a page later, asks;

“Why didn’t you call me Thurisind, or Thurismod?”
“Well, really mother had meant to call you…