Swan-ships

There was a tradition among the shipwrights of the Elves to build their ships in the form of swans. Most often this was seen in the shape of the ship's prow, which would be carved in the form of a swan's head and neck, but in some cases the makers went further, and created a vessel carved and painted as if the entire boat was a huge swimming swan.

Among the Teleri of Valinor, the tradition seems to have originated with the Maia Ossë, who first taught the Elves the art of ship-building. At this time, the Falmari, as the Teleri of Aman were known, dwelt on the island of Tol Eressëa, but Ossë sent flocks of great swans to draw their ships across the Bay of Eldamar to the land of Aman itself. On the shores there, the Elves made a haven for themselves, which they named Alqualondë, the Haven of the Swans. The vessels in that haven's harbour were each carved with the head of a swan, decorated with golden beaks and eyes of jet.

When Fëanor set out from Aman for Middle-earth in pursuit of Morgoth, he took the Swan-ships of the Teleri by force, slaying many of the Sea-elves as he did so. He sailed those ships northward up the coasts of Aman, and then across the narrow northern straits to reach a place named Losgar. Once ashore, Fëanor set fire to the Swan-ships he had stolen.

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The same tradition of carving vessels in the form of swans seems to have arisen independently among those Teleri who had remained in Middle-earth, presumably under the influence of Ossë, who also taught ship-building to these people.¹ Their ships, too, each had prows that rose like the curving necks and heads of swans, with the most famous example being Vingilot, the ship of Eärendil on which he sailed across the Great Sea to Valinor.

The Men who dwelt at Dol Amroth took the Swan-ship of the Elves as their banner and emblem. Known as the Silver Swan, this device showed a silver swan-headed ship sailing on a field of blue, and the soldiers who bore the emblem were known as the Swan-knights. This heraldry seems to have been inspired by the Swan-ships of Edhellond, a haven of the Elves that had once stood near to Dol Amroth on Gondor's coasts, and especially by the ship from which Amroth leapt into the sea.

Perhaps the most distinctive Swan-ship on record was that of Galadriel seen in Lórien in the late Third Age. This ship did not merely have a carved prow, but was built and painted entirely in the shape of a swan, complete with half-raised wings. Like the ships of the Falmari long before, the head of this swan was also decorated with gold, and had eyes made of black jet.