The Shaping of Middle-earth. Christopher Tolkien

to Morgoth, gave still more ugency to his wish to take Húrin alive, and to use him against Turgon.

12

      It is immediately obvious that S was based on the second version of the Lay of the Children of Húrin, so far as it goes – which in relation to the whole narrative is not far: no further than the feast at which Túrin slew Orgof. This is already evident from the preceding portion of S, describing Morgoth’s treatment of Húrin in Angband; while in the present section the guardians of Túrin on the journey to Doriath bear the later names Halog and Mailgond (emended in the Lay to Mailrond, III. 119), not Halog and Gumlin.

      It is not to be expected that the synopsis of the story in S should show any substantial alteration of that in the first version of the Lay; there is some development nonetheless. It is now explicit that the Men who in the Lay dwelt in Dorlómin and dealt unkindly with Húrin’s wife, and of whom I noted (III. 24) that ‘there is still no indication of who these men were or where they came from’, are now explicitly ‘faithless men who had deserted the Eldar in the Battle of Unnumbered Tears’, penned in Hithlum because Morgoth ‘desired to keep them from fellowship with Elves’. The question of whether Nienor was born before Túrin left Hithlum is now resolved: he had never seen her. For the uncertainty on this point in the Tale of Turambar see II. 131; in the Lay she was born before Túrin left (III. 9).

      Whereas in the Lay Beleg, who was not searching for Túrin when he was captured by the outlaw band, knew nothing of what had happened in the Thousand Caves (see III. 50), in S ‘Túrin released Beleg, and is told how Thingol had forgiven his deed long ago’. Blodrin is now again the son of Ban, not of Bor (see III. 52).

      There is an interesting note in S that Túrin was taken alive to Angband ‘for Morgoth has begun to fear that he will escape his curse through his valour and the protection of Melian’. This idea is seen in the words of the Lay (III. 33) they haled unhappy Hurin’s offspring / lest he flee his fate, and goes back to the Tale of Turambar (II. 76):

      Túrin was overborne and bound, for such was the will of Melko that he be brought to him alive; for behold, dwelling in the halls of Linwë [i.e. Tinwelint] about which had that fay Gwedheling the Queen woven much magic and mystery … Túrin had been lost out of his sight, and he feared lest he cheat the doom that was devised for him.

      There is little else to note in this section beyond the new detail that the Orcs feared Taur-na-Fuin no less than Elves or Men, and only went that way when in haste, and the ancestor of the phrase ‘Gwindor saw them marching away over the steaming sands of Anfauglith’ (The Silmarillion p. 208) in ‘Flinding sees them marching over the steaming waste of Dor-na-Fauglith’ (cf. the Lay, III. 48: The dusty dunes of Dor-na-Fauglith / hissed and spouted). A very great deal is of course omitted in the synopsis.

13

      With the second paragraph of this section, ‘Túrin leads the Gnomes of Nargothrond to forsake their secrecy and hidden warfare’, S reaches the point where the Lay of the Children of Húrin stops, and certain advances made on the Tale of Turambar (II. 83 ff.) can be observed. The re-forging of Beleg’s sword for Túrin in Nargothrond now appears. In the Lay Flinding put the sword in the hollow of a tree after Beleg’s death (III. 56); as I noted (III. 86): ‘if the poem had gone further Túrin would have received his black sword in Nargothrond in gift from Orodreth, as happens in the Tale’. S thus shows a development from the plot implicit in the Lay. The bridging of Narog by Túrin’s counsel enters the story only as a pencilled marginal note. The extent of the victories and reconquest of territory by the Gnomes of Nargothrond at this time is made explicit, and the realm is much as described in The Silmarillion (p. 211):

      The servants of Angband were driven out of all the land between Narog and Sirion eastward, and westward to the Nenning and the desolate Falas

      (where however its northern border along the southern feet of the Shadowy Mountains is not mentioned; in S ‘their realm reaches to the sources of Narog’).

      The later addition to the text of S, ‘even Glómund, who was at the Battle of Tears’, is to be related to the absence of any mention of the Dragon in S’s account of the battle (§11). As S was first written, the Dragon was named Glórung, a change from Glórund of the Lost Tales; the series was thus Glórund > Glórung > Glómund > Glaurung. In the Lay of Leithian Glómund replaces Glórund (III. 208–9).

      The sentence ‘Flinding wounded refuses Túrin’s succour and dies reproaching him’ shows the later form of the story, as in The Silmarillion pp. 212–13; for discussion of the substantial change from the Tale see II. 124. It is said in S that Túrin forsook Finduilas ‘against his heart (which if he had obeyed his uttermost fate would not have befallen him)’, and this is no doubt to be related to the passage in the Tale (II. 87):

      And truly is it said: ‘Forsake not for anything thy friends – nor believe those who counsel thee to do so’ – for of his abandoning of Failivrin in danger that he himself could see came the very direst evil upon him and all he loved.

      For discussion of this see II. 125.

      Of Túrin’s return to Hithlum there is little to note, for the synopsis is here very compressed; and I have earlier discussed fully the relationship between the Tale and the later story (II. 126–7). The Woodmen with whom Túrin lives after his flight from Hithlum are now given a more definite location ‘east of Narog’ (see II. 140–1). In S it is made clear that Túrin did not join himself to a people already existing, but ‘gathered a new people’. This is in contradiction, strangely enough, both to the Tale (II. 91, 102), where they had a leader (Bethos) when Túrin joined them, and to the later story. Túrin now takes the name Turambar at this point in the narrative, not as in the Tale before the Dragon outside the caves of the Rodothlim (II. 86, 125).

      Turning now to the expedition from Doriath to Nargothrond, the only important structural difference from the Tale that emerges in the brief account in S is that Morwen (Mavwin) was evidently no longer present at the conversation between Nienor and the Dragon (II. 98–9, 129); on the other hand, it is said at the end of this section that ‘Some say Morwen released from spell by Glórung’s death came that way and read the stone.’

      When Nienor-Níniel came to the falls of the Silver Bowl a fit of shivering came on her, as in the later narrative, whereas in the Tale it is only said that she was filled with dread (II. 101, 130). Very notably, the statement that Níniel was with child by Turambar was added to S later, just as it was in the Tale (see II. 117 note 25, 135).

      In the foregoing I have only picked out points that seem to show quite clearly a different conception of the events in S from that in the Tale. I have not mentioned the many slight differences (including the very many omissions) that are probably or certainly due to compression.

14

      Of this section of the narrative there exists in earlier writing only the conclusion of the Tale of Turambar (II. 112–16) and the Tale of the Nauglafring (II. 221 ff.) in which the story is continued. The opening passage of S follows the end of the Tale of Turambar in Melko’s accusation against Thingol of faintheartedness, Húrin’s embitterment from the pondering of Melko’s words, the gathering to him of a band of outlaws, the fear of the spirit of the dead Dragon that prevented any from plundering Nargothrond, the presence there of Mîm, Húrin’s reproaches and the casting of the gold at Thingol’s feet, and Húrin’s departure. The words of S concerning the fate of Húrin derive from the Tale, where however he died in Hithlum and it was his ‘shade’ that ‘fared into the woods seeking Mavwin, and long those twain haunted the woods about the fall of Silver Bowl bewailing their children’.

      From this point the source