In the later story Morwen resolved to send Túrin away from fear that he would be enslaved by the Easterlings (Narn p. 70), whereas here all that is said is that Mavwin ‘knew not in her distress how to foster both him and his sister’ (which presumably reflects her poverty). This in turn reflects a further difference, namely that here Nienóri was born before Túrin’s departure (but see p. 131); in the later legend he and his companions left Dor-lómin in the autumn of the Year of Lamentation and Nienor was born early in the following year—thus he had never seen her, even as an infant.
An important underlying difference is the absence in the tale of the motive that Húrin had himself visited Gondolin, a fact known to Morgoth and the reason for his being taken alive (The Silmarillion pp. 158–9, 196–7); this element in the story arose much later, when the founding of Gondolin was set far back and long before the Battle of Unnumbered Tears.
(ii) Túrin in Artanor (pp. 72–6)
From the original story of Túrin’s journey the two old men who accompanied him, one of whom returned to Mavwin while the older remained with Túrin, were never lost; and the cry of Túrin as they set out reappears in the Narn (p. 73): ‘Morwen, Morwen, when shall I see you again?’
Beleg was present from the beginning, as was the meaning of his name: ‘he was called Beleg for he was of great stature’ (see I.254, entry Haloisi velikë, and the Appendix to The Silmarillion, entry beleg); and he plays the same rôle in the old story, rescuing the travellers starving in the forest and taking them to the king.
In the later versions there is no trace of the remarkable message sent by Tinwelint to Mavwin, and indeed his curiously candid explanation, that he held aloof from the Battle of Unnumbered Tears because in his wisdom he foresaw that Artanor could become a refuge if disaster befell, is hardly in keeping with his character as afterwards conceived. There were of course quite other reasons for his conduct (The Silmarillion p. 189). On the other hand, Mavwin’s motives for not herself leaving Hithlum remained unchanged (see the passage in the Narn, p. 70, where the word ‘almsguest’ is an echo of the old tale); but the statement is puzzling that Mavwin might, when Nienóri was grown, have put aside her pride and passed over the mountains, had they not become impassable—clearly suggesting that she never left Hithlum. Perhaps the meaning is, however, that she might have made the journey earlier (while Túrin was still in Artanor) than she in fact did (when for a time the ways became easier, but Túrin had gone).
The character of Túrin as a boy reappears in every stroke of the description in the Narn (p. 77):
It seemed that fortune was unfriendly to him, so that often what he designed went awry, and what he desired he did not gain; neither did he win friendship easily, for he was not merry, and laughed seldom, and a shadow lay on his youth.
(It is a notable point that is added in the tale: ‘at no time did he give much heed to words that were spoken to him’). And the ending of all word between Túrin and his mother comes about in the same way-increased guard on the mountains (Narn p. 78).
While the story of Túrin and Saeros as told in The Silmarillion, and in far more detail in the Narn, goes back in essentials to the Tale of Turambar, there are some notable differences—the chief being that as the story was first told Túrin’s tormentor was slain outright by the thrown drinking-cup. The later complications of Saeros’ treacherous assault on Túrin the following day and his chase to the death, of the trial of Túrin in his absence for this deed and of the testimony of Nellas (this last only in the Narn) are entirely absent, necessarily; nor does Mablung appear—indeed it seems clear that Mablung first emerged at the end of the Tale of Tinúviel (see p. 59). Some details survived (as the comb which Orgof/Saeros offered tauntingly to Túrin, Narn p. 8o), while others were changed or neglected (as that it was the anniversary of Túrin’s departure from his home—though the figure of twelve years agrees with the later story, and that the king was present in the hall, contrast Narn p. 79). But the taunt that roused Túrin to murderous rage remained essentially the same, in that it touched on his mother; and the story was never changed that Túrin came into the hall tousled and roughly clad, and that he was mocked for this by his enemy.
Orgof is not greatly distinct from Saeros, if less developed. He was in the king’s favour, proud, and jealous of Túrin; in the later story he was a Nandorin Elf while here he is an Ilkorin with some Gnomish blood (for Gnomes in Artanor see p. 65), but doubtless some peculiarity in his origin was part of the ‘tradition’. In the old story he is explicitly a fop and a fool, and he is not given the motives of hatred for Túrin that are ascribed to him in the Narn (p. 77).
Though far simpler in narrative, the essential element of Túrin’s ignorance of his pardon was present from the outset. The tale provides an explanation, not found later, of why Túrin did not, on leaving Artanor, return to Hithlum; cf. the Narn p. 87: ‘to Dor-lómin he did not dare, for it was closely beset, and one man alone could not hope at that time, as he thought, to come through the passes of the Mountains of Shadow.’
Túrin’s prowess against the Orcs during his sojourn in Artanor is given a more central or indeed unique importance in the tale (‘he held the wrath of Melko from them for many years’) especially as Beleg, his companion-in-arms in the later versions, is not here mentioned (and in this passage the power of the queen to withstand invasion of the kingdom seems again (see p. 63) less than it afterwards became).
(iii) Túrin and Beleg (pp. 76–81)
That part of the Túrin saga following on his days in Artanor/Doriath underwent a large development later (‘Túrin among the Outlaws’), and indeed my father never brought this part of the story to finality. In the oldest version there is a much more rapid development of the plot: Beleg joins Túrin’s band, and the destruction of the band and capture of Túrin by the Orcs follows (in terms of the narrative) almost immediately. There is no mention of ‘outlaws’ but only of ‘wild spirits’, no long search for Túrin by Beleg, no capture and maltreatment of Beleg by the band, and no betrayal of the camp by a traitor (the part ultimately taken by Mîm the Dwarf). Beleg indeed (as already noticed) is not said to have been Túrin’s companion in the earlier time, before the slaying of Orgof, and they only take up together after Túrin’s self-imposed exile.
Beleg is called a Noldo (p. 78), and if this single reference is to be given full weight (and there seems no reason not to: it is explicit in the Tale of Tinúviel that there were Noidoli in Artanor, and Orgof had Gnomish blood) then it is to be observed that Beleg as originally conceived was an Elf of Kôr. He is not here marked out as a great bowman (neither his name Cúthalion ‘Strongbow’ nor his great how Belthronding appear); he is described at his first appearance (p. 73) as ‘a wood-ranger, a huntsman of the secret Elves’, but not as the chief of the marchwardens of the realm.
But from the capture of Túrin to the death of Beleg the old tale was scarcely changed afterwards in any really important respect, though altered in many details: such as Beleg’s shooting of the wolf-sentinels silently in the darkness in the later story, and the flash of lightning that illuminated Beleg’s face—but the blue-shining lamps of the Noldor appear again in much later writings: one was borne by the Elves Gelmir and Arminas who guided Tuor through the Gate of the Noldor on his journey to the sea (see Unfinished Tales pp. 22, 51 note 2). In my father’s painting (probably dating from 1927 or 1928) of the meeting between Beleg and Flinding in Taur-nu-Fuin (reproduced in Pictuies by J. R. R. Tolkien, no. 37) Flinding’s lamp is seen beside him. The plot of the old story is very precisely contrived in such details as the reason for the carrying of Túrin, still sleeping, out of the Orc-camp, and for Beleg’s using his sword, rather than a knife, to cut Túrin’s bonds; perhaps also in the crushing of Beleg by Túrin so that he was winded and could not speak his name before Túrin gave him his death-blow.
The story of Túrin’s madness after the slaying of Beleg, the guidance of Gwindor, and the release of Túrin’s tears at Eithel Ivrin, is here in embryo. Of the p
eculiar nature of Beleg’s sword there is no suggestion.
(iv) Túrin among the Rodothlim; Túrin and Glorund (pp. 81–8)
In this passage is found (so far as written record goes, for it is to be remembered that a wholly erased text underlies the manuscript) the origin of Nargothrond, as yet unnamed. Among many remarkable features the chief is perhaps that Orodreth was there before Felagund, Lord of Caves, with whom in the later legend Nargothrond was identified, as its founder and deviser. (In The Silmarillion Orodreth was one of Finrod Felagund’s brothers (the sons of Finarfin), to whom Felagund gave the command of Minas Tirith on Tol Sirion after the making of Nargothrond (p. 120), and Orodreth became King of Nargothrond after Felagund’s death.) In the tale this cave-dwelling of exiled Noldoli is a simpler and rougher place, and (as is suggested) short-lived against the overwhelming power of Melko; but, as so often, there were many features that were never altered, even though in a crucial respect the history of Nargothrond was to be greatly modified by contact with the legend of Beren and Tinúviel. Thus the site was from the start ‘above a stream’ (the later Narog) that ‘ran down to feed the river Sirion’, and as is seen later (p. 96) the bank of the river on the side of the caves was higher and the hills drew close: cf. The Silmarillion p. 114: ‘the caves under the High Faroth in its steep western shore’. The policy of secrecy and refusal of open war pursued by the Elves of Nargothrond was always an essential element (cf. The Silmarillion pp. 168, 170),* as was the overturning of that policy by the confidence and masterfulness of Túrin (though in the tale there is no mention of the great bridge that he caused to be built). Here, however, the fall of the redoubt is perhaps more emphatically attributed to Túrin, his coming there seen more simply as a curse, and the disaster as more inevitably proceeding from his unwisdom: at least in the fragments of this part of the Narn (pp. 155–7) Túrin’s case against Gwindor, who argued for the continuation of secrecy, is seemingly not without substance, despite the outcome. But the essential story is the same: Túrin’s policy revealed Nargothrond to Morgoth, who came against it with overwhelming strength and destroyed it.
In relation to the earliest version the roles of Flinding (Gwindor), Failivrin (Finduilas),† and Orodreth were to undergo a remarkable set of transferences. In the old tale Flinding had been of the Rodothlim before his capture and imprisonment in Angband, just as afterwards Gwindor came from Nargothrond (but with a great development in his story, see The Silmarillion pp. 188, 191–2), and on his return was so changed as to be scarcely recognisable (I pass over such enduring minor features as the taking of Túrin and Flinding/Gwindor prisoner on their coming to the caves). The beautiful Failivrin is already present, and her unrequited love for Túrin, but the complication of her former relation with Gwindor is quite absent, and she is not the daughter of Orodreth the King but of one Galweg (who was to disappear utterly). Flinding is not shown as opposed to Túrin’s policies; and in the final battle he aids Túrin in bearing Orodreth out of the fight. Orodreth dies (after being carried back to the caves) reproaching Túrin for what he has brought to pass—as does Gwindor dying in The Silmarillion (p. 213), with the added bitterness of his relation with Finduilas. But Failivrin’s father Galweg is slain in the battle, as is Finduilas’ father Orodreth in The Silmarillion. Thus in the evolution of the legend Orodreth took over the rôle of Galweg, while Gwindor took over in part the rôle of Orodreth.
As I have noticed earlier, there is no mention in the tale of any peculiarity attaching to Beleg’s sword, and though the Black Sword is already present it was made for Túrin on the orders of Orodreth, and its blackness and its shining pale edges were of its first making (see The Silmarillion pp. 209–10). Its power of speech (‘it is said that at times it spake dark words to him’) remained afterwards in its dreadful words to Túrin before his death (Narn p. 145)—a motive that appears already in the tale, p. 112; and Túrin’s name derived from the sword (here Mormagli, Mormakil, later Mormegil) was already devised. But of Túrin’s disguising of his true name in Nargothrond there is no suggestion: indeed it is explicitly stated that he said who he was.
Of Gelmir and Arminas and the warning they brought to Nargothrond from Ulmo (Narn pp. 159–62) the germ can perhaps he seen in the ‘whispers in the stream at eve’, which undoubtedly implies messages from Ulmo (see p. 77).
The dragon Glorund is named in the ‘lengthening spell’ in the Tale of Tinúviel (pp. 19, 46), but the actual name was only introduced in the course of the writing of the Tale of Turambar (see note 11). There is no suggestion that he had played any previous part in the history, or indeed that he was the first of his kind, the Father of Dragons, with a long record of evil already before the Sack of Nargothrond. Of great interest is the passage in which the nature of the dragons of Melko is defined: their evil wisdom, their love of lies and gold (which ‘they may not use or enjoy’), and the knowledge of tongues that Men say would come from eating a dragon’s heart (with evident reference to the legend in the Norse Edda of Sigurd Fafnisbane, who was enabled to understand, to his own great profit, the speech of birds when he ate the heart of the dragon Fafnir, roasting it on a spit).
The story of the sack of Nargothrond is somewhat differently treated in the old story, although the essentials were to remain of the driving away of Failivrin/Finduilas among the captives and of the powerlessness of Túrin to aid her, being spellbound by the dragon. Minor differences (such as the later arrival of Glorund on the scene: in The Silmarillion Túrin only came back to Nargothrond after Glaurung had entered the caves and the sack was ‘well nigh achieved’) and minor agreements (such as the denial of the plunder to the Orcs) may here be passed over; most interesting is the account of Túrin’s words with the dragon. Here the whole issue of Túrin’s escaping or not escaping his doom is introduced, and it is significant that he takes the name Turambar at this juncture, whereas in the later legend he takes it when he joins the Woodmen in Brethil, and less is made of it. The old version is far less powerfully and concisely expressed, and the dragon’s words are less subtle and ingeniously untrue. Here too the moral is very explicitly pointed, that Túrin should not have abandoned Failivrin ‘in danger that he himself could see’—does this not suggest that, even under the dragon’s spell as he was, there was a weakness (a ‘blindness’, see p. 83) in Túrin which the dragon touched? As the story is told in The Silmarillion the moral would seem uncalled for: Túrin was opposed by an adversary too powerful for his mind and will.
There is here a remarkable passage in which suicide is declared a sin, depriving such a one of all hope ‘that ever his spirit would be freed from the dark glooms of Mandos or stray into the pleasant paths of Valinor’. This seems to go with the perplexing passage in the tale of The Coming of the Valar and the Building of Valinor concerning the fates of Men: see p. 60.
Finally, it is strange that in the old story the gold and treasure was carried out from the caves by the Orcs and remained there (it ‘lay by the caves above the stream’), and the dragon most uncharacteristically ‘slept before it’ in the open. In The Silmarillion Glaurung ‘gathered all the hoard and riches of Felagund and heaped them, and lay upon them in the innermost hall’.
(v) Túrin’s return to Hithlum (pp. 88–91)
In this passage the case is much as in previous parts of the tale: the large structure of the story was not greatly changed afterwards, but there are many important differences nonetheless.
In the Tale of Turambar it is clear that the house of Mavwin was not imagined as standing near to the hills or mountains that formed the barrier between Hithlum and the Lands Beyond: Túrin was told that never did Orcs ‘come hither deep into the land of Hisilómë’, in contrast to the Narn (p. 68), where ‘Húrin’s house stood in the south-east of Dorlómin, and the mountains were near; Nen Lalaith indeed came down from a spring under the shadow of Amon Darthir, over whose shoulder there was a steep pass’. The removal of Mavwin from one house to another in Hithlum, visited in turn by Túrin as he sought for her, was afterward
s rejected, to the improvement of the story. Here Túrin comes back to his old home in the late summer, whereas in The Silmarillion the fall of Nargothrond took place in the late autumn (‘the leaves fell from the trees in a great wind as they went, for the autumn was passing to a dire winter,’ p. 213) and Túrin came to Dor-lómin in the Fell Winter (p. 215).
The names Brodda and Airin (later spelled Aerin) remained; but Brodda is here the lord of the land, and Airin plays a more important part in the scene in the hall, dealing justice with vigour and wisdom, than she does later. It is not said here that she had been married by force, though her life with Brodda is declared to have been very evil; but of course the situation in the later narratives is far more clear-cut—the Men of Hithlum were ‘Easterlings’, ‘Incomers’ hostile to the Elves and the remnant of the House of Hador, whereas in the early story no differentiation is made among them, and indeed Brodda was ‘a man whom Mavwin trusted’. The motive of Brodda’s ill-treatment of Mavwin is already present, but only to the extent that he embezzled her goods after her departure; in the Narn it seems from Aerin’s words to Túrin (p. 107) that the oppression of Morwen by Brodda and others was the cause of her going at last to Doriath. In the brief account in The Silmarillion (p. 215) it is not indeed made explicit that Brodda in particular deserved Túrin’s hatred.