7 Tuor was the father of Ea¨rendil, who was the father of Elros Tar-Minyatur, the first King of Númenor.
8 This must refer to the warning of Ulmo brought to Nargothrond by Gelmir and Arminas; see pp. 205 ff.
9 The Shadowy Isles are very probably the Enchanted Isles described at the end of The Silmarillion ch. 11, which were ‘strung as a net in the Shadowy Seas from the north to the south’ at the time of the Hiding of Valinor.
10 Cf. The Silmarillion p. 196: ‘At the bidding of Turgon [after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad] Círdan built seven swift ships, and they sailed out into the West; but no tidings of them came ever back to Balar, save of one, and the last. The mariners of that ship toiled long in the sea, and returning at last in despair they foundered in a great storm within sight of the coasts of Middle-earth; but one of them was saved by Ulmo from the wrath of Ossë, and the waves bore him up, and cast him ashore in Nevrast. His name was Voronwë; and he was one of those that Turgon sent forth as messengers from Gondolin.’; Cf. also The Silmarillion p. 239.
11 The words of Ulmo to Turgon appear in The Silmarillion ch. 15 in the form: ‘Remember that the true hope of the Noldor lieth in the West and cometh from the Sea,’ and ‘But if this peril draweth nigh indeed, then even from Nevrast one shall come to warn thee.’
12 Nothing is told in The Silmarillion of the further fate of Voronwë after his return to Gondolin with Tuor; but in the original story (‘Of Tuor and the Exiles of Gondolin’) he was one of those who escaped from the sack of the city – as is implied by the words of Tuor here.
13 Cf. The Silmarillion p. 159: ‘[Turgon] believed also that the ending of the Siege was the beginning of the downfall of the Noldor, unless aid should come; and he sent companies of the Gondolindrim in secret to the mouths of Sirion and the Isle of Balar. There they built ships, and set sail into the uttermost West upon Turgon’s errand, seeking for Valinor, to ask for pardon and aid of the Valar; and they besought the birds of the sea to guide them. But the seas were wild and wide, and shadow and enchantment lay upon them; and Valinor was hidden. Therefore none of the messengers of Turgon came into the West, and many were lost and few returned.’
In one of the ‘constituent texts’ of The Silmarillion it is said that although the Noldor ‘had not the art of shipbuilding, and all the craft that they built foundered or were driven back by the winds’, yet after the Dagor Bragollach ‘Turgon ever maintained a secret refuge upon the Isle of Balar’, and when after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad Círdan and the remnant of his people fled from Brithombar and Eglarest to Balar ‘they mingled with Turgon’s outpost there’. But this element in the story was rejected, and thus in the published text of The Silmarillion there is no reference to the establishment of dwellings on Balar by Elves from Gondolin.
14 The woods of Núath are not mentioned in The Silmarillion and are not marked on the map that accompanies it. They extended westward from the upper waters of the Narog towards the source of the river Nenning.
15 Cf. The Silmarillion pp. 209 – 10: ‘Finduilas daughter of Orodreth the King knew [Gwindor] and welcomed him, for she had loved him before the Nirnaeth, and so greatly did Gwindor love her beauty that he named her Faelivrin, which is the gleam of the sun on the pools of Ivrin.’
16 The river Glithui is not mentioned in The Silmarillion and is not named on the map, though it is shown: a tributary of the Teiglin joining that river some way north of the inflowing of the Malduin.
17 This road is referred to in The Silmarillion, p. 205: ‘The ancient road... that led through the long defile of Sirion, past the isle where Minas Tirith of Finrod had stood, and so through the land between Malduin and Sirion, and on through the eaves of Brethil to the Crossings of Teiglin.’
18 ‘Death to the Glamhoth!’ This name, though it does not occur in The Silmarillion or in The Lord of the Rings, was a general term in the Sindarin language for Orcs. The meaning is ‘din-horde’, ‘host of tumult’; cf. Gandalf’ s sword Glamdring, and Tol-in-Gaurhoth, the Isle of (the host of ) Werewolves.
19 Echoriath: the Encircling Mountains about the plain of Gondolin. ered e·mbar nín: the mountains of my home.
20 In The Silmarillion, pp. 200 – 1, Beleg of Doriath said to Túrin (at a time some years before that of the present narrative) that Orcs had made a road through the Pass of Anach, ‘and Dimbar which used to be in peace is falling under the Black Hand’.
21 By this road Maeglin and Aredhel fled to Gondolin pursued by Eöl (The Silmarillion ch. 16); and afterwards Celegorm and Curufin took it when they were expelled from Nargothrond (ibid. p. 176). Only in the present text is there any mention of its westward extension to Turgon’s ancient home at Vinyamar under Mount Taras; and its course is not marked on the map from its junction with the old south road to Nargothrond at the north-western edge of Brethil.
22 The name Brithiach contains the element brith ‘gravel’, as also in the river Brithon and the haven of Brithombar.
23 In a parallel version of the text at this point, almost certainly rejected in favour of the one printed, the travellers did not cross the Sirion by the Ford of Brithiach, but reached the river several leagues to the north of it. ‘They trod a toilsome path to the brink of the river, and there Voronwë cried: “See a wonder! Both good and ill does it forebode. Sirion is frozen, though no tale tells of the like since the coming of the Eldar out of the East. Thus we may pass and save many weary miles, too long for our strength. Yet thus also others may have passed, or may follow.” ’ They crossed the river on the ice unhindered, and ‘thus did the counsels of Ulmo turn the malice of the Enemy to avail, for the way was shortened, and at the end of their hope and strength Tuor and Voronwë came at last to the Dry River at its issuing from the skirts of the mountains’.
24 Cf. The Silmarillion p. 125: ‘But there was a deep way under the mountains delved in the darkness of the world by waters that flowed out to join the streams of Sirion; and this way Turgon found, and so came to the green plain amid the mountains, and saw the island-hill that stood there of hard smooth stone; for the vale had been a great lake in ancient days.’
25 It is not said in The Silmarillion that the great eagles ever dwelt on Thangorodrim. In ch. 13 (p. 110) Manwë ‘sent forth the race of Eagles, commanding them to dwell in the crags of the North, and to keep watch upon Morgoth’; while in ch. 18 (p. 154) Thorondor ‘came hasting from his eyrie among the peaks of the Crissaegrim’ for the rescue of Fingolfin’s body before the gates of Angband. Cf. also The Return of the King VI 4: ‘Old Thorondor, who built his eyries in the inaccessible peaks of the Encircling Mountains when Middle-earth was young.’ In all probability the conception of Thorondor’s dwelling at first upon Thangorodrim, which is found also in an early Silmarillion text, was later abandoned.
26 In The Silmarillion nothing is said specifically concerning the speech of the Elves of Gondolin; but this passage suggests that for some of them the High Speech (Quenya) was in ordinary use. It is stated in a late linguistic essay that Quenya was in daily use in Turgon’s house, and was the childhood speech of Ea¨rendil; but that ‘for most of the people of Gondolin it had become a language of books, and as the other Noldor they used Sindarin in daily speech’. Cf. The Silmarillion p. 129: after the edict of Thingol ‘the Exiles took the Sindarin tongue in all their daily uses, and the High Speech of the West was spoken only by the lords of the Noldor among themselves. Yet that speech lived ever as a language of lore, wherever any of that people dwelt.’
27 These were the flowers that bloomed abundantly on the burial mounds of the Kings of Rohan below Edoras, and which Gandalf named in the language of the Rohirrim (as translated into Old English) simbelmynë, that is ‘Evermind’, ‘for they blossom in all the seasons of the year, and grow where dead men rest’. (The Two Towers III 6.) The Elvish name uilos is only given in this passage, but the word is found also in Amon Uilos, as the Quenya name Oiolossë (‘Ever-snow-white’, the Mountain of Manwë) was rendered into Sindarin. In ‘Cirion and Eorl’ the flower is given an
other Elvish name, alfirin (p. 393).
28 In The Silmarillion p. 92 it is said that Thingol rewarded the Dwarves of Belegost with many pearls: ‘These Círdan gave to him, for they were got in great number in the shallow waters about the Isle of Balar.’
29 Ecthelion of the Fountain is mentioned in The Silmarillion as one of Turgon’s captains who guarded the flanks of the host of Gondolin in their retreat down Sirion from the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, and as the slayer of Gothmog Lord of Balrogs, by whom he himself was slain, in the assault on the city.
30 From this point the carefully-written, though much-emended, manuscript ceases, and the remainder of the narrative is hastily scribbled on a scrap of paper.
31 Here the narrative finally comes to an end, and there remain only some hasty jottings indicating the course of the story:
Tuor asked the name of the City, and was told its seven names. (It is notable, and no doubt intentional, that the name Gondolin is never once used in the narrative until the very end (p. 66): always it is called the Hidden Kingdom or the Hidden City.) Ecthelion gave orders for the sounding of the signal, and trumpets were blown on the towers of the Great Gate, echoing in the hills. After a hush, they heard far off answering trumpets blown upon the city walls. Horses were brought (a grey horse for Tuor); and they rode to Gondolin.
A description of Gondolin was to follow, of the stairs up to its high platform, and its great gate; of the mounds (this word is uncertain) of mallorns, birches, and evergreen trees; of the Place of the Fountain, the King’s tower on a pillared arcade, the King’s house, and the banner of Fingolfin. Now Turgon himself would appear, ‘tallest of all the Children of the World, save Thingol’, with a white and gold sword in a ruel-bone (ivory) sheath, and welcome Tuor. Maeglin would be seen standing on the right of the throne, and Idril the King’s daughter seated on the left; and Tuor would speak the message of Ulmo either ‘in the hearing of all’ or ‘in the council-chamber’.
Other disjointed notes indicate that there was to be a description of Gondolin as seen by Tuor from far off; that Ulmo’s cloak would vanish when Tuor spoke the message of Turgon; that it would be explained why there was no Queen of Gondolin; and that it was to be emphasized, either when Tuor first set eyes upon Idril or at some earlier point, that he had known or even seen few women in his life. Most of the women and all the children of Annael’s company in Mithrim were sent away south; and as a thrall Tuor had seen only the proud and barbaric women of the Easterlings, who treated him as a beast, or the unhappy slaves forced to labour from childhood, for whom he had only pity.
It may be noted that later mentions of mallorns in Númenor, Lindon, and Lothlórien do not suggest, though they do not deny, that those trees flourished in Gondolin in the Elder Days (see pp. 216 – 17), and that the wife of Turgon, Elenwë, was lost long before in the crossing of the Helcaraxë by the host of Fingolfin (The Silmarillion p. 90).
II
NARN I HÎN HÚRIN
The Tale of the Children of Húrin
The Childhood of Túrin
Hador Goldenhead was a lord of the Edain and well-beloved by the Eldar. He dwelt while his days lasted under the lordship of Fingolfin, who gave to him wide lands in that region of Hithlum which was called Dor-lómin. His daughter Glóredhel wedded Haldir son of Halmir, lord of the Men of Brethil; and at the same feast his son Galdor the Tall wedded Hareth, the daughter of Halmir.
Galdor and Hareth had two sons, Húrin and Huor. Húrin was by three years the elder, but he was shorter in stature than other men of his kin; in this he took after his mother’s people, but in all else he was like Hador his grandfather, fair of face and golden-haired, strong in body and fiery of mood. But the fire in him burned steadily, and he had great endurance of will. Of all Men of the North he knew most of the counsels of the Noldor. Huor his brother was tall, the tallest of all the Edain save his own son Tuor only, and a swift runner; but if the race were long and hard Húrin would be the first home, for he ran as strongly at the end of the course as at the beginning. There was great love between the brothers, and they were seldom apart in their youth.
Húrin wedded Morwen, the daughter of Baragund son of Bregolas of the House of Bëor; and she was thus of close kin to Beren One-hand. Morwen was dark-haired and tall, and for the light of her glance and the beauty of her face men called her Eledhwen, the elven-fair; but she was somewhat stern of mood and proud. The sorrows of the House of Bëor saddened her heart; for she came as an exile to Dor-lómin from Dorthonion after the ruin of the Bragollach.
Túrin was the name of the eldest child of Húrin and Morwen, and he was born in that year in which Beren came to Doriath and found Lúthien Tinúviel, Thingol’s daughter. Morwen bore a daughter also to Húrin, and she was named Urwen; but she was called Lalaith, which is Laughter, by all that knew her in her short life.
Huor wedded Rían, the cousin of Morwen; she was the daughter of Belegund son of Bregolas. By hard fate was she born into such days, for she was gentle of heart and loved neither hunting nor war. Her love was given to trees and to the flowers of the wild, and she was a singer and a maker of songs. Two months only had she been wedded to Huor when he went with his brother to the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, and she never saw him again. 1
In the years after the Dagor Bragollach and the fall of Fingolfin the shadow of the fear of Morgoth lengthened. But in the four hundred and sixty-ninth year after the return of the Noldor to Middle-earth there was a stirring of hope among Elves and Men; for the rumour ran among them of the deeds of Beren and Lúthien, and the putting to shame of Morgoth even upon his throne in Angband, and some said that Beren and Lúthien yet lived, or had returned from the Dead. In that year also the great counsels of Maedhros were almost complete, and with the reviving strength of the Eldar and the Edain the advance of Morgoth was stayed, and the Orcs were driven back from Beleriand. Then some began to speak of victories to come, and of redressing the Battle of the Bragollach, when Maedhros should lead forth the united hosts, and drive Morgoth underground, and seal the Doors of Angband.
But the wiser were uneasy still, fearing that Maedhros revealed his growing strength too soon, and that Morgoth would be given time enough to take counsel against him. ‘Ever will some new evil be hatched in Angband beyond the guess of Elves and Men,’ they said. And in the autumn of that year, to point their words, there came an ill wind from the North under leaden skies. The Evil Breath it was called, for it was pestilent; and many sickened and died in the fall of the year in the northern lands that bordered on the Anfauglith, and they were for the most part the children or the rising youth in the houses of Men.
In that year Túrin son of Húrin was yet only five years old, and Urwen his sister was three in the beginning of spring. Her hair was like the yellow lilies in the grass as she ran in the fields, and her laughter was like the sound of the merry stream that came singing out of the hills past the walls of her father’s house. Nen Lalaith it was named, and after it all the people of the household called the child Lalaith, and their hearts were glad while she was among them.
But Túrin was loved less than she. He was dark-haired as his mother, and promised to be like her in mood also; for he was not merry, and spoke little, though he learned to speak early and ever seemed older than his years. Túrin was slow to forget injustice or mockery; but the fire of his father was also in him, and he could be sudden and fierce. Yet he was quick to pity, and the hurts or sadness of living things might move him to tears; and he was like his father in this also, for Morwen was stern with others as with herself. He loved his mother, for her speech to him was forthright and plain; but his father he saw little, for Húrin was often long away from home with the host of Fingon that guarded Hithlum’s eastern borders, and when he returned his quick speech, full of strange words and jests and half-meanings, bewildered Túrin and made him uneasy. At that time all the warmth of his heart was for Lalaith his sister; but he played with her seldom, and liked better to guard her unseen and to watch her going upon grass or under tree,
as she sang such songs as the children of the Edain made long ago when the tongue of the Elves was still fresh upon their lips.
‘Fair as an Elf-child is Lalaith,’ said Húrin to Morwen; ‘but briefer, alas! And so fairer, maybe, or dearer.’ And Túrin hearing these words pondered them, but could not understand them. For he had seen no Elf-children. None of the Eldar at that time dwelt in his father’s lands, and once only had he seen them, when King Fingon and many of his lords had ridden through Dor-lómin and passed over the bridge of Nen Lalaith, glittering in silver and white.
But before the year was out the truth of his father’s words was shown; for the Evil Breath came to Dor-lómin, and Túrin took sick, and lay long in a fever and dark dream. And when he was healed, for such was his fate and the strength of life that was in him, he asked for Lalaith. But his nurse answered: ‘Speak no more of Lalaith, son of Húrin; but of your sister Urwen you must ask tidings of your mother.’
And when Morwen came to him, Túrin said to her: ‘I am no longer sick, and I wish to see Urwen; but why must I not say Lalaith any more?’
‘Because Urwen is dead, and laughter is stilled in this house,’ she answered. ‘But you live, son of Morwen; and so does the Enemy who has done this to us.’
She did not seek to comfort him any more than herself; for she met her grief in silence and coldness of heart. But Húrin mourned openly, and he took up his harp and would make a song of lamentation; but he could not, and he broke his harp, and going out he lifted up his hand towards the North, crying: ‘Marrer of Middle-earth, would that I might see thee face to face, and mar thee as my lord Fingolfin did!’
But Túrin wept bitterly at night alone, though to Morwen he never again spoke the name of his sister. To one friend only he turned at that time, and to him he spoke of his sorrow and the emptiness of the house. This friend was named Sador, a house-man in the service of Húrin; he was lame, and of small account. He had been a woodman, and by ill-luck or the mishandling of his axe he had hewn his right foot, and the footless leg had shrunken; and Túrin called him Labadal, which is ‘Hopafoot’, though the name did not displease Sador, for it was given in pity and not in scorn. Sador worked in the outbuildings, to make or mend things of little worth that were needed in the house, for he had some skill in the working of wood; and Túrin would fetch him what he lacked, to spare his leg, and sometimes he would carry off secretly some tool or piece of timber that he found unwatched, if he thought his friend might use it. Then Sador smiled, but bade him return the gifts to their places; ‘Give with a free hand, but give only your own,’ he said. He rewarded as he could the kindness of the child, and carved for him the figures of men and beasts; but Túrin delighted most in Sador’s tales, for he had been a young man in the days of the Bragollach, and loved now to dwell upon the short days of his full manhood before his maiming.
Unfinished Tales Page 8