The War of the Jewels (57 page)

Turin Turumarth.(1)

Here begins that tale which AElfwine made from the Hurinien: which is the longest of all the lays of Beleriand now held in memory in Eressea. But it is said there that, though made in Elvish speech and using much Elvish lore (especially of Doriath), this lay was the work of a Mannish poet, Dirhavel, who lived at the Havens in the days of Earendel and there gathered all the tidings and lore that he could of the House of Hador, whether among Men or Elves, remnants and fugitives of Dorlomin, of Nargothrond, or of Doriath. From Mablung he learned much; and by fortune also he found a man named Andvir, and he was very old, but was the son of that Androg who was in the outlaw-band of Turin, and alone survived the battle on the summit of Amon Rudh.(2) Otherwise all that time between the flight of Turin from Doriath and his coming to Nargothrond, and Turin's deeds in those days, would have remained hidden, save the little that was remembered among the people of Nargothrond concerning such matters as Gwindor or Turin ever revealed. In this way also the matter of Mim and his later dealings with Hurin were made clear. This lay was all that Dirhavel ever made, but it was prized by the Elves and remembered by them. Dirhavel they say perished in the last raid of the sons of Feanor upon the Havens. His lay was composed in that mode of verse which was called Minlamad thent / estent.(3) Though this verse was not wholly unlike the verse known to AElfwine, he translated the lay into prose (including in it, or adding in the margins as seemed fit to him, matter from the Elvish commentaries that he had heard or seen); for he was not himself skilled in the making of verse, and the transference of this long tale from Elvish into English was difficult enough.

Indeed even as it was made, with the help of the Elves as it would seem from his notes and additions, in places his account is obscure.

This version into 'modern' English, that is forms of English intelligible to living users of the English tongue (who have some knowledge of letters, and are not limited to the language of daily use from mouth to mouth) does not attempt to imitate the idiom of AElfwine, nor that of the Elvish which often shows through especially in the dialogue. But since it is even to Elves now 'a tale of long ago', and depicts high and ancient persons and their speech (such as Thingol and Melian), there is in AElfwine's version, and clearly was in Dirhavel's day, much archaic language, of words and usage, and the older and nobler Elves do not speak in the same style as Men, or in quite the same language as that of the main narrative; there are therefore here retained similar elements. It is for this reason that, for example, Thingol's speech is not that of our present day: for indeed the speech of Doriath, whether of the king or others, was even in the days of Turin more antique than that used elsewhere. One thing (as Mim observed) of which Turin never rid himself, despite his grievance against Doriath, was the speech he had acquired during his fostering. Though a Man, he spoke like an Elf of the Hidden Kingdom,(4) which is as though a Man should now appear, whose speech and schooling until manhood had been that of some secluded country where the English had remained nearer that of the court of Elizabeth I than of Elizabeth II.

The second text ('B') is very much briefer, and was composed on the typewriter which my father used for several of the Narn texts, and other writings such as the chapter Of the Coming of Men into the West.

Many songs are yet sung and many tales are yet told by the Elves in the Lonely Isle of the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, the Battle of Unnumbered Tears, in which Fingon fell and the flower of the Eldar withered. But here I will tell as I may a Tale of Men that Dirhaval (5) of the Havens made in the days of Earendel long ago.

Narn i Chin Hurin he called it, the Tale * of the Children of Hurin, which is the longest of all the lays that are now remembered in Eressea, though it was made by a man.

For such was Dirhaval. He came of the House of Hador, it is said, and the glory and sorrow of that House was nearest to his heart. Dwelling at the Havens of Sirion, he gathered there all the tidings and lore that he could; for in the last days of Beleriand chere came thither remnants out of all the countries, both Men and Elves: from Hithlum and Dor-lomin, from Nargothrond and Doriath, from Gondolin and the realms of the Sons of Feanor in the east.

This lay was all that Dirhaval ever made, but it was prized by the Eldar, for Dirhaval used the Grey-elven tongue, in which he had great skill. He used that mode of Elvish verse which is called [long space left in typescript] which was of old proper to the narn; but though this verse mode is not unlike the verse of the English, I have rendered it in prose, judging my skill too small to be at once scop and walhstod.(6) Even so my task has been hard enough, and without the help of the Elves could not have been completed. I have not added to Dirhaval's tale, nor omitted from it anything that he told; neither have I changed the order of his history. But on matters that seemed of interest, or that were become dark with the passing of the years, I have made notes, whether within the tale or upon its margins, according to such lore as I found in Eressea.

That A preceded B, at whatever interval (but I do not think that it was long), is seen, among other considerations, from the use of the old name 'the Hurinien' in the opening sentence of A (whereas in B it is called Narn i Chin Hurin). This name had appeared years before in QS

Chapter 17, Of Turin Turamarth or Turin the Hapless: 'that lay which is called iChurinien, the Children of Hurin, and is the longest of all the lays that speak of those days' (V.317). (For Hurinien beside iChurinien, and my reason for substituting Hin for Chin in Unfinished Tales, see V.322.)

It is possible to state with certainty at what period these pieces were written. I said in Unfinished Tales (p. 150): 'From the point in the story where Turin and his men established themselves in the ancient dwelling of the Petty-dwarves on Amon Rudh there is no completed narrative on the same detailed plan [as in the preceding parts], until the Narn takes up again with Turin's journey northwards after the fall (* [ footnote to the text] narn among the Elves signifies a tale that is told in verse to be spoken and not sung.)

of Nargothrond': from the existing materials I formed a brief narrative in The Silmarillion, Chapter 21, and gave some further citations from the texts in Unfinished Tales, pp. 150 - 4. Now the story of Turin and Beleg in Mim's hidden dwelling on Amon Rudh and the short-lived

'Land of Bow and Helm', Dor-Cuarthol, belongs (like all the rest of the huge extension of this part of the 'Turins Saga') to the period after the publication of The Lord of the Rings; and the mention in text A of the man Andvir, 'the son of that Androg who was in the outlaw-band of Turin, and alone survived the battle on the summit of Amon Rudh'

(see note 2) shows that this story was fully in being (so far as it ever went) when A was written - indeed it seems likely enough that A belongs to the time when my father was working on it.

It is therefore very notable that at this relatively late date he was propounding such a view of the 'transmission' of the Narn i Chin Hurin (in contrast to the statement cited in X.373, that 'the three Great Tales must be Numenorean, and derived from matter preserved in Gondor': the second of the 'Great Tales' being the Narn i Chin Hurin). Striking also is the information (in both texts) that the verse-form of Dirhaval's lay bore some likeness to the verse known to AElfwine (meaning of course the Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse), but that because AElfwine was no scop (see note 6) he translated it into (Anglo-Saxon) prose. I do not know of any other statement bearing on this. It is tempting to suspect some sort of oblique reference here to my father's abandoned alliterative Lay of the Children of Hurin of the 1920s, but this may he delusory.

The second version B, in which the introductory note becomes a preface by AElfwine himself, rather than an 'editorial' recounting of what AElfwine did, was clipped to and clearly belonged with a twelve-page typescript composed ab initio by my father and bearing the title

'Here begins the tale of the Children of Hurin, Narn i Chin Hurin, which Dirhaval wrought.' This text provides the opening of the Narn in Unfinished Tales (pp. 57-8), and continues into the story of Hurin and Huor in Gondolin (omitted in Unfinished Tales) which was based very closely indeed on the version in the Grey Annals and is described on pp. 169 - 70 (then follows the story of Turin's sister Lalaeth and of his friendship with Sador Labadal, ending with the riding away of Hurin to the Battle of Unnumbered Tears, which is given in Unfinished Tales pp. 58 - 65). It is very difficult to interpret, in the story of the visit to Gondolin, the close similarity or (often) actual identity of wording in Dirhaval's lay with that of the version in the Grey Annals. The same '

question arises, despite a central difference in the narrative, in the case of the Narn version of the Battle of Unnumbered Tears and that in the Annals (see pp. 165 ff.). The Narn text is not linked, as is the Gondolin story, to the name of Dirhaval; but it is a curious fact that it begins (p. 165) 'Many songs are yet sung, and many tales are yet told by the Elves of the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, the Battle of Unnumbered Tears, in which Fingon fell and the flower of the Eldar withered - for this is identical to the opening of AElfwine's preface (text B, p. 312), except that the latter has 'are yet told by the Elves in the Lonely Isle'.

NOTES.

1. In the old Tale of Turambar the Gnomish form of Turambar was Turumart, and in Q Turumarth, where however it was changed to Turamarth, as it was also in QS (V.321). Turumarth here must represent a reversion to the original form.

2. Andvir son of Androg appears nowhere else. It is expressly stated in a plot-outline of this part of the Narn that Androg died in the battle on the summit of Amon Rudh (see Unfinished Tales p. 154).

The wording here is plain, and can hardly be taken to mean that it was Andvir (also a member of the outlaw-band) who alone survived.

3. The name of the verse is clearly Minlamad thent / estent: Minlamed in Unfinished Tales p. 146 is erroneous.

4. Cf. the 'linguistic excursus' in the Grey Annals, p. 26, where there is a reference to the speech of the Grey-elves becoming the common tongue of Beleriand and being affected by words and devices drawn from Noldorin - 'save in Doriath where the language remained purer and less changed by time'.

5. The name is perfectly clearly Dirhavel in A, but is typed Dirhaval in B, which being the later should have been adopted in Unfinished Tales.

6. Against scop my father noted: 'O.English = poet', and against walhstod 'O.English = interpreter' (on the carbon copy 'interpreter / translator').

III.

MAEGLIN.

The tale of Isfin and Eol and their son Meglin (in the earliest form of his name) had long roots, and I have set out its earlier history in concise form on pp. 121 - 2, $$117-20. As the text of the Grey Annals was first written the form of the story in AB 2 was repeated: Isfin left Gondolin in the year before the Battle of Unnumbered Tears, and twenty-one years later Meglin was sent alone to Gondolin (GA original annals 471 and 492, pp. 47, 84). It was at that stage that a full tale of Meglin and how he came to Gondolin was first written.

This was a clear manuscript of 12 sides, fairly heavily emended both at the time of writing and later; it belongs in style very evidently with the Annals of Aman, the Grey Annals, the later Tale of Tuor, and the text which I have called the End of the Narn ('NE', see p. 145), and can be firmly dated to the same time (1951). It was on the basis of this work that revised annals concerning the story were introduced into GA (years 316, 320, and 400, pp. 47 - 8), as noticed earlier (p. 123); these were written on a page from an engagement calendar for November 1951 (p. 47).

An amanuensis typescript with carbon copy was made many years later, as appears from the fact that it was typed on my father's last typewriter. This typescript took up almost all of the emendations made to the manuscript. For the present purpose I shall call the manuscript of 1951 'A' and the late typescript 'B', distinguishing where necessary the top copy as 'B(i)' and the carbon as 'B(ii)'.

The B text was corrected and annotated in ball-point pen, and so also was the carbon copy - but not in the same ways; the original manuscript A also received some late emendations, which do not appear in B as typed. Moreover, a great deal of late writing in manuscript from the same time was inserted into B(i), with other similar material, overlapping in content, found elsewhere; for this my father used scrap paper supplied to him by Allen and Unwin, and two of these sheets are publication notes issued on 19 January 1970 - thus this material is very late indeed, and it is of outstanding difficulty.