The Lays of Beleriand. Christopher Tolkien

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      NOTES

      Commentary on Part II ‘Beleg’

      In this part of the poem there are some narrative developments of much interest. The poem follows the Tale (II. 76) in making Beleg become one of Turin’s band on the marches of Doriath not long after Túrin’s departure from the Thousand Caves, and with no intervening event – in The Silmarillion (p. 200) Beleg came to Menegroth, and after speaking to Thingol set out to seek Túrin, while in the Narn (pp. 82–5) there is the ‘trial of Túrin’, and the intervention of Beleg bringing Nellas as witness, before he set out on Túrin’s trail. In the poem it is explicit that Beleg was not searching for him, and indeed knew nothing whatever of what had passed in the Thousand Caves (595). But Túrin’s band are no longer the ‘wild spirits’ of the Tale; they are hostile to all comers, whether Orcs or Men or Elves, including the Elves of Doriath (560–1, 566), as in The Silmarillion, and in far greater detail in the Narn, where the band is called Gaurwaith, the Wolf-men, ‘to be feared as wolves’.

      The element of Beleg’s capture and maltreatment by the band now appears, and also that of Túrin’s absence from the camp at the time. Several features of the story in the Narn are indeed already present in the poem, though absent from the more condensed account in The Silmarillion: as Beleg’s being tied to a tree by the outlaws (577, Narn pp. 92–3), and the occasion of Túrin’s absence – he was

       on the trail of the Orcs,

       as they hastened home to the Hills of Iron

       with the loot laden of the lands of Men

      just as in the Narn (pp. 91–2), where however the story is part of a complex set of movements among the Woodmen of Brethil, Beleg, the Gaurwaith, and the Orcs.

      Whereas in the Tale it was only now that Beleg and Túrin became companions-in-arms, we have already seen that the poem has the later story whereby they had fought together on the marches of Doriath before Túrin’s flight from the Thousand Caves (p. 27); and we now have also the development that Túrin’s altered mood at the sight of Beleg tied to the tree (Then Túrin’s heart was turned from hate, 584), and Beleg’s own reproaches (Shall the foes of Faërie be friends of Men? 603), led to the band’s turning their arms henceforth only against the foes of Faërie (644). Of the great oath sworn by the members of the band, explicitly echoing that of the Sons of Fëanor (634) – and showing incidentally that in that oath the holy mountain of Taniquetil (Tain-Gwethil) was taken in witness (636), there is no trace in The Silmarillion or the Narn: in the latter, indeed, the outlaws are not conceived in such a way as to make such an oath-taking at all probable.

      Lines 643 ff., describing the prowess of the fellowship in the forest, are the ultimate origin of the never finally achieved story of the Land of Dor-Cúarthol (The Silmarillion p. 205, Narn pp. 152–4); lines 651–4

       even in Angband the Orcs trembled.

       Then the word wandered down the ways of the forest

       that Túrin Thalion was returned to war;

       and Thingol heard it …

      lead in the end to

      In Menegroth, and in the deep halls of Nargothrond, and even in the hidden realm of Gondolin, the fame of the deeds of the Two Captains was heard; and in Angband also they were known.

      But in the later story Túrin was hidden under the name Gorthol, the Dread Helm, and it was his wearing of the Dragon-helm that revealed him to Morgoth. There is no suggestion of this in the earlier phase of the legend; the Dragon-helm makes no further appearance here in the poem.

      A table may serve to clarify the development: