The Lays of Beleriand. Christopher Tolkien

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      (284–6)

       she would not yet humble her pride to be an alms-guest, not even of a king

      (Narn p. 70)

      – though in the Narn the ‘alms-guest’ passage occurs at a different point, before Túrin left Hithlum (Morwen’s hope that Húrin would come back is in the Narn her reason for not journeying to Doriath with her son, not for refusing the later invitation to her to go).

      Of Morwen’s situation in Dor-lómin after the Battle of Unnumbered Tears there are a few things to say. In the poem (111–13)

       men unmindful of his mighty lordship

       dwelt in Dorlómin and dealt unkindly

       with his widowed wife

      – echoing the Tale: ‘the strange men who dwelt nigh knew not the dignity of the Lady Mavwin’, but there is still no indication of who these men were or where they came from (see II. 126). As so often, the narrative situation was prepared but its explanation had not emerged. The unclarity of the Tale as to where Úrin dwelt before the great Battle (see II. 120) is no longer present: the dwelling was dear where he dwelt of old (288). Nienor was born before Túrin left (on the contradiction in the Tale on this point see II. 131); and the chronology of Túrin’s childhood is still that of the Tale (see II. 142): seven years old when he left Hithlum (332), seven years in Doriath while tidings still came from Morwen (333), twelve years since he came to Doriath when he slew Orgof (471). In the later story the last figure remained unchanged, which suggests that the X (mark of dissatisfaction) placed against line 471 had some other reason.

      There are several references in the poem to Húrin and Beren having been friends and fellows-in-arms (122–4, 248–9, 298). In the Tale it was said originally (when Beren was a Man) that Egnor Beren’s father was akin to Mavwin; this was replaced by a different passage (when Beren had become a Gnome) according to which Egnor was a friend of Úrin (‘and Beren Ermabwed son of Egnor he knew’); see II. 71–2, 139. In the later version of the Tale of Tinúviel (II. 44) Úrin is named as the ‘brother in arms’ of Egnor; this was emended to make Úrin’s relationship with Beren himself – as in the poem. In The Silmarillion (p. 198) Morwen thought to send Túrin to Thingol ‘for Beren son of Barahir was her father’s kinsman, and he had been moreover a friend of Húrin, ere evil befell’. There is no mention of the fact in the Narn (p. 63): Morwen merely says: ‘Am I not now kin of the king [Thingol]? For Beren son of Barahir was grandson of Bregor, as was my father also.’

      That Beren was still an Elf, not a Man, (deducible on other grounds) is apparent from lines 178–9:

       and never ere now for need or wonder

       had children of Men chosen that pathway

      – cf. the Tale (II. 72): ‘and Túrin son of Úrin was the first of Men to tread that way’, changed from the earlier reading ‘and Beren Ermabwed was the first of Men …’

      In the parting of Túrin from his mother comparison with the Tale will show some subtle differences which need not be spelled out here. The younger of Túrin’s guardians is now named, Halog (and it is said that Gumlin and Halog were the only ‘henchmen’ left to Morwen).

Some very curious things are said of Beleg in the poem. He is twice (200, 399) called ‘a (the) son of the wilderness who wist no sire’, and at line 416 he is ‘Beleg the ageless’. There seems to be a mystery about him, an otherness that sets him apart (as he set himself apart, 195) from the Elves of Thingol’s lordship (see further p. 127). It may be that there is still a trace of this in the 1930 ‘Silmarillion’, where it is said that none went from Doriath to the Battle of Unnumbered Tears save Mablung, and Beleg ‘who obeyed no man’ (in the later text this becomes ‘nor any out of Doriath save Mablung and Beleg, who were unwilling to have no part in these great deeds. To them Thingol gave leave to go …’; The Silmarillion p. 189). In the poem (219) Beleg says expressly that he did not go to the great Battle. – His great bow of black yew-wood (so in The Silmarillion, p. 208, where it is named Belthronding) now appears (400): in the Tale he is not particularly marked out as a bowman (II. 123).

      Beleg’s The gods have guided you (215) and Turin’s guardians’ thought the gods are good (244) accord with references in the Lost Tales to the influence of the Valar on Men and Elves in the Great Lands: see II. 141.

      The potent wine that Beleg carried and gave to the travellers from his flask (223 ff.) is notable – brought from the burning South and by long ways carried to the lands of the North – as is the name of the land from which it came: Dor-Winion (230, 425). The only other places in my father’s writings where this name occurs (so far as I know) are in The Hobbit, Chapter IX Barrels out of Bond: ‘the heady vintage of the great gardens of Dorwinion’, and ‘the wine of Dorwinion brings deep and pleasant dreams’.^* See further p. 127.

      The curious element in Thingol’s message to Morwen in the Tale, explaining why he did not go with his people to the Battle of Unnumbered Tears (II. 73), has now been rejected; but with Morwen’s response to the messengers out of Doriath there enters the legend the Dragon-helm of Dor-lómin (297 ff.). As yet little is told of it (though more is said in the second version of the poem, see p. 126): Húrin often bore it in battle (in the Narn it is denied that he used it, p. 76); it magically protected its wearer (as still in the Narn, p. 75); and it was with that token crowned of the towering dragon, and o’erwritten with runes by wrights of old (cf. the Narn: ‘on it were graven runes of victory’). But nothing is here said of how Húrin came by it, beyond the fact that it was his heirloom. Very notable is the passage (307 ff.) in which is described Thingol’s handling of the helm as his hoard were scant, despite his possession of dungeons filled / with Elfin armouries of ancient gear. I have commented previously (see II. 128–9, 245–6) on the early emphasis on the poverty of Tinwelint (Thingol): here we have the first appearance of the idea of his wealth (present also at the beginning of the Lay of Leithian). Also notable is the close echoing of the lines of the poem in the words of the Narn, p. 76:

      Yet Thingol handled the Helm of Hador as though his hoard were scanty, and he spoke courteous words, saying: ‘Proud were the head that bore this helm, which the sires of Húrin bore.’

      There is also a clear echo of lines 315–18

       Then a thought was thrust into Thingol’s heart,

       and Túrin he called and told when come

       that Morwin his mother a mighty thing

       had sent to her son, his sire’s heirloom

      in the prose of the Narn:

      Then a thought came to him, and he summoned Túrin, and told him that Morwen had sent to her son a mighty thing, the heirloom of his fathers.

      Compare also the passages that follow in both works, concerning Túrin’s being too young to lift the Helm, and being in any case too unhappy to heed it on account of his mother’s refusal to leave Hithlum. This was the first of his sorrows (328); in the Narn (p. 75) the second.

      The account of Túrin’s character in boyhood (341 ff.) is very close to that in the Tale (II. 74), which СКАЧАТЬ