17 Original reading ‘twice seven’. When Tъrin fled from the land of Tinwelint it was exactly 12 years since he had left his mother’s house (p. 75), and Nienуri was born before that, but just how long before is not stated.
18 After ‘a great and terrible project afoot’ the original reading was ‘the story of which entereth not into this tale’. I do not know whether this means that when my father first wrote here of Melko’s ‘project’ he did not have the destruction of the Rodothlim in mind.
19 ‘the king’: original reading ‘Linwл’. See note 7.
20 Linwл: an oversight. See note 7.
21 ‘that high place’: original reading ‘a hill’.
22 This sentence, ‘And even so was Tъrin’s boast…’, was added in pencil later. The reference is to Tъrin’s naming himself Turambar—‘from this hour shall none name me Tъrin if I live’, p. 86.
23 This sentence, from ‘for his lineage…’ to approximately this point, is very lightly struck through. On the opposite page of the MS is hastily scribbled: ‘Make Turambar never tell new folk of his lineage (will bury the past)—this avoids chance (as cert.) of Nнniel hearing his lineage from any.’ See Commentary, p. 131.
24 Against this sentence there is a pencilled question-mark in the margin. See note 23 and the Commentary, p. 131.
25 ‘And Nнniel conceived’ was added in pencil later. See Commentary, p. 135.
26 ‘and the captain of these was Mоm the dwarf’ added afterwards in pencil. See Commentary p. 137.
27 The word tract may be read as track, and the word hurt (but with less probability) as burnt.
28 As it stands this sentence can hardly mean other than that the people thought that the men were fighting among themselves; but why should they think such a thing? More likely, my father inadvertently missed out the end of the sentence: ‘betwixt the seven, Turambar and his comrades, and the dragon.’
29 Turambar refers to Glorund’s words to him before the caves of the Rodothlim: ‘O Tъrin Mormakil, who wast once named brave’ (p. 86).
30 These words, from ‘even he who…’, were added later in pencil. Ъrin may also be read as Hъrin.
31 From this point to the end of Eltas’ tale the original text was struck through, and is followed in the manuscript book by two brief narrative outlines, these being rejected also. The text given here (from ‘Yet it is said…’) is found on slips placed in the book. For the rejected material see the Commentary, pp. 135–7.
32 Throughout the final portion of the text (that written on slips, see note 31) the king’s name was first written Tinthellon, not Tintoglin (see note 3).
33 ‘Elves’: original reading ‘men’. The same change was made below (‘Now therefore when those Elves approached’), and a little later ‘men’ was removed in two places (‘his folk laughed’, ‘Ъrin caused his followers to bear the gold’, p. 114); but several occurrences of ‘men’ were retained, possibly through oversight, though ‘men’ is used of Elves very frequently in the Tale of Turambar (e.g. ‘Beleg and Flinding both stout men’, p. 80).
34 This sentence, from ‘But none had come nigh…’, was added later in pencil.
35 This sentence, from ‘Then did Ъrin fiercely…’, was added later, replacing ‘Then said Ъrin: “Yet had you such a heart…”’
36 This sentence, from “What meanest thou…”, replaces the original reading “Begone, and take thy filth with thee.”
Changes made to names in
The Tale of Turambar
Fuithlug <Fothlug <Fothlog
Nienуri At the first occurrence (p. 71) my father originally wrote Nyenтre (Nienor). Afterwards he struck out Nyenтre, removed the brackets round Nienor, and added -i, giving Nienori. At subsequent occurrences the name was written both Nienor and Nienуri, but Nienor was changed to Nienуri later throughout the earlier part of the tale. Towards the end, and in the text written on slips that concludes it, the form is Nienor. I have given Nienуri throughout.
Tinwelint < Tinthellon (p. 72, twice). See p. 69 and note 3. Tinwelint < Tinthellon also in the concluding portion of the text, see note 32.
Tinwelint < Tintoglin throughout the tale, except as just noted (where Tinwelint < Tinthellon in passages added later); see p. 69.
Gwedheling < Gwendeling at all occurrences (Gwendeling unchanged at p. 76, but this is obviously an oversight: I read (Gwedheling in the text). In the Gnomish dictionary the form Gwendeling was changed to Gwedhiling; see p. 50.
Flinding bo-Dhuilin < Flinding go-Dhuilin This change, made at the occurrence on p. 78, was not made at p. 82, but this was clearly because the form was missed, and I read bo-Dhuilin in both cases; the same change from go- to bo- in the Tale of Tinъviel, see p. 51. The form Dhuilin is taken by the name when the patronymic is prefixed (cf. Duilin p. 79).
Rodothlim < Rothwarin at every occurrence.
Gurtholfin < Gortholfin at the first occurrences, but from p. 90 Gurtholfin was the form first written.
Commentary on
The Tale of Turambar
§ 1. The primary narrative
In commenting on this long tale it is convenient to break it into short sections. In the course of this commentary I frequently refer to the long (though incomplete) prose narrative, the Narn i Hоn Hъrin, given in Unfinished Tales pp. 57ff., often in preference to the briefer account in The Silmarillion, chapter XXI; and in reference to the former I cite ‘Narn’ and the page-number in Unfinished Tales.
(i) The capture of Ъrin and Tъrin’s childhood in Hisilуmл (pp. 70–2).
At the outset of the tale, it would be interesting to know more of the teller, Eltas. He is a puzzling figure: he seems to be a Man (he says that ‘our people’ called Turambar Turumart ‘after the fashion of the Gnomes’) living in Hisilуmл after the days of Turambar but before the fall of Gondolin, and he ‘trod Olуrл Mallл’, the Path of Dreams. Is he then a child, one of ‘the children of the fathers of the fathers of Men’, who ‘found Kфr and remained with the Eldar for ever’ (The Cottage of Lost Play, I.19–20)?
The opening passage agrees in almost all essentials with the ultimate form of the story. Thus there go back to the beginning of the ‘tradition’ (or at least to its earliest extant form) the departure of Hъrin to the Battle of Unnumbered Tears at the summons of the Noldor, while his wife (Mavwin = Morwen) and young son Tъrin remained behind; the great stand of Hъrin’s men, and Hъrin’s capture by Morgoth; the reason for Hъrin’s torture (Morgoth’s wish to learn the whereabouts of Turgon) and the mode of it, and Morgoth’s curse; the birth of Nienor shortly after the great battle.
That Men were shut in Hisilуmл (or Hithlum, the Gnomish form, which here first appears, equated with Dor Lуmin, p. 71) after the Battle of Unnumbered Tears is stated in The Coming of the Elves (I. 118) and in the last of the outlines for Gilfanon’s Tale (I.241); later on this was transformed into the confinement of the treacherous Easterling Men in Hithlum (The Silmarillion p. 195), and their ill-treatment of the survivors of the House of Hador became an essential element in the story of Tъrin’s childhood. But in the Tale of Turambar the idea is already present that ‘the strange men who dwelt nigh knew not the dignity of the Lady Mavwin’. It is not in fact clear where Ъrin dwelt: it is said here that after the battle ‘Mavwin got her in tears into the land of Hithlum or Dor Lуmin where all Men must now dwell’, which can only mean that she went there, on account of Melko’s command, from wherever she had dwelt with Ъrin before; on the other hand, a little later in the tale (p. 73), and in apparent contradiction to this, Mavwin would not accept the invitation of Tinwelint to come to Artanor partly because (it is suggested) ‘she clung to that dwelling that Ъrin had set her in ere he went to the great war’.