It may be noticed here that both the rejected and the replacement passages make it very clear that the events of the story of Beren and Tinъviel took place before the Battle of Unnumbered Tears; see pp. 65–6.

(ii) The Battle of Tasarinan

It is said at the beginning of the present tale (p. 70) that it ‘tells of very ancient days of that folk [Men] before the Battle of Tasarinan when first Men entered the dark vales of Hisilуmл’.

On the face of it this offers an extreme contradiction, since it is said many times that Men were shut in Hisilуmл at the time of the Battle of Unnumbered Tears, and the Tale of Turambar takes place—must take place—after that battle. The solution lies, however, in an ambiguity in the sentence just cited. My father did not mean that this was a tale of Men in ancient days of that folk before they entered Hisilуmл he meant ‘this is a tale of the ancient days when Men first entered Hisilуmл—long before the Battle of Tasarinan’.

Tasarinan is the Land of Willows, Nan-tathren in The Silmarillion; the early word-lists or dictionaries give the ‘Elvish’ form tasarin ‘willow’ and the Gnomish tathrin.* The Battle of Tasarinan took place long after, in the course of the great expedition from Valinor for the release of the enslaved Noldoli in the Great Lands. See pp. 219–20.

(iii) The geography of the Tale of Turambar

The passage describing the route of the Orcs who captured Tъrin (p. 77) seems to give further support to the idea that ‘the mountains fencing Hisilуrnл from the Lands Beyond were continuous with those above Angband’ (p. 62); for it is said here that the Orcs ‘followed ever the line of dark hills toward those regions where they rise high and gloomy and their heads are shrouded in black vapours’, and ‘there are they called Angorodin or the Iron Mountains, for beneath the roots of their northernmost fastnesses lies Angband’.

The site of the caves of the Rodothlim, agreeing well with what is said later of Nargothrond, has been discussed already (p. 123), as has the topography of the Silver Bowl and the ravine in which Turambar slew Glorund, in relation to the later Teiglin, Celebros, and Nen Girith (pp. 132–3). There are in addition some indications in the tale of how the caves of the Rodothlim related to Tinwelint’s kingdom and to the land where the Woodmen dwelt. It is said (p. 95) that ‘the dwellings of the Rodothlim were not utterly distant from the realm of Tinwelint, albeit far enough’ while the Woodmen dwelt ‘in lands that were not utterly far from Sirion or the grassy hills of that river’s middle course’ (p. 91), which may be taken to agree tolerably with the situation of the Forest of Brethil. The region where they lived is said in the same passage to have been ‘very far away many a journey beyond the river of the Rodothlim’, and Glorund’s wrath was great when he heard of ‘a brave folk of Men that dwelt far beyond the river’ (p. 103); this also can be accommodated quite well to the developed geographical conception—Brethil was indeed a good distance beyond the river (Narog) for one setting out from Nargothrond.

My strong impression is that though the geography of the west of the Great Lands may have been still fairly vague, it already had, in many important respects, the same essential structure and relations as those seen on the map accompanying The Silmarillion.

(iv) The influence of the Valar

As in the Tale of Tinъviel (see p. 68), in the Tale of Turambar also there are several references to the power of the Valar in the affairs of Men and Elves in the Great Lands—and to prayers, both of thanksgiving and request, addressed to them: thus Tъrin’s guardians ‘thanked the Valar’ that they accomplished the journey to Artanor (p. 72), and more remarkably, Ъrin ‘called upon the Valar of the west, being taught much concerning them by the Eldar of Kфr—the Gnomes he had encountered—and his words came, who shall say how, to Manwл Sъlimo upon the heights of Taniquetil’ (p. 77). (Ъrin was already an ‘Elf-friend’, instructed by the Noldoli; cf. the replacement passage on p. 72.) Was his prayer ‘answered’? Possibly this is the meaning of the very strange expression ‘as the luck of the Valar had it’ (p. 79), when Flinding and Beleg found Tъrin lying near the point where they entered the Orc-camp.*

Dreams sent by the Valar came to the chieftains of the Rodothlim, though this was changed later and the reference to the Valar removed (p. 83 and note 10); the Woodmen said ‘Would that the Valar would lift the spell that lies upon Nнniel’ (p. 101); and Tъrin ‘cried out bitterly against the Valar and his fate of woe’ (p. 111).

An interesting reference to the Valar (and their power) occurs in Tinwelint’s reply (p. 95) to Mavwin’s words ‘Give me but a woodman’s cot and my son’. The king said: ‘That I cannot, for I am but a king of the wild Elves, and no Vala of the western isles.’ In the small part of Gilfanon’s Tale that was actually written it is told (I.231) of the Dark Elves who remained in Palisor that they said that ‘their brethren had gone westward to the Shining Isles. There, said they, do the Gods dwell, and they called them the Great Folk of the West, and thought they dwelt on firelit islands in the sea.’

(v) Tъrin’s age

According to the Tale of Turambar, when Tъrin left Mavwin he was seven years old, and it was after he had dwelt among the woodland Elves for seven years that all tidings from his home ceased (p. 74); in the Narn the corresponding years are eight and nine, and Tъrin was seventeen, not fourteen, when ‘his grief was renewed’ (pp. 68, 76–7). It was exactly twelve years to the day of his departure from Mavwin when he slew Orgof and fled from Artanor (p. 75), when he was nineteen; in the Narn (p. 79) it was likewise twelve years since he left Hithlum when he hunted Saeros to his death, but he was twenty.

‘The tale tells not the number of days that Turambar sojourned with the Rodothlim but these were very many, and during that time Nienуri grew to the threshold of womanhood’ (pp. 91–2). Nienуri was seven years younger than Tъrin: she was twelve when he fled from Artanor (ibid.). He cannot then have dwelt among the Rodothlim for more than (say) five or six years; and it is said that when he was chosen chieftain of the Woodmen he possessed ‘wisdom great beyond his years’.

Bethos, chieftain of the Woodmen before Tъrin, ‘had fought though then but a boy in the Battle of Unnumbered Tears’ (p. 101), but he was killed in a foray, since ‘despite his years he still rode abroad’. But it is impossible to relate Bethos’ span (from ‘a boy’ at the Battle of Unnumbered Tears to his death on a foray at an age sufficiently ripe to be remarked on) to Tъrin’s; for the events after the destruction of the Rodothlim, culminating in Tъrin’s rescue of Nнniel after her first encounter with Glorund, cannot cover any great length of time. What is clear and certain is that in the old story Tъrin died when still a very young man. According to the precise dating provided in much later writing, he was 35 years old at his death.

(vi) The stature of Elves and Men

The Elves are conceived to be of slighter build and stature than Men: so Beleg ‘was of great stature and girth as such was among that folk’ (p. 73), and Tъrin ‘was a Man and of greater stature than they’, i.e. Beleg and Flinding (p. 80)—this sentence being an emendation from ‘he was a Man of great size’ (note 8). See on this matter I.32, 235.