The War of the Jewels (27 page)

$272. The alliance of the Elves of Nargothrond with Handir of Brethil goes back to the earliest Annals (IV.305); I do not know why this element in the story was removed. See further the commentary on $300. - The bridge over Narog is not said here to have been built on Turin's counsel, but this appears subsequently ($277).

$273. This rejected annal for 492 adheres to the old story that Meglin was sent by Isfin to Gondolin (although the later story that Isfin and Meglin came together to Gondolin appeared long before in Q: see $120 and commentary), and there is no trace of the story of Eol's pursuit, the death of Isfin from Eol's dart aimed at Maeglin, and Eol's execution and dying curse on his son.

$275. The somewhat later insertion at the beginning of the annal replaces the subsequent statement in this paragraph that Handir was slain in the battle of Tum-halad, which derives from AB 2

(V.139).

The removal of Glaurung's passage through Hithlum on his way to Nargothrond (recorded in AB 2) is a great improvement to the probabilities of the narrative. - Eithil Ivrin: formerly Ivrineithel (V.139), 'Ivrin's Well', source of the Narog. This is the first reference to the defiling of Ivrin by Glaurung.

The site of the battle is not made clear. In Q it was 'upon the Guarded Plain, north of Nargothrond' (IV.126), and in AB 2

(V.139) 'between Narog and Taiglin'. In later work on the Narn my father wrote in one of a series of narrative-outlines: They contact the Orc-host which is greater than they knew (in spite of Turin's boasted scouts). Also none but Turin could withstand the approach of Glaurung. They were driven back and pressed by the Orcs into the Field of Tumhalad between Ginglith and Narog and there penned. There all the pride and host of Nargothrond withered away. Orodreth was slain in the forefront of battle, and Gwindor wounded to death. Then Turin came to him and all fled him, and he lifted Gwindor and bore him out of battle and [several words illegible] he swam the Narog and bore Gwindor to [?a wood] of trees. But Glaurung went down east of Narog and hastened [?on ?in] to Nargothrond with a great number of Orcs.

This is, I believe, the only statement that the site of the battle was between Ginglith and Narog; but my father pencilled in the name Tumhalad between those rivers, towards their confluence, on the map (p. 182, square E s). In GA Turin's escape with Gwindor 'to a wood' is mentioned, but not his swimming of the Narog. This is a curious detail: presumably he swam the Narog to escape from the battle, and then went down the east bank of the river to the Bridge of Nargothrond.

But it is hard to know what to make of this late conception of the site of Tumhalad. It would seem that my father now conceived Glaurung and the Orc-host to have come south from Ivrin on the west side of Narog; but the text states that they 'went down east of Narog' to Nargothrond, and therefore they also must have crossed the river - by swimming, as Turin had done? In the published Silmarillion (pp. 212-13) I was probably mistaken to follow this very hastily written and puzzling text, and on the map accompanying the book to mark the site of Tumhalad in accordance with it.

But in.any case I feel sure that the original site, in the plain east of Narog, was still present in GA.

With regard to the pencilled note 'Turin in the battle wore the Dragon-helm', the Helm was last mentioned in these marginal notes on the subject when Beleg carried it with him from Menegroth on the journey in search of Turin which led to his death (see $266 and commentary). My father must have supposed therefore that Gwindor and Turin carried it with them to Nargothrond. This raises the obvious difficulty that the Helm would at once have revealed the identity of Turin; but in Unfinished Tales (pp. 154-5) I have referred to an isolated piece of writing among the Narn material which 'tells that in Nargothrond Turin would not wear the Helm again "lest it reveal him", but that he wore it when he went to the Battle of Tumhalad.' The passage in question reads:

Beleg searching the orc-camp [in Taur-nu-Fuin] finds the dragon-helm - or was it set on Turin's head in mockery by the Orcs that tormented him? Thus it was borne away to Nargothrond; but Turin would not wear it again, lest it reveal him, until the Battle of Dalath Dirnen.

(Dalath Dirnen, the Guarded Plain, was the earlier form; the name was so spelt when entered on the map, but changed subsequently as in the texts to Talath Dirnen (p. 186, $17).)

$276. Against the first line of this paragraph my father wrote a date:

'Oct.13'; against the first line of $278 he wrote 'Oct.25'; and against the first line of $288 he wrote 'Nov.1'. These very uncharacteristic additions must refer to the actual days of his writing, in (as I presume) 1951.

In AB 2 all that is said here is that 'Gwindor died, and refused the succour of Turin.' The same was said in Q (IV.126), and also that he died reproaching Turin: as I noted (IV.184), 'the impression is given that the reproaches of Flinding (Gwindor) as he died were on account of Finduilas. There is indeed no suggestion here that Turin's policy of open war was opposed in Nargothrond'. Here in GA appears the motive that Gwindor held his death and the ruin of Nargothrond against Turin - or more accurately, reappears, since it is clearly present in the old Tale of Turambar (II.83-4). Gwindor's words in GA concerning Turin and Finduilas are altogether different from those given to him in Q, and there now appears the idea of the supreme importance to Turin of his choice concerning Finduilas: but this is again a reappearance, from the Tale, where his choice is explicitly condemned (II.87).

$277. It is a new element in the narrative that it was Turin's rescue of Gwindor that allowed Glaurung and his host to reach Nargothrond before he did.

This is a convenient place to describe a text whose relation to the Grey Annals is very curious. The text itself has been given in Unfinished Tales, pp. 159-62: the story of the coming of the Noldorin Elves Gelmir and Arminas to Nargothrond to warn Orodreth of its peril, and their harsh reception by Turin. There is both a manuscript (based on a very rough draft outline written on a slip) and a typescript, with carbon copy, made by my father on the typewriter that he seems to have used first about the end of 1958

(see X.300). The manuscript has no title or heading, but begins (as also does the rough draft and the typescript) with the date '495'.

The top copy of the typescript has a heading added in manuscript:

'Insertion for the longer form of the Narn', while the carbon copy has the heading, also added in manuscript, 'Insertion to Grey Annals', but this was changed to the reading of the top copy.

The curious thing is that while the manuscript has no 'annalistic'

quality apart from the date 495, the typescript begins with the annalistic word 'Here' (a usage derived from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle):

Here Morgoth assailed Nargothrond. Turin now commanded all the forces of Nargothrond, and ruled all matters of war. In the spring there came two Elves, and they named themselves Gelmir and Arminas...

Moreover, while the manuscript extends no further than the text printed in Unfinished Tales, ending with the words 'For so much at least of the words of Ulmo were read aright', the typescript does not end there but continues:

Here Handir of Brethil was slain in the spring, soon after the departure of the messengers. For the Orcs invaded his land, seeking to secure the crossings of Taiglin for their further advance; and Handir gave them battle, but the Men of Brethil were worsted and were driven back into their woods. The Orcs did not pursue them, for they had achieved their purpose for that time; and they continued to muster their strength in the passes of Sirion.

Late in the year, having [struck out: gathered his strength and]

completed his design, Morgoth at last loosed his assault upon Nargothrond. Glaurung the Uruloke passed over the Anfauglith,

[$277] l and came thence into the north vales of Sirion, and there did great evil; and he came at length under the shadow of Eryd Wethian

[sic], leading the great army of the Orcs in his train...

The text then continues, almost exactly as in the Grey Annals $$275-6, concluding with Gwindor's words at the end of $276: 'If thou fail her, it shall not fail to find thee. Farewell! ' The only significant difference from the text in the Annals is the statement that at the battle of Tum-halad 'Turin put on the Dragon-helm of Hador'; this however had been said in a marginal note to GA $275.

This is very puzzling. So far as the content of the original manuscript of 'Gelmir and Arminas' is concerned, there seems nothing against the supposition that my father wrote it as an insertion to the Grey Annals, and indeed in appearance and style of script it could derive from the time when he was working on them, before the publication of The Lord of the Rings. The puzzle lies in my father's motive for making, years later, a typescript of the text and adding to it material taken directly from the Grey Annals, specifically reinforcing the place of 'Gelmir and Arminas' in the annalistic context - together with his uncertainty, shown in the headings to the carbon copy, as to what its place actually was to be.

Subsequently, indeed, he bracketed on the typescript the date and opening words '495 Here Morgoth assailed Nargothrond', and struck out the words 'Here' and 'in the spring' at the beginning of the passage cited above, thus removing the obviously annalistic features; but the conclusion seems inescapable that when he made the typescript he could still conceive of the Annals as an ingredient in the recorded tradition of the Elder Days. (A curious relation is seen between a continuation of the Annals made after the main manuscript had been interrupted and the opening of the late work The Wanderings of Hurin: see pp. 251-4, 258-60.) It should be mentioned that certain names in the text of 'Gelmir and Arminas' as printed in Unfinished Tales were editorial alterations made for the sake of consistency: in both manuscript and typescript Gelmir refers to Orodreth as 'Finrod's son', changed to

'Finarfin's son'; Iarwaeth was changed to Agarwaen (the later name found in the Narn papers); and Eledhwen was retained from the manuscript (Eledwen) for the typescript Edelwen (the form used in The Wanderings of Hurin).

$$278-85. This passage describing the fateful encounter of Turin and Glaurung very greatly develops the bare narrative in Q

(IV.126 - 7), but for the most part it is not at odds in essentials with the old version, and in places echoes it. On the other hand there is an important difference in the central motive. In Q (IV.126) the dragon offered him his freedom either 'to rescue his "stolen love"

Finduilas, or to do his duty and go to the rescue of his mother and sister... But he must swear to abandon one or the other. Then Turin in anguish and in doubt forsook Finduilas against his heart ...' In the story in the Grey Annals, on the other hand, Turin had no choice: his will was under Glaurung's when Finduilas was taken away, and he was physically incapable of movement. The Dragon does indeed say at the end: 'And if thou tarry for Finduilas, then never shalt thou see Morwen or Nienor again; and they will curse thee'; but this is a warning, not the offering of a choice. In all this Glaurung appears as a torturer, with complete power over his victim so long as he chooses to exert it, morally superior and superior in knowledge, his pitiless corruption able to assume an air almost of benevolence, of knowing what is best: 'Then Turin ... as were he treating with a foe that could know pity, believed the words of Glaurung'.

$280. The further pencilled note here on the subject of the Dragon-helm, observing that while Turin wore it he was proof against Glaurung's eyes, can be somewhat amplified. I have given at the end of the commentary on $275 a note on the recovery of the Dragon-helm when Turin was rescued from the Orcs in Taur-nu-Fuin, whence it came to Nargothrond. That note continues with an account of the meeting of Turin with Glaurung before the Doors of Felagund (see Unfinished Tales p. 155). Here it is said that Glaurung desired to rid Turin of the aid and protection of the Dragon-helm, and taunted him, saying that he had not the courage to look him in the face.

And indeed so great was the terror of the Dragon that Turin dared not look straight upon his eye, but had kept the visor of his helmet down, shielding his face, and in his parley had looked no higher than Glaurung's feet. But being thus taunted, in pride and rashness he thrust up the visor and looked Glaurung in the eye.

At the head of the page my father noted that something should be said about the visor, 'how it protected the eyes from all darts (and from dragon-eyes)'.

This text, or rather the idea that it contains, is obviously behind the note in GA, and the last words of that note 'Then the Worm perceiving this' would no doubt have introduced some phrase to the effect that Glaurung taunted Turin with cowardice in order to get him to remove it (cf. the note in the margin at $284- which is scarcely in the right place). A further statement on the subject of the visor of the Helm is found in the Narn (Unfinished Tales p. 75, an expansion of the passage in QS Chapter 17, V.319): 'It had a visor (after the manner of those that the Dwarves used in their forges for the shielding of their eyes), and the face of one that wore it struck fear into the hearts of all beholders, but was itself guarded from dart and fire.' It is said here that the Helm was originally made for Azaghal Lord of Belegost, and the history of how it came to Hurin is told.