The War of the Jewels (19 page)

$333. Thus Brandir saw her from the hill-side and turned to cross her path, but was still behind her, when she came to the ruin of Glaurung nigh the brink of [Cabad-en-Aras >] Cabed-en-Aras. There she saw the Worm lying, but heeded him not, for a man lay beside him; and she ran to Turambar and called his name in vain. Then, finding his hand that was burned, she laved it with tears and bound it about with a strip of her raiment, and kissed him and cried on him again to awake. Thereat Glaurung stirred for the last time ere he died, and he spoke with his last breath saying: Hail, Nienor daughter of Hurin. This is thy brother! Have joy of your meeting, and know him: Turin son of Hurin, treacherous to foes, faithless to friends, and [a] curse unto his kin. And to thee worst of all, as now thou shalt feel!'

$334. Then Glaurung died, and the veil of his malice was taken from her, and she remembered all her life; and she sat as one stunned with horror and anguish. Then Brandir who had heard all, standing stricken upon the edge of the ruin, hastened towards her; but she leapt up and ran like a hunted deer, and came to [Cabad-en-Aras >] Cabed-en-Aras, and there cast herself over the brink, and was lost in the wild water.

$335. Then Brandir came and looked down into Cabad-en-Aras, and turned away in horror, and though he no longer desired life, he could not seek death in that roaring water. And thereafter no man looked ever again upon Cabad-en-Aras, nor would any beast or bird come there, nor any tree grow; and it was named Cabad Naeramarth, the Leap of Dreadful Doom.

$336. But Brandir now made his way back to Nen Girith, to bring tidings to the people; and he met Dorlas in the woods, and slew him (the first blood that ever he had spilled and the last).

And he came to Nen Girith, and men cried to him: 'Hast thou seen her? Lo! Niniel is gone.'

$337. And he answered saying: 'Yea, Niniel is gone for ever.

The Worm is dead, and Turambar is dead: and those tidings are good.' And folk murmured at these words, saying that he was crazed. But Brandir said: 'Hear me to the end! Niniel the beloved is also dead. She cast herself into the Taiglin desiring life no more. For she learned that she was none other than Nienor daughter of Hurin, ere her forgetfulness came upon her, and that Turambar was her brother, Turin son of Hurin.'

$338. But even as he had ceased and the people wept, Turin himself came before them. For when the Worm died, his swoon left him, and he fell into a deep sleep of weariness. But the cold of the night troubled him, and the hilts of Gurthang drove into his side, and he awoke. Then he saw that one had tended his hand, and he wondered much that he was left nonetheless to lie upon the cold ground; and he called and hearing no answer, he went in search of aid, for he was weary and sick.

$339. But when the people saw him they drew back in fear thinking that it was his unquiet spirit; and he said: 'Nay, be glad; for the Worm is dead, and I live. But wherefore have ye scorned my counsel, and come into peril? And where is Niniel?

For her I would see. And surely ye did not bring her from her home?'

$340. Then Brandir told him that it was so and Niniel was dead. But the wife of Dorlas cried out: Nay, lord, he is crazed.

For he came here saying that thou wert dead, and called it good tidings. But thou livest.'

$341. Then Turambar was wroth, and believed that all that Brandir said or did was done in malice towards himself and Niniel, begrudging their love; and he spoke evilly to Brandir, naming him Club-foot. Then Brandir reported all that he heard, and named Niniel Nienor daughter of Hurin, and cried out upon Turambar with the last words of Glaurung, that he was a curse unto his kin and to all that harboured him.

$342. Then Turambar fell into a fury, and charged Brandir with leading Niniel to her death, and publishing with delight the lies of Glaurung (if he devised them not himself indeed), and he cursed Brandir and slew him, and fled from the people into the woods. But after a while his madness left him, and he came to Haud-en-Ellas and there sat and pondered all his deeds. And he cried upon Finduilas to bring him counsel; for he knew not whether he would do now more ill to go to Doriath to seek his kin, or to forsake them for ever and seek death in battle.

$343. And even as he sat there Mablung with a company of Grey-elves came over the Crossings of Taiglin, and he knew Turin and hailed him, and was glad to find him living. For he had learned of the coming forth of Glaurung and that his path led to Brethil, and at the same time he had heard report that the Black Sword of Nargothrond now abode there. Therefore he came to give warning to Turin and help if need be. But Turin said: 'Too late thou comest. The Worm is dead.'

$344. Then they marvelled, and gave him great praise, but he cared nothing for it, and said: 'This only I ask: give me news of my kin, for in Dorlomin I learned that they had gone to the Hidden Kingdom.'

$345. Then Mablung was dismayed, but needs must tell to Turin how Morwen was lost, and Nienor cast into a spell of dumb forgetfulness, and how she escaped them upon the borders of Doriath and fled northward. Then at last Turin knew that doom had overtaken him, and that he had slain Brandir unjustly, so that the words of Glaurung were fulfilled in him.

And he laughed as one fey, crying: 'This is a bitter jest indeed!'

But he bade Mablung go, and return to Doriath, with curses upon it. 'And a curse too on thy errand!' he said. 'This only was wanting. Now comes the night! '

$346. Then he fled from them like the wind, and they were amazed, wondering what madness had seized him; and they followed after him. But Turin far out-ran them, and came to Cabad-en-Aras, and heard the roaring of the water, and saw that all the leaves fell sere from the trees, as though winter had come. Then he cursed the place and named it Cabad Naeramarth, and he drew forth his sword, that now alone remained to him of all his possessions, and he said: 'Hail Gurthang! No lord or loyalty dost thou know, save the hand that wieldeth thee. From no blood wilt thou shrink. Wilt thou therefore take Turin Turambar, wilt thou slay me swiftly?'

$347. And from the blade rang a cold voice in answer: Yea, I will drink thy blood gladly, that so I may forget the blood of Beleg my master, and the blood of Brandir slain unjustly. I will slay thee swiftly.'

$348. Then Turin set the hilts upon the ground, and cast himself upon the point of Gurthang, and the black blade took his life. But Mablung and the Elves came and looked on the shape of the Worm lying dead, and upon the body of Turin, and they were grieved; and when men of Brethil came thither, and they learned the reasons of Turin's madness and death, they were aghast; and Mablung said bitterly: 'Lo! I also have been meshed in the doom of the Children of Hurin, and thus with my tidings have slain one that I loved.'

$349. Then they lifted up Turin and found that Gurthang had broken asunder. But Elves and Men gathered then great store of wood and made a mighty burning, and the Worm was consumed to ashes. But Turin they laid in a high mound where he had fallen, and the shards of Gurthang were laid beside him. And when all was done, the Elves sang a lament for the Children of Hurin, and a great grey stone was set upon the mound, and thereon was carven in the Runes of Doriath: Here the manuscript comes to an end, at the foot of a page, and the typescript also. Later, and probably a good while later, since the writing is in ball-point pen, my father added in the margin of the manuscript:

TURIN TURAMBAR DAGNIR

GLAURUNGA

and beneath they wrote also:

NIENOR NINIEL.

But she was not there, nor was it ever known whither the cold waters of Taiglin had taken her. [Thus endeth the Narn i Chin Hurin: which is the longest of all the lays of Beleriand, and was made by Men.]

It always seemed to me strange that my father should have abandoned the Grey Annals where he did, without at least writing the inscription that was carved on the stone; yet the facts that the amanuensis typescript ended at this point also, and that he added in the inscription in rough script on the manuscript at some later time, seemed proof positive that this was the case. Ultimately I discovered the explanation, which for reasons that will be seen I postpone to the beginning of Part Three (p. 251).

C0MMENTARY.

In this commentary the following abbreviations are used: AV. Annals of Valinor (see p. 3)

AAm. Annals of Aman (text with numbered paragraphs in Vol.X) AB. Annals of Beleriand (see p. 3). I use the revised dating of the annals in AB 2 (see V.124).

GA. Grey Annals (GA 1 abandoned opening, GA 2 the final text when distinguished from GA 1: see pp. 3 - 4)

Q. The Quenta (text in Vol.IV)

QS. Quenta Silmarillion (text with numbered paragraphs in Vol. V)

NE. The last part of the Narn i Chin Hurin, given in Unfinished Tales (pp. 104 - 46), and referenced to the pages in that book; see pp. 144-5.

$1. This opening paragraph is absent from the abandoned version GA 1. Cf. the direction scribbled on the old AB 2 manuscript (p. 4) to 'make these the Sindarin Annals of Doriath'. For the beginning of '

the Annals in GA 1 see under $2 below.

$2. This is a much more definite statement of the development of the geographical concept of 'Beleriand' than that found in GA 1, where the Annals begin thus:

The name Beleriand is drawn from the tongue of the Sindar, the Grey-elves that long dwelt in that country; and it signifies the land of Balar. For this name the Sindar gave to Osse, who came much to those coasts, and there befriended them. In ancient days, ere the War of Utumno, it was but the northern shoreland of the long west-coast of Middle-earth, lying south of Eryd Engrin (the Iron Mountains) and between the Great Sea and Eryd Luin (the Blue Mountains).

This is in any case not easy to understand, since Beleriand 'in the ancient days' is defined as 'but' the northern shoreland of the west-coast of Middle-earth, yet extending south of the Iron Mountains and from the Great Sea to the Blue Mountains, an area in fact much greater than that described in GA 2 as its later extension of meaning. The latter agrees with the statement on the subject in QS $108, where 'Beleriand was bounded upon the North by Nivrost and Hithlum and Dorthonion'.

A possible explanation of the opening passage of GA 1 may be found, however, by reference to the Ambarkanta map IV (IV.249), where it will be seen that 'Beleriand' could well be described as 'but the northern shoreland of the long west-coast of Middle-earth, lying south of the Iron Mountains and between the Great Sea and the Blue Mountains'. The meaning of the opening of GA 1 may be, therefore, not that this geographical description was the original reference of the name 'Beleriand', but that before the War of Utumno (when Melkor was chained) Beleriand was 'but the northern shoreland of the long west-coast of Middle-earth', whereas in the ruin of that war there was formed the Great Gulf to the southward (referred to in GA $6, both texts; see Ambarkanta map V, IV.251), after which Beleriand could not be so described.

In the List of Names of the 1930s (V.404) 'Beleriand' was said as in GA 2 to have been originally the 'land about southern Sirion'; but is there said to have been 'named by the Elves of the Havens from Cape Balar, and Bay of Balar into which Sirion flowed'. In the Etymologies (V.350, stem BAL) Beleriand was likewise derived from (the isle of) Balar, and Balar in turn 'probably from * balare, and so called because here Osse visited the waiting Teleri.' At that time Osse was a Bala (Vala).

On the later form Belerian see my father's note on Sindarin Rochand > Rochan (Rohan) in Unfinished Tales p. 318 (note 49 to Cirion and Eorl ).

$3. Cf. the entry added to the annal for Valian Year 1050 in AAm $40 (X.72, 77), concerning Melian's departure from Valinor. In the preceding annal 1000 - 1050 in AAm it is told that Varda 'made stars newer and brighter'.

$$3-5. The second sentence of the annal 1050 and the annals 1080

and 1085 were added to the manuscript subsequently. It is curious that there was no mention of the Awakening of the Elves in GA 1

nor in GA 2 as written; but among the rough draft pages referred to on p. 4 there is in fact a substantial passage beginning: 'In this same time the Quendi awoke by the waters of Kuivienen: of which more is said in the Chronicles of Aman.' The text that follows in this draft is very close - much of it indeed virtually identical - to the long passage interpolated into AAm ($$43-5) on the fear of Orome among the Quendi, the ensnaring of them by the servants of Melkor, and the breeding of the Orcs from those captured. There are no differences of substance between this text and the passage in AAm; and it is obvious that the latter followed, and was based on, the former, originally intended for inclusion in the Grey Annals.

In AAm the same dates are given for the Awakening of the Elves (1050) and for their discovery by Orome (1085); no date is given in AAm for their discovery by Melkor, but it is said (AAm $43) that this was 'some years ere the coming of Orome'.