The Lays of Beleriand (11 page)

to a witless wayworn wanderer's footsteps,

the bane of Beleg, his brother-in-arms?'

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Then Flinding fearful lest fresh madness

should seize for sorrow on the soul of Turin, retold the tale of his toil and wandering;

how the trackless folds of Taur-na-Fuin,

Deadly Nightshade, dreadly meshed him;

of Beleg the bowman bold, undaunted,

and that deed they dared on the dim hillside, that song has since unceasing wakened;

of the fate that fell, he faltering spake,

in the tangled thicket neath the twining thorns when Morgoth's might was moved abroad.

Then his voice vanished veiled in mourning,

and lo! tears trickled on Turin's face

till loosed at last were the leashed torrents of his whelming woe. Long while he wept

soundless, shaken, the sand clutching

with griping fingers in grief unfathomed.1

But Flinding the faithful feared no longer;

no comfort cold he kindly found,

for sleep swept him into slumber dead.

There a singing voice sweetly vexed him

and he woke and wondered: the watchfire faded; the night was aging, nought was moving

but a song upsoaring in the soundless dark

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went strong and stern to the starlit heaven.

'Twas Turin that towering on the tarn's margin, up high o'er the head of the hushed water

now falling faintly, let flare and echo

a song of sorrow and sad splendour,

the dirge of Beleg's deathless glory.

There wondrous wove he words enchanted,

that woods and water waked and answered,

the rocks were wrung with ruth for Beleg.

That song he sang is since remembered,

by Gnomes renewed in Nargothrond

it widely has wakened warfain armies

to battle with Bauglir -- 'The Bowman's Friendship'.

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'Tis told that Turin then turned him back

and fared to Flinding, and flung him down

to sleep soundless till the sun mounted

to the high heavens and hasted westward.

A vision he viewed in the vast spaces

of slumber roving: it seemed he roamed

up the bleak boulders of a bare hillside

to a cup outcarven in a cruel hollow,

whose broken brink bushes limb-wracked

by the North-wind's knife in knotted anguish

did fringe forbidding. There black unfriendly was a dark thicket, a dell of thorn-trees

with yews mingled that the years had fretted.

The leafless limbs they lifted hopeless

were blotched and blackened, barkless, naked, a lifeless remnant of the levin's flame,

charred chill fingers changeless pointing

to the cold twilight.. There called he longing:

'0 Beleg, my brother, 0 Beleg, tell me

where is buried thy body in these bitter regions? ' --

and the echoes always him answered 'Beleg';

yet a veiled voice vague and distant

he caught that called like a cry at night

o'er the sea's silence: 'Seek no longer.

My bow is rotten in the barrow ruinous;

my grove is burned by grim lightning;

here dread dwelleth, none dare profane

this angry earth, Orc nor goblin;

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none gain the gate of the gloomy forest

by this perilous path; pass they may not,

yet my life has winged to the long waiting

in the halls of the Moon o'er the hills of the sea.

Courage be thy comfort, comrade lonely! '

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Then he woke in wonder; his wit was healed,

courage him comforted, and he called aloud

Flinding go-Fuilin, to his feet striding.

There the sun slanted its silver arrows

through the wild tresses of the waters tumbling roofed with a radiant rainbow trembling.

'Whither, 0 Flinding, our feet now turn we,

or dwell we for ever by the dancing water,

by the lake of laughter, alone, untroubled?'

'To Nargothrond of the Gnomes, methinks,'

said Flinding, 'my feet would fain wander,

that Celegorm and Curufin, the crafty sons

f Feanor founded when they fled southward;

there built a bulwark against Bauglir's hate, who live now lurking in league secret

with those five others in the forests of the East, fell unflnching foes of Morgoth.

Maidros whom Morgoth maimed and tortured

is lord and leader, his left wieldeth

his sweeping sword; there is swift Maglor,

there Damrod and Diriel and dark Cranthir,

the seven seekers of their sire's treasure.

ow Orodreth rules the realms and caverns,

the numbered hosts of Nargothrond.

'There to woman's stature will be waxen full

frail Finduilas the fleet maiden

his daughter dear, in his darkling halls

a light, a laughter, that I loved of yore,

and yet love in longing, and love calls me.'

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Where Narog's torrent gnashed and spouted

down his stream bestrewn with stone and boulder, swiftly southward they sought their paths,

and summer smiling smoothed their journey

through day on day, down dale and wood

where birds blithely with brimming music

thrilled and trembled in thronging trees.

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No eyes them watched onward wending

till they gained the gorge where Ginglith turns all glad and golden to greet the Narog.

There her gentler torrent joins his tumult,

and they glide together on the guarded plain

to the Hunters' Hills that high to southward

uprear their rocks robed in verdure.

There watchful waited the Wards of Narog,

lest the need of the Gnomes from the North should come, for the sea in the South them safe guarded,

and eager Narog the East defended.

Their treegirt towers on the tall hilltops

no light betrayed in the trees lurking,

no horns hooted in the hills ringing

in loud alarm; a leaguer silent

unseen, stealthy, beset the stranger,

as of wild things wary that watch moveless,

then follow fleetly with feet of velvet

their heedless prey with padding hatred.

In this fashion fought they, phantom hunters

that wandering Orc and wild foeman

unheard harried, hemmed in ambush.

The slain are silent, and silent were the shafts of the nimble Gnomes of Nargothrond,

who word or whisper warded sleepless

from their homes deep-hidden, that hearsay never was to Bauglir brought. Bright hope knew they, and east over Narog to open battle

no cause or counsel had called them yet,

though of shield and shaft and sheathed swords, of warriors wieldy now waxed their host

to power and prowess, and paths afar

their scouts and woodmen scoured in hunting.

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Thus the twain were tracked till the trees thickened and the river went rushing neath a rising bank, in foam hastened o'er the feet of the hills.

In a gloom of green there they groped forward; there his fate defended from flying death

Turin Thalion -- a twisted thong

of writhing roots enwrapped his foot;

as he fell there flashed, fleet, whitewinged, 1770

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a shrill-shafted arrow that shore his hair,

and trembled sudden in a tree behind.

Then Flinding o'er the fallen fiercely shouted:

'Who shoots unsure his shafts at friends?

Flinding go-Fuilin of the folk of Narog

and the son of Hurin his sworn comrade

here flee to freedom from the foes of the North.'

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His words in the woods awoke no echo;

no leaf there lisped, nor loosened twig

there cracked, no creak of crawling movement

stirred the silence. Still and soundless

in the glades about were the green shadows.

Thus fared they on, and felt that eyes

unseen saw them, and swift footsteps

unheard hastened behind them ever,

till each shaken bush or shadowy thicket

they fled furtive in fear needless,

for thereafter was aimed no arrow winged,

and they came to a country kindly tended;

through flowery frith and fair acres

they fared, and found of folk empty

the leas and leasows and the lawns of Narog,

the teeming tilth by trees enfolded

twixt hills and river. The hoes unrecked

in the fields were flung, and fallen ladders

in the long grass lay of the lush orchards;

every tree there turned its tangled head

and eyed them secretly, and the ears listened of the nodding grasses; though noontide glowed on land and leaf, their limbs were chilled.

Never hall or homestead its high gables

in the light uplifting in that land saw they, but a pathway plain by passing feet

was broadly beaten. Thither bent their steps

Flinding go-Fuilin, whose feet remembered

that white roadway. In a while they reached

to the acres' end, that ever narrowing

twixt wall and water did wane at last

to blossomy banks by the borders of the way.

A spuming torrent, in spate tumbling

from the highest hill of the Hunters' Wold

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clove and crossed it; there of carven stone

with slim and shapely slender archway

a bridge was builded, a bow gleaming

in the froth and flashing foam of Ingwil,

that headlong hurried and hissed beneath.

Where it found the flood, far-journeyed Narog, there steeply stood the strong shoulders

of the hills, o'erhanging the hurrying water; there shrouded in trees a sheer terrace,

wide and winding, worn to smoothness,

was fashioned in the face of the falling slope.

Doors there darkly dim gigantic

were hewn in the hillside; huge their timbers, and their posts and lintels of ponderous stone.

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They were shut unshakeable. Then shrilled a trumpet as a phantom fanfare faintly winding

in the hill from hollow halls far under;

a creaking portal with clangour backward

was flung, and forth there flashed a throng,

leaping lightly, lances wielding,

and swift encircling seized bewildered

the wanderers wayworn, wordless haled them

through the gaping gateway to the glooms beyond.

Ground and grumbled on its great hinges

the door gigantic; with din ponderous

it clanged and closed like clap of thunder,

and echoes awful in empty corridors

there ran and rumbled under roofs unseen;

the light was lost. Then led them on

down long and winding lanes of darkness

their guards guiding their groping feet,

till the faint flicker of fiery torches

flared before them; fitful murmur

as of many voices in meeting thronged

they heard as they hastened. High sprang the roof.

Round a sudden turning they swung amazed,

and saw a solemn silent conclave,

where hundreds hushed in huge twilight

neath distant domes darkly vaulted

them wordless waited. There waters flowed

with washing echoes winding swiftly

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amid the multitude, and mounting pale

for fifty fathoms a fountain sprang,

and wavering wan, with winking redness

flushed and flickering in the fiery lights,

it fell at the feet in the far shadows

of a king with crown and carven throne.

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A voice they heard neath the vault rolling,

and the king them called: Who come ye here

from the North unloved to Nargothrond,

a Gnome of bondage and a nameless Man?

No welcome finds here wandering outlaw;

save his wish be death he wins it not,

for those that have looked on our last refuge it boots not to beg other boon of me.'

Then Flinding go-Fuilin freely answered:

'Has the watch then waned in the woods of Narog, since Orodreth ruled this realm and folk?

Or how have the hunted thus hither wandered,

if the warders willed it not thy word obeying; or how hast not heard that thy hidden archer, who shot his shaft in the shades of the forest, there learned our lineage, 0 Lord of Narog,

and knowing our names his notched arrows,

loosed no longer?' Then low and hushed

a murmur moved in the multitude,

and some were who said: "Tis the same in truth: the long looked-for, the lost is found,

the narrow path he knew to Nargothrond

who was born and bred here from babe to youth'; and some were who said: 'The son of Fuilin

was lost and looked for long years agone.

What sign or token that the same returns

have we heard or seen? Is this haggard fugitive with back bended the bold leader,

the scout who scoured, scorning danger,

most far afield of the folk of Narog?'

'That tale was told us,' returned answer

the Lord Orodreth, 'but belief were rash.

That alone of the lost, whom leagues afar

the Orcs of Angband in evil bonds

have dragged to the deeps, thou darest home,

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by grace or valour, from grim thraldom,

what proof dost thou proffer? What plea dost show that a Man, a mortal, on our mansions hidden

should look and live, our league sharing?'