The Lays of Beleriand (48 page)

I4.

The recall of Beren and Huan.

Synopsis V continues as a more substantial preparation for the end of the poem never to be written, which my father at this stage conceived in three further Cantos.

12.

Sorrow in Doriath at flight of Luthien. Thingol's heart hardened against Beren, despite words of Melian. A mighty hunt is made throughout the realm, but many of the folk strayed north and west and south of Doriath beyond the magic of Melian and were lost. Dairon became separated from his comrades and wandered away into the East of the world, where some say he pipes yet seeking Luthien in vain.

The embassy of Celegorm tells Thingol that Beren and Felagund are dead, that Celegorm will make himself king of Narog, and while telling him that Luthien is safe in Nargothrond and treating for her hand, hints that she will not return: it also warns him to trouble not the matter of the Silmarils. Thingol is wroth - and is moved to think better of Beren, while yet blaming [him] for the woes that followed his coming to Doriath, and most for loss of Dairon.

Thingol arms for war against Celegorm. Melian says she would forbid this evil war of Elf with Elf, but that never shall Thingol cross blade with Celegorm. Thingol's army meets with the host of Boldog on the borders of Doriath. Morgoth has heard of the beauty of Luthien, and the rumour of her wandering. He has ordered Thu and the Orcs to capture her. A battle is fought and Thingol is victorious. The Orcs are driven into Taur-na-Fuin or slain Thingol himself slays Boldog.

Mablung Heavyhand was Thingol's chief warrior and fought at his side; Beleg was the chief of his scouts. Though victorious Thingol is filled with still more disquiet at Morgoth's hunt for Luthien. Beleg goes forth from the camp on Doriath's borders and journeys, unseen by the archers, to Narog. He brings tidings of the flight of Luthien, the rescue of Beren, and the exile of Celegorm and Curufin. He [read Thingol] goes home and sends an embassy to Aglon to demand recompense, and aid in the rescue of Luthien. He renews his vow to imprison Beren for ever if he does not return with a Silmaril, though Melian warns him that he knows not what he says.

The embassy meets the onslaught of Carcharos who by fate or the power of the Silmaril bursts into Doriath. All perish save Mablung who brings the news. Devastation of the woods. The wood-elves flee to the caves.

13.

Beren and Luthien escape to the Shadowy Mountains, but become lost and bewildered in the dreads of Nan Dungorthin, and are hunted by phantoms, and snared at last by the great spiders. Huan rescues them, and guides them down Sirion, and so they reach Doriath from the south, and find the woods silent and empty till they come to the guarded bridge.

Huan, Beren, and Luthien come before Thingol. They tell their tale; yet Thingol will not relent. The brave words of Beren, revealing the mystery of Carcharos. Thingol relents. The wolf-hunt is prepared.

Huan, Thingol, Beren, and Mablung depart. Luthien abides with Melian in foreboding. Carcharos is slain, but slew Huan who defended Beren. Yet Beren is mortally hurt, though he lived to place the Silmaril on Thingol's hand which Mablung cut from the wolf's belly.

The meeting and farewell of Beren and Tinuviel beneath Hirilorn.

Burial of Huan and Beren.

14.

Fading of Luthien. Her journey to Mandos. The song of Luthien in Mandos' halls, and the release of Beren. They dwelt long in Broseliand, but spake never more to mortal Men, and Luthien became mortal.

This concludes all the material in the outlines. For the references to Boldog's raid, and Morgoth's interest in Luthien, in the Lay itself see lines 2127 - 36, 2686 - 94, 3198 - 3201, and 3665 - 75.

In Synopsis IV (p. 310) Boldog's raid takes place earlier in the story, before the coming of Celegorm's embassy to Thingol, but its narrative value is obscure. It is not clear why the raid must inform Thingol that

'Luthien not yet dead is caught', nor why he should conclude that

'Morgoth has got wind of her wandering'. Moreover the statement that

'actually it means no more than the legend of her beauty' can only mean (if Morgoth had not heard of her wandering forth from Doriath) that he sent out Boldog's warband with the express intention of seizing her from the fastness of the Thousand Caves.

In Synopsis V the raid was moved to a later point, and the host out of Doriath that destroyed Boldog was actually moving against Nargothrond-In?he Silmarillion the embassy from Celegorm survived, but of Boldog's raid there is no hint, and Thingol does no more than 'think to make war'

on Nargothrond:

But Thingol learned that Luthien had journeyed far from Doriath, for messages came secretly from Celegorm,... saying that Felagund was dead, and Beren was dead, but Luthien was in Nargothrond, and that Celegorm would wed her. Then Thingol was wrathful, and he sent forth spies, thinking to make war upon Nargothrond; and thus he learned that Luthien was again fled, and that Celegorm and Curufin were driven from Nargothrond. Then his counsel was in doubt, for he had not the strength to assail the seven sons of Feanor; but he sent messengers to Himring to summon their aid in seeking for Luthien, since Celegorm had not sent her to the house of her father, nor had he kept her safely (pp. 183 - 4).

The 'spies' of this passage were derived from Beleg's secret mission to Nargothrond in Synopsis V (p. 311). It seems probable that my father actually discarded Boldog's raid; and with it went all suggestion that Luthien's wandering had been reported to Morgoth (cf. lines 3665 ff.) and that Thu was given orders to capture her (Synopsis V). The passage in Canto IX of the Lay (2686 - 94) where Thu recognised Luthien's voice

- or, at least, knew that it must be she who was singing - does not, indeed, at all suggest that Thu was actively seeking her. These lines were the source for the passage in The Silmarillion, where Sauron standing in the tower of Tol-in-Gaurhoth

smiled hearing her voice, for he knew that it was the daughter of Melian. The fame of the beauty of Luthien, and the wonder of her song had long gone forth from Doriath; and he thought to make her captive and hand her' over to the power of Morgoth, for his reward would be great.

But the idea that the beauty and singing of Luthien had come to the ears of Sauron survives from the stage when Morgoth's interest in her was an important motive.

As noticed earlier (p. 209), the wandering and loss of Dairon goes back to the Tale of Tinuviel (11. 20 - 1) and survived into The Silmarillion (p. 183), where it is said that Daeron passed over the Blue Mountains

'into the East of Middle-earth, where for many ages he made lament beside dark waters for Luthien'. Less is made in the later story of the great hunt for Luthien, and nothing is said of the changing moods and intentions of Thingol towards Beren referred to in Synopsis V. The

'political' element of the ambitions of Celegorm and Curufin and the attempted browbeating and blackmail of Thingol is of course a new element that first appears in the Synopses (other than the earlier reference in the Lay, 2501-3 to the brothers' intentions in this regard), since the 'Nargothrond Element' is wholly absent from the Tale of Tinuviel; and similarly the interception of the embassy from Thingol to Aglon by Carcharoth, from which Mablung alone survived. This also remains in The Silmarillion.

In Synopsis V, where the bearing away of Beren and Luthien from Angband by Thorondor is not yet present, they flee from Angband

'towards the waters of Sirion' (p. 309), and (p. 312) 'escape to the Shadowy Mountains, but become lost and bewildered in the dreads of, Nan Dungorthin, and are hunted by phantoms, and snared at last by the great spiders. Huan rescues them, and guides them down Sirion...' .

In the Tale likewise (II. 34 - 5), Huan rescued them from 'Nan Dumgorthin'. This is a point of geography and shifting nomenclature of great perplexity. I have shown (pp. 170-I, 234) that the meaning of

'Shadowy Mountains' changes in the course of the Lay of Leithian: whereas at first (lines 386, 1318) the reference is to the Mountains of Terror (Ered Gorgoroth), subsequently (line 1940) it is to Ered Wethrin, the range fencing Hithlum. The Mountains of Terror, with the þ great spiders, are described in lines 563 ff.

In the present passage of Synopsis V the statements that Beren and Luthien escaping from Angband fled towards Sirion, and that Huan rescuing them from Nan Dungorthin guided them down Sirion, very strongly suggests that the Shadowy Mountains are here again, as might be expected, Ered Wethrin. Nan Dungorthin must then be placed as in The Children of Hurin, west of Sirion, in a valley of the southern slopes of the Shadowy Mountains. But this means that the great spiders are found in both places.

It is difficult to suggest a satisfactory explanation of this. A possibility is that when Beren crossed the Mountains of Terror and encountered the spiders (lines 569 - 74) 'Nan Dungorthin' was placed in that region, though it is not named; in Synopsis V however it is again placed, with its spiders, west of Sirion.

In the later story the eagles set Beren and Luthien down on the borders of Doriath, and Huan came to them there.

In the conclusion of Synopsis V there is very little that is at variance with the story of the wolf-hunt and the death of Beren in The Silmarillion, so far as can be seen from the very compressed outline; but Beleg was not present at the hunt in the Synopsis, as he was not in the Tale (II. 38).

The sentence that concludes Synopsis IV is curious: 'The recall of Beren and Huan' (p. 311). 'Recall' obviously refers to the return from Mandos (the last heading of Synopsis I is 'Tinuviel goes to Mandos and recalls Beren'); in which case my father must have intended to have Huan return from the dead with Beren and Luthien. In the Tale of Tinuviel Huan was not slain (II. 39), and there was no prophecy concerning his fate to fall before the mightiest wolf that should ever walk the world; but he became the companion of Mablung (II. 41), and in the Tale of the Nauglafring he returned to Beren and Luthien in the land of i-Guilwarthon after the death of Thingol and the sack of the Thousand Caves.

*

APPENDIX.

C. S. Lewis's Commentary on the Lay of Leithian I give here the greater part of this commentary, for which see pp. 150-1.*

Lewis's line-references are of course changed throughout to those in this book. The letters H, J, K, L, P, R refer to the imaginary manuscripts of the ancient poem.

For the text criticised in the first entry of the commentary see pp. 157-8, i.e. text B(1).

Meats were sweet. This is the reading of PRK. Let any one believe if he can that our author gave such a cacophany. J His drink was sweet his dishes dear.

L His drink was sweet his dish was dear. (Many scholars have rejected lines x - 8 altogether as unworthy of the poet. 'They were added by a later hand to supply a gap in the archtype,' says Peabody; and adds 'The more melodious movement and surer narrative stride of the passage beginning with line g [But fairer than are born to Men] should convince the dullest that here, and here only, the authentic work of the poet begins.' I am not convinced that H, which had better be quoted in full, does not give the true opening of the Geste.

That was long since in ages old

When first the stars in heaven rolled,

There dwelt beyond Broseliand,

While loneliness yet held the land,

A great king comely under crown,

The gold was woven in his gown,

The gold was clasped about his feet,

The gold about his waist did meet.

And in his many-pillared house

Many a gold bee and ivory mouse

And amber chessmen on their field

Of copper, many a drinking horn

Dear purchased from shy unicorn

Lay piled, with gold in gleaming grot.

All these he had etc.)

(* An account of it, with some citation, has been given by Humphrey Carpenter in The Inklings, pp. 29-31, where the view expressed in his Biography, p. 145, that 'Tolkien did not accept any of Lewis's suggestions', is corrected.)

[It seems virtually certain that it was Lewis's criticism that led my father to rewrite the opening (the B (2) text, p. 154). If the amber chessmen and ivory mice found no place in the new version, it is notable that in Lewis's lines occur the words 'And in his many-pillared house'. These are not derived from the B (1) text which Lewis read, but in B (2) appears the line (14) in many-pillared halls of stone. It seems then that Durin's many-pillared halls in Gimli's song in Moria were originally so called by C. S. Lewis, thinking of the halls of Thingol in Doriath.]

40. The description of Luthien has been too often and too justly praised to encourage the mere commentator in intruding.

68. tall. Thus PRKJH. L east. Schick's complimentary title of 'internal rime' for these cacophanies does not much mend matters. 'The poet of the Geste knew nothing of internal rime, and its appearance (so called) is an infallible mark of corruption' (Pumpernickel).

But cf. 209, 413.

71-2. The reader who wishes to acquire a touchstone for the true style of the Geste had better learn by heart this faultless and characteristic distych.

77. HL Of mortal men at feast has heard

[The line in B(1) was of mortal feaster ever heard. With hath for has Lewis's line was adopted.]