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By Root 1353 0

in a wooden casket (p. 225), Tinwelint has no crown but a wreath of scarlet leaves (p. 227), and he is far less richly clad and accoutred than ‘the wayfarer in his halls’ (Ufedhin). This is very well in itself—the Woodland Elf corrupted by the lure of golden splendour, but it need not be remarked again how strangely at variance is this picture with that of Thingol Lord of Beleriand, who had a vast treasury in his marvellous underground realm of Menegroth, the Thousand Caves—itself largely contrived by the Dwarves of Belegost in the distant past (The Silmarillion pp. 92–3), and who most certainly did not need the aid of Dwarves at this time to make him a crown and a fine sword, or vessels to adorn his banquets. Thingol in the later conception is proud, and stern; he is also wise, and powerful, and greatly increased in stature and in knowledge through his union with a Maia. Could such a king have sunk to the level of miserly swindling that is portrayed in the Tale of the Nauglafring?

Great stress is indeed placed on the enormous size of the hoard—‘such mighty heaps of gold have never since been gathered in one place’, p. 223—which is made so vast that it becomes hard to believe that a band of wandering outlaws could have brought it to the halls of the woodland Elves, even granting that ‘some was lost upon the way’ (p. 114). There is perhaps some difference here from the account of the Rodothlim and their works in the Tale of Turambar (p. 81), where there is certainly no suggestion that the Rodothlim possessed treasures coming out of Valinor—though this idea remained through all the vicissitudes of this part of the story: it is said of the Lord of Nargothrond in The Silmarillion (p. 114) that ‘Finrod had brought more treasures out of Tirion than any other of the princes of the Noldor’.

More important, the elements of ‘spell’ and ‘curse’ are dominant in this tale, to such a degree that they might almost be said to be the chief actors in it. The curse of Mîm on the gold is felt at every turn of the narrative. Vengeance for him is one motive in Naugladur’s decision to attack the Elves of Artanor (p. 230). His curse is fulfilled in the ‘agelong feud’ between the kindreds of the Dwarves (p. 235)—of which all trace was afterwards effaced, with the loss of the entire story of Ufedhin’s intent to steal the Necklace from Naugladur sleeping, the killing of Bodruith Lord of Belegost, and the fighting between the two clans of Dwarves. Naugladur was ‘blinded by the spell’ in taking so imprudent a course out of Artanor (p. 236); and the curse of Mîm is made the ‘cause’ of his stumbling on a stone in his fight with Beren (p. 238). It is even, and most surprisingly, suggested as a reason for the short second lives of Beren and Tinúviel (p. 240); and finally ‘the spell of Mîm’ is an element in the attack on Dior by the Fëanorians (p. 241). An important element also in the tale is the baleful nature of the Nauglafring, for the Dwarves made it with bitterness; and into the complex of curses and spells is introduced also ‘the dragon’s ban upon the gold’ (p. 239) or ‘the spell of the dragon’ (p. 241). It is not said in the Tale of Turambar that Glorund had cursed the gold or enspelled it; but Mîm said to Úrin (p. 114): ‘Has not Glorund lain long years upon it, and the evil of the drakes of Melko is on it, and no good can it bring to Man or Elf.’ Most notably, Gwendelin implies, against Beren’s assertion that ‘its holiness might overcome all such evils’, that the Silmaril itself is unhallowed, since it ‘abode in the Crown of Melko’ (p. 239). In the later of the two ‘schemes’ for the Lost Tales (see I.107 note 3) it is said that the Nauglafring ‘brought sickness to Tinúviel’.*

But however much the chief actors in this tale are ‘enspelled’ or blindly carrying forward the mysterious dictates of a curse, there is no question but that the Dwarves in the original conception were altogether more ignoble than they afterwards became, more prone to evil to gain their ends, and more exclusively impelled by greed; that Doriath should be laid waste by mercenary