The Book of Lost Tales - J. R. Tolkien [72]
4 Associated with this replacement is a note on the manuscript reading: ‘If Beren be a Gnome (as now in the story of Tinúviel) the references to Beren must be altered.’ In the rejected passage Egnor father of Beren ‘was akin to Mavwin’, i.e. Egnor was a Man. See notes 5 and 6, and the Commentary, p. 139.
5 ‘Túrin son of Úrin’: original reading ‘Beren Ermabwed’. See notes 4 and 6.
6 Original reading ‘and when also the king heard of the kinship between Mavwin and Beren’. See notes 4 and 5.
7 Linwë (Tinto) was the king’s original ‘Elvish’ name, and belongs to the same ‘layer’ of names as Tintoglin (see I.115, 131). Its retention here (not changed to Tinwë) is clearly a simple oversight. See notes 19 and 20.
8 Original reading ‘seeing that he was a Man of great size’.
9 With this passage cf. that in the Tale of Tinúviel p. 11, which is closely similar. That the passage in Turambar is the earlier (to be presumed in any case) is shown by the fact that that in Tinúviel is only relevant if Beren is a Gnome, not a Man (see note 4).
10 ‘dreams came to them’: original reading ‘dreams the Valar sent to them’.
11 ‘and his name was Glorund’ was added later, as were the subsequent occurrences of the name on pp. 86, 94, 98; but from the first on p. 103 onwards Glorund appears in the manuscript as first written.
12 ‘with the aid of Flinding whose wounds were not great’: original reading ‘with the aid of a lightly wounded man’. All the subsequent references to Flinding in this passage were added.
13 Original reading ‘Túrin’s heart was bitter, and so it was that he and that other alone returned from that battle’.—In the phrase ‘reproaching Túrin that he had ever withstood his wise counsels’ ‘ever’ means ‘always’: Túrin had always resisted Orodreth’s counsels.
14 Original reading ‘although all folk at that time held such a deed grievous and cowardly’.
15 Original reading ‘and to look upon Nienóri again’. This was emended to ‘and to look upon Nienóri whom he had never seen’. The words ‘since his first days’ were added still later.
16 The following passage was struck out, apparently at the time of writing:
“Indeed,” said they, “it is the report of men of travel and rangers of the hills that for many and many moons have even the farthest marches been free of them and unwonted safe, and so have many men fared out of Hisilómë to the Lands Beyond.” And this was the truth that during the life of Turambar as an exile from the court of Tintoglin or hidden amongst the Rothwarin Melko had troubled Hisilómë little and the paths thereto.
(Rothwarin was the original form throughout, replaced later by Rodothlim.) See p. 92, where the situation described in the rejected passage is referred to the earlier time (before the destruction of the Rodothlim) when Mavwin and Nienóri left Hisilómë.
17 Original reading ‘twice seven’. When Túrin fled from the land of Tinwelint it was exactly 12 years since he had left his mother’s house (p. 75), and Nienóri was born before that, but just how long before is not stated.
18 After ‘a great and terrible project afoot’ the original reading was ‘the story of which entereth not into this tale’. I do not know whether this means that when my father first wrote here of Melko’s ‘project’ he did not have the destruction of the Rodothlim in mind.
19 ‘the king’: original reading ‘Linwë’. See note 7.
20 Linwë: an oversight. See note 7.
21 ‘that high place’: original reading ‘a hill’.
22 This sentence, ‘And even so was Túrin’s boast…’, was added in pencil later. The reference is to Túrin’s naming himself Turambar—‘from this hour shall none name me Túrin if I live’, p. 86.
23 This sentence, from ‘for his lineage…’ to approximately this point, is very lightly struck through. On the opposite page of the MS is hastily scribbled: ‘Make Turambar never tell new folk of his lineage (will bury the past)—this avoids chance (as cert.) of Níniel