The Book of Lost Tales - J. R. Tolkien [75]
In the later versions there is no trace of the remarkable message sent by Tinwelint to Mavwin, and indeed his curiously candid explanation, that he held aloof from the Battle of Unnumbered Tears because in his wisdom he foresaw that Artanor could become a refuge if disaster befell, is hardly in keeping with his character as afterwards conceived. There were of course quite other reasons for his conduct (The Silmarillion p. 189). On the other hand, Mavwin’s motives for not herself leaving Hithlum remained unchanged (see the passage in the Narn, p. 70, where the word ‘almsguest’ is an echo of the old tale); but the statement is puzzling that Mavwin might, when Nienóri was grown, have put aside her pride and passed over the mountains, had they not become impassable—clearly suggesting that she never left Hithlum. Perhaps the meaning is, however, that she might have made the journey earlier (while Túrin was still in Artanor) than she in fact did (when for a time the ways became easier, but Túrin had gone).
The character of Túrin as a boy reappears in every stroke of the description in the Narn (p. 77):
It seemed that fortune was unfriendly to him, so that often what he designed went awry, and what he desired he did not gain; neither did he win friendship easily, for he was not merry, and laughed seldom, and a shadow lay on his youth.
(It is a notable point that is added in the tale: ‘at no time did he give much heed to words that were spoken to him’). And the ending of all word between Túrin and his mother comes about in the same way-increased guard on the mountains (Narn p. 78).
While the story of Túrin and Saeros as told in The Silmarillion, and in far more detail in the Narn, goes back in essentials to the Tale of Turambar, there are some notable differences—the chief being that as the story was first told Túrin’s tormentor was slain outright by the thrown drinking-cup. The later complications of Saeros’ treacherous assault on Túrin the following day and his chase to the death, of the trial of Túrin in his absence for this deed and of the testimony of Nellas (this last only in the Narn) are entirely absent, necessarily; nor does Mablung appear—indeed it seems clear that Mablung first emerged at the end of the Tale of Tinúviel (see p. 59). Some details survived (as the comb which Orgof/Saeros offered tauntingly to Túrin, Narn p. 8o), while others were changed or neglected (as that it was the anniversary of Túrin’s departure from his home—though the figure of twelve years agrees with the later story, and that the king was present in the hall, contrast Narn p. 79). But the taunt that roused Túrin to murderous rage remained essentially the same, in that it touched on his mother; and the story was never changed that Túrin came into the hall tousled and roughly clad, and that he was mocked for this by his enemy.
Orgof is not greatly distinct from Saeros, if less developed. He was in the king’s favour, proud, and jealous of Túrin; in the later story he was a Nandorin Elf while here he is an Ilkorin with some Gnomish blood (for Gnomes in Artanor see p. 65), but doubtless some peculiarity in his origin was part of the ‘tradition’. In the old story he is explicitly a fop and a fool, and he is not given the motives of hatred for Túrin that are ascribed to him in the Narn (p. 77).
Though far simpler in narrative, the essential element of Túrin’s ignorance of his pardon was present from the outset. The tale provides an explanation, not found later, of why Túrin did not, on leaving Artanor, return to Hithlum; cf. the Narn p. 87: ‘to Dor-lómin he did not dare, for it was closely beset, and one man alone could not hope at that time, as he thought, to come through the passes of the Mountains of Shadow.’
Túrin’s prowess against the Orcs during his sojourn in Artanor is given a more central or indeed unique importance in the tale (‘he held the wrath of Melko from them for many years’) especially as Beleg, his companion-in-arms in the later versions, is not here mentioned (and in this passage the power of the