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By Root 1287 0

(p. 96) the bank of the river on the side of the caves was higher and the hills drew close: cf. The Silmarillion p. 114: ‘the caves under the High Faroth in its steep western shore’. The policy of secrecy and refusal of open war pursued by the Elves of Nargothrond was always an essential element (cf. The Silmarillion pp. 168, 170),* as was the overturning of that policy by the confidence and masterfulness of Túrin (though in the tale there is no mention of the great bridge that he caused to be built). Here, however, the fall of the redoubt is perhaps more emphatically attributed to Túrin, his coming there seen more simply as a curse, and the disaster as more inevitably proceeding from his unwisdom: at least in the fragments of this part of the Narn (pp. 155–7) Túrin’s case against Gwindor, who argued for the continuation of secrecy, is seemingly not without substance, despite the outcome. But the essential story is the same: Túrin’s policy revealed Nargothrond to Morgoth, who came against it with overwhelming strength and destroyed it.

In relation to the earliest version the roles of Flinding (Gwindor), Failivrin (Finduilas),† and Orodreth were to undergo a remarkable set of transferences. In the old tale Flinding had been of the Rodothlim before his capture and imprisonment in Angband, just as afterwards Gwindor came from Nargothrond (but with a great development in his story, see The Silmarillion pp. 188, 191–2), and on his return was so changed as to be scarcely recognisable (I pass over such enduring minor features as the taking of Túrin and Flinding/Gwindor prisoner on their coming to the caves). The beautiful Failivrin is already present, and her unrequited love for Túrin, but the complication of her former relation with Gwindor is quite absent, and she is not the daughter of Orodreth the King but of one Galweg (who was to disappear utterly). Flinding is not shown as opposed to Túrin’s policies; and in the final battle he aids Túrin in bearing Orodreth out of the fight. Orodreth dies (after being carried back to the caves) reproaching Túrin for what he has brought to pass—as does Gwindor dying in The Silmarillion (p. 213), with the added bitterness of his relation with Finduilas. But Failivrin’s father Galweg is slain in the battle, as is Finduilas’ father Orodreth in The Silmarillion. Thus in the evolution of the legend Orodreth took over the rôle of Galweg, while Gwindor took over in part the rôle of Orodreth.

As I have noticed earlier, there is no mention in the tale of any peculiarity attaching to Beleg’s sword, and though the Black Sword is already present it was made for Túrin on the orders of Orodreth, and its blackness and its shining pale edges were of its first making (see The Silmarillion pp. 209–10). Its power of speech (‘it is said that at times it spake dark words to him’) remained afterwards in its dreadful words to Túrin before his death (Narn p. 145)—a motive that appears already in the tale, p. 112; and Túrin’s name derived from the sword (here Mormagli, Mormakil, later Mormegil) was already devised. But of Túrin’s disguising of his true name in Nargothrond there is no suggestion: indeed it is explicitly stated that he said who he was.

Of Gelmir and Arminas and the warning they brought to Nargothrond from Ulmo (Narn pp. 159–62) the germ can perhaps he seen in the ‘whispers in the stream at eve’, which undoubtedly implies messages from Ulmo (see p. 77).

The dragon Glorund is named in the ‘lengthening spell’ in the Tale of Tinúviel (pp. 19, 46), but the actual name was only introduced in the course of the writing of the Tale of Turambar (see note 11). There is no suggestion that he had played any previous part in the history, or indeed that he was the first of his kind, the Father of Dragons, with a long record of evil already before the Sack of Nargothrond. Of great interest is the passage in which the nature of the dragons of Melko is defined: their evil wisdom, their love of lies and gold (which ‘they may not use or enjoy’), and the knowledge of tongues that Men say would come from eating a dragon