The Book of Lost Tales - J. R. Tolkien [79]
Túrin’s conduct in the hall is in the tale essentially simpler: the true story has been told to him by a passer-by, he enters to exact vengeance on Brodda for thieving Mavwin’s goods, and he does so with dispatch. As told in the Narn, where Túrin’s eyes are only finally opened to the deception that has been practised upon him by the words of Aerin, who is present in the hall, his rage is more passionate, crazed, and bitter, and indeed more comprehensible: and the moral observation that Túrin’s deed was ‘violent and unlawful’ is not made. The story of Airin’s judgement on these doings, made in order to save Túrin, was afterwards removed; and Túrin’s solitary departure was expanded, with the addition also of the firing of Brodda’s hall by Aerin (Narn p. 109).
Some details survived all the changes: in the Narn Túrin still seizes Brodda by the hair, and just as in the tale his rage suddenly expired after the deed of violence (‘his wrath was grown cold’), so in the Narn ‘the fire of his rage was as ashes’. It may be noticed here that while in the old story Túrin does not rename himself so often, his tendency to do so is already present.
The story of how ‘Túrin came among the Woodmen and delivered them from Orcs is not found in the Tale of Turambar; nor is there any mention of the Mound of Finduilas near the Crossings of Teiglin nor any account of her fate.
(vi) The return of Gumlin to Hithlum and the departure of
Mavwin and Nienóri, to Artanor (pp. 91–3)
In the later story the elder of Túrin’s guardians (Gumlin in the tale, Grithnir in the, Narn) plays no part after his bringing Túrin to Doriath: it is only said that he stayed there till he died (Narn, p. 74); and Morwen had no tidings out of Doriath before leaving her home—indeed she only learnt that Túrin had left Thingol’s realm when she got there (The Silmarillion, p. 211; cf. Aerin’s words in the Narn, p. 107: ‘She looked to find her son there awaiting her.’) This whole section of the tale does no more than explain with what my father doubtless felt (since he afterwards rejected it almost in its entirety) to be unnecessary complication why Mavwin went to Tinwelint. I think it is clear, however, that the difference between the versions here depends on the different views of Mavwin’s (Morwen’s) condition in Hithlum. In the old story she is not suffering hardship and oppression; she trusts Brodda to the extent of entrusting not only her goods to him but even her daughter, and is said indeed to have ‘peace and honour among the men of those regions’ the chieftains speak of the love they bear her. A motive for her departure is found in the coming of Gumlin and the news he brings of Túrin’s flight from the lands of Tinwelint. In the later story, on the other hand, Brodda’s character as tyrant and oppressor is extended, and it is Morwen’s very plight at his hands that leads her to depart. (The news that came to Túrin in Doriath that ‘Morwen’s plight was eased’ (Narn, p. 77, cf. The Silmarillion p. 199) is probably a survival from the old story; nothing is said in the later narratives to explain how this came about, and ceased.) In either case her motive for leaving is coupled with the fact of the increased safety of the lands; but whereas in the later story the reason for this was the prowess of the Black Sword of Nargothrond, in the tale it was the ‘great and terrible project’ of Melko that was afoot—the assault on the caves of the Rodothlim (see note 18).
It is curious