The Book of Lost Tales - J. R. Tolkien [80]
(vii) Mavwin and Nienóri in Artanor and their meeting
with Glorund (pp. 93–9)
The next essential step in the development of the plot—the learning by Mavwin/Morwen of Túrin’s sojourn in Nargothrond—is more neatly and naturally handled in The Silmarillion (p. 217) and the Narn (p. 112), where news is brought to Thingol by fugitives from the sack, in contrast to the Tale of Turambar, where Mavwin and Nienóri only learn of the destruction of the Elves of the Caves from a band of Noldoli while themselves wandering aimlessly in the forest. It is odd that these Noldoli did not name Túrin by his name but only as the Mormakil: it seems that they did not know who he was, but they knew enough of his history to make his identity plain to Mavwin. As noted above, Túrin declared his name and lineage to the Elves of the Caves. In the later narrative, on the other hand, Túrin did conceal it in Nargothrond, calling himself Agarwaen, but all those who brought news of the fall to Doriath ‘declared that it was known to many in Nargothrond ere the end that the Mormegil was none other than Túrin son of Húrin of Dor-lómin’.
As often, unneeded complication in the early story was afterwards cleared away: thus the elaborate argumentation needed to get Tinwelint’s warriors and Mavwin and Nienóri on the road together is gone from The Silmarillion and the Narn. In the tale the ladies and the Elvish warriors all set off together with the full intention that the former shall watch developments from a high place (afterwards Amon Ethir, the Hill of Spies); in the later story Morwen simply rides off, and the party of Elves, led by Mablung, follows after her, with Nienor among them in disguise.
Particularly notable is the passage in the tale in which Mavwin holds out the great gold-hoard of the Rodothlim as a bait to Tinwelint, and Tinwelint unashamedly admits that (as a wild Elf of the woods) it is this, not any hope of aiding Túrin, that moves him to send out a party. The majesty, power, and pride of Thingol rose with the development of the conception of the Grey-elves of Beleriand; as I have said earlier (p. 63) ‘In the beginning, Tinwelint’s dwelling was not a subterranean city full of marvels…but a rugged cave’, and here he is seen planning a foray to augment his slender wealth in precious things—a far cry from the description of his vast treasury in the Narn (p. 76):
Now Thingol had in Menegroth deep armouries filled with great wealth of weapons: metal wrought like fishes’ mail and shining like water in the moon; swords and axes, shields and helms, wrought by Telchar himself or by his master Gamil Zirak the old, or by elven-wrights more skilful still. For some things he had received in gift that came out of Valinor and were wrought by Fëanor in his mastery, than whom no craftsman was greater in all the days of the world.
Great as are the differences from the later legend in the encounter with the dragon, the stinking vapours raised by his lying in the river as the cause of the miscarriage of the plan, the maddened flight of the horses, and the enspelling of Nienor so that all memory of her past was lost, are already present. Most striking perhaps of the many differences is the fact that Mavwin was present at the conversation with Glorund; and of these speeches there is no echo in the Narn (pp. 118–19), save that Nienor’s naming of Túrin as the object of their quest revealed her identity to the dragon (this is explicit in the Narn, and may probably be surmised from the tale). The peculiar tone of Glaurung in the later narrative, sneering and curt, knowing and