The Book of Lost Tales - J. R. Tolkien [81]
The chief difference of structure lies in the total absence of the ‘Mablung-element’ from the tale, nor is there any foreshadowing of it. There is no suggestion of an exploration of the sacked dwellings in the dragon’s absence (indeed he does not, as it appears, go any distance from them); the purpose of the expedition from Artanor was expressly warlike (‘a strong party against the Foalókë’, ‘they prepared them for battle’), since Tinwelint had hopes of laying hands on the treasure, whereas afterwards it became purely a scouting foray, for Thingol ‘desired greatly to know more of the fate of Nargothrond’ (Narn p. 113).
A curious point is that though Mavwin and Nienóri were to be stationed on the tree-covered ‘high place’ that was afterward called the Hill of Spies, and where they were in fact so stationed in The Silmarillion and the Narn, it seems that in the old story they never got there, but were ensnared by Glorund where he lay in, or not far from, the river. Thus the ‘high place’ had in the event almost no significance in the tale.
(viii) Turambar and Níniel (pp. 99–102)
In the later legend Nienor was found by Mablung after her enspelling by Glaurung, and with three companions he led her back towards the borders of Doriath. The chase after Nienor by the band of Orcs (Narn p. 120) is present in the tale, but it does not have its later narrative function of leading to Nienor’s flight and loss by Mablung and the other Elves (who do not appear): rather it leads directly to her rescue by Turambar, now dwelling among the Woodmen. In the Narn (p. 122) the Woodmen of Brethil did indeed come past the spot where they found her on their return from a foray against Orcs; but the circumstances of her finding are altogether different, most especially since there is in the tale no mention of the Haudh-en-Elleth, the Mound of Finduilas.
An interesting detail concerns Nienor’s response to Turambar’s naming her Níniel. In The Silmarillion and the Narn ‘she shook her head, but said: Níniel’ in the present text she said: ‘Not Níniel, not Níniel.’ One has the impression that in the old story what impressed her darkened mind was only the resemblance of Níniel to her own forgotten name Nienóri (and of Turambar to Túrin), whereas in the later she both denied and in some way accepted the name Níniel.
An original element in the legend is the Woodmen’s bringing of Níniel to a place (‘Silver Bowl’) where there was a great waterfall (afterwards Dimrost, the Rainy Stair, where the stream of Celebros ‘fell towards Teiglin’): and these falls were near to the dwellings of the Woodmen—but the place where they found Níniel was much further off in the forest (several days’ journey) than were the Crossings of Teiglin from Dimrost. When she came there she was filled with dread, a foreboding of what was to happen there afterwards, and this is the origin of her shuddering fit in the later narratives, from which the place was renamed Nen Girith, the Shuddering Water (see Narn p. 149, note 24).
The utter darkness imposed on Níniel’s mind by the dragon’s spell is less emphasized in the tale, and there is no suggestion that she needed to relearn her very language; but it is interesting to observe the recurrence in a changed context of the simile of ‘one that seeks for something mislaid’: in the Narn (p. 123) Níniel is said to have taken great delight in the relearning of words, ‘as one that finds again treasures great and small that were mislaid’.
The lame man, here called Tamar, and his vain love of Níniel already appear; unlike his later counterpart Brandir he was not the chief of the Woodmen, but he was the son of the chief. He was also Half-elven! Most extraordinary is the statement that the wife of Bethos the chieftain and mother of Tamar was an Elf, a woman of the Noldoli: this is mentioned in passing, as if the great significance and rarity of the union of Elf and Mortal had not yet