The Book of Lost Tales - J. R. Tolkien [82]
The initial reluctance of Níniel to receive Turambar’s suit is given no explanation in the tale: the implication must be that some instinct, some subconscious appreciation of the truth, held her back. In The Silmarillion (p. 220)
for that time she delayed in spite of her love. For Brandir foreboded he knew not what, and sought to restrain her, rather for her sake than his own or rivalry with Turambar; and he revealed to her that Turambar was Túrin son of Húrin, and though she knew not the name a shadow fell upon her mind.
In the final version as in the oldest, the Woodmen knew who Turambar was. My father’s scribbled directions for the alteration of the story cited in note 23 (‘Make Turambar never tell new folk of his lineage…’) are puzzling: for since Níniel had lost all memory of her past she would not know the names Túrin son of Húrin even if it were told to her that Turambar was he. It is however possible that when my father wrote this he imagined Níniel’s lost knowledge of herself and her family as being nearer the surface of her mind, and capable of being brought back by hearing the names—in contrast to the later story where she did not consciously recognise the name of Túrin even when Brandir told it to her. Clearly the question-mark against the reference in the text of the tale to Turambar’s speaking to Níniel ‘of his father and mother and the sister he had not seen’ and Níniel’s distress at his words (see note 24) depends on the same train of thought. The statement here that Turambar had never seen his sister is at variance with what is said earlier in the tale, that he did not leave Hithlum until after Nienóri’s birth (p. 71); but my father was uncertain on this point, as is clearly seen from the succession of readings, changed back and forth between the two ideas, given in note 15.
(ix) The slaying of Glorund (pp. 103–8)
In this section I follow the narrative of the tale as far as Túrin’s swoon when the dying dragon opened his eyes and looked at him. Here the later story runs very close to the old, but there are many interesting differences.
In the tale Glorund is said to have had bands of both Orcs and Noldoli subject to him, but only the Orcs remained afterwards; cf. the Narn p.125:
Now the power and malice of Glaurung grew apace, and he waxed fat [cf. ‘the Foalókë waxed fat’], and he gathered Orcs to him, and ruled as a dragon-King, and all the realm of Nargothrond that had been was laid under him.
The mention in the tale that Tinwelint’s people were ‘grievously harried’ by Glorund’s bands suggests once again that the magic of the Queen was no very substantial protection; while the statement that ‘at length there came some [Orcs] nigh even to those woods and glades that were beloved of Turambar and his folk’ seems at variance with Turambar’s saying to Níniel earlier that ‘we are hard put to it to fend those evil ones from our homes’ (p. 100). There is no mention here of Turambar’s pledge to Níniel that he would go to battle only if the homes of the Woodmen were assailed (Narn pp. 125–6); and there is no figure corresponding to Dorlas of the later versions. Tamar’s character, briefly described (p. 106), is in accord so far as it goes with what is later told of Brandir, but the relationship of Brandir to Níniel, who called him her brother (Narn p. 124), had not emerged. The happiness and prosperity of the Woodmen under Turambar’s chieftainship is much more strongly emphasized in the tale (afterwards he was not indeed the chieftain, at least not in name); and it leads in fact to Glorund’s greed as a motive for his assault on them.
The topographical indications in this passage, important to the narrative, are readily enough accommodated to the later accounts, with one major exception: it is clear that in the old story the stream of the waterfall that fell down to the Silver Bowl was the same as that which ran through the