The Lays of Beleriand

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Book: Read The Lays of Beleriand for Free Online
Authors: J. R. R. Tolkien
placed against line 471 had some other reason.
    There are several references in the poem to Hurin and Beren having been friends and fellows-in-arms (122 -- 4., 248 -- 9, 298). In the Tale it was said originally (when Beren was a Man) that Egnor Beren's father was akin to Mavwin; this was replaced by a different passage (when Beren had become a Gnome) according to which Egnor was a friend of Urin ('and Beren Ermabwed son of Egnor he knew'); see I I. 71 -- 2, 139. In the later version of the Tale of Tinuviel (II.44) Urin is named as the 'brother in arms' of Egnor; this was emended to make Urin's relationship with Beren himself -- as in the poem. In The Silmarillion (p. 198) Morwen thought to send Turin to Thingol 'for Beren son of Barahir was her father's kinsman, and he had been moreover a friend of Hurin, ere evil befell'. There is no mention of the fact in the Narn (p. 63): Morwen merely says: 'Am I not now kin of the king [Thingol]? For Beren son of Barahir was grandson of Bregor, as was my father also.'
    That Beren was still an Elf, not a Man, (deducible on other grounds) is apparent from lines 178 -- 9:
    and never ere now for need or wonder
    had children of Men chosen that pathway
    -- cf. the Tale (II. 72): 'and Turin son of Urin was the first of Men to tread that way', changed from the earlier reading 'and Beren Ermabwed was the first of Men...'
    In the parting of Turin from his mother comparison with the Tale will show some subtle differences which need not be spelled out here. The younger of Turin's guardians is now named, Halog (and it is said that Gumlin and Halog were the only 'henchmen' left to Morwen).
    Some very curious things are said of Beleg in the poem. He is twice (200, 399) called 'a (the) son of the wilderness who wist no sire', and at line 416 he is 'Beleg the ageless'. There seems to be a mystery about him, an otherness that sets him apart (as he set himself apart, 195) from the Elves of Thingol's lordship (see further p. 127). It may be that there is still a trace of this in the 1930 'Silmarillion', where it is said that none went from Doriath to the Battle of Unnumbered Tears save Mablung, and Beleg 'who obeyed no man' (in the later text this becomes 'nor any out of Doriath save Mablung and Beleg, who were unwilling to have no part in these great deeds. To them Thingol gave leave to go...', The Silmarillion p. 189). In the poem (219) Beleg says expressly that he did not go to the great Battle. -- His great bow of black yew-wood (so in The Silmarillion, p. 208, where it is named Belthronding) now appears (400): in the Tale he is not particularly marked out as a bowman (II. 123).
    Beleg's The gods have guided you (215) and Turin's guardians'
    thought the gods are good (244) accord with references in the Lost Tales to the influence of the Valar on Men and Elves in the Great Lands: see II. 141.
    The potent wine that Beleg carried and gave to the travellers from his flask (223 ff.) is notable -- brought from the burning South and by long mays carried to the lands of the North -- as is the name of the land from which it came: Dor-Winion (230, 425). The only other places in my father's writings where this name occurs (so far as I know) are in The Hobbit, Chapter IX Barrels out of Bond: 'the heady vintage of the great gardens of Dorwinion', and 'the wine of Dorwinion brings deep and pleasant dreams'.* See further p. 127.
    The curious element in Thingol's message to Morwen in the Tale, explaining why he did not go with his people to the Battle of Unnumbered Tears (II. 73), has now been rejected; but with Morwen's response to the messengers out of Doriath there enters the legend the Dragon-helm of Dor-lomin (297 ff.). As yet little is told of it (though more is said in the second version of the poem, see p. 126): Hurin often bore it in battle (in the Narn it is denied that he used it, p. 76); it magically protected its wearer (as still in the Narn, p. 75); and it was arith that token crowned of the towering

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