The Lays of Beleriand (36 page)

so we are called, and dark our den

under the mountains. Over the waste

we march on an errand of need and haste.

Boldog the captain awaits us there 2125

where fires from under smoke and flare.'

'Boldog, I heard, was lately slain

warring on the borders of that domain

where Robber Thingol and outlaw folk

cringe and crawl beneath elm and oak 2130

in drear Doriath. Heard ye not then

of that pretty fay, of Luthien?

Her body is fair, very white and fair.

Morgoth would possess her in his lair.

Boldog he sent, but Boldog was slain: 2135

strange ye were not in Boldog's train.

Nereb looks fierce, his frown is grim.

Little Luthien! What troubles him?

Why laughs he not to think of his lord

crushing a maiden in his hoard, 2140

that foul should be what once was clean,

that dark should be where light has been?

Whom do ye serve, Light or Mirk?

Who is the maker of mightiest work?

Who is the king of earthly kings,

the greatest giver of gold and rings?

Who is the master of the wide earth?

Who despoiled them of their mirth,

the greedy Gods? Repeat your vows,

Orcs of Bauglir! Do not bend your brows! 2150

Death to light, to law, to love!

Cursed be moon and stars above!

May darkness everlasting old

that waits outside in surges cold

drown Manwe, Varda, and the sun! 2155

May all in hatred be begun,

and all in evil ended be,

in the moaning of the endless Sea! '

But no true Man nor Elf yet free

would ever speak that blasphemy, 2160

and Beren muttered: 'Who is Thu

to hinder work that is to do?

Him we serve not, nor to him owe

obeisance, and we now would go.'

Thu laughed: 'Patience! Not very long 2165

shall ye abide. But first a song

I will sing to you, to ears intent.'

Then his flaming eyes he on them bent,

and darkness black fell round them all.

Only they saw as through a pall 2170

of eddying smoke those eyes profound

in which their senses choked and drowned.

He chanted a song of wizardry,

of piercing, opening, of treachery,

revealing, uncovering, betraying. 2175

Then sudden Felagund there swaying

sang in answer a song of staying,

resisting, battling against power,

of secrets kept, strength like a tower,

and trust unbroken, freedom, escape; 2180

of changing and of shifting shape,

of snares eluded, broken traps,

the prison opening, the chain that snaps.

Backwards and forwards swayed their song.

Reeling and foundering, as ever more strong 2185

Thu's chanting swelled, Felagund fought,

and all the magic and might he brought

of Elfinesse into his words.

Softly in the gloom they heard the birds

singing afar in Nargothrond, 2190

the sighing of the sea beyond,

beyond the western world, on sand,

on sand of pearls in Elvenland.

Then the gloom gathered: darkness growing

in Valinor, the red blood flowing 2195

beside the sea, where the Gnomes slew

the Foamriders, and stealing drew

their white ships with their white sails

from lamplit havens. The wind wails.

The wolf howls. The ravens flee. 2200

The ice mutters in the mouths of the sea.

The captives sad in Angband mourn.

Thunder rumbles, the fires burn,

a vast smoke gushes out, a roar -

and Felagund swoons upon the floor. 2205

Behold! they are in their own fair shape,

fairskinned, brighteyed. No longer gape

Orclike their mouths; and now they stand

betrayed into the wizard's hand.

Thus came they unhappy into woe, 2210

to dungeons no hope nor glimmer know,

where chained in chains that eat the flesh

and woven in webs of strangling mesh

they lay forgotten, in despair.

Yet not all unavailing were 2215

the spells of Felagund; for Thu

neither their names nor purpose knew.

These much he pondered and bethought,

and in their woeful chains them sought,

and threatened all with dreadful death, 2220

if one would not with traitor's breath

reveal this knowledge. Wolves should come

and slow devour them one by one

before the others' eyes, and last

should one alone be left aghast, 2225

then in a place of horror hung

with anguish should his limbs be wrung,

in the bowels of the earth be slow

endlessly, cruelly, put to woe

and torment, till he all declared. 2230

Even as he threatened, so it fared.

From time to time in the eyeless dark

two eyes would grow, and they would hark

to frightful cries, and then a sound

of rending, a slavering on the ground, 2235

and blood flowing they would smell.

But none would yield, and none would tell.

NOTES.

1943. Against the end of this line is written the date 'March 30

1928'. The previous date was 29 March 1928 at line 1736.

2023. (and subsequently) Broseliand A, and B as typed.

2026. Deadly Night] Tangled Night A, and B as typed. Cf.

Deadly Nightshade as a name of Taur-na-Fuin in The Children of Hurin (p. 55) and at line 2060 in the present Canto.

2047. fields of drouth: the expression Plains of Drouth occurs in The Children of Hurin, p. 36, line 826.

2056-63. These lines are marked with an X and a sign for deletion in the B-text, probably not on account of anything in their content but because my father felt them to be intrusive.

2064-6. Emended in B to:

Gnomes called him Gorthu, as a god

in after days beneath his rod

bewildered they bowed to him, and made

(Sauron was first substituted for Thu! Men is written beside they in line 2066.) Thu > Corthu at all subsequent occurrences in this Canto, or the name avoided by substitution of pronoun or article; thus 2088 of all their deeds to me, Corthu; 2161 - 2 Doth Corthu/now hinder work; 2165

He laughed; 2186 the chanting; etc.

This change is difficult to date, hut was made when Gnomes was still employed (2064). In Canto VIII Thu was left unchanged, and subsequently, until 3290, which was emended to where Corthu reigned; at the end of the poem (3947, 3951) Thu was changed to Sauron.

2100 - 6. On the changed metre of these lines see the Commentary.

2114. After this line is written the date 'March 31st' (i.e. 1928).

The previous date was 30 March 1928 at line 1943.

2121. Nereb and Dungalef: emended in B to Wrath and Hate, at the same time as Thu > Gorthu.

2137. Nereb looks fierce: emended in B to Fierce is your chief.

2155. Bridhil A, and B as typed; the change to Varda made at the same time as Thu to Gorthu. Cf. note to line 1620.

2175-7. The three rhyming lines go back through A to the original draft.

2193. Elvenland is an emendation to B Fairyland.

Commentary on Canto VII.

The plot-outline 'Synopsis I' for the narrative in this Canto has already been given (pp. 219-20). 'Synopsis II' continues from the point reached on p. 221.

They ambush an Orc-band, and disguising themselves in the raiment and fashion of the slain, march on Northward. Between the Shadowy Mountains and the Forest of Night, where the young Sirion flows in the narrowing valley, they come upon the werewolves, and the host of Thu Lord of Wolves. They are taken before Thu, andaftcr a contest of riddling questions and answers are revealed as spies, but Beren is taken as a Gnome, and that Felagund is King of Nargothrond remains hidden.

They are placed in a deep dungeon. Thu desires to discover their purpose and real names and vows death, one by one, and torment to the last one, if they will not reveal them. From time to time a great werewolf [struck through: Thu in disguise] comes and devours one of the companions.

This is obviously the narrative basis for Canto VII, and the story here reaches its final form. There may seem to be a difference between the outline and the Lay, in that the former says that 'after a contest of riddling questions and answers they are revealed as spies', whereas in the latter Felagund is overcome by song of greater power. In fact, the riddling contest is present, but seems not to have been fully developed.

In the original draft my father scribbled the following note before he wrote the passage lines 2100 ff.:

Riddling questions. Where have you been, who have you slain? Thirty men. Who reigns in Nargothrond? Who is captain of Orcs? Who wrought the world? Who is king &c. They show Elfin [?bias] and too little knowledge of Angband, too much of Elfland. Thu and Felagund

..... enchantments against one another and Thu's slowly win, till they stand revealed as Elves.

Lines 2100 - 6 are in a changed metre, especially suitable to a riddle contest, and their content (the reply to Thu's question 'Where have ye been? What have ye seen?') is riddling ('misleading accuracy'). But after this the verse returns to the common metre, and the riddling element disappears (except in dark our den/under the mountains). The name Dungalef (2121), though it sounds Orcish enough, was an oddly transparent device, since Felagund had just been mentioned; but it succeeded (2217). No doubt Thu's ponderings on the matter were too subtle.

This is the first full portrait of Thu, who emerges as a being of great power, far advanced in sorcery, and is indeed here called 'necromancer'

(2074). Here also is the first suggestion that his history would extend far beyond the tale of Beren and Luthien, when 'in after days' Men would worship him, and build 'his ghastly temples in the shade'.

It is in this Canto, also, that the island in the river Sirion (not actually mentioned in Synopsis II) makes its first appearance, together with a mention of the origin of the fortress:

An elven watchtower had it been,

and strong it was, and still was fair. (2041-2) My father's drawing (Pictures by J. R. R. Tolkien, no. 36) was made at Lyme Regis in Dorset in July 1928, less than four months after these lines were written; and in the drawing the caves scooped by the waters in the edges of the island (lines 2037-8) can be seen.

The Shadowy Mountains referred to in Synopsis II and in the poem are no longer the Mountains of Terror (Ered Gorgoroth), as they were at lines 386, 1318 (see pp. 170 - z). In Synopsis II it is said that the young Sirion flows in the narrowing valley between the Shadowy Mountains and the Forest of Night (Taur-na-Fuin), and in the poem Ivrin's lake mirrors

the pallid faces bare and grim

of Shadowy Mountains neath the moon (1939 - 40) as in The Children of Hurin (p. 62, lines 1581-z). Thus the term now reverts to its meaning in the alliterative poem, a meaning that it would henceforward retain. It is also to be noted that this mountain-range is

'northward-bending' (2030).

The lines concerning Ivrin in The Children of Hurin (1594 - 7): newborn Narog, nineteen fathoms

o'er a flickering force falls in wonder,

and a glimmering goblet with glass-lucent

fountains fills he by his freshets carven

are echoed in The Lay of Leithian (1934 - 6): the flickering falls, whose freshets sheer

a glimmering goblet glassy-clear

with crystal waters fill...

A new feature of the northern lands appears in this Canto: the Gorge of Aglon (2057), already placed (as other evidence shows) at the eastern end of Taur-na-Fuin; and line 2063 gives the first indication that this region was the territory of the Feanorians.

The raid of the Orc-captain Boldog into Doriath, seeking to capture Luthien for Morgoth, was an important element in the history of this time, though later it disappeared and there is no trace of it in The Silmarillion. Discussion of it is postponed till later in the Lay of Leithian, but it may be noticed here that an early reference to it is found in The Children of Hurin (p. 16 lines 392 - 4, p. 117 lines 764-6). There it was Thu himself who was bidden by Morgoth go ravage the realm of the robber Thingol.

The term Foamriders, used of the Third Kindred of the Elves in line 2197, is found earlier in the alliterative Flight of the Noldoli (see p.140).

VIII.

Hounds there were in Valinor

with silver collars. Hart and boar,

the fox and hare and nimble roe 2240

there in the forests green did go.

Orome was the lord divine

of all those woods. The potent wine

went in his halls and hunting song.

The Gnomes anew have named him long 2245

Tavros, the God whose horns did blow

over the mountains long ago;

who alone of Gods had loved the world

before the banners were unfurled

of Moon and Sun; and shod with gold 2250

were his great horses. Hounds untold

baying in woods beyond the West

of race immortal he possessed:

grey and limber, black and strong,

white with silken coats and long, 2255