The Lays of Beleriand (20 page)

Light as Leaf on Lindentree was published in The Gryphon (Leeds University), New Series, Vol. VI, no. 6, June 1925, p. 217. It is here preceded by nine lines of alliterative verse, beginning

'Tis of Beren Ermabwed brokenhearted

and continuing exactly as in (b) above (and in the text of the Lay) as far as in pools of darkness; the last four lines do not appear. In his cutting from The Gryphon my father changed broken-hearted (which is obviously a mere printer's error) to the boldhearted (as in the Lay, 358); changed the title to As Light as Leaf on Lindentree; and wrote Erchamion above Ennabwed (see note to lines 358 - 66).

The text of the inserted poem given in the body of the Lay is that published, which is identical to that of the typescripts (b) and (c). My father made a very few changes to (c) afterwards (i.e. after the poem had been printed) and these are given in the notes that follow, as also are the earlier forms of the penultimate verse.

It may finally be observed that if my deductions are correct the introduction in the Lay of the reference to the Lay of Leithian and the outline of the story told by Halog preceded the publication of Light as Leaf on Lindentree in June 1925.

419. magic > wonder, later emendation made to the typescript (c) of Light as Leaf on Lindentree after the poem published.

424. fairy > elvish, see note to 419.

459, 464. elfin > elvish, see note to 419.

459- 66. In the typescript (a) this penultimate stanza reads as follows: And Beren caught the elfin maid

And kissed her trembling starlit eyes:

The elfin maid that love delayed

In the days beyond our memory.

Till moon and star, till music dies,

Shall Beren and the elfin maid

Dance to the starlight of her eyes

And fill the woods with glamoury.

The single manuscript page (bearing the address 'T

University, Leeds') has two versions of the stanza inter mediate between that in (a) and the final form. The first these reads:

Ere Beren caught the elfin maid

And kissed her trembling starlit eyes

Tinuviel, whom love delayed

In the woven woods of Nemorie

In the tangled trees of Tramorie.

Till music and till moonlight dies

Shall Beren by the elfin maid

Dance in the starlight of her eyes

And fill the woods with glamoury.

Other variants are suggested for lines 4 and 8: In the woven woods of Glamoury

O'er the silver glades of Amoury

and

Ere the birth of mortal memory

And fill the woods with glamoury.

I can cast no light on these names.

The second version advances towards the final form, with for lines 4 and 8 of the stanza:

In the land of laughter sorrowless

> In spells enchanted sorrowless

In eve unending morrowless

The lines finally achieved are also written here. This rewriting of the penultimate stanza is unquestionably the 1924

'retouching' referred to in the note on typescript (a) (see p. 120).

475. did Halog sing them: did Halog recall IIB as typed. The emendation was made at the same time as the insertion of Light as Leaf on Lindentree; as originally written the line followed on 397, at the end of Halog's story.

520. Finweg IIB unemended; see note to second version line 19.

531. Nirnaith Unoth IIA, and IIB as typed. See note to second version line 26.

550. haled underlined in IIB and an illegible word substituted, perhaps had.

576. Ermabweth IIA, and IIB as typed. Cf. line 273.

596. Mailrond: see note to line 3 I 9.

658. elfin IIA, elvish IIB as typed.

767. The manuscript IIA ends here.

811. Cor emended in pencil to Tun, but Tun later struck out. In the first version (IB, line 430) the same, but there the emendation Tun not struck out.

812. Taingwethil: Tengwethil as typed. In the first version IB

introduces Tain- for Ten- at lines 431, 636, but at line 1409

IB has Ten- for IA Tain-.

A later pencilled note here says: 'English Tindbrenting'

(see Commentary, p. 127).

Commentary on Part II

of the second version

'Turin's Fostering'.

(i) References to the story of Beren and Luthien In this second part of the second version the major innovation is of course the introduction of the story of Beren and Luthien, told to Turin by his guardian Halog when they were lost in the forest, at once reminiscent of Aragorn's telling of the same story to his companions on Weathertop before the attack of the Ringwraiths (The Fellowship of the Ring I. 11); and with the further introduction of the poem Light as Leaf on Lindentree, the original form of the very song that Aragorn chanted on Weathertop, we realise that the one scene is actually the precursor of the other.

At line 264(an original, not an interpolated line) is the first appearance of the name Luthien for Thingol's daughter, so that Tinuviel becomes her acquired name (given to her by Beren, line 361). The suggestion of the interpolated lines 266 - 7 is that Tinuviel meant 'Starmantled', which seems likely enough (see I. 269, entry Tinwe Linto; the Gnomish dictionary, contemporary with the Lost Tales, rather surprisingly gives no indication of the meaning of Tinuviel). On the other hand, in the interpolated line 361 the suggestion is equally clear that it meant

'Nightingale'. It is difficult to explain this.*

The original reading at line 265, Dairon 's sister, goes back to the Tale of Tinuviel, where Dairon was the son of Tinwelint (II. 10).

I noted earlier (p. 25) that lines 178-9 in the first version and never ere now for need or wonder

had children of Men chosen that pathway

show that Beren was still an Elf, not a Man; but while these lines are retained without change in the second version (349 - 50) their meaning is reversed by the new line that immediately follows - save Beren the brave, which shows equally clearly that Beren was a Man, not an Elf. At this time my father was apparently in two minds on this subject. At lines 273 ff. of the second version (referring to Beren's friendship with Hurin) he originally repeated lines 122 - 5 of the first, which make no statement on the matter; but in the first revision of this passage (given in the note to lines 274-8) he explicitly wrote that Beren was an Elf: (* A possible if rather finespun explanation is that lines 266-8 werc not in fact written in to the text at the same time as the two pasted-in slips (giving lines 358-66 and 398 - 402), as I have supposed (p. 120), but were earlier. O&his view, when 266-8 were written Tiniviel was not yet Beren's name for Luthien, but was her common soubriquet, known both near and far (266), and meant 'Star-mantled'. Later, when 358 - 66 were added, it had become the name given to her by Beren (361 ), and meant 'Nightingale'. If this were so, it could also supposed that line 268, who light as leaf on linden tree, gave risc to the title of the poem.)

(Beren) who once of old

fellowship had vowed and friendly love

Elf with mortal, even Egnor's son

with Hurin of Hithlum...

Since this is a rewriting of the original text of IIB it is presumably a withdrawal from the idea (that Beren was a Man) expressed in lines 349 - 50; while the further rewriting of this passage, getting rid of the line Elf with mortal, even Egnor's son, presumably represents a return to it.

In Halog's recounting of the story of Beren and Luthien there are some apparent differences from that told in the Tale of the Nauglafring and the Lay of Leithian. The reference to Melian's magic in line 371 is presumably to Melian's knowledge of where Beren was; cf. the Tale of Tinuviel II. 17: '"0 Gwendeling, my mother," said she, "tell me of thy magic, if thou canst, how doth Beren fare..."' A probable explanation of the mention later in this passage of the arts of Melian (393), in association with Luthien's winning Beren back from death, will be given later. But in no other version of the story is there any suggestion that Carcharoth 'hunted' Beren and Luthien (377) after he had devoured Beren's hand holding the Silmaril - indeed, the reverse: from the Tale of Tinuviel (II. 34) 'Then did Tinuviel and Beren flee like the wind from the gates, yet was Karkaras far before them' to The Silmarillion (p. 181) 'Howling he fled before them'. (The form Carcharoth now first appears, by emendation of Carcharolch, which occurs nowhere else; in the Tale of Tinuviel the forms are Karkaras and (in the second version) Carcaras.)

More important, lines 395-7

that they dwell for ever in days ageless

and the grass greys not in the green forest

where East or West they ever wander

seems to represent a conception of the second lives of Beren and Luthien notably different from that in the Tale of the Nauglafring (II. 240), where the doom of mortality that Mandos had spoken fell swiftly upon them (as also in The Silmarillion, p. 236):

nor this time did those twain fare the road together, but when yet was the child of those twain, Dior the Fair, a little one, did Tinuviel slowly fade... and she vanished in the woods, and none have seen her dancing ever there again. But Beren searched all the lands of Hithlum and Artanor ranging after her; and never has any of the Elves had more loneliness than his, or ever he too faded from life...

However this matter is to be interpreted, the lines in the Lay are clearly to be associated with the end of Light as Leaf on Lindentree: Till moonlight and till music dies

Shall Beren by the elfin maid

Dance in the starlight of her eyes

In the forest singing sorrowless.

Compare the end of the song that Aragorn sang on Weathertop: The ring Seas between them lay,

And yet at last they met once more,

And long ago they passed away

In the forest singing sorrowless.

(ii) The Dragon-helm and Hurin's ancestors

The elder of Turin's guardians, still Gumlin in the first version, is now named (Mailgond >) Mailrond; and Gumlin becomes the name of Hurin's father, who has not been even mentioned before (other than in the reference in the first version to the Dragon-helm being Hurin's heirloom, 318). In the second version the Dragon-helm was worn aforetime

by the father of the fathers of the folk of Hurin, whose sire Gumlin to his son gave it

ere his soul severed from his sundered heart. (674.- 7) The last line suggests that a story of Hurin's father had already come into existence; and line 675 suggests a long line of ancestors behind Hurin - as also does line 622, the pride of her people, princes ancient, behind Morwen. It is hard to know how my father at this time conceived the earlier generations of Men; and the question must be postponed.

The Dragon-helm itself now begins to gather a history: it was made in dark dwarfland in the deeps of time,

ere Men to Mithrim and misty Hithlum

o'er the world wandered (672 - 4)

and was the work of Telchar (678), now named for the first time. But there is still no indication of the significance attaching to the dragon-crest.

Lines 758 - 62 (Lo! me deemed as dead the dragon of the North

... Or is Hurin of Hithlum from Hell broken?), to which there is nothing corresponding in the first version, clearly foreshadows the Narn, p. 79:

and word ran through the woods, and was heard far beyond Doriath, that the Dragon-helm of Dor-lomin was seen again. Then many wondered, saying: 'Can the spirit of Hador or of Galdor the Tall return from death; or has Hurin of Hithlum escaped indeed from the pits of Angband?'

(iii) Miscellaneous Matters.

The curious references to Beleg in the first version ('son of the wilderness who wist no sire', see p. 25) reappear in the second, but in a changed form, and at one of the occurrences put into Beleg's own mouth: the forest is my father 536, cf. 772. Beleg the ageless is retained in the second version (793), and at lines 544 ff. he shows a Gandalf-like quality of being able to make fire in wet wood, with his wizard's cunning (cf. The Fellowship of the Ring II. 3).

The great bow of Beleg is now at last named: Balthronding (773; later Belthronding).

We learn now that the strong wine of Dor-Winion that Beleg gave to the travellers and which was drunk at the fateful feast in the Thousand Caves was brought to the Northern lands from Nogrod by Dwarves (540 - 1); and also that there was viticulture in Valinor (543 - 4), though after the accounts of life in the halls of Tulkas and Orome in the tale of The Coming of the Valar (1. 75) this causes no surprise - indeed it is said that Nessa wife of Tulkas bore 'goblets o( the goodliest wine', while Measse went among the warriors in her house and 'revived the fainting with strong wine' (I. 78).

An interesting detail in the second account of Turin's reception in Doriath, not found again, is that Melian played a part in the king's graciousness:

for Melian moved him with murmured counsel. (580) From the feast at which Turin slew Orgof the songs of the sons of Ing of the first version (line 421) have now disappeared.

The chronology of Turin's youth is slightly changed in the second version. In the first, as in the Tale (see p. 25), Turin spent seven years in Doriath while tidings still came from Morwen (line 333); this now becomes nine years (line 693), as in The Silmarillion (p. 199).