The Lays of Beleriand (38 page)

for achievement of the thing they sought.

There Luthien listened in amaze,

and softly on Huan did she gaze.

Her arms about his neck she cast -

in friendship that to death should last. 2565

NOTES

2246. Tavros not emended, nor at lines 2263 - 4 (see p. 195, note to lines 891, 904) -

2248. of Cods had loved B] of Valar loved A

2283. Beleriand] Broseliand A, and B as typed.

2385. After this line is written the date 'April 2nd'. The previous date was 31 March 1928 at line 2114.

2423. After this line is written the date 'April 3rd'. The previous date was 2 April 1928 at line 2385.

2442-4. Cf. lines 1246 - 8.

2484-5. The reference to the hiding of Luthien's cloak is not in A.

2522-6. Cf. lines 349 - 53. Line 2523 is repeated at 2555.

2551. Bat twice more emendation in B; nor ever more A, but once more B as typed.

elven: elfin B, but since elfin is changed at almost every .

occurrence I have done so here.

Commentary on Canto VIII.

The development of the narrative of this Canto from the Tale of Tinuviel to The Silmarillion can be followed step by step. The first stage is seen in the very brief words of the 'Sketch', following on the passage given on p. 220.

Luthien is imprisoned by Thingol, but escapes and goes in search of Beren. With the aid of Huan lord of dogs she rescues Beren [i.e. from

'Thu the hunter'], and gains entrance to Angband...

This is too compressed to reveal what ideas underlay it; but at least it is clear that Huan was still independent of any master. In the earliest map Huan is assigned a territory (south and east of Ivrin), and this clearly belongs with the old conception.

Synopsis I, a little later than the 'Sketch' (see p. 220), continues from the point reached on pp. 219-20:

Tinuviel flies in her magic robe, she meets Celegorm out hunting, and is pursued by him and captured by Huan his dog and hurt. [Struck out: In redress he offers to help] He offers redress - but cannot help; he lent his Gnomes to Beren and all perished, and so must Beren.

Huan goes with her.

A little later in the outline it is said:

It was written in the fate of Huan that he could only be slain by a wolf.

At this stage, where Celegorm was the ruler of Nargothrond to whom Beren went in his trouble, Celegorm 'lent his Gnomes' to Beren;*

Luthien fleeing from Doriath was pursued by Celegorm while out hunting and was hurt by Huan, who now first appears as Celegorm's hound.

Here there is no suggestion of evil behaviour towards her (and no mention of Curufin); Celegorm is unable to assist her, further than he has already assisted Beren, but Huan goes with her on her quest: was this the 'redress' for her hurt that Celegorm offered her? It is not said. It is clear that the position of the ruler of Nargothrond as a son of Feanor, (* If the previous passage of Synopsis I (p. 219) is strictly interpreted Celegorm went with Beren from Nargothrond, but this is obviously not meant: my father must have struck out more than he intended to. It is now clear that in this form of the story Celegorm disguised Beren and gave him guides.)

bound by the Oath, must have developed quite differently if this form of the story had been retained, since he was also sworn to aid the kin of Barahir (see below, p. 247).

In Synopsis II, given on p. 233 to the point equivalent to the end of Canto VII, the plot reaches almost to its development in the present Canto of the Lay; but this was achieved in stages, and the original text of the outline was so much changed and extended by later alterations that it would be extremely difficult to follow if set out as hitherto. I give it therefore in two forms. As first written it read: Curufin and Celegorm go hunting with all their hounds. Huan the sleepless is the chief. He is proof against magic sleep or death - it is his fate to be slain only by the 'greatest wolf'. They espy Luthien who flees, but is caught by Huan whom she cannot enchant. The hound bears her to Celegorm, who learns her purpose. Hearing who she is, and falling in love with her he takes away her magic cloak, and holds her captive.

At last he yields to her tears to let her free and give her back her cloak, but he will not aid her because of his oath. Nor does he desire to rescue Felagund, since he is now all-powerful in Nargothrond. She departs from Celegorm. But Huan has become devoted to her, and goes with her.

At this stage, the hunting evidently had no significance in itself: it was the device by which Huan (already in Synopsis I the hound of Celegorm, and with a peculiar fate) was to be brought to accompany Luthien, an essential feature going back to the Tale of Tinuviel. There is no mention of her being hurt by Huan, as there is in Synopsis I (and so no question of

'redress'); and here Celegorm falls in love with her and therefore holds her captive. But this is only for a time; he yields to her prayer and gives her back her cloak, though because of his oath he will not aid her; and the evil motive of his desiring to let Felagund perish so that he may retain power in Nargothrond appears. Luthien leaves Celegorm; Huan goes with her, as in Synopsis I, but the motive is now explicitly the hound's love for her.

After emendation the outline read as follows: Because of the disguise of Felagund Thu is suspicious and his wolves fare far abroad. Celegorm seizes pretext for a wolfhunt.

Curufin and Celegorm go wolf-hunting guilefully (really to intercept Felagund*) with all their hounds. Huan the sleepless is the chief.

(Huan came with him [i.e. Celegorm] from Tavros' halls.) He is proof against magic sleep or death - it is his fate to be slain only by the (* i.e., if he should return to Nargothrond; see lines 2330ff.)

'greatest wolf'. They espy Luthien who flees, but is caught by Huan whom she cannot enchant. The hound bears her to Celegorm, who learns her purpose. Hearing who she is, and falling in love with her, Curufin takes away her magic cloak, and holds her captive. Although she tells him Melian's words and that Felagund and Beren are in Thu's power he won't attempt a rescue even of Felagund. (Marginal note: It is Curufin who put evil into Celegorm's heart.) In spite of her tears to let her free and give her back her cloak he will not aid her because of his oath and love. Nor does he desire to rescue Felagund, since he is now all-powerful in Nargothrond. But Huan has become devoted to her, and aids her to escape without her cloak.

The hunting of Celegorm and Curufin is now given a sinister import, and is related to the wolves of Thu who 'fare far abroad'. Huan's Valinorean ancestry appears; and Curufin becomes the evil genius of the brothers, and also the lover of Luthien. Luthien is now held prisoner in Nargothrond until she escapes by the aid of Huan - but she does not get back her cloak.

Which of the brothers is referred to in the latter part of the emended outline is not clear: as originally written it was Celegorm throughout, but by the change of 'falling in love with her he takes away her magic cloak' to

'failling in love with her Curufin takes away her magic cloak' Curufin becomes the antecedent to all that follows. Whether my father really intended this is hard to say.

When he came to write Canto VIII, on the basis of this emended outline, some further change took place - notably, the return to Luthien by Huan of her cloak before they left Nargothrond; and the element added to the outline 'It is Curufin who put evil into Celegorm's heart' is expanded. It is now Curufin who suggests the wolfhunt, with its secret intention, and line 2453 shows him as the subtler and more longheaded schemer, standing behind his brother and prompting him - it is clear from lines 2324ff. that Celegorm has some authority - or is felt by .

Curufin to have some authority - that Curufin lacks.

Curufin expresses his contempt for Orodreth ('a dullard slow', 2321), and this is the first hint of that weakening of Orodreth's character to which I referred earlier (p. 91). Of course the emergence of Felagund pushed him in any case into a subordinate role, as the younger brother of the founder of Nargothrond, and the concomitant development whereby Celegorm and Curufin remained in Nargothrond as powerful interlopers weakened his position still further. It may be that the position imposed on him by the movements in the legend led to the conclusion that he cannot have been made of very stern stuff.

These subtleties in the relationship between Celegorm and Curufin are passed over in the prose version (The Silmarillion pp. 172 - 3), and there is no suggestion that Curufin was the more sinister of the pair, and the prime mover in their machinations. Celegorm recovers his earlier role as the one who was enamoured of Luthien. In the Lay appears the motive, not mentioned in Synopsis II, of the intention of Celegorm and Curufin to ally themselves with 'King Thingol's blood' by the forced marriage of Luthien (lines 2498 - 2503); and this reappears in The Silmarillion, where it is to Celegorm that Thingol is to be compelled to give her.

The process whereby the legends of Beren and Luthien on the one hand and of Nargothrond on the other became entwined is now (to this point in the story) almost complete, and this is a convenient point to recapitulate the main shifts in its evolution.

In the Lost Tales Orodreth was lord of the Rodothlim, a people of the Gnomes, in the caves that were to become Nargothrond, but Beren had no connection with the Rodothlim (and Huan had no master). Then Celegorm appeared as the Gnomish prince rescued by Beren's father (Egnor > Barahir) in the battle that afterwards became the Battle of Sudden Flame, to whom he swore an oath of abiding friendship and aid; and Celegorm and Curufin became the founders of Nargothrond after the battle (p. 84). It was to Celegorm that Beren therefore came seeking aid; and Celegorm plays the later role of Felagund in Synopsis I to the extent that he gives him Gnomish guides. Luthien fleeing from Doriath is caught by Huan, now the hound of Celegorm, and hurt, but this has no outcome beyond the departure of Luthien in Huan's company (Synopsis I).

The most major change came with the emergence of Felagund and his taking over Celegorm's part both as founder of Nargothrond and as the one rescued by Barahir. Orodreth became his younger brother, the only other son of Finrod to survive the battle in which the Siege of Angband ended. But Celegorm's association with Nargothrond was not abandoned; and his powerful presence there together with that of his brother Curufin - again as a result of the battle - introduces the motive of conflict between the Feanorians and the King, each held by their own oaths. This conflict had been present in the earlier plot, but there it was a conflict within Celegorm's mind alone, since he had sworn both oaths; there is however no real evidence as to how my father would have treated this, unless we assume from his giving Gnomish guides to Beren in Synopsis I that he gave precedence to his oath to Barahir.

When Luthien is captured by Huan and taken to Nargothrond she is caught up in the ambitions of Celegorm and Curufin, and indeed her capture itself is made to come about from their evil intentions towards Felagund and determination to prevent his return.

Of Huan it is told in the Lay that he was the only hound of Valinor to come east over the sea (2270). His fate that he should meet death only when 'he encountered the mightiest wolf that would ever walk the world'

(The Silmarillion p. 173) appears (already referred to in Synopsis II, pp. 245-6), but it is not said as it is in The Silmarillion that this was because as the hound of Celegorm he came under the Doom of the Noldor. In the A-text of the Lay (note to line 2551) he spoke only once in his life, in the B-text twice; but this was emended to three times, as still in The Silmarillion.

The statement in lines 2248 - 50 that Orome

alone of Gods had loved the world

before the banners were unfurled

of Moon and Sun

seems to forget Yavanna: see the tale of The Chaining of Melko (I. 98 - 9) and The Silmarillion pp. 40 - 1.

The dim cries and horns blewing, land barking hounds through the trees going (lines 2298- 9, repeated with variations in lines 2348 - 9) derive from the Middle English Lay of Sir Orfeo: With dim cri & bloweing

& houndes also wip him berking.*

IX.

In Wizard's Isle still lay forgot,

enmeshed and tortured in that grot

cold, evil, doorless, without light,

and blank-eyed stared at endless night

two comrades. Now alone they were. 2570

The others lived no more, but bare

their broken bones would lie and tell

how ten had served their master well.

To Felagund then Beren said:

"Twere little loss if I were dead, 2575

and I am minded all to tell,

and thus, perchance, from this dark hell

thy life to loose. I set thee free

(* Auchinleck manuscript lines 285-6 (ed. A. J. Bliss, Oxford 1954, p. 26); cf. my father's translation (Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo, 1975): with blowing far and crying dim

and barking hounds that were with him.)

from thine old oath, for more for me

hast thou endured than e'er was earned.' 2580

'A! Beren, Beren hast not learned

that promises of Morgoth's folk