The Lays of Beleriand (6 page)

whom he robbed of riches or reft of life,

were it Elf or Orc; but he opened not

the thoughts of his heart. There throbbed the harp, where the fires flickered, and the flaming brands of pine were piled in the place of their camp; where glad men gathered in good friendship

as dusk fell down on the drear woodland.

Then a song on a sudden soaring loudly --

and the trees up-looming towering harkened --

was raised of the Wrack of the Realm of the Gods; of the need of the Gnomes on the Narrow Crossing; of the fight at Fangros, and Feanor's sons'

oath unbreakable. Then up sprang Beleg:

'That our vaunt and our vows be not vain for ever, even such as they swore, those seven chieftains, an oath let us swear that is unchanging

as Tain-Gwethil's towering mountain! '

Their blades were bared, as blood shining

in the flame of the fires while they flashed and touched.

As with one man's voice the words were spoken, and the oath uttered that must unrecalled

abide for ever, a bond of truth

and friendship in arms, and faith in peril.

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Thus war was waked in the woods once more

for the foes of Faerie, and its fame widely,

and the fear of that fellowship, now fared abroad; when the horn was heard of the hunting Elves

that shook the shaws and the sheer valleys.

Blades were naked and bows twanging,

and shafts from the shadows shooting winged,

and the sons of darkness slain and conquered; even in Angband the Orcs trembled.

Then the word wandered down the ways of the forest that Turin Thalion was returned to war;

and Thingol heard it, and his thanes were sped to lead the lost one in love to his halls --

but his fate was fashioned that they found him not.

Little gold they got in that grim warfare,

but weary watches and wounds for guerdon;

nor on robber-raids now rode they ever,

who fended from Faerie the fiends of Hell.

But Blodrin Bor's son for booty lusted,

for the loud laughter of the lawless days,

and meats unmeasured, and mead-goblets

refilled and filled, and the flagons of wine

that went as water in their wild revels.

Now tales have told that trapped as a child

he was dragged by the Dwarves to their deep mansions, and in Nogrod nurtured, and in nought was like, spite blood and birth, to the blissful Elves.

His heart hated Hurin's offspring

and the bowman Beleg; so biding his while

he fled their fellowship and forest hidings

to the merciless Orcs, whose moon-pallid

cruel-curved blades to kill spare not;

than whose greed for gold none greater burns

save in hungry hearts of the hell-dragons.

He betrayed his troth; traitor made him

and the forest fastness of his fellows in arms he opened to the Orcs, nor his oath heeded.

There they fought and fell by foes outnumbered, by treachery trapped at a time of night

when their fires faded and few were waking --

some wakened never, not for wild noises,

nor cries nor curses, nor clashing steel,

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swept as they slumbered to the slades of death.

But Turin they took, though towering mighty

at the Huntsman's hand he hewed his foemen,

as a bear at bay mid bellowing hounds,

unheeding his hurts; at the hest of Morgoth

yet living they lapped him, his limbs entwining, with hairy hands and hideous arms.

Then Beleg was buried in the bodies of the fallen, as sorely wounded he swooned away;

and all was over, and the Orcs triumphed.

The dawn over Doriath dimly kindled

saw Blodrin Bor's son by a beech standing

with throat thirled by a thrusting arrow,

whose shaven shaft, shod with poison,

and feather-winged, was fast in the tree.

He bargained the blood of his brothers for gold: thus his meed was meted -- in the mirk at random by an orc-arrow his oath came home.

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From the magic mazes of Melian the Queen

they haled unhappy Hurin's offspring,

lest he flee his fate; but they fared slowly

and the leagues were long of their laboured way over hill and hollow to the high places,

where the peaks and pinnacles of pitiless stone looming up lofty are lapped in cloud,

and veiled in vapours vast and sable;

where Eiglir Engrin, the Iron Hills, lie

o'er the hopeless halls of Hell upreared

wrought at the roots of the roaring cliffs

of Thangorodrim's thunderous mountain.

Thither led they laden with loot and evil;

but Beleg yet breathed in blood drenched

aswoon, till the sun to the South hastened,

and the eye of day was opened wide.

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Then he woke and wondered, and weeping took him, and to Turin Thalion his thoughts were turned, that o'erborne in battle and bound he had seen.

Then he crawled from the corpses that had covered him over, weary, wounded, too weak to stand.

So Thingol's thanes athirst and bleeding

in the forest found him: his fate willed not

that he should drink the draught of death from foes.

Thus they bore him back in bitter torment

his tidings to tell in the torchlit halls

of Thingol the king; in the Thousand Caves

to be healed whole by the hands enchanted

of Melian Mablui, the moonlit queen.

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Ere a week was outworn his wounds were cured, but his heart's heaviness those hands of snow nor soothed nor softened, and sorrow-laden

he fared to the forest. No fellows sought he

in his hopeless hazard, but in haste alone

he followed the feet of the foes of Elfland,

the dread daring, and the dire anguish,

that held the hearts of Hithlum's men

and Doriath's doughtiest in a dream of fear.

Unmatched among Men, or magic-wielding

Elves, or hunters of the Orc-kindred,

or beasts of prey for blood pining,

was his craft and cunning, that cold and dead an unseen slot could scent o'er stone,

foot-prints could find on forest pathways

that lightly on the leaves were laid in moons long waned, and washed by windy rains.

The grim Glamhoth's goblin armies

go cunning-footed, but his craft failed not

to tread their trail, till the lands were darkened, and the light was lost in lands unknown.

Never-dawning night was netted clinging

in the black branches of the beetling trees;

oppressed by pungent pinewood's odours,

and drowsed with dreams as the darkness thickened, he strayed steerless. The stars were hid,

and the moon mantled. There magic foundered

in the gathering glooms, there goblins even

(whose deep eyes drill the darkest shadows)

bewildered wandered, who the way forsook

to grope in the glades, there greyly loomed

of girth unguessed in growth of ages

the topless trunks of trees enchanted.

That fathomless fold by folk of Elfland

is Taur-na-Fuin, the Trackless Forest

of Deadly Nightshade, dreadly named.

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Abandoned, beaten, there Beleg lying

to the wind harkened winding, moaning

in bending boughs; to branches creaking

up high over head, where huge pinions

of the plumed pine-trees complained darkly

in black foreboding. There bowed hopeless,

in wit wildered, and wooing death,

he saw on a sudden a slender sheen

shine a-shimmering in the shades afar,

like a glow-worm's lamp a-gleaming dim.

He marvelled what it might be as he moved softly; for he knew not the Gnomes of need delving

in the deep dungeons of dark Morgoth.

Unmatched their magic in metal-working,

who jewels and gems that rejoiced the Gods

aforetime fashioned, when they freedom held,

now swinking slaves of ceaseless labour

in Angband's smithies, nor ever were suffered to wander away, warded always.

But little lanterns of lucent crystal

and silver cold with subtlest cunning

they strangely fashioned, and steadfast a flame burnt unblinking there blue and pale,

unquenched for ever. The craft that lit them

was the jewel-makers' most jealous secret.

Not Morgoth's might, nor meed nor torment

them vowed, availed to reveal that lore;

yet lights and lamps of living radiance,

many and magical, they made for him.

No dark could dim them the deeps wandering;

whose lode they lit was lost seldom

in groundless grot, or gulfs far under.

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'Twas a Gnome he beheld on the heaped needles of a pine-tree pillowed, when peering wary

he crept closer. The covering pelt

was loosed from the lamp of living radiance

by his side shining. Slumber-shrouded

his fear-worn face was fallen in shade.

Lest in webs woven of unwaking sleep,

spun round by spells in those spaces dark,

he lie forlorn and lost for ever,

the Hunter hailed him in the hushed forest --

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to the drowsy deeps of his dream profound

fear ever-following came falling loud;

as the lancing lightning he leapt to his feet full deeming that dread and death were upon him, Flinding go-Fuilin fleeing in anguish

from the mines of Morgoth. Marvelling he heard the ancient tongue of the Elves of Tun;

and Beleg the Bowman embraced him there,

and learnt his lineage and luckless fate,

how thrust to thraldom in a throng of captives, from the kindred carried and the cavernous halls of the Gnomes renowned of Nargothrond,

long years he laboured under lashes and flails of the baleful Balrogs, abiding his time.

A tale he unfolded of terrible flight

o'er flaming fell and fuming hollow,

o'er the parched dunes of the Plains of Drouth, till his heart took hope and his heed was less.

'Then Taur-na-Fuin entangled my feet

in its mazes enmeshed; and madness took me

that I wandered witless, unwary stumbling

and beating the boles of the brooding pines

in idle anger -- and the Orcs heard me.

They were camped in a clearing, that close at hand by mercy I missed. Their marching road

is beaten broad through the black shadows

by wizardry warded from wandering Elves;

but dread they know of the Deadly Nightshade, and in haste only do they hie that way.

Now cruel cries and clamorous voices

awoke in the wood, and winged arrows

from horny bows hummed about me;

and following feet, fleet and stealthy,

were padding and pattering on the pine-needles; and hairy hands and hungry fingers

in the glooms groping, as I grovelled fainting till they cowering found me. Fast they clutched me beaten and bleeding, and broken in spirit

they laughing led me, my lagging footsteps

with their spears speeding. Their spoils were piled, and countless captives in that camp were chained, and Elfin maids their anguish mourning.

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put one they watched, warded sleepless,

was stern-visaged, strong, and in stature tall as are Hithlum's men of the misty hills.

Full length he lay and lashed to pickets

in baleful bonds, yet bold-hearted

his mouth no mercy of Morgoth sued,

but defied his foes. Foully they smote him.

Then he called, as clear as cry of hunter

that hails his hounds in hollow places,

on the name renowned of that noblest king --

but men unmindful remember him little --

Hurin Thalion, who Erithamrod hight,

the Unbending, for Orc and Balrog

and Morgoth's might on the mountain yet

he defies fearless, on a fanged peak

of thunder-riven Thangorodrim.'

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In eager anger then up sprang Beleg,

crying and calling, careless of Flinding:

'0 Turin, Turin, my troth-brother,

to the brazen bonds shall I abandon thee,

and the darkling doors of the Deeps of Hell?'

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'Thou wilt join his journey to the jaws of sorrow, 0 bowman crazed, if thy bellowing cry

to the Orcs should come; their ears than cats'

:are keener whetted, and though the camp from here be a day distant where those deeds I saw,

who knows if the Gnome they now pursue

that crept from their clutches, as a crawling worm on belly cowering, whom they bleeding cast

in deathly swoon on the dung and slough

of their loathsome lair. 0 Light of Valinor!

and ye glorious Gods! How gleam their eyes,

and their tongues are red! ' 'Yet I Turin will wrest from their hungry hands, or to Hell be dragged, or sleep with the slain in the slades of Death.

Thy lamp shall lead us, and my lore rekindle

and wise wood-craft! ' '0 witless hunter,

thy words are wild -- wolves unsleeping

and wizardry ward their woeful captives;

unerring their arrows; the icy steel

of their curved blades cleaves unblunted

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the meshes of mail; the mirk to pierce

those eyes are able; their awful laughter

the flesh freezes! I fare not thither,

for fear fetters me in the Forest of Night: