The Children of Húrin

Fëanor was the greatest of the Eldar in arts and lore, but also the proudest and most selfwilled. He wrought the Three Jewels, the Silmarilli, and filled them with the radiance of the Two Trees, Telperion and Laurelin, that gave light to the land of the Valar. The Jewels were coveted by Morgoth the Enemy, who stole them and, after destroying the Trees, took them to Middle-earth, and guarded them in his great fortress of Thangorodrim [the mountains above Angband]. Against the will of the Valar Fëanor forsook the Blessed Realm and went in exile to Middle-earth, leading with him a great part of his people; for in his pride he purposed to recover the Jewels from Morgoth by force. Thereafter followed the hopeless war of the Eldar and the Edain against Thangorodrim, in which they were at last utterly defeated.

Fëanor was slain in battle soon after the return of the Noldor to Middle-earth, and his seven sons held wide lands in the east of Beleriand, between Dorthonion (Taur-nu-Fuin) and the Blue Mountains; but their power was destroyed in the terrible Battle of Unnumbered Tears which is described in The Children of Húrin, and thereafter ‘the Sons of Fëanor wandered as leaves before the wind’ (†).

The second son of Finwë was Fingolfin (the half-brother of Fëanor), who was held the overlord of all the Noldor; and he with his son Fingon ruled Hithlum, which lay to the north and west of the great chain of Ered Wethrin, the Mountains of Shadow. Fingolfin dwelt in Mithrim, by the great lake of that name, while Fingon held Dor-lómin in the south of Hithlum. Their chief fortress was Barad Eithel (the Tower of the Well) at Eithel Sirion (Sirion’s Well), where the river Sirion rose in the east face of the Mountains of Shadow: Sador, the old crippled servant of Húrin and Morwen, served as a soldier there for many years, as he told Túrin (†). After Fingolfin’s death in single combat with Morgoth Fingon became the High King of the Noldor in his stead. Túrin saw him once, when he ‘and many of his lords had ridden through Dor-lómin and passed over the bridge of Nen Lalaith, glittering in silver and white’ (†).

The second son of Fingolfin was Turgon. He dwelt at first, after the return of the Noldor, in the house named Vinyamar, beside the sea in the region of Nevrast, west of Dor-lómin; but he built in secret the hidden city of Gondolin, which stood on a hill in the midst of the plain called Tumladen, wholly surrounded by the Encircling Mountains, east of the river Sirion. When Gondolin was built, after many years of labour, Turgon removed from Vinyamar and dwelt with his people, both Noldor and Sindar, in Gondolin; and for centuries this Elvish redoubt of great beauty was preserved in the most profound secrecy, its only entry undiscoverable and heavily guarded, so that no stranger could ever pass in; and Morgoth was unable to learn where it lay. Not until the Battle of Unnumbered Tears, when more than three hundred and fifty years had passed since he left Vinyamar, did Turgon emerge with his great army from Gondolin.

The third son of Finwë, the brother of Fingolfin and half-brother of Fëanor, was Finarfin. He did not return to Middle-earth, but his sons and daughter came with the host of Fingolfin and his sons. The eldest son of Finarfin was Finrod, who, inspired by the magnificence and beauty of Menegroth in Doriath, founded the underground fortress-city of Nargothrond, for which he was named Felagund, interpreted to mean ‘Lord of Caves’ or ‘Cave-hewer’ in the tongue of the Dwarves. The doors of Nargothrond opened onto the gorge of the river Narog in West Beleriand, where that river passed through the high hills called Taur-en-Faroth, or the High Faroth; but Finrod’s realm extended far and wide, east to the river Sirion, and west to the river Nenning that reached the sea at the haven of Eglarest. But Finrod was slain in the dungeons of Sauron, chief servant of Morgoth, and Orodreth, the second son of Finarfin, took the crown of Nargothrond: this took place in the year following the birth of Túrin in Dor-lómin.

The other sons of Finarfin, Angrod and Aegnor, vassals of their brother Finrod, dwelt on Dorthonion, looking northwards over the vast plain of Ard-galen. Galadriel, Finrod’s sister, dwelt long in Doriath with Melian the Queen. Melian was a Maia, a spirit of great power who took human form and dwelt in the forests of Beleriand with King Thingol: she was the mother of Lúthien, and the foremother of Elrond. Not long before the return of the Noldor from Aman, when great armies out of Angband came south into Beleriand, Melian (in the words of The Silmarillion) ‘put forth her power and fenced all that dominion [the forests of Neldoreth and Region] round about with an unseen wall of shadow and bewilderment: the Girdle of Melian, that none thereafter could pass against her will or the will of King Thingol, unless one should come with a power greater than that of Melian the Maia.’ Thereafter the land was named Doriath, ‘the Land of the Fence’.

In the sixtieth year after the return of the Noldor, ending many years of peace, a great host of Orcs came down from Angband, but was utterly defeated and destroyed by the Noldor. This was called Dagor Aglareb, the Glorious Battle; but the Elvish lords took warning from it, and set the Siege of Angband, which lasted for almost four hundred years.

It was said that Men (whom the Elves called Atani ‘the Second’, and Hildor ‘the Followers’) arose far off in the east of Middle-earth towards the end of the Elder Days; but of their earliest history the Men who entered Beleriand in the days of the Long Peace, when Angband was besieged and its gates shut, would never speak. The leader of these first Men to cross the Blue Mountains was named Bëor the Old; and to Finrod Felagund, King of Nargothrond, who first encountered them Bëor declared: ‘A darkness lies behind us; and we have turned our backs on it, and we do not desire to return thither even in thought. Westwards our hearts have been turned, and we believe that there we shall find Light.’ Sador, the old servant of Húrin, spoke in the same way to Túrin in his boyhood (†). But it was said afterwards that when Morgoth learned of the arising of Men he left Angband for the last time and went into the East; and that the first Men to enter Beleriand ‘had repented and rebelled against the Dark Power, and were cruelly hunted and oppressed by those that worshipped it, and its servants’.

These Men belonged to three Houses, known as the House of Bëor, the House of Hador, and the House of Haleth. Húrin’s father Galdor the Tall was of the House of Hador, being indeed his son; but his mother was of the House of Haleth, while Morwen his wife was of the House of Bëor, and related to Beren.

The people of the Three Houses were the Edain (the Sindarin form of Atani), and they were called Elf-friends. Hador dwelt in Hithlum and was given the lordship of Dor-lómin by King Fingolfin; the people of Bëor settled in Dorthonion; and the people of Haleth at this time dwelt in the Forest of Brethil. After the ending of the Siege of Angband Men of a very different sort came over the mountains; they were commonly referred to as Easterlings, and some of them played an important part in the story of Túrin.

The Siege of Angband ended with a terrible suddenness (though long prepared) on a night of midwinter, 395 years after it had begun. Morgoth released rivers of fire that ran down from Thangorodrim, and the great grassy plain of Ardgalen that lay to the north of the highland of Dorthonion was transformed into a parched and arid waste, known thereafter by a changed name, Anfauglith, the Gasping Dust.

This catastrophic assault was called Dagor Bragollach, the Battle of Sudden Flame. Glaurung Father of Dragons emerged from Angband now for the first time in his full might; vast armies of Orcs poured southwards; the Elvish lords of Dorthonion were slain, and a great part of the warriors of Bëor’s people. King Fingolfin and his son Fingon were driven back with the warriors of Hithlum to the fortress of Eithel Sirion in the east face of the Mountains of Shadow, and in its defence Hador Goldenhead was killed. Then Galdor, Húrin’s father, became the lord of Dor-lómin; for the torrents of fire were stopped by the barrier of the Mountains of Shadow, and Hithlum and Dor-lómin remained unconquered.

It was in the year after the Bragollach that Fingolfin, in a fury of despair, rode to Angband and challenged Morgoth. Two years later Húrin and Huor went to Gondolin. After four more years, in a renewed assault on Hithlum, Húrin’s father Galdor was slain in the fortress of Eithel Sirion: Sador was there, as he told Túrin (†), and saw Húrin (then a young man of twenty-one) ‘take up his lordship and his command’.

All these things were fresh in memory in Dor-lómin when Túrin was born, nine years after the Battle of Sudden Flame.

NOTE ON PRONUNCIATION

The following note is intended to clarify a few main features in the pronunciation of names.

Consonants

C always has the value of k, never of s; thus Celebros is ‘Kelebros’, not ‘Selebros’. CH always has the value of ch in Scots loch or German buch, never that of ch in English church; examples are Anach, Narn i Chîn Húrin. DH is always used to represent the sound of a voiced (‘soft’) th in English, that is the th in then, not the th in thin. Examples are Glóredhel, Eledhwen, Maedhros. G always has the sound of English g in get; thus Region is not pronounced like English region, and the first syllable of Ginglith is as in English begin, not as in gin.

Vowels

AI has the sound of English eye; thus the second syllable of Edain is like English dine, not Dane. AU has the value of English ow in town; thus the first vowel of Sauron is like English sour, not sore. EI as in Teiglin has the sound of English grey. IE should not be pronounced as in English piece, but with both the vowels i and e sounded, and run together; thus Ni-enor, not ‘Neenor’. AE as in Aegnor, Nirnaeth, is a combination of the individual vowels, a-e, but may be pronounced in the same way as AI. EA and EO are not run together, but constitute two syllables; these combinations are written ëa and ëo, as in Bëor, or at the beginning of names Eä, Eö, as in Eärendil. Ú in names like Húrin, Túrin, should be pronounced oo; thus ‘Toorin’, not ‘Tyoorin’. IR, UR before a consonant (as in Círdan, Gurthang) should not be pronounced as in English fir, fur, but as in English, eer, oor. E at the end of words is always pronounced as a distinct vowel, and in this position is written ë. It is always pronounced in the middle of words like Celebros, Menegroth.

NARN I CHÎN HÚRIN

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