Читать книгу The Lays of Beleriand - Christopher Tolkien - Страница 9

II

BELEG

Long time alone he lived in the hills
a hunter of beast and hater of Men,	560
or Orcs, or Elves, till outcast folk
there one by one, wild and reckless
around him rallied; and roaming far
they were feared by both foe and friend of old.
For hot with hate was the heart of Túrin,	565
nor a friend found him such folk of Thingol
as he wandering met in the wood’s fastness.

There Beleg the brave on the borders of Doriath
they found and fought – and few were with him –
and o’erborne by numbers they bound him at last,	570
till their captain came to their camp at eve.
Afar from that fight his fate that day
had taken Túrin on the trail of the Orcs,
as they hastened home to the Hills of Iron
with the loot laden of the lands of Men.	575
Then soon was him said that a servant of Thingol
they had tied to a tree – and Túrin coming
stared astonied on the stern visage
of Beleg the brave his brother in arms,
of whom he learned the lore of leaping blades,	580
and of bended bow and barbéd shaft,
and the wild woodland’s wisdom secret,
when they blent in battle the blood of their wounds.

Then Túrin’s heart was turned from hate,
and he bade unbind Beleg the huntsman.	585
‘Now fare thou free! But, of friendship aught
if thy heart yet holds for Húrin’s son,
never tell thou tale that Túrin thou sawst
an outlaw unloved from Elves and Men,
whom Thingol’s thanes yet thirst to slay.	590
Betray not my trust or thy troth of yore!’
Then Beleg of the bow embraced him there –
he had not fared to the feast or the fall of Orgof –
there kissed him kindly comfort speaking:
‘Lo! nought know I of the news thou tellest;	595
but outlawed or honoured thou ever shalt be
the brother of Beleg, come bliss come woe!
Yet little me likes that thy leaping sword
the life should drink of the leaguered Elves.
Are the grim Glamhoth then grown so few,	600
or the foes of Faërie feeble-hearted,
that warlike Men have no work to do?
Shall the foes of Faërie be friends of Men?
Betrayest thou thy troth whom we trusted of yore?’

‘Nor of arméd Orc, nor [of] Elf of the wood,	605
nor of any on earth have I honour or love,
O Beleg the bowman. This band alone
I count as comrades, my kindred in woe
and friendless fate – our foes the world.’

‘Let the bow of Beleg to your band be joined;	610
and swearing death to the sons of darkness
let us suage our sorrow and the smart of fate!
Our valour is not vanquished, nor vain the glory
that once we did win in the woods of old.’

Thus hope in the heart of Húrin’s offspring	615
awoke at those words; and them well likéd
of that band the boldest, save Blodrin only –
Blodrin Bor’s son, who for blood and for gold
alone lusted, and little he recked
whom he robbed of riches or reft of life,	620
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	625
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;	630
of the fight at Fangros, and Fëanor’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	635
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	640
abide for ever, a bond of truth
and friendship in arms, and faith in peril.
Thus war was waked in the woods once more
for the foes of Faërie, and its fame widely,
and the fear of that fellowship, now fared abroad;	645
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 wingéd,
and the sons of darkness slain and conquered;	650
even in Angband the Orcs trembled.
Then the word wandered down the ways of the forest
that Túrin Thalion was returned to war;
and Thingol heard it, and his thanes were sped
to lead the lost one in love to his halls –	655
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 Faërie the fiends of Hell.	660
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.	665
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 Húrin’s offspring	670
and the bowman Beleg; so biding his while
he fled their fellowship and forest hidings
to the merciless Orcs, whose moon-pallid
cruel-curvéd blades to kill spare not;
than whose greed for gold none greater burns	675
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,	680
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,
swept as they slumbered to the slades of death.	685
But Túrin 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,	690
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	695
saw Blodrin Bor’s son by a beech standing
with throat thirléd by a thrusting arrow,
whose shaven shaft, shod with poison,
and feather-wingéd, was fast in the tree.
He bargained the blood of his brothers for gold:	700
thus his meed was meted – in the mirk at random
by an orc-arrow his oath came home.

From the magic mazes of Melian the Queen
they haled unhappy Húrin’s offspring,
lest he flee his fate; but they fared slowly	705
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;	710
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;	715
but Beleg yet breathed in blood drenchéd
aswoon, till the sun to the South hastened,
and the eye of day was opened wide.
Then he woke and wondered, and weeping took him,
and to Túrin Thalion his thoughts were turned,	720
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	725
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 healéd whole by the hands enchanted	730
of Melian Mablui, the moonlit queen.

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	735
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.	740
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,	745
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	750
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,	755
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)	760
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	765
is Taur-na-Fuin, the Trackless Forest
of Deadly Nightshade, dreadly naméd.
Abandoned, beaten, there Beleg lying
to the wind harkened winding, moaning
in bending boughs; to branches creaking	770
up high over head, where huge pinions
of the pluméd pine-trees complained darkly
in black foreboding. There bowed hopeless,
in wit wildered, and wooing death,
he saw on a sudden a slender sheen	775
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.	780
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	785
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,	790
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,	795
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.

’Twas a Gnome he beheld on the heaped needles	800
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.	805
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 –
to the drowsy deeps of his dream profound	810
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	815
the ancient tongue of the Elves of Tûn;
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	820
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,	825
o’er the parchéd 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	830
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	835
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	840
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	845
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,	850
and Elfin maids their anguish mourning.
But 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	855
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,	860
on the name renowned of that noblest king –
but men unmindful remember him little –
Húrin Thalion, who Erithámrod hight,
the Unbending, for Orc and Balrog
and Morgoth’s might on the mountain yet	865
he defies fearless, on a fangéd peak
of thunder-riven Thangorodrim.’

In eager anger then up sprang Beleg,
crying and calling, careless of Flinding:
‘O Túrin, Túrin, my troth-brother,	870
to the brazen bonds shall I abandon thee,
and the darkling doors of the Deeps of Hell?’

‘Thou wilt join his journey to the jaws of sorrow,
O bowman crazéd, if thy bellowing cry
to the Orcs should come; their ears than cats’	875
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	880
in deathly swoon on the dung and slough
of their loathsome lair. O Light of Valinor!
and ye glorious Gods! How gleam their eyes,
and their tongues are red!’ ‘Yet I Túrin will wrest
from their hungry hands, or to Hell be dragged,	885
or sleep with the slain in the slades of Death.
Thy lamp shall lead us, and my lore rekindle
and wise wood-craft!’ ‘O witless hunter,
thy words are wild – wolves unsleeping
and wizardry ward their woeful captives;	890
unerring their arrows; the icy steel
of their curvéd blades cleaves unblunted
the meshes of mail; the mirk to pierce
those eyes are able; their awful laughter
the flesh freezes! I fare not thither,	895
for fear fetters me in the Forest of Night:
better die in the dark dazed, forwandered,
than wilfully woo that woe and anguish!
I know not the way.’ ‘Are the knees then weak
of Flinding go-Fuilin? Shall free-born Gnome	900
thus show himself a shrinking slave,
who twice entrapped has twice escaped?
Remember the might and the mirth of yore,
the renown of the Gnomes of Nargothrond!’

Thus Beleg the bowman quoth bold-hearted,	905
but Flinding fought the fear of his heart,
and loosed the light of his lamp of blue,
now brighter burning. In the black mazes
enwound they wandered, weary searching;
by the tall tree-boles towering silent	910
oft barred and baffled; blindly stumbling
over rock-fast roots writhing coiléd;
and drowsed with dreams by the dark odours,
till hope was hidden. ‘Hark thee, Flinding;
viewless voices vague and distant,	915
a muffled murmur of marching feet
that are shod with stealth shakes the stillness.’

‘No noise I hear’, the Gnome answered,
‘thy hope cheats thee.’ ‘I hear the chains
clinking, creaking, the cords straining,	920
and wolves padding on worn pathways.
I smell the blood that is smeared on blades
that are cruel and crooked; the croaking laughter –
now, listen! louder and louder comes,’
the hunter said. ‘I hear no sound’,	925
quoth Flinding fearful. ‘Then follow after!’
with bended bow then Beleg answered,
‘my cunning rekindles, my craft needs not
thy lamp’s leading.’ Leaping swiftly
he shrank in the shadows; with shrouded lantern	930
Flinding followed him, and the forest-darkness
and drowsy dimness drifted slowly
unfolding from them in fleeing shadows,
and its magic was minished, till they marvelling saw
they were brought to its borders. There black-gaping	935
an archway opened. By ancient trunks
it was framed darkly, that in far-off days
the lightning felled, now leaning gaunt
their lichen-leprous limbs uprooted.
There shadowy bats that shrilled thinly	940
flew in and flew out the air brushing
as they swerved soundless. A swooning light
faint filtered in, for facing North
they looked o’er the leagues of the lands of mourning,
o’er the bleak boulders, o’er the blistered dunes	945
and dusty drouth of Dor-na-Fauglith;
o’er that Thirsty Plain, to the threatening peaks,
now glimpséd grey through the grim archway,
of the marching might of the Mountains of Iron,
and faint and far in the flickering dusk	950
the thunderous towers of Thangorodrim.
But backward broad through the black shadows
from that darkling door dimly wandered
the ancient Orc-road; and even as they gazed
the silence suddenly with sounds of dread	955
was shaken behind them, and shivering echoes
from afar came fleeting. Feet were tramping;
trappings tinkling; and the troublous murmur
of viewless voices in the vaulted gloom
came near and nearer. ‘Ah! now I hear’,	960
said Flinding fearful; ‘flee we swiftly
from hate and horror and hideous faces,
from fiery eyes and feet relentless!
Ah! woe that I wandered thus witless hither!’

Then beat in his breast, foreboding evil,	965
with dread unwonted the dauntless heart
of Beleg the brave. With blanchéd cheeks
in faded fern and the feathery leaves
of brown bracken they buried them deep,
where dank and dark a ditch was cloven	970
on the wood’s borders by waters oozing,
dripping down to die in the drouth below.
Yet hardly were they hid when a host to view
round a dark turning in the dusky shadows
came swinging sudden with a swift thudding	975
of feet after feet on fallen leaves.
In rank on rank of ruthless spears
that war-host went; weary stumbling
countless captives, cruelly laden
with bloodstained booty, in bonds of iron	980
they haled behind them, and held in ward
by the wolf-riders and the wolves of Hell.
Their road of ruin was a-reek with tears:
many a hall and homestead, many a hidden refuge
of Gnomish lords by night beleaguered	985
their o’ermastering might of mirth bereft,
and fair things fouled, and fields curdled
with the bravest blood of the beaten people.

To an army of war was the Orc-band waxen
that Blodrin Bor’s son to his bane guided	990
to the wood-marches, by the welded hosts
homeward hurrying to the halls of mourning
swiftly swollen to a sweeping plague.
Like a throbbing thunder in the threatening deeps
of cavernous clouds o’ercast with gloom	995
now swelled on a sudden a song most dire,
and their hellward hymn their home greeted;
flung from the foremost of the fierce spearmen,
who viewed mid vapours vast and sable
the threefold peaks of Thangorodrim,	1000
it rolled rearward, rumbling darkly,
like drums in distant dungeons empty.
Then a werewolf howled; a word was shouted
like steel on stone; and stiffly raised
their spears and swords sprang up thickly	1005
as the wild wheatfields of the wargod’s realm
with points that palely pricked the twilight.
As by wind wafted then waved they all,
and bowed, as the bands with beating measured
moved on mirthless from the mirky woods,	1010
from the topless trunks of Taur-na-Fuin,
neath the leprous limbs of the leaning gate.

Then Beleg the bowman in bracken cowering,
on the loathly legions through the leaves peering,
saw Túrin the tall as he tottered forward	1015
neath the whips of the Orcs as they whistled o’er him;
and rage arose in his wrathful heart,
and piercing pity outpoured his tears.
The hymn was hushed; the host vanished
down the hellward slopes of the hill beyond;	1020
and silence sank slow and gloomy
round the trunks of the trees of Taur-na-Fuin,
and nethermost night drew near outside.

‘Follow me, Flinding, from the forest curséd!
Let us haste to his help, to Hell if need be	1025
or to death by the darts of the dread Glamhoth!’:
and Beleg bounded from the bracken madly,
like a deer driven by dogs baying
from his hiding in the hills and hollow places;
and Flinding followed fearful after him	1030
neath the yawning gate, through yew-thickets,
through bogs and bents and bushes shrunken,
till they reached the rocks and the riven moorlands
and friendless fells falling darkly
to the dusty dunes of Dor-na-Fauglith.	1035
In a cup outcarven on the cold hillside,
whose broken brink was bleakly fringed
with bended bushes bowed in anguish
from the North-wind’s knife, beneath them far
the feasting camp of their foes was laid;	1040
the fiery flare of fuming torches,
and black bodies in the blaze they saw
crossing countlessly, and cries they heard
and the hollow howling of hungry wolves.

Then a moon mounted o’er the mists riding,	1045
and the keen radiance of the cold moonshine
the shadows sharpened in the sheer hollows,
and slashed the slopes with slanting blackness;
in wreaths uprising the reek of fires
was touched to tremulous trails of silver.	1050
Then the fires faded, and their foemen slumbered
in a sleep of surfeit. No sentinel watched,
nor guards them girdled – what good were it
to watch wakeful in those withered regions
neath Eiglir Engrin, whence the eyes of Bauglir	1055
gazed unclosing from the gates of Hell?
Did not werewolves’ eyes unwinking gleam
in the wan moonlight – the wolves that sleep not,
that sit in circles with slavering tongues
round camp or clearing of the cruel Glamhoth?	1060
Then was Beleg a-shudder, and the unblinking eyes
nigh chilled his marrow and chained his flesh
in fear unfathomed, as flat to earth
by a boulder he lay. Lo! black cloud-drifts
surged up like smoke from the sable North,	1065
and the sheen was shrouded of the shivering moon;
the wind came wailing from the woeful mountains,
and the heath unhappy hissed and whispered;
and the moans came faint of men in torment
in the camp accursed. His quiver rattled	1070
as he found his feet and felt his bow,
hard horn-pointed, by hands of cunning
of black yew wrought; with bears’ sinews
it was stoutly strung; strength to bend it
had nor Man nor Elf save the magic helped him	1075
that Beleg the bowman now bore alone.
No arrows of the Orcs so unerring wingéd
as his shaven shafts that could shoot to a mark
that was seen but in glance ere gloom seized it.
Then Dailir he drew, his dart beloved;	1080
howso far fared it, or fell unnoted,
unsought he found it with sound feathers
and barbs unbroken (till it broke at last);
and fleet bade he fly that feather-pinioned
snaketonguéd shaft, as he snicked the string	1085
in the notch nimbly, and with naked arm
to his ear drew it. The air whistled,
and the tingling string twanged behind it,
soundless a sentinel sank before it –
there was one of the wolves that awaked no more.	1090
Now arrows after he aimed swiftly
that missed not their mark and meted silent
death in the darkness dreadly stinging,
till three of the wolves with throats piercéd,
and four had fallen with fleet-wingéd	1095
arrows a-quivering in their quenchéd eyes.
Then great was the gap in the guard opened,
and Beleg his bow unbent, and said:
‘Wilt come to the camp, comrade Flinding,
or await me watchful? If woe betide	1100
thou might win with word through the woods homeward
to Thingol the king how throve my quest,
how Túrin the tall was trapped by fate,
how Beleg the bowman to his bane hasted.’
Then Flinding fiercely, though fear shook him:	1105
‘I have followed thee far, O forest-walker,
nor will leave thee now our league denying!’
Then both bow and sword Beleg left there
with his belt unbound in the bushes tangled
of a dark thicket in a dell nigh them,	1110
and Flinding there laid his flickering lamp
and his nailéd shoes, and his knife only
he kept, that uncumbered he might creep silent.

Thus those brave in dread down the bare hillside
towards the camp clambered creeping wary,	1115
and dared that deed in days long past
whose glory has gone through the gates of earth,
and songs have sung unceasing ringing
wherever the Elves in ancient places
had light or laughter in the later world.	1120
With breath bated on the brink of the dale
they stood and stared through stealthy shadows,
till they saw where the circle of sleepless eyes
was broken; with hearts beating dully
they passed the places where pierced and bleeding	1125
the wolves weltered by wingéd death
unseen smitten; as smoke noiseless
they slipped silent through the slumbering throngs
as shadowy wraiths shifting vaguely
from gloom to gloom, till the Gods brought them	1130
and the craft and cunning of the keen huntsman
to Túrin the tall where he tumbled lay
with face downward in the filthy mire,
and his feet were fettered, and fast in bonds
anguish enchained his arms behind him.	1135
There he slept or swooned, as sunk in oblivion
by drugs of darkness deadly blended;
he heard not their whispers; no hope stirred him
nor the deep despair of his dreams fathomed;
to awake his wit no words availed.	1140
No blade would bite on the bonds he wore,
though Flinding felt for the forgéd knife
of dwarfen steel, his dagger prizéd,
that at waist he wore awake or sleeping,
whose edge would eat through iron noiseless	1145
as a clod of clay is cleft by the share.
It was wrought by wrights in the realms of the East,
in black Belegost, by the bearded Dwarves
of troth unmindful; it betrayed him now
from its sheath slipping as o’er shaggy slades	1150
and roughhewn rocks their road they wended.

‘We must bear him back as best we may,’
said Beleg, bending his broad shoulders.
Then the head he lifted of Húrin’s offspring,
and Flinding go-Fuilin the feet claspéd;	1155
and doughty that deed, for in days long gone
though Men were of mould less mighty builded
ere the earth’s goodness from the Elves they drew,
though the Elfin kindreds ere old was the sun
were of might unminished, nor the moon haunted	1160
faintly fading as formed of shadows
in places unpeopled, yet peers they were not
in bone and flesh and body’s fashioning,
and Túrin was tallest of the ten races
that in Hithlum’s hills their homes builded.	1165
Like a log they lifted his limbs mighty,
and straining staggered with stealth and fear,
with bodies bending and bones aching,
from the cruel dreaming of the camp of dread,
where spearmen drowsed sprawling drunken	1170
by their moon-blades keen with murder whetted
mid their shaven shafts in sheaves piléd.

Now Beleg the brave backward led them,
but his foot fumbled and he fell thudding
with Túrin atop of him, and trembling stumbled	1175
Flinding forward; there frozen lying
long while they listened for alarm stirring,
for hue and cry, and their hearts cowered;
but unbroken the breathing of the bands sleeping,
as darkness deepened to dead midnight,	1180
and the lifeless hour when the loosened soul
oft sheds the shackles of the shivering flesh.
Then dared their dread to draw its breath,
and they found their feet in the fouléd earth,
and bent they both their backs once more	1185
to their task of toil, for Túrin woke not.
There the huntsman’s hand was hurt deeply,
as he groped on the ground, by a gleaming point –
’twas Dailir his dart dearly prizéd
he had found by his foot in fragments twain,	1190
and with barbs bended: it broke at last
neath his body falling. It boded ill.

As in dim dreaming, and dazed with horror,
they won their way with weary slowness,
foot by footstep, till fate them granted	1195
the leaguer at last of those lairs to pass,
and their burden laid they, breathless gasping,
on bare-bosméd earth, and abode a while,
ere by winding ways they won their path
up the slanting slopes with silent labour,	1200
with spended strength sprawling to cast them
in the darkling dell neath the deep thicket.
Then sought his sword, and songs of magic
o’er its eager edge with Elfin voice
there Beleg murmured, while bluely glimmered	1205
the lamp of Flinding neath the lacéd thorns.
There wondrous wove he words of sharpness,
and the names of knives and Gnomish blades
he uttered o’er it: even Ogbar’s spear
and the glaive of Gaurin whose gleaming stroke	1210
did rive the rocks of Rodrim’s hall;
the sword of Saithnar, and the silver blades
of the enchanted children of chains forgéd
in their deep dungeon; the dirk of Nargil,
the knife of the North in Nogrod smithied;	1215
the sweeping sickle of the slashing tempest,
the lambent lightning’s leaping falchion
even Celeg Aithorn that shall cleave the world.

Then whistling whirled he the whetted sword-blade
and three times three it threshed the gloom,	1220
till flame was kindled flickering strangely
like licking firelight in the lamp’s glimmer
blue and baleful at the blade’s edges.
Lo! a leering laugh lone and dreadful
by the wind wafted wavered nigh them;	1225
their limbs were loosened in listening horror;
they fancied the feet of foes approaching,
for the horns hearkening of the hunt afoot
in the rustling murmur of roving breezes.
Then quickly curtained with its covering pelt	1230
was the lantern’s light, and leaping Beleg
with his sword severed the searing bonds
on wrist and arm like ropes of hemp
so strong that whetting; in stupor lying
entangled still lay Túrin moveless.	1235
For the feet’s fetters then feeling in the dark
Beleg blundering with his blade’s keenness
unwary wounded the weary flesh
of wayworn foot, and welling blood
bedewed his hand – too dark his magic:	1240
that sleep profound was sudden fathomed;
in fear woke Túrin, and a form he guessed
o’er his body bending with blade naked.
His death or torment he deemed was come,
for oft had the Orcs for evil pastime	1245
him goaded gleeful and gashed with knives
that they cast with cunning, with cruel spears.
Lo! the bonds were burst that had bound his hands:
his cry of battle calling hoarsely
he flung him fiercely on the foe he dreamed,	1250
and Beleg falling breathless earthward
was crushed beneath him. Crazed with anguish
then seized that sword the son of Húrin,
to his hand lying by the help of doom;
at the throat he thrust; through he pierced it,	1255
that the blood was buried in the blood-wet mould;
ere Flinding knew what fared that night,
all was over. With oath and curse
he bade the goblins now guard them well,
or sup on his sword: ‘Lo! the son of Húrin	1260
is freed from his fetters.’ His fancy wandered
in the camps and clearings of the cruel Glamhoth.
Flight he sought not at Flinding leaping
with his last laughter, his life to sell
amid foes imagined; but Fuilin’s son	1265
there stricken with amaze, starting backward,
cried: ‘Magic of Morgoth! A! madness damned!
with friends thou fightest!’ – then falling suddenly
the lamp o’erturned in the leaves shrouded
that its light released illumined pale	1270
with its flickering flame the face of Beleg.
Than the boles of the trees more breathless rooted
stone-faced he stood staring frozen
on that dreadful death, and his deed knowing
wildeyed he gazed with waking horror,	1275
as in endless anguish an image carven.
So fearful his face that Flinding crouched
and watched him, wondering what webs of doom
dark, remorseless, dreadly meshed him
by the might of Morgoth; and he mourned for him,	1280
and for Beleg, who bow should bend no more,
his black yew-wood in battle twanging –
his life had winged to its long waiting
in the halls of the Moon o’er the hills of the sea.

Hark! he heard the horns hooting loudly,	1285
no ghostly laughter of grim phantom,
no wraithlike feet rustling dimly –
the Orcs were up; their ears had hearkened
the cries of Túrin; their camp was tumult,
their lust was alight ere the last shadows	1290
of night were lifted. Then numb with fear
in hoarse whisper to unhearing ears
he told his terror; for Túrin now
with limbs loosened leaden-eyed was bent
crouching crumpled by the corse moveless;	1295
nor sight nor sound his senses knew,
and wavering words he witless murmured,
‘A! Beleg,’ he whispered, ‘my brother-in-arms.’
Though Flinding shook him, he felt it not:
had he comprehended he had cared little.	1300
Then winds were wakened in wild dungeons
where thrumming thunders throbbed and rumbled;
storm came striding with streaming banners
from the four corners of the fainting world;
then the clouds were cloven with a crash of lightning,	1305
and slung like stones from slings uncounted
the hurtling hail came hissing earthward,
with a deluge dark of driving rain.
Now wafted high, now wavering far,
the cries of the Glamhoth called and hooted,	1310
and the howl of wolves in the heavens’ roaring
was mingled mournful: they missed their paths,
for swollen swept there swirling torrents
down the blackening slopes, and the slot was blind,
so that blundering back up the beaten road	1315
to the gates of gloom many goblins wildered
were drowned or drawn in Deadly Nightshade
to die in the dark; while dawn came not,
while the storm-riders strove and thundered
all the sunless day, and soaked and drenched	1320
Flinding go-Fuilin with fear speechless
there crouched aquake; cold and lifeless
lay Beleg the bowman; brooding dumbly
Túrin Thalion neath the tangled thorns
sat unseeing without sound or movement.	1325

The dusty dunes of Dor-na-Fauglith
hissed and spouted. Huge rose the spires
of smoking vapour swathed and reeking,
thick-billowing clouds from thirst unquenched,
and dawn was kindled dimly lurid	1330
when a day and night had dragged away.
The Orcs had gone, their anger baffled,
o’er the weltering ways weary faring
to their hopeless halls in Hell’s kingdom;
no thrall took they Túrin Thalion –	1335
a burden bore he than their bonds heavier,
in despair fettered with spirit empty
in mourning hopeless he remained behind.

NOTES

617	Blodrin: Bauglir A, and B as typed. See line 618.
618	Bauglir Ban’s son A, and B as typed (Bauglir > Blodrin carefully-made early change, Ban > Bor hasty and later). See lines 661, 696, 990.
631	Fangair A, Fangros B as typed.
636	Tengwethiel [sic] A, Tain-Gwethil B as typed. Cf. line 431.
653	Túrin Thaliodrin A, and B as typed. Cf. lines 115, 333, 720.
661, 696	As at line 618.
711	Aiglir-angrin A, Aiglir Angrin B as typed, emended roughly in pencil to Eiglir Engrin; cf. line 1055. In the Tale of Turambar occurs Angorodin (the Iron Mountains), II.77.
711–14	These lines read in A (and as typed in B, with of Hell is reared for of the Hells of Iron):

	where Aiglir-angrin the Iron Hills lie
	and Thangorodrim’s thunderous mountain
	o’er the hopeless halls of the Hells of iron
	wrought at the roots of the ruthless hills.

718	Cf. Bilbo’s second riddle to Gollum.
720	As at line 653.
780	Delimorgoth A, Delu-Morgoth B as typed, dark Morgoth a late pencilled emendation. At lines 11 and 51 Delu-Morgoth is an emendation of Delimorgoth in B.
816	Tûn also in A; see lines 50, 430.
818–20	Against these lines my father wrote in the margin of B: ‘Captured in battle at gates of Angband.’
826	o’er the black boulders of the Blasted Plain A (marked with query).
834	mercy: magic A, and B as typed; mercy in pencil and not quite certain.
946	Daideloth A emended at time of writing to Dor-na-Maiglos, Dor-na-Fauglith B as typed. In margin of A is written: ‘a plateau from Dai “high”, Deloth “plain”; contrast II. 337, entry Dor-na-Dhaideloth.
990	Blodrin Ban’s son A, and B as typed; Ban’s > Bor’s later in B. At lines 617–18, 661, 696 A, and B as typed, had Bauglir, changed to Blodrin in B.
1055	Aiglir Angrin A, and B as typed; see line 711. Bauglir A and B.
1098	This line is emended in B, but the reading is uncertain: apparently Then his bow unbending Beleg asked him:
1137	In the margin of B is written r?, i.e. dreadly for deadly.
1147	East: South A, and B as typed.
1198	bosméd (bosomed) written thus in both A and B.
1214	Nargil: Loruin A, with Nargil added as an alternative.
1324	Túrin Thaliodrin A, and B as typed; see lines 653, 720.
1335	Thalion-Túrin A, and B as typed.

Commentary on Part II ‘Beleg’

In this part of the poem there are some narrative developments of much interest. The poem follows the Tale (II. 76) in making Beleg become one of Turin’s band on the marches of Doriath not long after Túrin’s departure from the Thousand Caves, and with no intervening event – in The Silmarillion (p. 200) Beleg came to Menegroth, and after speaking to Thingol set out to seek Túrin, while in the Narn (pp. 82–5) there is the ‘trial of Túrin’, and the intervention of Beleg bringing Nellas as witness, before he set out on Túrin’s trail. In the poem it is explicit that Beleg was not searching for him, and indeed knew nothing whatever of what had passed in the Thousand Caves (595). But Túrin’s band are no longer the ‘wild spirits’ of the Tale; they are hostile to all comers, whether Orcs or Men or Elves, including the Elves of Doriath (560–1, 566), as in The Silmarillion, and in far greater detail in the Narn, where the band is called Gaurwaith, the Wolf-men, ‘to be feared as wolves’.

The element of Beleg’s capture and maltreatment by the band now appears, and also that of Túrin’s absence from the camp at the time. Several features of the story in the Narn are indeed already present in the poem, though absent from the more condensed account in The Silmarillion: as Beleg’s being tied to a tree by the outlaws (577, Narn pp. 92–3), and the occasion of Túrin’s absence – he was

on the trail of the Orcs,

as they hastened home to the Hills of Iron

with the loot laden of the lands of Men

just as in the Narn (pp. 91–2), where however the story is part of a complex set of movements among the Woodmen of Brethil, Beleg, the Gaurwaith, and the Orcs.

Whereas in the Tale it was only now that Beleg and Túrin became companions-in-arms, we have already seen that the poem has the later story whereby they had fought together on the marches of Doriath before Túrin’s flight from the Thousand Caves (p. 27); and we now have also the development that Túrin’s altered mood at the sight of Beleg tied to the tree (Then Túrin’s heart was turned from hate, 584), and Beleg’s own reproaches (Shall the foes of Faërie be friends of Men? 603), led to the band’s turning their arms henceforth only against the foes of Faërie (644). Of the great oath sworn by the members of the band, explicitly echoing that of the Sons of Fëanor (634) – and showing incidentally that in that oath the holy mountain of Taniquetil (Tain-Gwethil) was taken in witness (636), there is no trace in The Silmarillion or the Narn: in the latter, indeed, the outlaws are not conceived in such a way as to make such an oath-taking at all probable.

Lines 643 ff., describing the prowess of the fellowship in the forest, are the ultimate origin of the never finally achieved story of the Land of Dor-Cúarthol (The Silmarillion p. 205, Narn pp. 152–4); lines 651–4

even in Angband the Orcs trembled.

Then the word wandered down the ways of the forest

that Túrin Thalion was returned to war;

and Thingol heard it …

lead in the end to

In Menegroth, and in the deep halls of Nargothrond, and even in the hidden realm of Gondolin, the fame of the deeds of the Two Captains was heard; and in Angband also they were known.

But in the later story Túrin was hidden under the name Gorthol, the Dread Helm, and it was his wearing of the Dragon-helm that revealed him to Morgoth. There is no suggestion of this in the earlier phase of the legend; the Dragon-helm makes no further appearance here in the poem.

A table may serve to clarify the development:

Tale	Lay	Silmarillion and Narn
Túrin’s prowess on the marches of Doriath (Beleg not mentioned).	Túrin and Beleg companions-in-arms on the marches of Doriath; Túrin wears the Dragon-helm.	As in the poem.
Death of Orgof.	Death of Orgof.	Death of Saeros.
Túrin leaves Doriath; a band forms round him which includes Beleg.	Túrin leaves Doriath; a band of outlaws forms round him which attacks all comers.	Túrin leaves Doriath and joins a band of desperate outlaws.
	The band captures Beleg (who knows nothing of Túrin’s leaving Doriath) and ties him to a tree.	The band captures Beleg (who is searching for Túrin bearing Thingol’s pardon) (and ties him to a tree, Narn).
	Túrin has him set free; suffers a change of heart; Beleg joins the band; all swear an oath.	Túrin has him set free; suffers a change of heart; but Beleg will not join the band and departs. (No mention of oath.)
Great prowess of the band.	Great prowess of the band against the Orcs.	(Later Beleg returns and joins the band:) Land of Dor-Cúarthol.

Before leaving this part of the story, it may be suggested that lines 605 ff., in which Túrin declares to Beleg that This band alone / I count as comrades, contain the germ of Túrin’s words to him in the Narn, p. 94:

The grace of Thingol will not stretch to receive these companions of my fall, I think; but I will not part with them now, if they do not wish to part with me, &c.

The traitor, who betrayed the band to the Orcs, now first appears. At first he is called Bauglir both in A and in B as originally typed; and it might be thought that the name had much too obviously an evil significance. The explanation is quite clearly, however, that Bauglir became Blodrin at the same time as Bauglir replaced Belcha as a name of Morgoth. (By the time my father reached line 990 Blodrin is the name as first written in both A and B; while similarly at line 1055 Bauglir is Morgoth’s name, not Belcha, both in A and B as first written.) The change of Ban (father of Blodrin) to Bor was passing; he is Ban in the 1926 ‘Sketch of the Mythology’, and so remained until, much later, he disappeared.

Blodrin’s origin is interesting:

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.

(666–9)

Thus Blodrin’s evil nature is explicitly ascribed to the influence of the bearded Dwarves / of troth unmindful (1148–9); and Blodrin follows Ufedhin of the Tale of the Nauglafring as an example of the sinister effect of Elvish association with Dwarves – not altogether absent in the tale of Eöl and Maeglin as it appears in The Silmarillion. Though the nature – and name – of the traitor in Túrin’s band went through Protean mutations afterwards, it is not inconceivable that recollection of the Dwarvish element in Blodrin’s history played some part in the emergence of Mîm in this rôle. On the early hostile view of the Dwarves see II. 247. The words of the poem just cited arise from the ‘betrayal’ of Flinding by his dwarvish knife, which slipped from its sheath; so later, in the Lay of Leithian, when Beren attempted to cut a second Silmaril from the Iron Crown (lines 4160–2)

The dwarvish steel of cunning blade

by treacherous smiths of Nogrod made

snapped …

The idea expressed in the Tale (II. 76) that Túrin was taken alive by Morgoth’s command ‘lest he cheat the doom that was devised for him’ reappears in the poem: lest he flee his fate (705).

The rest of the story as told in the poem differs only in detail from that in the Tale. The survival of Beleg in the attack by Orcs and his swift recovery from his grievous wounds (II. 77), present in much changed circumstances in The Silmarillion (p. 206), is here made perhaps more comprehensible, in that Elves from Doriath, who were searching for Túrin (654–5), found Beleg and took him back to be healed by Melian in the Thousand Caves (727–31). In the account of Beleg’s meeting with Flinding in Taur-na-Fuin, led to him by his blue lamp, the poem is following the Tale very closely.^* My father’s painting of the scene (Pictures by J. R. R. Tolkien no. 37) was almost certainly made a few years later, when the Elf lying under the tree was still called Flinding son of Fuilin (in the Tale bo-Dhuilin, earlier go-Dhuilin, son of Duilin; the patronymic prefix has in the poem (814, 900) reverted to the earlier form go-, see II. 119).

In the Tale it is only said (II. 81) that Flinding was of the people of the Rodothlim ‘before the Orcs captured him’; from the poem (819–21) it seems that he was carried off, with many others, from Nargothrond, but this can scarcely be the meaning, since nought yet knew they [the Orcs] of Nargothrond (1578). The marginal note in B against these lines ‘Captured in battle at gates of Angband’ refers to the later story, first appearing in the 1930 ‘Silmarillion’.

The poem follows the Tale in the detail of Flinding’s story to Beleg, except that in the poem he was recaptured by the Orcs in Taur-na-Fuin (846 ff.) and escaped again (crept from their clutches as a crawling worm, 879), whereas in the Tale he was not recaptured but ‘fled heedlessly’ (II. 79). The notable point in the Tale that Flinding ‘was overjoyed to have speech with a free Noldo’ reappears in the poem: Marvelling he heard / the ancient tongue of the Elves of Tûn. The detail of their encountering of the Orc-host is slightly different: in the Tale the Orcs had changed their path, in the poem it seems that Beleg and Flinding merely came more quickly than did the Orcs to the point where the Orc-road emerged from the edge of the forest. In the Tale it seems indeed that the Orcs had not left the forest when they encamped for the night: the eyes of the wolves ‘shone like points of red light among the trees’, and Beleg and Flinding laid Túrin down after his rescue ‘in the woods at no great distance from the camp’. The cup outcarven on the cold hillside of the poem (1036), where the Orcs made their bivouac, is the ‘bare dell’ of The Silmarillion.

In contrast to the Tale (see p. 26) Beleg is now frequently called Beleg the bowman, his great bow (not yet named) is fully described, and his unmatched skill as an archer (1071 ff.). There is also in the poem the feature of the arrow Dailir, unfailingly found and always unharmed (1080 ff.), until it broke when Beleg fell upon it while carrying Túrin (1189–92): of this there is never a mention later. The element of Beleg’s archery either arose from, or itself caused, the change in the story of the entry of Beleg and Flinding into the Orc-camp that now appears: in the Tale they merely ‘crept between the wolves at a point where there was a great gap between them’, whereas in the poem Beleg performed the feat of shooting seven wolves in the darkness, and only so was ‘a great gap opened’ (1097). But the words of the Tale, ‘as the luck of the Valar had it Túrin was lying nigh’, are echoed in

till the Gods brought them

and the craft and cunning of the keen huntsman

to Túrin the tall where he tumbled lay

(1130–2)

The lifting and carrying of Túrin by the two Elves, referred to in the Tale as ‘a great feat’, ‘seeing that he was a Man and of greater stature than they’ (II. 80), is expanded in the poem (1156 ff.) into a comment on the stature of Men and Elves in the ancient time, which agrees with earlier statements on this topic (see I. 235, II. 142, 220). The notable lines

though Men were of mould less mighty builded

ere the earth’s goodness from the Elves they drew

(1157–8)

are to be related to the statements cited in II. 326: ‘As Men’s stature grows [the Elves’] diminishes’, and ‘ever as Men wax more powerful and numerous so the fairies fade and grow small and tenuous, filmy and transparent, but Men larger and more dense and gross’. The mention here (1164) of the ten races of Hithlum occurs nowhere else, and it is not clear whether it refers to all the peoples of Men and Elves who in one place or another in the Lost Tales are set in Hithlum, which as I have remarked ‘seems to have been in danger of having too many inhabitants’ (see II. 249, 251).

The Tale has it that it was Beleg’s knife that had slipped from him as he crept into the camp; in the poem it is Flinding’s (1142 ff.). In the Tale Beleg returned to fetch his sword from the place where he had left it, since they could carry Túrin no further; in the poem they carried Túrin all the way up to the dark thicket in a dell whence they had set out (1110, 1202). The ‘whetting spell’ of Beleg over his (still unnamed) sword is an entirely new element (and without trace later); it arises in association with line 1141, No blade would bite on the bonds he wore. In style it is reminiscent of Lúthien’s ‘lengthening spell’ in Canto V of the Lay of Leithian; but of the names in the spell, of Ogbar, Gaurin, Rodrim, Saithnar, Nargil, Celeg Aithorn, there seems to be now no other trace.

There now occurs in the poem the mysterious leering laugh (1224), to which it seems that the ghostly laughter of grim phantom in line 1286 refers, and which is mentioned again in the next part of the poem (1488–90). The narrative purpose of this is evidently to cause the covering of the lamp and to cause Beleg to work too quickly in the darkness at the cutting of the bonds. It may be also that the wounding of Beleg’s hand when he put it on the point of Dailir his arrow (1187) accounts for his clumsiness; for every aspect of this powerful scene had been pondered and refined.

In the poem the great storm is introduced: first presaged in lines 1064 ff., when Beleg and Flinding were at the edge of the dell (as it is in The Silmarillion):

Lo! black cloud-drifts

surged up like smoke from the sable North,

and the sheen was shrouded of the shivering moon;

the wind came wailing from the woeful mountains,

and the heath unhappy hissed and whispered

and bursting at last after Beleg’s death (1301 ff.), to last all through the following day, during which Túrin and Flinding crouched on the hillside (1320, 1330–1). On account of the storm the Orcs were unable to find Túrin, and departed, as in The Silmarillion; in the Tale Flinding roused Túrin to flee as soon as the shouts of discovery were heard from the Orc-camp, and nothing more is said of the matter. But in the poem it is still, as in the Tale, the sudden uncovering of Flinding’s lamp as he fell back from Túrin’s assault that illumined Beleg’s face; in the last account that my father wrote of this episode he was undecided whether it was the cover falling off the lamp or a great flash of lightning that gave the light, and in the published work I chose the latter.

There remain a few isolated points, mostly concerning names. In this part of the poem we meet for the first time:

Nargothrond 821, 904;

Taur-na-Fuin (for Taur Fuin of the Lost Tales) 766, 828; called also Deadly Nightshade 767, 837, 1317, and Forest of Night 896;

Dor-na-Fauglith 946, 1035, 1326, called also the Plains of Drouth 826, the Thirsty Plain 947 (and in A, note to 826, the Blasted Plain). The name Dor-na-Fauglith arose during the composition of the poem (see note to 946). By this time the story of the blasting of the great northern plain, so that it became a dusty desert, in the battle that ended the Siege of Angband, must have been conceived, though it does not appear in writing for several years.

Here also is the first reference to the triple peaks of Thangorodrim (1000), called the thunderous towers (951), though in the ‘Prologue’ to the poem it is said that Húrin was set on its steepest peak (96); and from lines 713–14 (as rewritten in the B-text) we learn that Angband was wrought at the roots of the great mountain.

The name Fangros (631; Fangair A) occurs once elsewhere, in a very obscure note, where it is apparently connected with the burning of the ships of the Noldoli.

Melian’s name Mablui – by the hands enchanted of Melian Mablui, 731 – clearly contains mab ‘hand’, as in Mablung, Ermabwed (see II. 339).

That the Dwarves were said in A and originally in B to dwell in the South (1147, emended in B to East) is perhaps to be related to the statement in the Tale of the Nauglafring that Nogrod lay ‘a very long journey southward beyond the wide forest on the borders of those great heaths nigh Umboth-muilin the Pools of Twilight’ (II. 225).

I cannot explain the reference in line 1006 to the wild wheatfields of the wargod’s realm; nor that in the lines concerning Beleg’s fate after death to the long waiting of the dead in the halls of the Moon (1284).