The Silmarillion in the Vernacular

[Galadriel55]

I am curious, Huey - did you ever get to finish the story?

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

I am curious, Huey - did you ever get to finish the story?

Oh, we're still going! The cry of 'can we do Elves?' rings out virtually every drive home from school. I decided that the Great Tales needed to be told in full, so we're deep in Beren and Luthien right now. They're actually able to remember what's going on from telling to telling, which is a huge plus, and my daughter wants to turn it into a play. (Technically she wants me to turn it into a play...) Right now Beren's run off to get himself killed, which... I guess doesn't narrow it down much! We just had the big reveal that Huan can talk, and they were both very concerned over the prophecies about him.

It's fun. It's lots of fun, and I hope it stays fun when I have to do Turin. (We need to do Tuurin, because we have to destroy Nargothrond and Doriath.)

hS

[Galadriel55]

You won't believe how happy it makes me to imagine you storytelling The Sil to little Huinesoronings. Turin will work out. It's sad, but it's ambiguous. And your kids seem like a really mature pair who can handle the good vs bad ambiguity.

[Urwen]

And what of Gondolin? Will you tell them 'bout that one naughty Elf?

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

You won't believe how happy it makes me to imagine you storytelling The Sil to little Huinesoronings. Turin will work out. It's sad, but it's ambiguous. And your kids seem like a really mature pair who can handle the good vs bad ambiguity.

I agree that they'll love it. I'm not sure /I/ can cope with that much Turinning.

Originally Posted by Urwen

And what of Gondolin? Will you tell them 'bout that one naughty Elf?

Of course! Every story needs a villain!



I'm still deciding whether to cover Maeglin's back story at all. It's an entire story completely out of sequence. Maybe if I merge it with Hurin and Huor's visit somehow? But on the other hand, maybe Aredhel needs some screen time...

hS

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

I agree that they'll love it. I'm not sure /I/ can cope with that much Turinning.

I have faith in you. You can do it.

Originally Posted by Huey

I'm still deciding whether to cover Maeglin's back story at all. It's an entire story completely out of sequence. Maybe if I merge it with Hurin and Huor's visit somehow? But on the other hand, maybe Aredhel needs some screen time...

You could do a "let me tell you a bit about Gondolin" backstory. It doesn't even matter when you tell it, cause it's disentangled from the other Silm stories. Aredhel just does her thing sometime before H&H arrive.

[Lhunardawen]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

They're actually able to remember what's going on from telling to telling, which is a huge plus...

That's quite a feat!

...and my daughter wants to turn it into a play. (Technically she wants me to turn it into a play...)

Now I would love to see this.

So did the story progress any further while the world is on lockdown?

[Rune Son of Bjarne]

Nice thread.

At what age did you guys start introducing them them to Tolkien's Legendarium?
Did you start with the Hobbit (which is my least favorite) or did you jump straight into the fun stuff?

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

Your story just made my day! That is so adorable.

A simplified and slightly altered Turin story can be an excellent way of explaining why feeling guilty should make you stop and not just get angry and continue. You don't even need to mention the rest of his family, the story works even if he's the only one there.

Well, there certainly is plenty of version of that story out there, I doubt you need to do much inventing your self.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

I did something similar on a simpler level - I started telling my granddaughters the Hobbit episodes when they were about four years old, too young to comprehend the lengthy written book. They loved it, and now they have heard the book (German translation - they haven't learned English in school yet) from me and the radio play (again, German version) on CD.

I've told them some of the events of LotR and bits of Sil, but we have entered the realm of fan fiction. When they stay with me, they demand Bilbo stories of the Hobbit's life as a child. One of the girls suggested I write those down and publish them, but of course copyright laws would prohibit that - and the fact that the Shire looks and feels an awful lot like their own modern life!

[Thinlómien]

This is pretty amazing, and I daresay it requires quite a good memory and storytelling skills from you, Huine. I'm really curious what your kids will think of the Silm when they are old enough to read it themselves.

That being said, I had rather the deep end experience with Silm as a kid and it worked too. My father (alias Nogrod) read all the major Tolkien works aloud to me and my little sister (alias A Little Green) and I don't think he ever censored a bit, and I loved it that way (and I don't think it was bad influence in any way unless you count him raising a kid who has been even more Tolkien obsessed than him ).

I don't quite recall how old we were when this all happened though. I don't remember much of The Hobbit, so we must have been very little, but I have many vivid memories of the LotR readthrough (including a story I have told here many times about how I got super mad about my dad closing the book in the middle of The Voice of Saruman and threatening to read the rest of the chapter myself if he doesn't finish ). But I think I was about 6-7 when he read LotR to us which was pretty much the perfect age, while Greenie at 5ish was perhaps a little too young (I also love recounting the story about how she found Cirith Ungol so scary she didn't want to hear more, not much before Frodo and Sam have the same exact conversation).

But we went from LotR, probably not immediately, but anyway to Silmarillion and even (parts of?) The Unfinished Tales. I very much doubt I would have such good grasp of the myriad Silm characters, places and family trees if I hadn't absorbed them back then with the wonderful memory children have. I don't think I ever found The Silmarillion too scary - or too confusing or boring or whatever - it was just a story. Children are pretty amazing, I don't think you need to shelter them too much.

Also to be fair I think The Lord of the Rings is, in some ways, a lot more mature work than The Silmarillion. Sure, Silm has suicide and incest and genocide and no happy ending, but it is mostly told from a rather detached perspective. It is, in a sense, very close to whether you would expose your children to any traditional mythology at a young age.

While LotR? Is actually super creepy and emotionally affecting at times. The descriptions can be very vivid and you get attached to the characters much easier, and therefore you as a reader are probably much more worried about Frodo's fate than you ever were for say Túrin's. If you're listening to the story as a child who doesn't know what's going on, there is a lot of scary. The Black Riders are scary (Merry as a potential Black Rider is scary too), the Old Forest is scary, the Barrow-Downs are scary, the Black Riders are scary again, Moria is scary, the breaking of the Fellowship is scary (or at least bewildering because it breaks the basic heroic narrative children are used to), basically all the wars are very suspenseful, the Dead Marshes are scary, Cirith Ungol is scary, Mordor is scary, the Scouring of the Shire is again bewildering... I don't think The Silmarillion is half as emotionally unsettling for kids simply for the more detached tone and less atmospheric descriptions.

So, from my personal experience, you shouldn't be too worried about the upsetting elements in Tolkien' works, children can take it. But like I said, I love how you've put such a personal spin on The Silmarillion and basically made your family's own branch of The Legendarium. I can't help thinking The Professor would greatly approve.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Lhunardawen

So did the story progress any further while the world is on lockdown?

Alas, it has not. I find it hard to be appropriately off-the-cuff when I'm not driving at the same time, so "Elves" (as in, "Can we do Elves?") is on hold while we're stuck at home.

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

You could do a "let me tell you a bit about Gondolin" backstory. It doesn't even matter when you tell it, cause it's disentangled from the other Silm stories. Aredhel just does her thing sometime before H&H arrive.

This is the plan, now that you suggested it. We'll do Princess Aredhel and the Spooky Man, lead into Grubby Mortals Wind Up In Gondolin, then jump over to The Long Grim Tale of Turin and Tuor, Or, Grubby Mortals In Gondolin 2.0. Y'know... someday.

Originally Posted by Rune Son of Bjarne

At what age did you guys start introducing them them to Tolkien's Legendarium?
Did you start with the Hobbit (which is my least favorite) or did you jump straight into the fun stuff?

I tried reading The Hobbit in a different car setting (waiting to pick up my wife after work). We got... nearly to Gollum, I think? It wasn't a great hit, which is a shame. That would have been, oh, a year and a bit ago? So they were 8 and 6.

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

I've told them some of the events of LotR and bits of Sil, but we have entered the realm of fan fiction. When they stay with me, they demand Bilbo stories of the Hobbit's life as a child. One of the girls suggested I write those down and publish them, but of course copyright laws would prohibit that - and the fact that the Shire looks and feels an awful lot like their own modern life!

Excellent! This sounds like the sort of thing that would happen in the Shire itself - tales of Mad Baggins and all.

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

This is pretty amazing, and I daresay it requires quite a good memory and storytelling skills from you, Huine. I'm really curious what your kids will think of the Silm when they are old enough to read it themselves.

So am I. I know I had repeatedly read LotR by the time I was 12 or so (that would be 1998), but I think I didn't lay hands on the Silm until after the movies came out. In fact, my personal copy of LotR (as opposed to either of my parents') and my original Silm were under matching covers, so I must have gotten them fairly close together.

Listening to your story, I'm wondering whether my children would be up for LotR now (or at least, once we've finished our current storybook). I shall have to ponder the point. Original Silm, I'm afraid, they'd probably find rather dull; I read them Rosemary Sutcliff's Arthurian retelling and had to liven the language up in that, let alone Silm.

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

But like I said, I love how you've put such a personal spin on The Silmarillion and basically made your family's own branch of The Legendarium. I can't help thinking The Professor would greatly approve.

It's been fun! I've heard them playing at Luthien a time or two, too... I occasionally think of the way Tolkien started hearing back versions of Errantry that had been orally transmitted through multiple iterations, and the only word that was universally unchanged was "sigaldry".

hS

[Pitchwife]

[OT]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

Also to be fair I think The Lord of the Rings is, in some ways, a lot more mature work than The Silmarillion. Sure, Silm has suicide and incest and genocide and no happy ending, but it is mostly told from a rather detached perspective. It is, in a sense, very close to whether you would expose your children to any traditional mythology at a young age.

While LotR? Is actually super creepy and emotionally affecting at times. The descriptions can be very vivid and you get attached to the characters much easier, and therefore you as a reader are probably much more worried about Frodo's fate than you ever were for say Túrin's.

Yep, LotR was a huge step forward in Tolkien's development as a writer, and I think he knew it - hence the reworking of the Great Tales in a more detailed, vivid, LotR-ish style that brought us the prose Narn, Tuor and his Coming to Gondolin etc. Whereas the Silmarillion reads more like an Elven bible, its gruesome parts tempered by the distanced mode of telling - which is why the Old Testament isn't usually considered unfit for children (or is it?).[/OT]

As to the topic proper, I fear I have little to contribute, having neither children nor underage siblings, and I'm not sure the cats and dogs would appreciate being told about Huan and Tevildo, so... as you were.