Narn I Chîn Húrin 1: Túrins Fostering

[Aiwendil]

I am really very sorry for my long absence. I hope that I can get around to looking over more of the changes sometime this weekend.

NA-EX-19: I think we might actually stay closer to the original with:

NA-EX-19<GA But even as the vanguard of {Maidros}[Maeðros] came {upon the Orcs}up, Morgoth loosed his {last}[greatest] strength, and Angband was emptied. …

I don't understand the deletion of "and Angband was emptied" in your version.

NA-EX-21, -22: I'm still unsure about this. The trouble as I see it is that the Narn version is told exclusively from the point of view of the western host. Reading what we are given of the Narn version I do not feel at all sure that Uldor's plot was removed entirely. We have only the indirect evidence that Fingon sees dust rising in the east. There is also something of a minor mystery in the Narn text - though Maedhros sets forth at the right time, he does not fire the beacon. I suppose one could blame this on the second host sent from Angband to attack him - but wasn't the whole point of Maedhros's assault to draw out the forces of Angband, at which time the beacon would be fired?

So I still see think it quite possible that Uldor's machinations were retained and simply omitted from the Narn version, which focuses only on the western battle. I suppose, though, that this may not be enough to justify any actual, explicit reference to Uldor's plot. I need to think about this a little bit more.

Findegil wrote:

So what you suggest is that we have to mistrust Christopher Tolkien to the degree that he would add such features as the Troll-guard into the Sil77 out of the blue and does not tell us so in the GA but rather deceives us with the general sentence about “other features”?

No. This is an extreme example, and in the end I suppose we are better off following QS77. My only hesitation is the issue of trolls in the sunlight. For it was not night when they fought against Hurin - the sun was westering when Huor fell, by which time the final battle in the fen was already underway. And it was not until Hurin was captured that the sun was gone:

Thus ended Nirnaeth Arnoediad, as the sun went down beyond the sea. Night fell in Hithlum, and there cam a great storm of wind out of the West.

Even if one were to suppose that these exact timings are not reliable, and that night had fallen by the time Hurin fought with the troll-guard, there is still the problem that the troll-guard must have taken an appreciable time to cross the Anfauglith, and thus must have been travelling in daylight. Indeed, if they were with Gothmog, then earlier that day they were fighting Fingon farther north.

It is only for this reason that I wish we had more tangible proof that the troll-guard are in the Narn text. Ultimately, though, I agree that it is probably best to include them, despite the problems this creates.

NA-TI-01b: This version looks good to me. One very minor point - I would delete a comma:

there{ is in Ælfwine's version, and clearly} was in {Dirhavel}[Dirhaval]'s day{,} much archaic language, of words and usage,

NA-EX-12: Yours seems a reasonable solution.

NA-TI-06: I suppose this placement works.

NA-TI-07: Findegil wrote:

But the argument about Túrins identity is not really valid. At latest when he put on the Dragon-helm brought by Beleg any men from Dor-Lómin would have know who he was.

Good point. This had slipped my mind. Still, I think it's safer not to use this note.

NA-TI-07.5: I guess I'm a little worried here about whether there is a conflict between the "final" version where "it seems necessary to suppose . . . that they remained in the Vale of Sirion" and the "tentative version" wherein "they went away southwards . . . but the men becoming discontented in that "harbourless land", Turin was persuaded to lead them back." It seems to me that the implication in that tentative version is that they did not remain in the Vale of Sirion, but departed southward and later returned to the Vale of Sirion.

I would, then, either say simply that they remained in the Vale of Sirion (and exclude the bit where they go south) or say that they went southward (and exlude the claim that they "remained in the Vale of Sirion").