Narn I Chîn Húrin 1: Túrins Fostering

[Aran e-Godhellim]

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

It seems Androg turns out to be rather a difficult issue. Sorry in advance for a long post.

Findegil wrote:


After presenting such a nice solution earlier, you have made a very good case against it! I had forgotten about the upper limit of 538 FA for the meeting of Dírhaval with a 'very old' Andvír. In view of this, my earlier suggestion that Andróg was a young man when in the outlaw band and that Andvír was born after the battle at Amon Rudh is completely untenable.

Let me take a step back for a moment and try to look at the problem in my usual pedantic way. I think there are three critical questions:

1. Does the sentence in 'Aelfwine and Dirhaval' refer to Andróg or Andvír?

2. Does A&D pre-date or post-date the 'Narn' texts that contain the story of Andróg's death?

3. To what extent does the statement in A&D contradict the story in the 'Narn'?
The real meaning of this question depends on the answer to 2; if A&D is later, the question is whether it sufficiently indicates 'the details of what is to be changed' per principle 2b; if A&D is earlier, the question is whether the 'Narn' necessitates that the statement in A&D be removed.

On question 1, I am still inclined toward the Andróg-interpretation, though I agree with Aran that it is not the only tenable one. The main reason is that I find it curious that, if Andvír was a member of Turin's band, he was never mentioned in the 'Narn', particularly if we accept CT's guess that the two texts are very roughly contemporaneous. If A&D was written shortly before the relevant portions of the Narn, then surely Tolkien would have introduced Andvír in the latter. If A&D was written shortly after the Narn, it is strange (though not impossible) that Tolkien would invent a new character so at odds with the story he had just formulated.

...

The much more difficult question is, if A&D is later than the Narn texts, is it sufficiently clear to us how the Narn should be changed that we can justify those changes? This is complicated (just our luck) by the fact that the answer may be contingent on the answer to 1 - is it Androg or Andvir that survives?

There is actually one bit of evidence that hasn't been mentioned. Text B, which clearly does come after the Narn text, contains no mention of either Andróg or his son. This may be interpreted as meaning that text A did in fact precede the Narn text, and B was written so as to match the new story.

Originally Posted by Findegil

About scop and walhstod:
Aran look into post #6. There we removed the younger text B and put in text A. Where by the problem you adressed correctly was solved.

My humblest apologies. I have the unfortunate predilection of spotting a single problem, and then immediately commenting on it before reading further. I must confess, I still haven't read every post in this thread.

All that is interesting but it does not help us any farther.
Lets go back to the core sentence again:Lest extract simple statments:
- Andvír was the man interview by Dírhaval not Andróg.
- Andvír was very old at that time -> born before the battle of Amon Rudh.
- Andvír was the son of Andróg.
- Andróg was in the outlaw-band of Túrin.
- One of them (more likely Andróg, by the structer of the sentence) survived the battle on the summit of Amon Rudh.

What do we learn from this:
- Andvír was not necessarly a member of Túrins band.
- Andvír was the source of information because he was Andrógs son, not on his own right.
- Thus at one time or an other there must have been communication between Andróg and Andvír.

This does give even more wieght to Andróg as the surviver of the battle on the summit of Amon Rudh.

Now lets look at the story line of that battle in CoH:
- Turin and Co. reach the summit, and defend themself at the outer stair.
- Andróg is wounded by an arrow, and lies as death.
- Turin and Beleg retreat with the others to the center stone and are taken capitive their, while the companiens are slain.
- The Orcs carry Túrin away.
- The Orcs prostrate Beleg.
- The Orc ransack Bar-en-Danwedh
- The Orcs depart from Amon Rudh.
- When all is silent, Mîm comes to the summit.
- Andróg frightens the dwarf away and frees Beleg, before he dies (if he does in our version).

Would you not say, that the battle was over when the Orcs started the ransacking of Bar-en-Danwedh? Would it be a big stretch to say that Andróg survived the battle even so he died a few hours later from the wound recived there when obviously all other members of Túrins band died on the spot?

Aside from that question, can we contrive a story line with Andvír the comunicator the tale and Andróg dying at the summit?
I think we can. Andvír was in the band or in the greater army and had communications with Andróg, he might have searched the battle ground after the fight and read all the signs there to construct the tale we have. We can even assume that he communicated with Beleg before Beleg started the hunt after the Orcs.

To be on the safe side we could simply skip the one half-sentence about the sole surviver. All the rest of the texts we have fits together.

What we are left with are for one thing the sentence about Húrins later dealings with Mîm. And I am minded to let that simply stand as it is. Andvír could have been in Húrins Band without mentioning him any farther. Which only mean that in the deads of that band he had not role of prominence. He was simply a member and withnessed the events. Most probably he was not only the fromer member of Túrins troups of the land of Bow and Helm in Húrins band. The splinters of that troups would form a perfect source for Húrins collection.

Another thing is the death of Mîm. And I am minded to seperate that now completly from the other points discussed. If we belive that Andrógs curse became true, Mîm must dy with an arrow in his throut. If not we can take the simple slaying of Mîm by Húrin from TT.

For me it is on the one hand the death of a (otherwise unconnected) dwarf warden of a dragon hoard against the death of the traitor of Túrin. The connection of Mîm with the traitor of Túrin was a very late development. It did not find its way into the Grey Annals. Thus we are left with only two sources about the means of the death of the taitor: The Lay where it is Ban son of Bor and Andróg's curse against Mîm. Since they agree in the way in which the traitor dies, I think they should prevail over the death of Mîm the unconnected dwarf-warden.

Respectfully
Findegil

P.S.: Probably I top your length, Aiwendil.

I agree with the bold parts, but I would like to comment on the underlined part. I'll quote the line again for clarity's sake:

From Mablung he learned much; and by fortune also he found a man named Andvír, and he was very old, but was the son of that Andróg who was in the outlaw-band of Túrin, and alone survived the battle on the summit of Amon Rûdh.

Now, I'll try and break this sentence into clauses:

1. "From Mablung he learned much" - Okay, so Dirhavel talked to Mablung. Nothing helpful here.
2. "by fortune also he found a man named Andvír" - Dirhavel found a man named Andvír. Now we're getting somewhere.
3. "he was very old" - He (Andvír) was very old when Dirhavel spoke to him.
4. "but was the son of that Andróg who was in the outlaw-band of Túrin" - Andvír was the son of the same Andróg who was in Túrin's band.
5. "and alone survived the battle on the summit of Amon Rûdh." - Someone survived the battle at Amon Rudh.

Now, let me make my point. In clause 2, Andvír was introduced. Then he is described in both clauses 3 and 4. My point is this; if he is being described in one clause, and then again in the next, is it so much of a stretch to assume the next clause describes him as well?

I know that Tolkien's comma makes things messy when the sentence is all together, but you have to remember that Professor Tolkien did not follow what are now the standard rules for punctuation. When you forget the punctuation, and simply break the sentence down into it's logical progression of thought, it becomes much easier to see that the sentence is more likely referring to Andvír.

[Aiwendil]

Let me come back to the three questions I posed.

1. Does the sentence in 'Aelfwine and Dirhaval' refer to Andróg or Andvír?

It seems that Findegil is inclined to read it as referring to Androg and Aran as referring to Andvir. I must say that I don't think this can be answered from the structure of the sentence alone. The sentence could easily mean either. That is, it could be parsed as:

and he was very old, but was the son of that Andróg {who was in the outlaw-band of Túrin}, and alone survived the battle on the summit of Amon Rûdh.

or:

and he was very old, but was the son of that Andróg {who was in the outlaw-band of Túrin, and alone survived the battle on the summit of Amon Rûdh}.

There's simply no way of telling based on the syntax whether 'he' or 'who' is the subject of 'survived'.

I still think, however, that the absence of any reference to Andvir in the Narn texts suggests the Androg-interpretation. This is particularly true if A&D A precedes the relevant portion of the Narn. For if he had just invented Andvir and intended for him to be a member of Turin's band, why then introduce Androg but not Andvir in the Narn? And if he had already rejected this version of the transmission of the legend, why introduce Androg at all?

2. Does A&D pre-date or post-date the 'Narn' texts that contain the story of Andróg's death?

Aran wrote:

There is actually one bit of evidence that hasn't been mentioned. Text B, which clearly does come after the Narn text, contains no mention of either Andróg or his son. This may be interpreted as meaning that text A did in fact precede the Narn text, and B was written so as to match the new story.

A good point, but we must bear in mind that B is also briefer and rather different in intention from A. It seems to me, then, very likely that the absence of Androg and Andvir from B does not imply the rejection of this version of the transmission.

Though I still think the question of the relative dating is a very difficult one that may not in the end be answerable, the more I think about it the more likely it seems to me that A&D A was written after the middle portions of the Narn. When Tolkien says in A&D that Andvir 'was the son of that Andróg who was in the outlaw-band of Túrin' it sounds rather more to me like he is referring to a character named Androg who already exists than like he is inventing a new character. One thing that gives me pause, however, is that it would be a little surprising for Tolkien to so casually contradict the story of Mim's curse and Androg's death, which he had so carefully developed, without projecting some alternative. In this connection, I find Findegil's proposal very interesting:

Follwoing that line of thinking, Andvír was born about 465, I assumed, thus he was only 7 years at the Nirnaeth. This makes it, for me unlikely that he was born and raised in Dor-lómin. Thus he probably was the son of an already outlawed Andróg. If I assume now farther that he was the son of Andróg with a wive from the wood-men south of Taeglin. As we see Andróg being part of such crimes of Forwegs planed rap of Larnachs daughter, Andvír could be the outcome of such crime or (more likely) of an willing sexual intercourse with a younger and supposedly atractiv Andróg. May that be as it is, Andvír was for sure with such an ancestry an outsider in his society. Thus he probably joined the band in which his father was prominent. The most likely time for that would be gathering of forces when the land of Bow and Helm was raised. That means he probably was not in the original tryst, but one of the newcomers stationed in the additional camps.

. . .

- Andvír was not necessarly a member of Túrins band.
- Andvír was the source of information because he was Andrógs son, not on his own right.
- Thus at one time or an other there must have been communication between Andróg and Andvír.

. . .

Would you not say, that the battle was over when the Orcs started the ransacking of Bar-en-Danwedh? Would it be a big stretch to say that Andróg survived the battle even so he died a few hours later from the wound recived there when obviously all other members of Túrins band died on the spot?

I must admit I never thought of the possibility that Andvir was born after Androg was outlawed but before the time when Turin joins the outlaws, nor that he was alive then but not in the band. And I think you make an excellent point that in the Narn Androg does survive the battle and dies shortly thereafter. This interpretation is particularly attractive since it would provide a very nice answer to my third question:

3. To what extent does the statement in A&D contradict the story in the 'Narn'?

If we accept Findegil's proposal, then the answer is that A&D does not contradict the Narn at all. Which, of course, would mean that both A&D and the Narn could stand without further alterations needed to either.

I do have one small doubt about this reading, though. To go back once more to the infamous sentence in A&D:

From Mablung he learned much; and by fortune also he found a man named Andvír, and he was very old, but was the son of that Andróg who was in the outlaw-band of Túrin, and alone survived the battle on the summit of Amon Rûdh.

On Findegil's interpration, while this statement is completely true, the clause 'and alone survived the battle on the summit of Amon Rûdh' would appear to be a bit of a non sequitur. The rest of the sentence is concerned with establishing the credentials of Dirhavel's sources. It is mentioned that Androg is Andvir's father because this explains how Andvir knew details of the story. But why then mention that Androg survived the battle? If, as in the Narn, he died immediately after it, then this statement cannot have any relevance to Andvir's knowledge. On the other hand, if we interpret this last statement to mean that Androg lived a for a significant length of time after the battle, and presumably had communication with Andvir during that time, then it is quite relevant.

Now I'll try to enumerate our possible courses of action:

1. Leave the 'Narn' and the statement in A&D unaltered.
2. Remove the reference to Androg's survival from A&D but keep Andvir and leave the Narn unaltered.
3. Remove the sentence from A&D completely.
4. Alter the Narn so that Androg does not die after the battle.
5. Alter the Narn so that Andvir is a member of the band and he survives the battle.

I have left out solutions that involve leaving Androg's survival or Andvir's presence in the band ambiguous, as I think we all agree those are not practical.

If we accept Findegil's most recent interpretation, then option 1 is the best. Findegil proposes option 2 to be safe. I would note, however, that if A&D post-dates the Narn, we can only justify this if we decide the reference to Androg's survival is an unworkable projected change. Option 3 is the most conservative choice and it sounds to me (though I'm not sure) as though Aran may favour this. Options 4 and 5 can only be considered if we accept that A&D post-dates the Narn. Option 4 requires further that we interpret A&D as asserting that Androg does not die after the battle; it could be accomplished along the lines of Findegil's earlier proposal, by moving the healing by Beleg to after the battle. Conversely, option 5 can only be justified if we interpret A&D as asserting that Andvir, also a member of Turin's band, survives the battle.

As usual, I come to no particular conclusions. I do think, however, that in view of the doubt surrounding the relative dating of the texts, options 4 and 5 are probably too risky.

[Findegil]

A good enumeratuion, Aiwendil.
I agree that 4 and 5 are too risky.
For option 3 I see no real reason why we have to remove Andvír. Since our rules say we need a reason to reject something, I don't thing that is a good possiblity.
I see your doubts about option 2. When text A postdates the middle of the Narn, which is likely, then we can only change the sentence if it is a an workable palned change of the naritive. And if we think it is a change that is not absoultly necessary it would be a stylistic change, that is not wanted.
Thus I think we are left with option 1.

Respectfully
Findegil

[Aiwendil]

For option 3 I see no real reason why we have to remove Andvír. Since our rules say we need a reason to reject something, I don't thing that is a good possiblity.

And we could only have a reason if we decided that Androg's having a son contradicts the Narn. At one time I thought this was the case, but I think you've made a good argument that the dates, ages, and so forth can be made to cohere. So I agree that 3 is probably not the right way to go.

I see your doubts about option 2. When text A postdates the middle of the Narn, which is likely, then we can only change the sentence if it is a an workable palned change of the naritive. And if we think it is a change that is not absoultly necessary it would be a stylistic change, that is not wanted.

That leaves us with the question of whether or not A&D represents a 'projected change' from the story of Androg's death in the Narn. You've correctly pointed out that the statement about Androg's survival is technically true in the Narn. But what do you think of the concern I expressed earlier concerning the intended meaning? To repeat myself:

On Findegil's interpration, while this statement is completely true, the clause 'and alone survived the battle on the summit of Amon Rûdh' would appear to be a bit of a non sequitur. The rest of the sentence is concerned with establishing the credentials of Dirhavel's sources. It is mentioned that Androg is Andvir's father because this explains how Andvir knew details of the story. But why then mention that Androg survived the battle? If, as in the Narn, he died immediately after it, then this statement cannot have any relevance to Andvir's knowledge. On the other hand, if we interpret this last statement to mean that Androg lived a for a significant length of time after the battle, and presumably had communication with Andvir during that time, then it is quite relevant.

I would add that Christopher Tolkien (and indeed each of us) originally read the statement as asserting not just that Androg survived the fighting but that he was not mortally wounded there at all - so this may very well have been what Tolkien meant.

So I think I am for either option 1 or 2, with the above concern being issue that the decision is depends upon. I suppose option 2 may in fact be the way to go if we consider that the risk of including an invalid/contradictory statement outweighs the risk of excluding valid one.

[Aran e-Godhellim]

I favor option 2 more. The reason is that I inherently dislike any non-Tolkien writing being added at all, except where absolutely necessary. Since Tolkien wrote nothing of Andróg's survival anywhere else, that means we would have to add in our own version of events extrapolated from a mere scrap. From my (admittedly strict) opinion, that makes the story of Andróg's survival an unworkable (for us) planned change, even if it was a change Tolkien seriously considered later.

Option 1 would be acceptable to me, but it is rather ambiguous and leaves room for confusion. Of course, one ancient scholar's interpretation of an event could differ from another scholars; the difference between"Andróg survived" and "Andróg died shortly thereafter" could well be compared to the difference between a scholar who notes "the enemy had 900 men" and the scholar who says that "the enemy had 1000 soldiers."

[Findegil]

Aiwendil worte:

On Findegil's interpration, while this statement is completely true, the clause 'and alone survived the battle on the summit of Amon Rûdh' would appear to be a bit of a non sequitur. The rest of the sentence is concerned with establishing the credentials of Dirhavel's sources. It is mentioned that Androg is Andvir's father because this explains how Andvir knew details of the story. But why then mention that Androg survived the battle? If, as in the Narn, he died immediately after it, then this statement cannot have any relevance to Andvir's knowledge. On the other hand, if we interpret this last statement to mean that Androg lived a for a significant length of time after the battle, and presumably had communication with Andvir during that time, then it is quite relevant.

Thinking around three corners I could say that the author of the text wanted to give all the credential he could to Dírhavals sources and thereby had overdone it. By excident or by propose he decievd us to belive at this point that Andvír had communication with Andróg, though we later learn that this is impossible.
It is as well possible that the fact that Andróg did life long enough to free Beleg (which is from the point of the storyteller the reason for his short survival) had some important impact on the father eloborated story of the tradition of the tale that Tolkien had in mind but never write down.

Since that sound very theroetical I will examplify that last point:
Since we have only Beleg and Túrin as long time suviver of the battle and we learn that neither Túrin nor Gwindor revaled much about the time at Amon Rudh, we need someone to who knows details of the fighting to get the story we have. Beleg is the most probable source. To whom did he speak after the battle? We know for sure that he spoke with Gwindor, but he is dead and of tradition as we learn. Now would the son of his rescuer not be a potential communication partner for Beleg? We could either think that Andvír and probably other members of the greater army of Dor-Cúrathol came to Amon Rudh after all signals stop from there or probably Beleg, knowing were Andvír was, and that being in the right direction could have visitied him, to give meassage of the vailant death of his father. Thinking farther in that direction, Andvír must for that storyline not even be a member of Dor-Cúrathols forces at all. He could have lifed in Brethil at that time since Beleg passed that country by when he hunted for the Orcs, and Andvír could have been visitied by his father at some point when Dor-Cúrathol prospered.

I still hesitate between option 1 and 2. But the more I think about it the more option 1 gets the upper hand. I have more then once said that our project must not solve all questions for the reader. If the text does hold a confusing sentence, why not? As long as there are possible conclusions and as long as we did not creat that confusion by our editing, let it stand.

Respectfully
Findegil

[Aiwendil]

It sounds like we are close to an agreement; at least the three of us agree it must be option 1 or 2.

Findegil wrote:

Thinking around three corners I could say that the author of the text wanted to give all the credential he could to Dírhavals sources and thereby had overdone it. By excident or by propose he decievd us to belive at this point that Andvír had communication with Andróg, though we later learn that this is impossible.

So you suggest that the author may be deliberately misleading? I admit this is possible, but I think it is a little bit of a stretch. The 'author' of this text is, after all, the modern editor, i.e. Tolkien, is it not? And in any case, since this is a preface to the Narn, any reader who is succesfully misled into thinking that Androg lived for a long time after the battle will find out otherwise in short order.

I also find the possibility of Beleg communicating with Andvir plausible but not entirely convincing - largely because it seems to me that Beleg would have set out after Turin as quickly as possible and would not have made any other stops. Of course, one could imagine that he happened by chance to meet Andvir on the way.

But I keep coming back to the simple fact that it seems everyone who reads the passage in A&D initially and unhesitatingly interprets it to mean that Androg lived for a significant time after the battle. If this is so, does that not suggest that the wording of the passage favors that interpretation? And if that is so, does it not seem likely that this was the meaning Tolkien intended when he wrote it?

I was browsing through some old discussions earlier (since it's been such a long time since I was heavily involved in the project) and I happened upon a quote from Jallanite connected with the discussion of our principles that has perhaps some relevance here. In talking about the cursory LQ2 revisions, Jallanite wrote:

This better indicates that latest idea is not always latest text than trying to word this into the principles.

In other words, the principles compel us to use Tolkien's 'latest ideas' wherever possible, not necessarily his 'latest text'. In the case of Androg's 'survival', while the letter of the text does not contradict the Narn, it may be that the idea Tolkien was trying to express does.

Add to this the fact that if we delete the reference to Androg's survival, we have either deleted something contradictory (which would be good) or deleted something redundant (since it is told later that he lives past the fighting). I think, therefore, that I now lean toward agreeing with Aran that option 2 is the safest.