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Originally Posted by Pitchwife
As for the chapter The Return of Túrin to Dor-lómin, containing Túrin's reunion with Sador Labadal, his revenge on the usurper Brodda, Sador's death and Aerin's suicide in the burning hall, this is to me the part of the Narn which is closest to the spirit of Icelandic sagas, especially in the cameo character of Aerin.
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Nice observation. I seem to remember that JRRT referred to Turin's story at least once as 'Turinssaga', which leads one to wonder to what degree the sagas influenced it.
Of course the burning of the hall reminds one of Njal's saga, though the circumstances are quite different. Turin's return to Dor-Lomin reminds me a bit of various young Icelanders returning to Iceland after going abroad and entering the service of a Norse king. And killing Brodda is of course exactly what any Icelander would do; no doubt if this were a saga Turin would have been sentenced to outlawry at the next Althing.
Indeed, at first glance Turin's outlawry appears to put the story somewhere in the genre of the outlaw sagas like Grettir's or Gisli Sursson's, but when you dig slightly deeper, Turin's outlawry differs significantly from theirs. If this were like those sagas, Sador's, Beleg's, and Brodda's kinsmen would want vengeance and Turin would be constantly on the run from them. Moreover, though both had sympathizers and allies, Grettir and Gisli were basically lone figures. Turin, on the other hand, is always falling in with some group or other.