[Findegil]

Now I am myself the one to re-open the storyline discussion.
Aiwendil wrote:

FD-SL-22: I wonder about using Mablung here. In the 77 he defends the Silmaril to the last, but as I recall I could find no precedent whatsoever for this in any of JRRT's writings.

Your feeling that Mablung was problematic was very good, but you look in the wrong place for the reason of it. I had a similar feeling when I prepared the text of the expanded Version but did only search all the sources for the dad of Thingol to find the reason. Now at last I found it, when I re-read Ælfwine and Dírhaval for the post in the Myths Transformed thread.

Here begins that tale which Ælfwine made from the Húrinien: which is the longest of all the lays of Beleriand now held in memory in Eressëa. But it is said there that, though made in Elvish speech and using much Elvish lore (especially of Doriath), this lay was the work of a Mannish poet, Dírhavel, who lived at the Havens in the days of Earendel and there gathered all the tidings and lore that he could of the House of Hador, whether among Men or Elves, remnants and fugitives of Dorlómin, of Nargothrond, or of Doriath. 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 Androg who was in the outlaw-band of Turin, and alone survived the battle on the summit of Amon Rudh. Otherwise all that time between the flight of Túrin from Doriath and his coming to Nargothrond, and Túrin's deeds in those days, would have remained hidden, save the little that was remembered among the people of Nargothrond concerning such matters as Gwindor or Túrin ever revealed. In this way also the matter of Mîm and his later dealings with Húrin were made clear. This lay was all that Dírhavel ever made, but it was prized by the Elves and remembered by them. Dírhavel they say perished in the last raid of the sons of Fëanor upon the Havens. …

This is the first version of the introduction. In the second one it is Ælfwine himself not a later editor that does write and in that second version neither Mablung nor Andvír are mentioned. The question is now if we consider the information about Mablung (and Andróg) still valid after the perspective of the telling of the inroduction has changed the text.
After we have removed Ælfwine from our version we can not use either version of the introduction without any change, but it might be much easier to rework the first one than the second one. But that is not the issue here.

The question here is:
Do we consider Mablung alive in the days of Dírhaval (as he is named in the second version) or not? If we consider him alive, do we still see him as a part of the fatal hunting party of Thingol?

As a matter of fact I see even more need to change the details of Thingols death: to avoid another failure with Mablung I made in intens search and have read all scenes were he is named in The History of Middle-Earth. By that search I discoverde the follwing Note applied to the sentence of Thingols death beside Mablung in TN:

Yet in the end were they all fordone, and Mablung and the king fell side by side -- but Naugladur it was who swept off the head of Tinwelint after he was dead, for living he dared not so near to his bright sword or the axe of Mablung.

Against this sentence my father wrote a direction that the story was to be that the Nauglafring caught in the bushes and held the king.

Now we can consider the note to mean that Naugladur did sweep of Thingols head while he was alive but rendered helpless by the acrused Necklace clinging to some bushes or we considere it only a further detail of his death by someone else. But this is clearly a discussion about textual details that we will do in the thread "Ruin of Doriath - Attack on Menegroth"

Respectfully
Findegil