The Gift of Speech

[Kuruharan]

Besides, if Tolkien was just using the sword as an object for Túrin to "blame", why would he make Melian see the innate malice of the sword?

Perhaps, since she had some degree of foresight, she was giving a sort of prophetic warning of his fate?

(You know how it is a requirement of the Prophet's Guild to speak about something by talking about something else entirely.)

[Lush]

Also, you have to remember the symbolic nature of swords, the way the often serve as an extension of their owner's character, personality, or, um, manhood...

Tee hee.

Seriously though, men and their swords have complicated relationships that can easily justify all sorts of speeches and conversations.

[the phantom]

if only Elrond remains even at RIvendell who knows all the old lore correctly

where do you find this? Glorfindel doesn't count? And with all the travel Arwen does between Rivendell and Lorien, wouldn't she get the stories straight? Her grandmother knew them all, I'm sure.

Glor, Arwen, and Galadriel knew everything Elrond did?

Wrong.

There were most definitely things that only Elrond knew or remembered accurately. From FOTR, The Council of Elrond-

Then all listened while Elrond in his clear voice spoke of Sauron and the Rings of Power, and their forging in the Second Age of the world long ago. A part of this tale was known to some there, but the full tale to none...

Glorfindel and Erestor were present and they didn't know. Hey, even Gandalf was there and he didn't know the full tale.

Then there's this from FOTR, A Knife In the Dark-

'I will tell you the tale of Tinuviel,' said Strider, 'in brief- for it is a long tale of which the end is not known; and there are none now, except Elrond, that remember it aright as it was told of old.'

And also, from appendix A-

When the kingdom ended the Dunedain passed into the shadows and became a secret and wandering people, and their deeds and labours were seldom sung or recorded. Little now is remembered of them since Elrond departed.

[mark12_30]

The point being referred to was not The Tale of the Ring-- for one thing, Galadriel wasn't in the battle of the Last Alliance, and Elrond was, so of course there would be eyewitness things that no-one but he would know, and possibly also he would not have revealed until the tactical situation made it neccessary.

Also regarding the Dunedain-- I can easily believe that there were sme things that only Elrond knew about them as well.

However, those are not the tales that are in question when we are referring to The Silmarillion, which (as we have it) is Translations From the Elvish by B. Baggins. The implication above was that only Elrond knew the stories contained in the Silmarillion, and by the time that Bilbo wrote them down, they were fraught with error syuch as Turin's talking sword.

However, this is illogical. Bilbo presented Frodo with his three-volume set as Frodo departed Rivendell just after the Ring was destroyed. Elrond was still at Rivendell. So was Glorfindel. So were many other elves. The tales were well-known: Valaquenta, Ainulindale; Beren & Luthien, Turin Turmambar, Alkallabeth. The implication there is that Bilbo wrote his translations while there were plenty of folk around him to check his accuracy. Chalking Turin's talking sword up to Bilbo's wild imagination is taking Bilbo's scholarship in to serious question-- why would he invent such a thing when he knew his volumes would be around for quite a while? And why would Bilbo assume that after he gave the books to Frodo, no-one familiar with the original tales would have access to them? On the contrary, Sam had contact with Aragorn and Arwen long after Frodo and Bilbo had departed.

Again, I am not saying that everyone else knew everything that Elrond knew. But in terms of the five tales listed above, I would be astonished if Elrond was the only person that knew the tale well enough to pass it on to Bilbo. I would also be astonished if Bilbo's three-volume set went unread by any knowledgable elf thereafter.

[A_Brandybuck]

Originally Posted by mark12_30

However, those are not the tales that are in question when we are referring to The Silmarillion, which (as we have it) is Translations From the Elvish by B. Baggins. The implication above was that only Elrond knew the stories contained in the Silmarillion, and by the time that Bilbo wrote them down, they were fraught with error syuch as Turin's talking sword.

However, this is illogical. Bilbo presented Frodo with his three-volume set as Frodo departed Rivendell just after the Ring was destroyed. Elrond was still at Rivendell. So was Glorfindel. So were many other elves. The tales were well-known: Valaquenta, Ainulindale; Beren & Luthien, Turin Turmambar, Alkallabeth. The implication there is that Bilbo wrote his translations while there were plenty of folk around him to check his accuracy. Chalking Turin's talking sword up to Bilbo's wild imagination is taking Bilbo's scholarship in to serious question-- why would he invent such a thing when he knew his volumes would be around for quite a while?

Bilbo had not to invent details of the story. It seems clear (because of your argumentation), that he wrote the things down, which he had heart from the Elves of Rivendell. But the Elves of Rivendell? Where do they know the details of Turin's last minutes. It could be, that they have made sense of the end of the story of Turin Turambar. Noone was there in Turin's last minutes. Mablung came too late. He saw Turin when he was already dead.

The Silmarillion (and the other works of Tolkien) wasn't written by an omniscient narrator, so the last minutes of Turin are open for speculation. Mablung saw the scenery of his suicide. His sword was broken and before Turin was leaving him, he had been in a unstable status (mental).
The story of the speaking sword could come from the sentence of Melian, that the dark heart of Eol had lived in the sword.

The consequence of these circumstances could create the menaing, that the sword has spoken. A rumour, that outlives thousands of years.

[Gurthang]

If you're asking the question of 'did the sword talk or not', you would have to say that Tolkien made an error in his writings. It says that it did, and I for one take that at face value that the sword actually spoke. I'm not saying that you should take everything completely literally, but in this case I do. I don't think that the tale is a rumor, or else it wouldn't be there at all.

And why shouldn't it talk? Eru could do anything he wanted, so he could let a sword speak. After all, Huan spoke, and no dog that I know has done that. There's even a story in the Bible where a donkey speaks to Balaam. (Numbers 22:30) So I say, why couldn't the sword have spoken.

Now as to why it did. It seems that Tokien used different resources to provide useful information. In this case, he used Gurthang to show why Turin deserved to die. It would have been kinda pathetic for Turin to say "Oh, I killed Beleg and Brandir, so I should kill myself." It sounds much better if someone else tells him so. There was no one around, so the sword conveyed this message to him. It's there to add to the story, not make it unbelieveable.

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

It is perhaps more conceivable to imagine a dog with the capacity to speak, what with his anatomy, than a sword.