Ruin of Doriath - Attack on Menegroth

[Findegil]

RD-EX-51:
If you say the sentence is grammatically okay I can accept that with some reluctance. In that case every thing we would do seems to be an stylistic change. But the awkwardness of the sentence was, in my view at least, brought about by our deletions. Wouldn't it be possible to change the word order: "Now one there was, Fangluin the aged, and he did{ he} jeer at them mightily on their return, ..."
For me that sounds much more natural.

RD-SL-20:
I have accepted that we do not use any treason by elves from Doriath, but with this phrase we would turn the story to its head. Do you agree with me, that based on the sources we have JRR Tolkien denied the possibility that treason would overcome the girdle?
Now what you suggest, would mean that the Dwarves did see a chance to over come the girdle of Melian if they could have found a traitor from Doriath. This believe of the Dwarves would not be gainsaid in our text at all. The simplest interpretation of such an text would be, that the Dwarves did not find a traitor. This would deny even the possibility of treason among the Sindar as the story goes.
In my view that would makes the story to explicit.

RD-EX-58:
Posted by Aiwendil:

It seems to me that the account is sufficiently compressed here that no precise chronology is implicated by our revision.

Okay, if it doesn't create that picture in your mind the addition might be overdone. We will skip it.

§37a:
Posted by Aiwendil:

Well, "somehow" is the crux of the awkwardness, I think. We can either delete it to obtain something like good prose or retain it for the sake of ambiguity and accept that it reads poorly.

I feared it was like this. I don't see that the deletion of "somehow" is a prohibited stylistic change. We are dealing with a note that as it is, as your rightly observed, was never meant to form a part of any narrative. Thus if it would by a change not concealing some of the meaning of the note I would accept the deletion of somehow.
Tolkien surely would not have used the words as they stand now, but it is more than likely that he would have device the way by which the dwarves managed to lure Thingol outside the girdle, if ever he had written the story. But we are not Tolkien and we will not device that way. Thus, as it is, we are left only with the statement that nobody (not even Tolkien, who without any doubt had the greatest knowledge of all about Middle-Earth) did know the "how". I think that we should make that clear, and in my view the least we should do, is stick to that "somehow". If you find that better we could expand it like this:

§37a (§20) There {they}[the dwarves] surprised Thingol upon {a}the hunt with but small company of arms.{ and Thingol was slain} <HoME11; The Tale of The Years{Somehow it must be}/No tale tells how they/ contrived it that Thingol {is}was lured outside or induced to go to war beyond his borders{ and is there slain by the Dwarves.}>, RD-SL-22 <TNbut there the king and his company were all encircled with armed foes. ...

Concerning Melians departure:
Okay, so we all agree that she must leave before the dwarves attack. It would be nice to hear if you both do agree with my second version of that story given in post #11 at the end.

RD-EX-60:
I at least feel a strong desire to introduce that "when".

RD-EX-63:
Okay, you took a different view to the sentence. Now at long last, I see your problem. I the problem I have is that with your options the growing cry becomes more strange to me. What if we try to find a word to fit the lacunae? I suggest: "But the Dwarves held on their way, and >RD-EX-63 <TN there was a cry about the doors <editorial addition of the Thousand Caves>, and suddenly it grew to a fierce noise {...}enforced by the clash of steel."

§40:
Good arguments. I agree, that in view of them we should skip the Orcs. Thus we will get:

... Naugladur bid gather all things of gold or silver or of precious stones and bear them to Nogrod - ‘and{ whatso remains of goods or folk may the, Orcs keep, or slay, as they desire. Yet} the Lady {Gwendelin}[Melian] Queen of {Artanor}[Doriath] shall fare with me.’

About the names:
Naugladur: That's nice.

Nielthi: Do we need an etymology for each and every name we want to hold?

Bodruith: Agreed he is skipped out of our version.

Respectfully
Findegil

[Aiwendil]

RD-EX-51

Findegil wrote:

But the awkwardness of the sentence was, in my view at least, brought about by our deletions. Wouldn't it be possible to change the word order: "Now one there was, Fangluin the aged, and he did{ he} jeer at them mightily on their return, ..."
For me that sounds much more natural.

Are you sure that the awkwardness was introduced by our change? I don't see how "and did he jeer at them mightily on their return" is more awkward than "and did Fangluin jeer at them mightily on their return". But it's a minor point, and I'm certainly willing to go with your suggestion if you are adamant.

RD-SL-20

We ought to try to be clear about this. Why did we delete the element of the treachery? I can think of two possible reasons:

1. In the later legendarium, Elvish treachery would not be sufficient to bypass the Girdle.

2. In the later legendarium, Elvish treachery is impossibly unlikely.

I had thought that our justification for the change was 2. If this is the case, then nothing has altered the fact that Elvish treachery would overcome the Girdle, and so the hypothetical statement would be fine.

But perhaps it is not so clear that reason 2 was our justification. If 1 is also a concern, then I agree that the line should be dropped.

§37a

I must say again that I don't see the "somehow" as doing any good for us. Your expanded proposal ("No tale tells . . .") is better in that regard. But I wonder whether it's going too far - besides the fact that it alters the text, it invents the fact that no tale tells more of the luring of Thingol outside the Girdle. But surely the full tale of the Necklace of the Woe of Thingol does give a full account.

Okay, so we all agree that she must leave before the dwarves attack. It would be nice to hear if you both do agree with my second version of that story given in post #11 at the end.

I don't see a real problem between §37b and §38, but your proposed changes bring in more detail from TN and thus are good, I think. But there is a grammatical problem with:

<HoME11; The Tale of The Years{Then} When Melian {departs} departed, and the girdle being removed Doriath {is}was ravaged by the Dwarves.>

We could perhaps make it:

<HoME11; The Tale of The Years{Then} Thus Melian {departs} departed, and the girdle being removed Doriath {is}was ravaged by the Dwarves.>

RD-EX-63

If I understand what you intend, would perhaps this work:

RD-EX-63 <TN there was a cry about the doors <editorial addition of the Thousand Caves>, and suddenly it grew to a fierce noise[,] {...} strengthened by the clash of steel.

I think that "enforced" is not the right word, but I think this may be what you had in mind.

[Findegil]

RD-EX-51:
The Original sentence reads "Yet now did Fangluin jeer at them mightily on their return, ..." and this clearly is less awkward then "... and did he jeer at them mightily on their return, ..." or not. Our changes were made to in cooperate the descriptive introduction of Fangluin the aged with his action at the return of the smiths. After reading again the original, I think we should use "...and now did he jeer at them mightily on their return, ..." It is even nearer to the original than to leave out the "now". Is that a way we are all happy with?

RD-SL-20:
It took use a long time to workout that difference in the reasons for leaving the treacherous Elves out!
Reason 1 is the only valid point in my view. If treachery would have been sufficient to bypass the Girdle, then I do not see why JRR Tolkien would have felt any need to change the story at all. Treachery of Elves by Elves was one of the things spoken of in the prophecy of the north and Thingol had enmeshed himself and his realm in the doom of the Noldor by taking the Silmaril. Thus I don't think it is in any way impossible for the Elves of Doriath to be treacherous. Thus I still think the line should be dropped.

§37a:
Point taken. “No tale tells …” is to much writing our point of view into the story. On the other hand it is really true: There was never a tale written that did tell this “how”. What about a clearer statement of the Narrator: “In these later days it is not known how …”? But I don’t think that will do. In the end if you are adamant on skipping the “somehow” I can go with that, since the passage will clearly be discussed at length in the Appendix to this chapter. And there we can much clearer say what we could only hint at in the text, that Tolkien never wrote down how he envisaged the luring of the dwarves and possibly never made up his mind about that point.

Concerning Melians departure:
If you agree to it we will take my second proposal.
Then Melian departed -> Thus Melian departed: Agreed.

RD-EX-63:
“enforced” was only the best I could find, which was not good in itself. “strengthened” is okay for me.

Respectfully
Findegil

[Aiwendil]

RD-EX-51

I think that perhaps I misread the original. The deletion of "Yet now" does seem to make it more awkward. We can use " . . . and now did he jeer at them mightily on their return".

RD-SL-20

It seems the point was clear in your mind, then; but it is not so to me. I wonder what Maedhros thinks. In any case, I don't think that the prophecy of the North has such bearing on the Sindar; it foretold treachery among the Noldor, not among all Elves.

§37a

"No tale tells": is it really true? It is externally - that is, no text written by Tolkien gives us the proper tale. But if we make the statement in the text, its purport is internal. That is, it would assert that no tale written in Arda tells how the Dwarves contrived the luring of Thingol. This is not likely to be true, considering the existence of the Atanatarion.

[Findegil]

RD-SL-20:
Yes it would be good to have a third minds input here, I think. But I like to add, that it is the safer way in view of canon to skip hypotetical possibility to ofercome the girdle by treason.

§37a:
I am aware of the problem of internal statment made on an external fact. Therefore my suggestion in the last post. But as said there already, in view of an appendix talking about the external problems we had with the §, I can live with loosing the "somehow". Thus we should take:

§37a (§20) There {they}[the dwarves] surprised Thingol upon {a}the hunt with but small company of arms and {Thingol was slain} <HoME11; The Tale of The Years {Somehow it must be}for they contrived it that Thingol {is} was lured outside or induced to go to war beyond his borders and {is} there {slain by the Dwarves.}> RD-SL-22 <TN the king and his company were all encircled with armed foes. ...

FD-SL-19:
This was the message of the Death of Mîm that did increase the wrath of the Naugrim. This point gnawed at me since we settled our discussion on it with the decision to skip any mention of it. I did recently reread the passage that Aiwendil and Maedhros used against it, and I will give it here to anyone to read:

The Petty-dwarves. See also Note 7. The Eldar did not at first recognize these as Incarnates, for they seldom caught sight of them in clear light. They only became aware of their existence indeed when they attacked the Eldar by stealth at night, or if they caught them alone in wild places. The Eldar therefore thought that they were a kind of cunning two-legged animals living in caves, and they called them Levain tad-dail, or simply Tad-dail, and they hunted them. But after the Eldar had made the acquaintance of the Naugrim, the Tad-dail were recognized as a variety of Dwarves and were left alone. There were then few of them surviving, and they were very wary, and too fearful to attack any Elf, unless their hiding-places were approached too nearly. The Sindar gave them the names Nogotheg 'Dwarflet', or Nogoth niben 'Petty Dwarf'.
The great Dwarves despised the Petty-dwarves, who were (it is said) the descendants of Dwarves who had left or been driven our from the Communities, being deformed or undersized, or slothful and rebellious. But they still acknowledged their kinship and resented any injuries done to them. Indeed it was one of their grievances against the Eldar that they had hunted and slain their lesser kin, who had settled in Beleriand before the Elves came there. This grievance was set aside, when treaties were made between the Dwarves and the Sindar, in consideration of the plea that the Petty-dwarves had never declared themselves to the Eldar, nor presented any claims to land or habitations, but had at once attacked the newcomers in darkness and ambush. But the grievance still smouldered, as was later seen in the case of Mîm, the only Petty-dwarf who played a memorable part in the Annals of Beleriand.
The Noldor, for use in Quenya, translated these Sindarin names for the Petty-dwarves by Attalyar 'Bipeds', and Pikinaukor or Pitya-naukor.

Noe 7: The Dwarves were in a special position. They claimed to have known Beleriand before even the Eldar first came there; and there do appear to have been small groups dwelling furtively in the highlands west of Sirion from a very early date: they attacked and waylaid the Elves by stealth, and the Elves did not at first recognize them as Incarnates, but thought them to be some kind of cunning animal, and hunted them. By their own account they were fugitives, driven into the wilderness by their own kin further east, and later they were called the Noegyth Nibin or Petty-dwarves, for they had become smaller than the norm of their kind, and filled with hate for all other creatures. When the Elves met the powerful Dwarves of Nogrod and Belegost, in the eastern side of the Mountains, they recognized them as Incarnates, for they had skill in many crafts, and learned the Elvish speech readily for purposes of traffic. At first the Elves were in doubt concerning them, believing them to be related to Orcs and creatures of Morgoth; but when they found that, though proud and unfriendly, they could be trusted to keep any treaties that they made, and did not molest those who left them in peace, they traded with them and let them come and go as they would. They no longer classed them as Moerbin, but neither did they ever reckon them as Celbin, calling them the Dornhoth ('the thrawn folk') or the Naugrim ('the stunted people').

The arrgument against the use of the Mîm's death as a further grievence to the dwarves was the passage "The great Dwarves despised the Petty-dwarves, ..." But what bothers me now is this passage "But the grievance still smouldered, as was later seen in the case of Mîm, ..." The grievance refered to is clearly that between the Great Dwarves and the Sindar and not that of the Petty-Dwarves against the Sindar. Thus what else can be meant by this passage other than that the death of Mîm brought back that grievance only laid at rest and never really healed and thus added to the wrath of the Dwarves of Nogrod against Thingol?

Respectfully
Findegil

[Maédhros]

RD-SL-20

We ought to try to be clear about this. Why did we delete the element of the treachery? I can think of two possible reasons:

1. In the later legendarium, Elvish treachery would not be sufficient to bypass the Girdle.

2. In the later legendarium, Elvish treachery is impossibly unlikely.

I had thought that our justification for the change was 2. If this is the case, then nothing has altered the fact that Elvish treachery would overcome the Girdle, and so the hypothetical statement would be fine.

But perhaps it is not so clear that reason 2 was our justification. If 1 is also a concern, then I agree that the line should be dropped.

I think that just to be safe, it would be better to drop the line. It is funny in a way, Aiwendil wants to keep it and Findegil wants to drop it. It is usually the other way around.

I am aware of the problem of internal statment made on an external fact. Therefore my suggestion in the last post. But as said there already, in view of an appendix talking about the external problems we had with the §, I can live with loosing the "somehow".

It seems that in his last post Findegil dropped the "tale" issue. I think that Aiwendil is right in that.

RD-EX-51

I think that perhaps I misread the original. The deletion of "Yet now" does seem to make it more awkward. We can use " . . . and now did he jeer at them mightily on their return".

To be honest, I don't see hte awkwardness of it, but in matters of taste and grammar I defer to Aiwendil.

RD-EX-63

If I understand what you intend, would perhaps this work:

Quote:
RD-EX-63 <TN there was a cry about the doors <editorial addition of the Thousand Caves>, and suddenly it grew to a fierce noise[,] {...} strengthened by the clash of steel.

I think that "enforced" is not the right word, but I think this may be what you had in mind.

Again I agree.

The arrgument against the use of the Mîm's death as a further grievence to the dwarves was the passage "The great Dwarves despised the Petty-dwarves, ..." But what bothers me now is this passage "But the grievance still smouldered, as was later seen in the case of Mîm, ..." The grievance refered to is clearly that between the Great Dwarves and the Sindar and not that of the Petty-Dwarves against the Sindar. Thus what else can be meant by this passage other than that the death of Mîm brought back that grievance only laid at rest and never really healed and thus added to the wrath of the Dwarves of Nogrod against Thingol?

Where exactly did that discussion took place? I do not seem to find it?

[Findegil]

FD-SL-19:
I treid to reread that discussion myself after I did the post, but could find not more in the **Ruin of Doriath - Pre-Revision speculation/proposal thread** than Aiwendils remark in post #54

Would the news of Mim's death really have point for the Dwarves of Nogrod, considering the later conception of the Petty Dwarves?

and my replay in post #56

About the death of Mîm: I think it would have some point for the Dwarves of Nogrod. Considering that the killing of the Pety-Dwarves by the Sindar was a grive just laid to sleep between the Sindar and the Dwarves as is told in Quendi and Eldar. Thus we have Thingols people hunt the Petty dwarves down to a few, and the Húrin killed the last and Thingol as the one who gets the advantage of all that. But it is a minor point and I could go without it.

There after the discussion died down on that point, and when I prepared the text of the expanded version I only scaned through the thread to find the last remark about every point to become that text in agrement with what we discussed. What I wrote in post #17 of this thread was then based on my blured memory.
Thus the discussion is a bit more open than I thought: Aiwendil put in some doubts, that I now try to dispel. If I succed with that I would bring in the following changes:

§31 (§16) Yet after long pondering he saw not how he might achieve his purpose save by force, and there was little hope therein, both by reason of the great strength of numbers of the Elves of {Artanor}[Doriath] in those days, and of the woven magic of {Gwenniel}[Melian] that guarded all those regions, so that men of hostile heart were lost and came not to those woods; nor indeed could any such come thither RD-SL-20{ unaided by treachery from within}.

§32 (§16.5) RD-SL-19<TN Now even as those aged ones sat in their dark halls and gnawed their beards, behold a sound of horns, and messengers were come from {Bodruith of the Indrafangs}[Belegost], {a kindred}[an other realm] of the Dwarves{ that dwelt in other realms}. Now these brought tidings of the death of Mîm the fatherless at the hand of {Úrin}[Húrin] and the rape of {Glorund's}[Glaurung’s] gold, which tale had but new come to {Bodruith's}[their] ears. Now hitherto the Dwarves knew not the full tale concerning that hoard, nor more than RD-EX-53.2 {Ufedhin}[the Elves] might tell hearing the speech in {Tinwelint}[Thingol]'s halls, and {Úrin}[Húrin] had not spoken the full count thereof ere he departed. Hearing therefore these tidings new wrath was added to their lust and a clamour arose among them, and RD-EX-53.5<Q&E {Indeed}indeed it was one of their grievances <editorial addition of old> against the Eldar that they had hunted and slain their lesser kin, who had settled in Beleriand before the Elves came there.><editorial addition Therefore> Naugladur vowed to rest not ere Mîm was thrice avenged - ‘and, more,’ said he, ‘me seems the gold belongs of right to the people of the Dwarves.’>

§33 (§17) {Therefore gathering new forces in Nogrod RD-SL-18{and in Belegost} they returned at length, RD-SL-20c {and aided by the treachery of certain Elves on whom the lust of the accursed treasure had fallen} they RD-SL-21a{passed into Doriath secretly.}} RD-EX-54 <TN This then was the design; and by his deeds have the Dwarves been severed in feud for ever since those days with the Elves, and drawn more nigh in friendship to the {kin}[following] of {Melko}[Morgoth]. Secretly he let send {to the Indrafangs}[the messengers back] RD-SL-18 asking<Sil77 aid from Belegost, but it was denied {them}him, and the Dwarves of Belegost sought to dissuade them from their purpose>, because they <Unfinished Tales; Galadriel and Celeborn were filled with dismay at the calamity and fear for its outcome>{ that they} RD-EX-55 . <editorial addition But the Dwarves of Nogrod>{ prepare}prepared their host against a day that {he}[Naugladur] would name, whenso the time should be ripe; and a hidden forging of bitter steel then was in [Nogrod.]{Belegost the dwelling of the Indrafangs.}>

Do I miss some point or is this new discussion of RD-SL-19 the last open point in this section?

Respectfully
Findegil