Ruin of Doriath - Final Part

[Aiwendil]

RD-EX-54: That the ruin of Doriath led to an estrangement between Dwarves and Elves is not, I think, in dispute. The part I object to is "and drawn more nigh in friendship to the {kin}[following] of {Melko}[Morgoth]". Even if some Dwarves did turn to Morgoth, in the later conception this seems to have been an infrequent thing, and it doesn't seem appropriate to state it here as if it applies broadly to all or most Dwarves. Whereas "Concerning 'The Hoard'" says of the Dwarves that they were "no servants of the Evil Vala".

So I would make this:

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]}.

Originally Posted by Val Balmer

Sorry if I came back to this point, but I don't understand why we should remove the hunt. In absence of any explicit statement of Tolkien removing it, I would keep the whole scene as in TN. The theme of tragedy during important festival is important to Tolkien. Furthermore the fact that Thingol cannot organize the defense of Doriath, explains better why the dwarves are able to sack it.

"Concerning 'The Hoard'" strongly implies, to me at least, that Thingol was killed during the attack on Menegroth. Reintroducing the hunt from TN seemed justified to me as a way of implementing the idea of Thingol being lured beyond the Girdle. With that idea gone, I don't see any compelling reason to reintroduce it, and I see a reason against it in "Concerning 'The Hoard'".

[Val Balmer]

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

"Concerning 'The Hoard'" strongly implies, to me at least, that Thingol was killed during the attack on Menegroth. Reintroducing the hunt from TN seemed justified to me as a way of implementing the idea of Thingol being lured beyond the Girdle. With that idea gone, I don't see any compelling reason to reintroduce it, and I see a reason against it in "Concerning 'The Hoard'".

The only passage in CtH related to the death of Thingol is this:
"The dwarf-host entered Doriath and most of Thingol’s warriors perished. His halls were violated and he himself slain."

It is so much compressed that it cannot imply anything, at least for me

Furthermore, in the original tale it does not seem to me that Thingol is lured outside the girdle, but only outside of Menegroth, and this justifies the lack of organisation of the elven armies.

[Findegil]

RD-EX-54: Agreed on the part of the estrangement. But I still find the "drawn more nigh in friendship to the {kin}[following] of {Melko}[Morgoth]" justified. Look at the senece in Rivendell: Gloin came there to ask for some counsel but nearly he did broke up the Council of Elrond by bring up some old grudge against King Thranduil. We can read in his report of Dain's dealing with the messenger from Mordor that he is temped to buy that peace giving out some information. And Dain is the king of the Longbeards, the one house of Dwarves most friendly with the Elves.

I agree that the statment is very general, but that is rather an argument to include it than for execlusion. It is not said that all Dwarves were from that point onward under the shadow nor that any particular Dwarves were. It rather said that overall the Dwarves tended more to side with the forces in oppostion to the Elves. And that is found true easily: Already we know from Dwarves and Men that probably 3 of the 7 Houses were under the shadow. Up to that point the two Beleraindic Houses and the Longbeards could be called freindly to the Elves. Thus it needs nothing more than the Nogrod Dwarves estranged from the Elves to make that statement true.

About the hunt: The question here is, if it is an removal or if the hunt was removed by Tolkien. Q30 still includes the hunt, CtH does not. But CCtH is very condensed and if I compare Q30 to the The later Annals of Beleriand from the same time, we can see that compression can lead to the lose of details such as the hunt without them being skipped. But in The later Annals ... still the sequence of events is the same:
- Dwarves invade Doriath
- Thingol was slain
- Thousand Caves were plundered
And that is true even in the later Tale of the Years. In all of its versions from A to D. But the dating of these versions is not given so that we can only deduce from the story of Celegorm and Curufin fighting against the Dwarves at the Ford that they were written between 1951-2 (when the Grey Annals were written) too 1963 (when the fight at the Ford was given Back to Beren).
But it is changed now in CtH were it is:
- Dwarves entered Doriath
- Thousand Caves were violated
- Thingol was slain
This is an evidence for a changed story. But it does not rule out the hunt absoultley. What seem more telling for me is the fact the the violation of his halls and Thingols death are mentioned in one single sentence, while the enterance to Doriath and the perishing most of Thingol's warriors is in a seperated sentence.

Respectfully
Findegil

[Findegil]

Just to let of all you know: I have posted the text of this chapter as it stands now in the private forum. You will find both: a text with editing marked and a plain text. Enjoy the read.

Respectfully
Findegil

[gondowe]

Concerning the hunt, I agree with Findegil that the hunt still works.

Greetings

[Arvegil145]

About the hunt: while I'm not sure about its relevance in the later version, I still think the hunt in itself is a nice piece of worldbuilding, which, even if we cut it out from the ruin of Doriath, should be mentioned somewhere.


Also, Findegil, I see on the private forum that you decided to keep the part where Thingol offers the outlaws a share of the treasure - but given what we've seen in 'Concerning... The Hoard', I can't help but disagree.

While the new version is pretty condensed, I think that the gist of it is that the outlaws didn't just want a few trinkets here and there: they claimed the entire hoard, as did Thingol!

The outlaws, released from the presence of Húrin, claimed that it was theirs, won by their weapons and labour. Fighting broke out, even in the inviolable halls of Thingol.

This quote IMO implies that there was never any possibility of a compromise (or payment to the outlaws short of the whole treasure) - probably due to the curse(s).


Additionally, I think we should replace all the references to Thingol's obsession with gold in The Nauglafring with silver (as per 'Concerning'): such as references to a helm of gold, a hilt of gold, golden trappings for his steed, etc.

I also have a problem with this line:

...and indeed it was one of their grievances of old against the Eldar that they had hunted and slain their lesser kin, who had settled in Beleriand before the Elves came there. Therefore Naugladur vowed to rest not ere Mîm was thrice avenged...

Given the sheer contempt in which the Petty-dwarves were held by by their 'greater' counterparts in the later writings, I find this part implausible.

It's true that in the 'Concerning' there is this line:

Also (they now urged) the treasure had been taken with violence and murder from a Dwarf (though Mim was not in fact akin to the Dwarves of the eastern mountains).

But judging by the context, this is merely a rationalization for them taking more than is their due. I seriously doubt that Naugladur would care one bit about Mim - certainly not to the point of publicly proclaiming that he would avenge him thricefold.

[Arvegil145]

Actually, now that I think about it, there might be a problem with the idea of Thingol dying in Menegroth - the problem being Melian of course (unless we go with the 'Melian abandoned Thingol' interpretation of the Girdle's disappearance).

Let's say that we do combine the hunt with 'Concerning', a plausible sequence of events might go like this:

1) Thingol and his retinue are ambushed somewhere in Doriath

2) Most of his warriors perish

3) Thingol and the remaining warriors retreat to Menegroth

4) Thingol makes a final stand there, and is killed


But...where is Melian in all of this? She is, after all, a powerful entity, a Maia. Surely she could've helped somehow (if she wanted to)?

[Aiwendil]

Originally Posted by Findegil

RD-EX-54: Agreed on the part of the estrangement. But I still find the "drawn more nigh in friendship to the {kin}[following] of {Melko}[Morgoth]" justified. Look at the senece in Rivendell: Gloin came there to ask for some counsel but nearly he did broke up the Council of Elrond by bring up some old grudge against King Thranduil. We can read in his report of Dain's dealing with the messenger from Mordor that he is temped to buy that peace giving out some information. And Dain is the king of the Longbeards, the one house of Dwarves most friendly with the Elves.

I agree that the statment is very general, but that is rather an argument to include it than for execlusion. It is not said that all Dwarves were from that point onward under the shadow nor that any particular Dwarves were. It rather said that overall the Dwarves tended more to side with the forces in oppostion to the Elves. And that is found true easily: Already we know from Dwarves and Men that probably 3 of the 7 Houses were under the shadow. Up to that point the two Beleraindic Houses and the Longbeards could be called freindly to the Elves. Thus it needs nothing more than the Nogrod Dwarves estranged from the Elves to make that statement true.

I still disagree. There was a very clear change in Tolkien's opinion about Dwarves over the course of his writings, and even if we could perform the logical contortions needed to allow that the statement from TN might still not technically contradict any definite statements from later works, the statement is of a piece with the earlier conception of Dwarves, and I see no reason to retain it when that is removed.

Moreover, I think the statement as written simply can't be technically correct. It says that the Dwarves (i.e. as a whole) have drawn more nigh in friendship to the kin of Melko than to the Elves. Yet, for all that there is clearly some antipathy between Elves and Dwarves, we have many examples of them peacefully coexisting in later ages and little in the way of actual violence between them. On the other hand, we have only sporadic hints of Dwarves in later ages actually allying with Sauron or the other former followers of Morgoth, and we have plenty of violence between them, even with a special enmity between Dwarves and Orcs (followers of Morgoth).

About the hunt: The question here is, if it is an removal or if the hunt was removed by Tolkien. Q30 still includes the hunt, CtH does not. But CCtH is very condensed and if I compare Q30 to the The later Annals of Beleriand from the same time, we can see that compression can lead to the lose of details such as the hunt without them being skipped. But in The later Annals ... still the sequence of events is the same:
- Dwarves invade Doriath
- Thingol was slain
- Thousand Caves were plundered
And that is true even in the later Tale of the Years. In all of its versions from A to D. But the dating of these versions is not given so that we can only deduce from the story of Celegorm and Curufin fighting against the Dwarves at the Ford that they were written between 1951-2 (when the Grey Annals were written) too 1963 (when the fight at the Ford was given Back to Beren).
But it is changed now in CtH were it is:
- Dwarves entered Doriath
- Thousand Caves were violated
- Thingol was slain
This is an evidence for a changed story. But it does not rule out the hunt absoultley. What seem more telling for me is the fact the the violation of his halls and Thingols death are mentioned in one single sentence, while the enterance to Doriath and the perishing most of Thingol's warriors is in a seperated sentence.

I think that the parsing out of a sequence of events here is unfounded. Look at these sentences from AB2, the Tale of Years, and 'Concerning "The Hoard"':

Originally Posted by AB2

Thingol was slain and the Thousand Caves were plun-
dered

Originally Posted by ToY

Thingol is slain, and his realm ended.

Originally Posted by CtH

His halls were violated and he himself slain.

In none of these do we have a sequence of events. "Thingol was slain and the Thousand Caves were plundered" does not tell us in what order those two events occurred, nor does "His halls were violated and he himself slain." I think that the farthest we can go in teasing out any kind of sequence of events from these is to say that in all of them, the Dwarves enter Doriath first, and both the sacking of Menegroth and the death of Thingol occur afterward. (In this, all three differ from the version imagined in the note where Thingol was lured beyond his borders). But they say nothing about the order of Thingol's death and the sacking.

Which is all to say that despite my reluctance to keep the hunt, I don't see that CtH presents any difficulties for it from a sequence-of-events perspective. I had also forgotten that the hunt was still present in Q. So I'm now less opposed to retaining it.

Originally Posted by Arvegil

Given the sheer contempt in which the Petty-dwarves were held by by their 'greater' counterparts in the later writings, I find this part implausible.

I'm not sure that this contradicts the line you object to. One might hold another group in contempt and still object to their being hunted for sport. Moreover, since this text comes in the context of explaining the attack of the Dwarves against Doriath, the "rationalization" is pertinent, even if it is only a rationalization.