The Narn i Chîn Húrin: Beleg & Falivirn

[Findegil]

About the dagger:
Good catch! We could of course construct a story to discusse the contradiction away, but cannonical safty would lead to the elimination of the hole passage in the Lay.
The implication in CoH is clearly that the short sword that Gwindor got was forged in Angband. But it is not made explicit. Therefore we could assume that the short sword was the dagger or knife and that it was part of the spiols of war and only for repiar in the forge of Angband.

I also find the characterisation of the Enfeng of Belegost as "of troth unmindful" questionable in light of the later conceptions.

For me 'of troth unmindful' does not characterise the Dwarves of Belegost in general but the act of forging the knife. It does remind me of the scene when Beleg recives Anglachel and is warned by Melian, that the sword would be useable aginst him. This warning makes little sense in our word. Since a sword can be used by everyone against everyone, nobody would need such a warning. Thus we must assume that thinks were different in that point, at least for elvish blades in Middle-Earth. That means a smith of elvish craftsmanship, mindful of troth, could creat a sword that would be unusable aginst its master. Now what the Lay does tell us, is that the Dwarves did not equip the dagger with this special feature. I agree that implicit it is suggested that they did it by propose, not by the lake of ability. But still you might have good reasons not to equip a sword with that feature, especially if it is a sword for trading.

Respecfuly
Findegil