Tidbits of Curiosity

[Urwen]

Guess people no longer want to talk with me about things, not here at least. Oh well...back to creating individual topics...

[Galin]

In part I'm pouring my unpaid research into the web to see if it induces sleep!

Another example nobody prepared for:

It's interesting to me that a certain legend once included Morgoth knowing where Gondolin was before Maeglin was captured -- he'd heard of a Man [Tuor] wandering in the dales of the waters of Sirion, and he gathered spies, and not only orcs but snakes that could search "the deepest pits and the highest peaks", and wolves, dogs, great weasels -- thus including things that "could take scent moons old through running water"

Add owls and falcons!

"And all these came in multitudes" -- to seek this Man and search out the dwelling of the Noldoli that had escaped his thraldom."

Of course the context surrounding this -- including the thrall Noldoli and Morgoth's hold on the "Great Lands" (and other stuff) is very different here . . . but one does think of the Crebain!

Anyway, if I recall correctly -- and if not, please correct me (said me on the internet) -- in earlier versions of the Túrin saga, Húrin's release didn't reveal the location of Gondolin in any measure. And if so, the following from The Wanderings of Húrin is a newer conception:

"Yet there were ears that heard the words that Húrin spoke, and report of all came soon to the Dark Throne in the north; and Morgoth smiled, for he knew now clearly in what region Turgon dwelt, though because of the eagles no spy of his could yet come within sight of the land behind the Encircling Mountains. This was the first evil that the freedom of Húrin achieved."

JRRT, The Wanderings of Húrin, The War of the Jewels -- used in Of the Ruin of Doriath, The Silmarillion.

CJRT then reveals: "At this point in the draft manuscript my father wrote:

"Later when captured and Maeglin wished to buy his release with treachery, Morgoth must answer laughing, saying: Stale news will buy nothing. I know this already, I am not so easily blinded! So Maeglin was obliged to offer more -- to undermine resistance in Gondolin.' [a further note of almost exact wording adds] 'and to compass the death of Tuor and Earendil if he could. If he did he would be allowed to retain Idril (said Morgoth)."

Note 30 The Wanderings of Húrin

For clarity, I've no problem with Christopher Tolkien's decision to combine descriptions here for the 1977 Silmarillion . . .

. . . and for me, the combining the 1930 Qenta Noldorinwa (QN) and the Wanderings of Húrin (WH) leaves the impression that Húrin betrayed a general location, and Maeglin's betrayal was needed for the assault -- that is, Maeglin provided the "very" location (the word very was added by CJRT for The Silmarillion), and "the ways whereby it might be found and assailed" (from QN).

Christopher Tolkien (commentary The Fall of Gondolin, The Book of Lost Tales) even notes: "Thus in the Silmarillion Morgoth remained in ignorance until Maeglin's capture of the precise location of Gondolin, and Maeglin's information was of correspondingly greater value to him, as it was also of greater damage to the city."


CJRT also noted in the Foreword of WJ that so much of the last chapters of Quenta Silmarillion remained in the form of the Qenta Noldorinwa of 1930 (aside from meagre hints) -- in other words, they weren't updated in the 1950s for example, like earlier chapters had been, and:

"For this there can be no simple explanation, but it seems to me that an important element was the centrality that my father accorded to the story of Húrin and Morwen and their children, Túrin Turambar and Nienor Niniel. This became for him, I think, the dominant and absorbing story of the end of the Elder Days, in which complexity of motive and character, trapped in the mysterious workings of Morgoth's curse, sets it altogether apart. (...)"

He then notes the new dimension to the ruin that Húrin's release would bring: his catastrophic entry into the land of Haleth's people (WH). But could Húrin as the "principle betrayer" of the location of Gondolin be part of this too?



Again, in very early The Book of Lost Tales the information about Gondolin from Meglin concerns the fashion of the plain and city, of the host, and the hoard of weapons, and he tells that Melko's host could not hope to overthrow the walls and gates of Gondolin even if they availed to win into the plain. The idea that Maeglin's treachery would involve other factors beyond location would not be a wholly new departure, then, but rather more like the earlier notion (in general at least).

I also find Christopher Tolkien's choice of phrasing here interesting (the first is from commentary to WH, followed in the book by the text from QN -- the second from commentary to the Tale of Years):

"Thus the story in Q was changed (IV. 143)"

"510 The story that the site of Gondolin was revealed to Morgoth by Maeglin was later changed: see pp. 272-3 and note 30."

:awakes:



So you see (recently "so" seems to be a celebrated sentence starter)? A sleep-inducing info dump of sorts!

But this thread needed more Maeglin in my opinion. And maybe a morsel more alliteration too.

And so

[Urwen]

That's great, but please talk about the more recent topics too. >.>