Silmarillion - Chapter 22 - Of the Ruin of Doriath

[Estelyn Telcontar]

This chapter is connected to the previous one by several elements: it begins with the fate of the father Húrin, after death ended the fate of his son Túrin. And, as Aiwendil mentioned in the previous discussion, yet another Elven kingdom is destroyed:

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

You know, it occurs to me that in the larger context of the history of the First Age, probably the most important event in this story is the fall of Nargothrond. Indeed, if one considers this and the subsequent two chapters, we have a trilogy of stories each of which revolves to some extent around the fall of one of the Elves' hidden kingdoms: here Nargothrond, in the next chapter Doriath, and in the chapter after that Gondolin.

Death and tragedy continue to be the most prominent elements in the continuation of Tolkien's epic tale, and once more a Silmaril is involved. The end of Beren and Lúthien's story is told, and the way is prepared for the tale of the fate of this Silmaril.

One important factor featured in this chapter is the enmity between Dwarves and Elves. Could the misunderstandings have been avoided and a better relationship have developed if characters had acted differently?

The corruptive influence of treasures is also shown, in this case the Nauglamir and one Silmaril. Did the combination of them multiply their fateful effect? On the one hand its beauty was great, especially when possessed by Lúthien. On the other hand, it had a negative influence even on her lifespan. And it caused a new Kinslaying.

One more thing occurred to me while rereading this chapter: the characters seem to fall into despair when their spouses die. We see that in Húrin, who even takes his own life after losing Morwen. But more fateful is Melian's withdrawal from the fate of her people when Thingol is killed - she withdraws her protection from the kingdom, which is left defenseless against its enemies. Not even Beren and Lúthien's son can restore its glory permanently. Should Melian have acted more responsibly, considering others more than her own grief?

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

One important factor featured in this chapter is the enmity between Dwarves and Elves. Could the misunderstandings have been avoided and a better relationship have developed if characters had acted differently?

The invitation of Thingol to the Dwarves to meld the Nauglamír with a Silmaril certainly seems to be the beginning of the special breed of distrust, and even hate, that endured between Elves and Dwarves to the time of the War of the Ring. Sadly, one would think Thingol's idea to combine the two treasures, and most of all to involve the Dwarves, was a foreseeable disaster. I wonder if Melian tried to talk him out of it?

It was doomed from the start, for three reasons:

1. The Nauglamír was originally made by the Dwarves themselves. The original person they had given it to, Finrod, was dead, and they seem to have had a propensity to consider that things made by them reverted back to their ownership, if the recipient died.

2. The Silmaril itself was a lust-inducing object among the Children of Ilúvatar, and Dwarves didn't exactly have reputations for resisting such temptations. Also, Thingol in his turn was enthralled by it, setting the scene for a fight over possession.

3. Thingol had a great deal of pride. He'd already shown with Beren that he had some disdain for Men as being beneath him. The Beleriandic Elves in general didn't think much of the Dwarves, so Thingol's haughtiness in dealing with them wasn't exactly a surprise.

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

The corruptive influence of treasures is also shown, in this case the Nauglamir and one Silmaril. Did the combination of them multiply their fateful effect? On the one hand its beauty was great, especially when possessed by Lúthien. On the other hand, it had a negative influence even on her lifespan. And it caused a new Kinslaying.

Wanting to possess beautiful treasures is time and time again seen in Tolkien's works to be a road to ruin. With the Silmarils, the Nauglamír, The One Ring, and the Arkenstone, there's a common theme that those who would possess items of beauty led to the would-be possessor being possessed by them.

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

One more thing occurred to me while rereading this chapter: the characters seem to fall into despair when their spouses die. We see that in Húrin, who even takes his own life after losing Morwen. But more fateful is Melian's withdrawal from the fate of her people when Thingol is killed - she withdraws her protection from the kingdom, which is left defenseless against its enemies. Not even Beren and Lúthien's son can restore its glory permanently. Should Melian have acted more responsibly, considering others more than her own grief?

I think Melian was a special case. She, alone among the Valar or Maia (as far as we know) took on an incarnate form because she fell in love with one of the Children it was her job to help govern. The loss of Thingol hit her even harder because she was of the 'divine' race, and probably had never felt anything akin to that those feelings of loss and despair before. The text seems to make it clear that her withdrawal was only a side-effect: the loss of her powers would have been due to emotional trauma, something that, again due to her nature, she was unused to dealing with.

[Aiwendil]

While Turin's saga is the longest story in the Silmarillion and the one Tolkien seems to have sweated over more than any other, the Ruin of Doriath is undoubtedly the most puzzling and problematic from a textual point of view. Indeed, the version found in the published Silmarillion is the one instance where Christopher Tolkien found it necessary to resort to narrative invention of his own in order to assemble a coherent text. In light of this, I think it is perhaps more than usually desirable to have a brief outline of how the story evolved and what, in particular, made it so difficult to put into finished form. Apologies in advance for the length of this, but hey, no one's forcing you to read it.

The earliest version of the story is found in 'The Tale of the Nauglafring' from 'The Book of Lost Tales'. Actually, in the Lost Tales, the chapter divide is different, with Urin's (i.e. Hurin's) release from Angband and coming to Artanor (i.e. Doriath) forming the end of the 'Turin' chapter rather than the beginning of this one. In this version of the story, Urin gathers a band of men about him, goes to the ruined 'caves of the Rodothlim' (i.e. Nargothrond) where he kills Mim, and seizes the treasure of the Elves. Then he has his men carry the treasure to Tinwelint's (i.e. Thingol's) halls, where it is cast at his feet as his contemptuous 'payment' for looking after Urin's family. Urin then leaves, but a fight breaks out between his men and the Elves, both of whom are stricken with greed for the treasure. The Elves win, and though Gwendelin (i.e. Melian) counsels Tinwelint to dispose of the cursed gold, a strange character named Ufedhin, a Noldo who dwelt with the Dwarves of Nogrod, convinces him to commission the Dwarves to craft the unwrought gold into exquisite treasures. This they do, and among other things they fashion a necklace, the Nauglafring, in which the Silmaril is set. But the payment the Dwarves demand (including an Elf-maiden for each Dwarf) enrages Tinwelint, and he sends them away with almost nothing. When they bring the news back to Nogrod, Naugladur, the lord of the Dwarves, launches an assault on Tinwelint. The treacherous Elf Narthseg helps them thwart Gwendelin's protective magic and enter Artanor, where they kill Tinwelint and sack his halls; but on their return journey they are ambushed by Beren, leading a band of Green-Elves, who recovers the Silmaril. Much as in the Silmarillion, Beren and Luthien die, Dior is killed in an attack by the sons of Feanor, and Elwing escapes with the Nauglafring.

The next version of the story written is the highly compressed (less than two pages) account of the 'Sketch of the Mythology', which matches the Lost Tales version fairly closely, though some details (the fate of Hurin's band, the machinations of Ufedhin) are omitted. This account was revised and expanded to form the (still only four pages long) version found in the 'Quenta Noldorinwa'. In this version, Hurin's men kill Mim (against Hurin's wish); they take the gold, but due to Mim's curse, all of them save Hurin die in quarrels along the way. Hurin then goes to Thingol and gets him to send some of his folk to carry the gold into his hall, where Hurin mockingly declares it to be Thingol's fee for the keeping of his kin. Thingol commissions the Dwarves to work the gold, but greed drives the Dwarves to plot treachery; meanwhile, greed drives Thingol to reneg on the payment he promised them. There is a battle between Elves and Dwarves in the hall; the surviving Dwarves are driven off but they gather new forces in Nogrod and Belegost and, again aided by treacherous Elves, they enter Doriath and kill Thingol. As before, Beren leads a company of Green-Elves in an ambush against the Dwarves, and the rest of the story proceeds more or less as in the published version.

That was the last complete version of the story that Tolkien wrote, and it isn't hard to see that it would not fit into the more mature Legendarium very well. For one thing, as Christopher Tolkien points out, it makes Hurin's mocking gesture of 'payment' very silly indeed if he must first go to Thingol and ask his aid in bringing the very treasure Thingol is to be mocked with to his halls. One gets the feeling that this was just something Tolkien came up with on the spot after he killed off Hurin's men, and if he had ever written another long version of the story, he would undoubtedly have found a better solution. For another thing, the idea of treacherous Sindar helping a Dwarven army slip into Doriath, while perfectly in keeping with the character of the 'Lost Tales', would seem rather incongruous in the mature Silmarillion.

The story appears in even briefer form in the 'Annals of Beleriand', roughly contemporaneous with the 'Quenta'. Here, it is simply said that Hurin brought the gold to Thingol, with no mention of how he got it there or of the fate of his band of men.

In the 1950s Tolkien did return to this story and he wrote what appears to be the beginning of a new 'full' version. This text, called 'The Wanderings of Hurin', introduces a whole new episode with Hurin among the people of Haleth and runs to about thirty pages even though it goes no further than Hurin's departure from Brethil. Quite typically, it devolves into various notes and outlines at the end, from which it appears that, had this version continued, Hurin would again have gathered a band of men before going to Nargothrond to seize the gold.

The last thoughts that Tolkien put into writing concerning Thingol's quarrel with the Dwarves are found in the 'Tale of Years' from 1951-52. Here the traitorous Elves are gone, and it is only said that the Dwarven army invaded Doriath. But after writing this, Tolkien realized that this was not possible due to the protective Girdle of Melian, and in a contemporary note he wrote that it must be contrived that Thingol goes to war outside Doriath and is killed there. In the Tale of Years, interestingly, it becomes Celegorm and Curufin (not Beren) who ambush and destroy the Dwarf army, but the Nauglimir is not there because Melian brought it to Beren and Luthien before the Dwarves could get it. In a later letter, however, Beren is again mentioned as the one who ambushed the Dwarves, though now he has the aid not of Elves but of Ents.

That's a fairly tangled mess, but Christopher Tolkien managed to weave something out of it by introducing a few threads of his own. First of all, he omitted the new material introduced in 'The Wanderings of Hurin' since such a long and detailed account would be incongruous and grossly disproportional next to the terse summary that is all he had to work with for the rest of the chapter. Second, he cut out Hurin's band of followers and reduced the treasure brought to Doriath from hoards of unwrought gold to a single necklace. So instead of having been made specifically for the Silmaril, in CT's version, the Nauglimir already existed, and Thingol's commission for the Dwarves is only to set the Silmaril in it, not to fashion it (or anything else). Finally, he avoided the problem of getting the Dwarves through the Girdle (or of getting Thingol outside the Girdle) by having them kill Thingol right then and there after they finish the job; a full scale war is thus replaced by a single murder.

Additional readings:
HoMe II - The Lost Tales version, found in the end of 'Turambar and the Foaloke' and in 'The Nauglafring'.
HoMe IV - The 'Sketch of the Mythology' and 'Quenta Noldorinwa' synopses.
HoMe XI - 'The Wanderings of Hurin' and the 'Tale of Years'
Letters - Letter 247 for the involvement of the Ents in Beren's ambush.

[Formendacil]

Unfortunately, I've been stingy with my reputation, so I can't thank Aiwendil privately for what I'm about to publicly say: Thanks for the overview of the textual history. I quite agree with him that, more than in any other chapter, this one really invites a look at the draft versions.

In fact, because this chapter has the most "creative editing" going on, I quite deliberately waited until Aiwendil had posted, because I knew that anything I said was going to be coloured by the textual puzzle. I'm inclined to think that this chapter, more than any other, allows us to look at the editors. Christopher Tolkien and Guy Gavriel Kay deserve quite a lot of credit for being able to keep their "gap filling" inventions "invisible," so to speak. If there had never been an HoME, I rather doubt that anyone would have been able to pinpoint "Of the Ruin of Doriath" as the chapter they had the most creative (rather than recreative) work to do.

Even so, however, I find that I don't really know what to say about this chapter, because my own knowledge of its canonicity (to use that seductive and dangerous word) always makes me... tongue-tied, or something. It's kind of funny, because like the editors who put the published chapter together, I *know* what has to happen:

Húrin has to bring Thingol the Nauglamír (so that...)
Thingol must have the Dwarves set it (so that...)
The Dwarves have an altercation and Thingol is killed (giving us the Elf/Dwarf bad blood we see in ages thereafter)

Meanwhile, we also need:

Melian to abandon Doriath for grief at Thingol (so that the Girdle is lifted)
Dior to take the throne (and thus assuming Beren and Lúthien make a last appearance to recover the necklace)
The Fëanorians to be restirred to their oath (so that...)
Doriath falls, Dior is killed, and Elwing with the Nauglamír ends up in the Havens at Sirion (therefore setting us up for the Tale of Eärendil.

And, for what it's worth, "Of the Ruin of Doriath" does all this--and doesn't feel out of place next to the other chapters.

Yet it could have gone other ways. To use but a simple point, Mablung (in the published text) dies in this chapter, but in the note in HoME XI The War of the Jewels, relating to Dírhavel's original composition of the Narn i Chîn Húrin, says that Dírhavel was able to get part of Túrin's story from Mablung, who was Elwing's guardian in escaping Doriath. In this version of the story, Mablung died in the Fëanorian assault on the Havens--very similar to his death in the published Silm, but slightly different.

I'm afraid I'm not really going anywhere with all this...

[King Naugladur]

To Aiwendil:
In my humble opinion, the characters of Ufedhin and Narthseg ought to be included. The Dwarves were right is requesting the Nauglamir, which was the work of their fathers. The whole hoard of Nargothrond was their rightful property, to be more specific. The only thing I was grateful for being removed was the demand of the craftsmen for woodland Elven maidens.
King Naugladur.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

The invitation of Thingol to the Dwarves to meld the Nauglamír with a Silmaril certainly seems to be the beginning of the special breed of distrust, and even hate, that endured between Elves and Dwarves to the time of the War of the Ring.

I think that the distrust and even hate started long before that. Unless the world turned over without me realising it, Mim and Beleg did not get along very well. Beleg was passive. Mim was silently boiling, and it is clear that he had reason to boil. Elves and Dwarves had conflicts way before the Nauglamir issue, even though it was with a different kind of Dwarves.

The text seems to make it clear that her withdrawal was only a side-effect: the loss of her powers would have been due to emotional trauma, something that, again due to her nature, she was unused to dealing with.

Agreed about the effect on her. Where does it say that she lost her power? I remember assuming that on another thread a long time ago, but when I looked for evidence I couldn't find any.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

I think that the distrust and even hate started long before that. Unless the world turned over without me realising it, Mim and Beleg did not get along very well. Beleg was passive. Mim was silently boiling, and it is clear that he had reason to boil. Elves and Dwarves had conflicts way before the Nauglamir issue, even though it was with a different kind of Dwarves.

Undoubtedly, there was mutual dislike from the first appearance of the Dwarves, as least as far as most of the the Elves of Beleriand were concerned. Still, I think the incident at Menegroth was the start of the active enmity the two races held for one another. I can't see little grievances as likely to carry over thousands of years.

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

Agreed about the effect on her. Where does it say that she lost her power? I remember assuming that on another thread a long time ago, but when I looked for evidence I couldn't find any.

In this chapter, it is said that after Thingol's death:

....a change came also upon Melian. Thus it came to pass that her power was withdrawn in that time from the forest of Neldoreth and Region, and Esgalduin the enchanted river spoke with a different voice, and Doriath lay open to its enemies.

All that says to me that the withdrawing of her power was involuntary. I can't see her, even mourning Thingol as she was, being so selfish as to deliberately strip the people she had taken as her own of protection.

[King Naugladur]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

Undoubtedly, there was mutual dislike from the first appearance of the Dwarves, as least as far as most of the the Elves of Beleriand were concerned. Still, I think the incident at Menegroth was the start of the active enmity the two races held for one another. I can't see little grievances as likely to carry over thousands of years.

Inziladun, the hunting down of the Petty-Dwarves (of which Mim was the last) by the Sindar Elves of Beleriand was not amusing to greater Dwarves. Despite the fact that the Petty-Dwarves were exiles, they were still considered kin by the other Dwarves and the injuries done to the Petty-Dwarves were resented by the other Dwarves. However, the incident at Menegroth caused mutual distrust and hatred.

Originally Posted by Inziladun

In this chapter, it is said that after Thingol's death:



All that says to me that the withdrawing of her power was involuntary. I can't see her, even mourning Thingol as she was, being so selfish as to deliberately strip the people she had taken as her own of protection.

What is peculiar is that, while she left her people without the protection of the Girdle, leading to the Dwarvish victory at the Battle of the Thousand Caves (where my alter ego won the day ), she also told Mablung to find Beren and make him ambush the Dwarves at the Sarn Athrad, where they were massacred.

By the way, has anyone wondered how and why the Ents came to be included in Beren's ambush of the Dwarves?
King Naugladur.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by King Naugladur

What is peculiar is that, while she left her people without the protection of the Girdle, leading to the Dwarvish victory at the Battle of the Thousand Caves (where my alter ego won the day ), she also told Mablung to find Beren and make him ambush the Dwarves at the Sarn Athrad, where they were massacred.

It seems the withdrawal of the Girdle was not a conscious act by Melian, but a symptom of her emotional and spiritual despair at the death of Thingol. Knowing that she was, either temporarily or no, incapable of doing anything herself to recover the Nauglamír, she did what she could to stop the Dwarves.

Originally Posted by King Naugladur

By the way, has anyone wondered how and why the Ents came to be included in Beren's ambush of the Dwarves?
King Naugladur.

The Ents would have been close to the Green-elves, and the latter likely told them what had happened in Doriath.