General discussion about the verse material

[Findegil]

Following the now well developed backward movement, the next projects at hand are the Story of Beren and Lúthien and the Narn I Chîn Húrin. In both of these we have to consider the inclusion of the verse material given in HoME III: The Lay of Beleriand. Aiwendil wished for such a discussion and I agree that it would be good to find some common ground how to deal with the verse material before we start on one of these projects. I hoped that Aiwendil would open this discussion, but since I have worked already with both Lays, it might be best if I give first my thought on the matter.

Since both cases are very different we should discuss them in terms. I will start with the Lay of Leithian:
As can be seen from the chapter-structure I used in my proposal I wish to include the complete Lay of Leithian recommenced in our Version of the Legends of the Elder Days. My reason for this is the fact that the Lay is most elaborated version of that story we have. In addition the recommenced Lay is relatively late (1951-52). Tolkien worked the story later, and he started even a prose Tale of the same detail as the Lay. But this prose version does not went fare and is not given since it is very close indeed to the Lay. The shorter Versions on which the text of Sil77 is based and which Tolkien wrote 1936 are also not given in detail in the HoME. Thus f we are not going to take the Lay our Version would basically be the one used in Sil77. This is not bad in itself but it shows how much we would lose by rejecting the Lay.
On the other hand we have some obvious problems with the Lay: All emendations are very difficult but in a poem they are even worth. Only in a very limited number of cases changes can be handled with by pure replacement or by cutting out some lines. In many cases even such simple things like the change of a reference to the Valar done in the poem by the word “gods” does lead to rewriting of one or two lines.
Our rules do allow us to make such changes for metrical reason and we have already tried them in the cases of The Lay of Eärendil and The Horns of Ylmir. But we also have already in these shorter poems experienced the difficulty of such an undertaking.
To be honest I don’t think it will be easy to adapt the Lay of Leithian. I have found 7 places were we must change the Lay to fit a later developed storyline and 12 places were I felt that some info from an other source would be good to expand the Lay (some of them from the older versions of the Lay, some single words that might be worked in easy, but some complete passages that might prove impossible). Last but not least I found 48 places were a changed nomenclature will force us to emend the poem (most prominent examples are “Thu”, “Gorthu” and “Gods”). But set against much more than 4000 lines which the Lay of Leithian has this is not overmuch. And I think it is worth the effort.

But any way, that are the facts and we are free to make our choice. Here are what I see as our options:
a) Skip all the Lay and take only the best prose version we can produce, with exception of Berens Song of Farwell which JRR Tolkien himself included in the QS.
b) Following Christopher Tolkiens lead and restrict our self to the Song-contest between Sauron and Felagund and Berens Song of Farwell.
c) Expand Christopher Tolkiens view and take up parts of the Lay that we feel are in a way separateable and need no or only minor up dating to expand a prose version.
d) Take the Lay as our basic text and update it were necessary.

As already said above I am for trying option d. If we fail in it, we will at least get some Idea of what can be done in an attempt on option c.


Now lets turn to the Narn I Chîn Húrin, or better to the part of the Túrin-Saga were the Narn in Unfinished Tales does not provide a basic text. Up to the point were Beleg starts pursuing the Orcs that had captured Túrin The Lay of the children of Húrin is no option for us at all. The Story line was changed greatly and with the Narn we have a text that is even more elaborated then the Lay. But form Belegs journey through Taur-nu-Fuin to the coming of {Flinding}[Gwindor] and Túrin to Nargothrond the Lay is the most detailed version of the story we have. And only in few places the details are clearly outdated (e.g. the placement and description of Nan-Dungorthed). Beyond that arrival at Nargothrond the Lay does provide some further details and nice expansion to the story, but it can not be take as single source since the relationship of Túrin and Finduilas and Gwindor are dealt with in greater detail in the Appendix of the Narn.

The options in this case are:
u) Skip all the Lay and take only the best prose version we can produce.
v) Take up parts of the Lay that we feel are in a way separateable and need no or only minor up dating to expand a prose version. (Such as Beleg shoting the wolf-wardens and then later his finding the point of Dailir his arrow with his hand.)
w) Taking in as much of the Lay as seems fit form the view of storyline and trying to update it were necessary. This will result in a version were extensive parts of verse will be interrupted by short sections of prose, which are necessary to bring the story to the later storyline.
x) Take all the parts of the Lay as before, but try to incooperate the prose sections that interrupt it into the meter of the Lay.
z) Take all the parts of the Lay as before, but skip the lines of the Lay and were ever it makes some sense introduce changes for grammatical reason, so that the character of the alliterative verses will be lost and the result reads as a prose text.
A mixture of option w, x and z is also possible of course.

Option w was my choice when I worked on Maedhros first draft for the Narn. This has the advantage that it can be cut back to option v or developed to version x or z if the result is not satisfying (which seems possible).
Out of my work I will give some numbers of changes, so that the amount of work can be seen that might be needed: I took up about 1500 lines into the text which were divided in 8 sections. The shortest sections is about 65 Lines and the shortest intermediate prose sections is about 3 sentences. I needed 102 changes for reasons of nomenclature and 21 minor changes within the verse for reason of a changed storyline.

After working with the poem I am not sire if we can manage option w. But I am still inclined that we should try that option and see what can be made in that way. A later development or cutback would then be easy, if once we come to the conclusion that option w will not go through.

Respectfully
Findegil