Over Christmas break, devoid of either college or work, I did what I had long forsworn, in part from self-perservation, to do: I wrote a piece of fanfiction. Now, it’s not the only fanfiction I’ve written (this poem is based on one of my favorite books, for instance), but aside from that particular poem (written for a school assignment), I’d decided long ago not to pursue fanfiction projects- I’d rather use the effort for my own, original, monetizable work. Well, this Christmas I read The Children of Hurin, shortly after reading Tolkien’s The Story of Kullervo, and I decided that since I had a day open to me, I’d write what I could in a day. The result, with a quick round of polish and some spellcheck, is the story posted here.

The Silmarillion, particularly Chapter 21 (Turin Turambar), is required reading to understand the story, which starts with a quote therefrom. You should not read my story without having reading that chapter. Reading The Children of Hurin is also highly advised, though the story does not require it. (As a matter of fact, the material you’ll find in that chapter of The Silmarillion is drawn from the material presented at full length in The Children of Hurin).

With all that out of the way, why this article? Well, I wanted to talk about some elements of the story, in hopes you’ll find my process and analysis interesting. DO NOT read the following article prior to the story or at least that chapter of The Silmarillion, if you have any interest in either, as I will not be holding back form plentiful spoilers.

The Sword

Gurthang (Anglachel) is an interesting part of the original story. Originally it was given by Thingol to Beleg Strongbow, something between Turin’s closest friend and his mentor, an elf of surpassing valor and no mean wisdom. Then Turin wrests it from Beleg in a case of mistaken identity and with it slays Beleg, a crime he holds against himself for the rest of his life. Gurthang then accompanies Turin to Nargothrond, alongside Gwindor (himself much more impressive in The Children of Hurin than in the abridged account of The Silmarillion), and with it Turin earns the name ‘Mormegil.’ After Nargothrond’s fall, the starting point of my story, he takes it to Brethil; eventually, it is the tool by which he slays himself. Particularly interesting is the fact that Gurthang speaks to Turin and assents to the suicide as a means of forgetting the blood of Beleg (and another slain unjustly).

I do not assert that Tolkien intended the sword as a particular symbol or allegory; that would be contrary to Tolkien’s general philosophy, as I understand it. Nevertheless, as a function of story and human thought, the sword does have a certain symbolic potential, one I drew upon in my divergence-narrative. In my narrative, therefore, Turin is by Glaurung’s death physically bound to the sword (by a permanent disfigurement), which changes in itself as well, devouring the dragon’s flame and the dragon’s cursed nature. Then, in the course of the narrative, Turin’s relationship with the sword is tracked, how even when given the chance to let go he refuses to go long without it, how he surrenders it to Finduilas, branded by its edge in the process, and how he sets it aside finally in the (short) epilogue.

In considering the symbolic weight here, I must note two elements of this writing process; as the writer in question, I have some authority here. First, some elements of this, particularly those relating to the absorption of the dragon’s fire, were not in the writing process connected to the symbolism I will lay out, though they do have some fit to it. Their fit is better understood as a result of the nature of story, how aesthetic consonance helps with the rest. Second, I did not formulate the symbolism in the precise terms I’ll explain it in, but rather in a semi-instinctual recognition of the weight of the sword, combined with a recognition of its role as a symbol of the ill-course of his life, as seen in its verdict upon him.

The sword, to my mind, forms a symbol or image of Turin’s habit of using his overweening prowess in violence as a means of escape from the consequences of his actions (including his re-actions to other’s actions, whether Morgoth or Thingol); it has a mirror-part too, in that it also symbolizes the mimetic violence which this course of seeming courage returns upon him. In the original story, Gurthang is the tool by which his outlawry ends in mourning (for Beleg), the tool by which he would free Morwen and Nienor (leaving FInduilas to die, as he discovers in Brethil), the tool by which Turin himself is ‘cleansed’ by violence for his unwitting incest (a crime allowed in part by his failure to save Finduilas and his refusal of Thingol’s wisdom).

In my story, conversely, while the first crime has taken place, the rest are changed. Gurthang is used to slay Glaurung- but the course Turin takes is still motivated largely by that same disregard for counsel and humility which plagued Turin’s life throughout. He has only allowed a little wisdom to enter him, and so Gurthang is still bound to him. Then, as he journeys, he keeps Gurthang with him. He will not abandon his vengeance, his pride, his prowess as a means of single-handedly solving the problems of his life. He lets go of it, at times, which is a sign of progress, but he retains it up until the climax. In this climax, then, Turin sets aside the sword, giving it the Finduilas, and thus though he sets out away for his once-homeland, intending to aid Morwen and Nienor, he does so without his self-destruction in his hand. Thus, by setting aside Gurthang (for good, in the subtext of the epilogue), he finds at last peace, turning from the arts of war, in which he excelled and by which he brought himself and others much misery by his pride, to the craft of the smith, in which he is, though not great, at peace.

The Romance

This story is the first time I’ve written a romance (well, barring a few bad attempts early on). Indeed, even in this story, the romance is very restrained, kept mostly to the implications of Turin’s perspective on Finduilas (implications much clearer in light of The Children of Hurin than The Silmarillion). Even its conclusion is hinted at rather than depicted. Nevertheless, I wanted to address one particular point: why did Turin, in my story, give Finduilas the name ‘Niniel’? The occurrence itself is perhaps explainable, but it seems odd when that is the name he gave to the amnesiac woman he would eventually marry in Tolkien’s original version (an amnesiac Glaurung reveals to be, well, Turin’s sister).

Critical to this plot, though, is Finduilas’s assessment of Turin in The Children of Hurin: “He is not yet awake, but still pity can ever pierce his heart…. Pity maybe shall be ever the only entry. But He does not pity me. He holds me in awe, as were I both his mother and a queen.” It is this last element which spurred the several comparisons of Finduilas to Morwen and Melian. Simply put, I judged that Turin’s affection for Finduilas would remain subordinate to his awe unless he saw her in her pain, imperfect. This last point, imperfection, was a particular concern for FInduilas given her double role as romantic interest and source-of-wisdom; I had to take special care that she would show the weakness as well as the strength of her character, her humanity (elf-manity? Fairinity?). Thus the exchange wherein she challenges Turin to choose between his two courses and expects him to leave; thus the misstep in her appeal near the climax.

The Prose

Part of the fun (and the challenge) of this endeavor was my conscious work to imitate Tolkien’s style. Some parts, the general cadence and word choice, come rather fluidly; I’ve read a lot of Tolkien (and Isaiah), so those parts were, if not easy, at least not hard. It helped that I was seeking not to ape Tolkien but to imitate him. The goal was prose that sounded Tolkienesque, not an impersonation, and so my stylistic touches and tendencies were to be redirected and leashed, not extinguished- except the ones which fit the task at hand.

The one aspect of this which I only recognized in the process of writing, while taking a break to re-acquaint myself with Tolkien’s style via reading The Children of Hurin, is the style of Tolkien’s dialogue. While the sentences are often compounded, complex, and flowing mellifluously through a series of conjunctions, semi-colons, and transitional adverbs (then, so, but),¹ the dialogue is composed largely of short, simple sentences, even sentence fragments. It’s not choppy, but it is structurally simple.

I don’t think I captured this quality of Tolkien’s dialogue, not quite. What I have written is in vocabulary and structure a little more complex than it could be. Tolkien’s dialogue, of course, has its more philosophical, allusive moments, its layered complexities, particularly in solemn moments (which form much of my own story). For this reason and because I like what I do have on its own merits, I don’t think this was a failure so much as a divergence, though probably a full overhaul would include some special focus on the dialogue.²

The Theology

My typical approach to theology-in-writing tends towards a bit of bluntness. It’s an artefact of how I think, one you can see in Why Ought I to Die? That’s not to say I haven’t written works with more consistently subtle approaches, like A Wind from the West. It’s just that my characters have a tendency to speak of theology in theological terms at some point in the narrative, in compliment to the pervasive thematic elements.

This approach, however, is entirely incompatible with Tolkien’s world and style. For one thing, there’s no Bible or equivalent to appeal to, only vague knowledge of Eru Iluvatar; ont the other hand, Tolkien wrote himself, “For reasons which I will not elaborate, [inclusion of explicit Christian theology into the legendarium] seems to be fatal. Myth and fairy-story must, as all art, reflect and contain in solution elements of moral and religious truth (or error), but not explicit, not in the known form of the primary  ‘real’ world” (Morgoth’s Ring, pg. 355).³ That ‘solution’ statement is, incidentally, the best description I’ve seen of the morality of fairy stories.

I purposefully avoided, therefore, the use of explicit theological-religious terminology in the piece. Thus Finduilas asks of Turin, “[Do] you think you honor one wronged by letting only the wrong keep life in you?” referring to the fact that Turin has kept the evil he did to Beleg close, using it as an excuse, while refusing the compassion and wisdom which Beleg had long given him, that which would require humbling his pride. Mere self-condemnation, she points out with this question, is not repentance. The story is more effective, I think, for the subtlety of the presentation, even apart from the necessity thereof to its coherence.

Conclusion

Turin’s story was not a happy one in the original and it is hardly pleasant in mine. Yet I think I did a fair job of answering the question of how Finduilas might be Turin’s salvation, as Gwindor declared: as a call to repentance and real change, something to suspend him and bring him to face his own evils rather than simply attacking everybody else’s. Other answers are of course possible, and I expect Tolkien had his own, however nascent. I look forward to comparing notes in heaven.

God bless.

Footnotes

1 – ‘But’ is a coordinate conjunction, yes, but I think there’s a case to be made that it’s acting as an adverb when it’s being used as the introduction of a sentence, as Tolkien often does.

2 – Which is often quite dramatic, though not inappropriately so.

3 – Morgoth’s Ring, Harper Collins, 2015. Paperback. Volume 10 of The History of Middle Earth. In the commentary on Athrabeth Finred ah Andreth (In English, The Converse of Finrod and Andreth), a work of philosophy I highly recommend.