Atanatari: Of the Three Houses of the Edain by Himring

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Fanwork Notes

For ratings and warnings see individual stories.

Re SWG challenge tag:

I've added a number of tags for rare characters to this anthology recently.

The Hathaldir drabble and the Hareth drabble were newly written for the SWG's Hidden Figures challenge.

The other pieces were not. I thought I had cross-posted "Kinsfolk" previously, but can't find it on the Archive, so apparently I didn't. I had tagged the Brandir sequence for Hunthor on AO3, but not here in the collection on SWG. I decided to change that.

 

Fanwork Information

Summary:

A collection for stories about the Edain.

Recently added: The chair (Sador Labadal)

Major Characters: Original Character(s), Original Female Character(s), Aerin, Beldis, Beleg, Brandir, Dírhavel, Finduilas, Galdor (Edain), Glóredhel, Haleth, Handir, Hareth, Hathaldir, Hunleth, Hunthor, Huor, Húrin, Imrahil, Lalaith, Men, Morwen, Rían, Sador Labadal, Tuor, Túrin

Major Relationships:

Artwork Type: No artwork type listed

Genre: Fixed-Length Ficlet, General, Poetry, Romance

Challenges: B2MeM 2015, Hidden Figures

Rating: Creator Chooses Not to Rate

Warnings: Creator Chooses Not to Warn
Chapters: 16 Word Count: 7, 348
Posted on 21 June 2014 Updated on 6 September 2022

This fanwork is a work in progress.

Table of Contents

Carved in the Mind

In Nargothrond, Turin tells Finduilas, daughter of Orodreth, how, when he was a boy in Dor-lomin, he made friends with Sador, a crippled woodworker. Finduilas tries to share something with Turin in her turn.

Rating: Teens (PG)

Warnings: none.

 

A Hard Time for Healing

A drabble sequence on Brandir the Lame, healer and later Warden of Brethil, and his family, from the time of the Nirnaeth Arnoediad to the arrival of Turin in Brethil.

Drabbles written for the prompt sequence "Celebrate" at Tolkien Weekly (on LiveJournal), but despite this somewhat dark in parts.

Rating: Teens. Warning for major character death and mature themes.

 

Snowballs

Winter in Dor-lomin: two episodes in the childhood of Turin Turambar.
The first shows him with his little sister.
In the second, Sador, the cripple Turin befriended, tries to comfort him during the first winter after his sister's loss.

Written for Dreamflower for Fandom Stocking 2014.

Rating: Teens. Warning: reference to canonical character death

I shall not look on your white walls again

Trying to settle back into his old life after his return from the hidden city of Gondolin, Huor of Dor-lomin meets his future wife Rian of the House of Beor for the first time.

Also features Hurin and Morwen.

Rating: Teens (no particular warnings, just a touch of mature themes)

Inspired by Robinka's bio recent bio of Huor and dedicated to her.

Also written for a B2MeM prompt that was my own and based on the following quotation:
""[Rian] was a singer and a maker of songs"

 

What the Women Told Their Children

In the First Age as in the Third Age, mothers passing on the basics to their children.

Rating: Teens. Warnings: reference to canon situations of the darker sort

A Poet's Fate

Dirhavel's first encounter with the story of the Children of Hurin.
He remains haunted by the story and its telling.

 

Teens, just because of its being CoH, rather than any particular of this piece itself, really.

Latecomers

The smallest tribe of immigrating Edain, the Haladin, delays before crossing the Blue Mountains into Beleriand and, partly because of that delay, things will go rather differently for them.

Original characters; reference to Beor & Finrod

Rating: somewhere between General and Teens (PG)

 

Tur Haretha

One of Haleth's female bodyguards visits her grave, the Ladybarrow (Tur Haretha).

Mild femslash (Teens).

Written for Zdenka, for her prompt "I follow" for this pairing

Haleth and Haleth

How Haleth, Helm's son, learned of Haleth of the Haladin and what he made of her.

"There Haleth, Helm's son, fell, last of all, defending the doors."
LOTR Appendix A, The House of Eorl

In response to a discussion of their names on Tumblr.

Warning: character death (rating: teens)

Swan-Knight

Imrahil reads his nephew an old story of the First Age. It is no coincidence that the story features swans...

I think Imrahil might have a special interest in Tuor, given the resemblance between the emblems of their houses!

Written for lirin for a request for something on Imrahil’s relationship with his nephews after Finduilas died, especially Faramir (Fandom Giftbox 2018)

Rating: General Audiences

A knife, just such as you need

Young Turin gave an elf-wrought knife to Sador, passing on his own birthday gift to him, with the promise: "a knife, just such as you need".
He refused to accept it when Sador offered it back to him when he left for Dor-lomin.

From Sador's point of view: a double drabble, two scenes involving that knife, more than twenty years apart.

Warning: canonical character death (not in detail). Rating: teens.

Their Kinsfolk Rejoiced

Two boys in their teens, who were missing, presumed dead, are unexpectedly returned to their family: the return of Hurin and Huor to Dor-lomin, also featuring Galdor, Hareth and Aerin.

 

'Then they took their leave, and the eagles coming bore them away by night, and set them down in Dor-lomin before the dawn. Their kinsfolk rejoiced to see them, for messengers from Brethil had reported that they were lost; but they would not declare even to their father where they had been, save that they were rescued in the wilderness by the eagles that brought them home.'

Silmarillion Ch. 18: Of the Ruin of Beleriand

Rating--somewhere between General and Teens (reference to canonical deaths)

Your News is All of Woe

Beleg brings news of the lost battle to the Haladin.

Featuring Gloredhel, Beldis and Handir.

Rating: Teens (warnings for themes of deep mourning and references to multiple canonical character death)

Hathaldir at Tarn Aeluin

Hathaldir the Young, one of the followers of Barahir:

Tolkien called him the Young and spoke of his death in the same breath.

Warnings: just a short angsty moment in a doomed life (Teens?)

Written for the Hidden Figures Challenge

Sisters in law, sisters in expatriation

Hareth and Gloredhel married each other's brothers in a double wedding; both went to live with their new husband's people.

Rating: Teens (PG)

Warnings: not really angst, just the consequences of marrying into a different society

Written to go with Oshun's new bio of Hareth and for the Hidden Figures challenge (Hareth).

Also for Legendarium Ladies April (the mirror prompt)

The Chair

Sador Labadal, Turin's childhood friend with the crippled leg, on the chair he was set to carve for Hurin, with the knife Turin had given him.

Teens (PG), with warnings for allusions to the canonical outcome of the Nirnaeth Arnoediad and implied ableism.

Comments

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Seeing these again on SWG has reminded me how much I like this collection of fics! They're beautifully written and very emotionally satisfying to immerse onself in.

I like how this one manages to be whimsical and painfully sad at the same time. The unfinished owl trapped in stone is something that I could imagine happening on a literal level, and an appropriate representation of Finrod's fate, but it also seems like it could be foreshadowing of how neither Turin nor Finduilas is able to escape their own fate, so their life becomes something beautifully started but remaining half-finished.

It's a haunting little snippet of invented folklore--a cross between poetry and dark nursery rhyme. Not sure how I missed it before. Oral history often survives periods of oppression and serves as a spark of light and hope when things are very dark. Like many short-shorts or drabbles, this one feels more like a magnificient plot bunny than a story within itself.

Thank you very much, Oshun! Good to hear that this caught your interest.

I guess I think of it as a kind of prose poem, inviting the reader to think about recurring situations and how mothers and children have to deal with them.

I had been reading EverleighBain's stories about Rangers and their children, I think, which may have influenced me, although it's not directly related.

A longer story could be written but it would probably be more specific and, as I see it, an entirely other animal.

That said, I remembered yesterday that I have an OFC named Glorwendil, who was a ringleader in the uprising during the War of Wrath. She could be one of those First Age children. Maybe I will write more about her one day.

This is heartbreaking! Not the fic in itself, of course - but in depicting the joy of their relatives at their safe and no longer expected return, you've made me think about how Galdor and Hareth and the others must have mourned for Húrin and Huor, believing them dead or captured by Orcs. Their overjoyed reactions make it clear how little they expected to hear any news - let alone good news - at this point! Lovely work.

Thank you very much!

At the time, as far I remember, my first thought on the theme of family reunion was the one in Mithrim, after the Crossing of the Ice. But of course I'd written about that already and I felt that, for once, I didn't want mixed feelings, I wanted pure joy! 

Of course, as you point out, they are so overjoyed because they had given up hope or almost given up hope. And they've had irreparable losses, in the Dagor Bragollach. Hador and Gundor are gone.

Good question. How are they both doing? Now I wonder whether Hareth was looked down on (figuratively) or had to fight to be taken serious because of her smaller size, or her different outlook on life. Or whether Gloredhel was treated as an outsider! Such a brief drabble, but it's inviting a lot of thought. Well done!

Yes, this was before the arrival of the Beorian women, so Hareth would have stood out more, just by her looks. And Gloredhel seems to have been even more tall and golden than average for a Hadorian, so fitting in in Brethil could be challenging for her as well.

But also Tolkien emphasizes the difference in customs of the Haladin from the other two Houses and that could make even more of a difference!

I was hoping to add to this drabble this weekend, but right now the Muses don't seem to be cooperating, so I'm glad that you think it's thought-provoking even on its own!