"Two Epitaphs" and "A Merry Feast" by Himring

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Fanwork Notes

"Two Epitaphs": two short poems--one about the death of Morwen, wife of Hurin, the other about the death of Rian, wife of Huor. The two were cousins; exiles from Dorthonion, they both saw their new life in Dor-lomin destroyed by the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, in different ways, with different consequences.

"A Merry Feast": Morwen & Hurin, before and after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad

Fanwork Information

Summary:

Short Pieces about Morwen and Rian.

Now added: A Merry Feast: Morwen & Hurin, before and after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad

 

Major Characters: Húrin, Morwen, Rían

Major Relationships:

Genre: Fixed-Length Ficlet, Poetry

Challenges:

Rating: Teens

Warnings: Character Death
Chapters: 3 Word Count: 1, 313
Posted on 24 July 2012 Updated on 4 February 2014

This fanwork is complete.

Morwen

Didactic cinquain, originally written for the B2MeM 2012 prompt "cinquain" on the "Poetic Forms" card.

Read Morwen

Morwen,

grey, weary,

after long wandering,

died unanswered but unconquered,

Elfsheen.

Chapter End Notes

The Silmarillion: "He looked down at her in the twilight and it seemed to him that the lines of grief and cruel hardship were smoothed away. 'She was not conquered,' he said; and he closed her eyes, and sat unmoving beside her as the night drew down."

For further background, see Oshun's biography of Morwen here.

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Rian

Read Rian

So many tears.
Numbered.

Chapter End Notes

Nirnaeth Arnoediad means "(battle of) unnumbered tears".

Rian, having entrusted her new-born son to the care of others, sought out the mound of those slain in the battle, lay down and died.

 

Rian was a maker of songs, according to Tolkien. For the text of a song written by Rian (before her marriage), see now my story: I  shall not look on your white walls again

 

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A Merry Feast

True drabble written for the prompt Wine in the Mulled Wine Challenge at Tolkien Weekly on LiveJournal

Morwen & Hurin, before and after the Nirnaeth.

Warning for Mature Themes (veiled allusions to canonical battle, violence, torture, all implied only)

Read A Merry Feast

"Let us think that at this midwinter the feast shall be merrier than in all our years yet,” he said and she tried to hold that thought. But she remembered another winter when the night was without moon, the plain stretched dim beneath the stars, and watch-fires burned low. That winter, life as she knew it had ended, and so this second life, too, might end.
For all that, she could not stop waiting for him. Midwinter came and she was still listening for the sound of his horse. There was no wine. She drank his health in cold water.

Chapter End Notes

Hurin's words are a literal quotation (CoH / Unfinished Tales). The description of the winter night in which the Battle of Sudden Flame erupted, leading to the destruction of Morwen's home and the death of most of her family, is closely based on the Silmarillion.

I had been reading the prompt list for B2MeM 2014, in which both these quotations appear as a prompts.

Morwen listening for the neigh of Hurin's horse Arroch is also canonical.

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