"The Glory in 'Glorious'" and "Singer of Praises" by Himring

The Glory in 'Glorious'

The Fingolfinians and the Feanorians first encounter each other after their shared victory.

We met within sight of the peaks of Thangorodrim, blood-spattered and begrimed. Under our feet, the grass of Ard-galen was singed and trampled. But it would grow green again, this time.

My lord Fingon quickened his step and I saw the King frown, just a little, but he kept pace with his son. We knew that we had succeeded in crushing the enemy forces between the hammer and the anvil, but we did not know any details of how the other side had fared. Of course, my lord Fingon was anxious to learn that his cousin—that all of his cousins were still living and unhurt. So, I am sure, was the King, but he always stood a little more on his dignity, especially with the Dispossessed.

We met somewhere not quite in the middle—not so far from the place they were to call Haudh-en-Ndengin, but that was later, that was afterwards—and there they were, with their escort, all seven of them, Caranthir with a blood-stained bandage around his head and Amrod with his arm in a sling, but all alive, all still on their feet. And Lord Maedhros—well, as soon as he saw his cousin, a burden seemed to lift from his shoulders and a shadow from his face so that you might well believe that, if Fingon had been anxious about his well-being, so had he been about Fingon’s.

Then Fingon let out a whoop of joy, as if he could no longer contain himself—but my guess is he did not even try—and he took off his helmet and tossed it straight up into the air and shouted: ‘We won!’

And I saw the King and Lord Maedhros both look up at the helmet as it hung there for a moment, spinning, high up against the cloudless summer sky, gleaming in the sun, and as it started to come down again and Fingon caught it above his head with one hand, I saw Lord Maedhros and the King looking at each other.

And Lord Maedhros smiled at the King and said: ‘We did.’

But soon he grew sober again and began to ask his uncle about any losses on our side and, after that, things went on as you might expect.

I was there because my Lady Aredhel had sent me with them, away from her side, when she knew she could not come herself and would be left to guard Barad Eithel and her niece, our King’s only grandchild.  She had crafted my bow with her own hands and told me: ‘Take them down for me. If any of them comes too close to my father or my brothers, take them down for me!’

We called it the Glorious Battle, Dagor Aglareb. They still call it that, but it is just a name now, a way of counting, of distinguishing it from the battle that came before and the battle that came after. We forgot a little, I think, and we were not encouraged to remember.

They talk of the long defeat and of fruitless victories, although the Glorious Battle granted Beleriand several centuries of peace—which still does not seem such a small thing to me! It is always easy to pick holes in any victory, of course. But who now remembers the courage and heroism that Caranthir showed in that campaign—and Orodreth and Angrod and Guilin? It is their defeat and their deaths that are remembered. And of others who were equally brave and true that day, history does not record even the end.

But I remember Lord Fingon’s helmet spinning, spinning up there in the sun, and the satisfaction, the deep contentment, in Lord Maedhros’s voice as he said to his uncle: ‘We did.’

We won, he meant. We did. We.

Chapter End Notes

You will  probably have spotted the allusions to FOTR in "long defeat" and "fruitless victories" without my telling you.