Fingon's rescue of Maedhros in Old English by Himring

Chapter 1

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The Earliest Annals of Beleriand are contained in The Shaping of Middle-earth, The History of Middle-earth, vol. 4, chapter VII. The material in this volume was written in the 1930s.

The Annals of Beleriand continue the Annals of Valinor (ch. VI) and were later superseded by the Grey Annals (in HoME vol. 11), as the Annals of Valinor are superseded by the Annals of Aman (in HoME vol. 10).

The Annals of Beleriand exist in two versions, AB I, which covers the whole of the First Age, and a later version AB II, which stops after the arrival of the Edain.

Partial Old English versions exist of both the Annals of Valinor and the Annals of Beleriand, and also of The Quenta (ch. III); all of these are included in volume 4 of HoME, with Old English versions printed in the appendix of the relevant chapters. 

The making of Old English versions is based off the fact that at that time the whole Legendarium was still envisioned as being transmitted through the work of the Anglo-Saxon Ælfwine or Eriol, who had learned of it from Elves in Tol Eressëa. However, it is likely that there was also an element of experimentation or even fun for Tolkien in producing such versions. He was an Anglo-Saxonist, after all, and was trying to write in the language of documents he was very familiar with and had studied intensively.

The style of Tolkien's annals (the ones in modern English as well as Old English) is  clearly inspired by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which, despite its name, is a group of related sets of annals, a major source of our knowledge of the history of the Anglo-Saxon period.

The dialect of these annals is the early West Saxon (second half of the ninth century) of traditional Old English textbooks and of the earliest parts of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. In translating the Annals of Valinor, Tolkien also experimented with a different dialect, early Mercian.

Tolkien uses the acute as diacritic to mark long vowels in Old English. This is  an older  tradition in Anglo-Saxon studies; Old English textbooks subsequently switched to using the macron.

Below, I have arranged two sentences selected from the Annals of Beleriand in the two modern English versions (AB I and AB II) below each other for comparison with the Old English version, which appears to be partly based off one, and partly off the other, as Christopher Tolkien points out in his commentary. I’ve added a literal gloss or crib for the Old English sentences.

The selection of Maedhros’s rescue by Fingon to illustrate these three early versions of the annals, here, has been made purely because it is such a favourite passage in the published Silmarillion. Textually, other passages of the Annals are perhaps more interesting in terms of the development of the Legendarium during that time and have received extensive comment from Christopher Tolkien for that reason.

The passage shows the earlier form of the name of Maedhros, Maidros, and the Old English transliteration of this older name form (Mæg(e)dros). A more thoroughly Old English name form exists for Maedhros from this period (Dægred Winsterhand, literally “Dayred Lefthand”) and also for Fingon (Finbrand), but they were not used in translating the Annals. These names are discussed by Christopher Tolkien in connection with The Quenta (Appendix 1 to ch. III).  Thorndor, obviously, is Thorondor in the published Silmarillion.

At this time, the First Age was conceived of as being 250 years long, only half as long as it was in the later Annals.

 

Annals of Beleriand, opening section (AB I):

Maidros, his eldest son, is ambushed and captured and hung on Thangorodrim.

Second version (AB II)

Maidros, his eldest son, was ambushed and captured by Morgoth, and hung on Thangorodrim; [..]

Old English version:

Þa wearð Maegdros his yldesta sunu of Morgoþe beswicen, and wearð gefangen, and Morgoþ hét hine ahón be þǽre rihthande on Þangorodrim.

Literal translation (crib) for the Old English:

Then was Maidros his eldest son by Morgoth deceived, and was captured, and Morgoth ordered him to be hung by the right-hand on Thangorodrim.

 

 

Annals of Beleriand, year 2 of the First Age (AB I):

Here Fingon son of Fingolfin healed the feud by rescuing Maidros.

Second version (AB II)

Fingon son of Fingolfin healed the feud, by rescuing Maidros with the help of Thorndor, king of Eagles.

Old English version:

Hér Fingon Fingolfines sunu sibbe geníwode betwux þám mǽgþum for þám þe he áhredde Mægedros.

Literal translation (crib) for the Old English:

Here (this year) Fingon Fingolfin’s son peace renewed betwixt the kindreds (peoples or families) because (for that that) he rescued Maidros.