The Mystery of the Vanishing Elf by AdmirableMonster

The Mystery of the Vanishing Elf

Thanks to starlightwalking for the beta!

All page numbers from the 2007 HarperCollins edition of The Children of Húrin, ISBN 978 0 00 724622 9

Read The Mystery of the Vanishing Elf

So I just finished reading the Children of Húrin—which, let’s be honest, I was mostly reading to get the expanded version of the Túrin and Beleg content.  So at first when I started reading the second half — after Beleg’s death — I figured the reason I was less drawn to the text was because, well, Beleg was dead and therefore was less present in the narrative.  After I’d finished the book and put it down, though, I realized it was a little more than that.  Beleg wasn’t just less present.  He was completely absent.  This is no exaggeration: between the last mention of Beleg’s name in Chapter IX (“The Death of Beleg”) and Túrin’s death, when Gurthang asks to forget the “blood of Beleg my master” there is a single mention of his name, and it’s only a passing description of Gurthang itself as “the Black Sword of Beleg” (pg. 237).

      Túrin never says his name again.

      What’s going on here?  This is, quite frankly, bizarre.  The entire first half of the narrative pivots around the relationship between Túrin and Beleg.  Beleg is the one who finds Túrin when he’s just a child his mother is sending to Thingol in Doriath. Beleg is his friend when’s growing up on Doriath — one of two really mentioned, the other being Nellas — and when Túrin is grown and goes off to be with the marchwardens, “Beleg and Túrin were companions in every peril” (pg 86).  When Thingol and Mablung and everyone else are ready to assume the worst of Túrin, it’s Beleg who shows up with Nellas to tell them what really happened, and it’s notable that this means Beleg didn’t see what happened; he just implicitly trusted Túrin and was the only one to do so.  They care about each other a lot.  There is a brief portion of time while Túrin is with the outlaws that they aren’t together (that’s a whole nother post in itself) but Beleg returns to Túrin on Amon Rudh, “in this way, Beleg came back to Túrin, yielding to his love against his wisdom.  Túrin was glad indeed, for he had often regretted his stubbornness; and now the desire of his heart was granted…it seemed to [the outlaws] there had been a tryst between Beleg and their caption.” (pg 139).  These boys are in love.  It’s textual.  There’s only one other character Túrin is described as loving in a similar way, and it’s Níniel (Niënor), whom he marries.

      In fact, it’s staggering that Níniel is the only other one (pg 218 “Turambar restrained himself no longer, but asked her in marriage”), because there is a very big elephant in the room, and it’s the person whom Níniel is occasionally compared to, Finduilas.  Finduilas is mentioned three times in the text after her death, including twice by Túrin himself in direct quotations:

- “Then Turambar who led the men started back and covered his eyes, and trembled; for it seemed that he saw the wraith of a slain maiden that lay on the grave of Finduilas.” (pg. 214, when Túrin first finds Níniel)

- "But even as he spoke, he wondered, and mused in his mind: 'Or can it be that one so evil and fell shuns the Crossings, even as the Orcs? Haudh-en-Elleth! Does Finduilas lie still between me and my doom?’” (pg. 229, when Túrin is preparing to fight Glaurung for the last time),

- “Therefore he arose and went to the Crossings of Teiglin, and as he passed by Haudh-en-Elleth he cried: 'Bitterly have I paid, O Finduilas! that ever I gave heed to the Dragon. Send me now counsel!’” (pg. 253, after he’s killed Brandir and is desperately trying to deny that Níniel was Niënor, his sister)

      This is huge.  And it’s huge, because Túrin is not in love with Finduilas.  This, again, is explicit, and textual, "In truth Finduilas was torn in mind. For she honoured Gwindor and pitied him, and wished not to add one tear to his suffering; but against her will her love for Turin grew day by day, and she thought of Beren and Luthien. But Turin was not like Beren! He did not scorn her, and was glad in her company; yet she knew that he had no love of the kind she wished. His mind and heart were elsewhere, by rivers in springs long past.” (pg 166, ”Túrin in Nargothrond”). So.  Túrin never falls in love with Finduilas, and, in fact, the reason he doesn’t fall in love with her is that his “mind and heart are elsewhere”.  Hmmmm.  I wonder where his heart is?

      Okay, so then why is it that Túrin repeatedly refers to Finduilas but not to Beleg?  It’s really obvious based on the quotes I’ve given so far that he was in love with Beleg (and for god’s sake, the man doesn’t talk for a YEAR after Beleg’s death), that he was not in love with Finduilas, and that he was (or thought he was, at least) in love with Níniel, enough to ask her to marry him.  So where the hell is Beleg in his thoughts for all this time when he’s falling for Níniel and thinking back to Finduilas?

      For the answer to this, we need to consider the dual nature of Níniel’s relationship to Túrin, and what its source is.

      Yes, Túrin loves Níniel, as his wife, but we know he also loved his sister Niënor, as a sister, and part of the reason he kills himself is that he can’t handle that he’s driven his sister to her death via incest (albeit accidental incest).  It’s notable that Túrin loves Finduilas as a sister,

“Then Turin spoke freely to [Finduilas] concerning these things, though he did not name the land of his birth, nor any of his kindred; and on a time he said to her: 'I had a sister, Lalaith, or so I named her; and of her you put me in mind. But Lalaith was a child, a yellow flower in the green grass of spring; and had she lived she would now, maybe, have become dimmed with grief. But you are queenly, and as a golden tree; I would I had a sister so fair.’” (pg. 164, “Túrin in Nargothrond”.)

      So these references to Finduilas make a narrative kind of sense — in addition to it mostly happening as Túrin is passing her grave, it’s a textual reminder of a hidden truth: Níniel is not just Túrin’s lover, but also his sister.  He even finds her upon the grave of someone he loved as a sister.  But there’s another truth hidden in the text as well, and it’s related to Níniel’s nature as Túrin’s lover.  Because let’s be real, if he found her on the grave of someone he loved very firmly in a non-romantic way, why does he become romantically interested in her?  She’s his sister—obviously he doesn’t know that, but the narrative is saying it very, very clearly.  Well…there’s a confounding factor.

      Here’s how Túrin finds Níniel (pg. 214): “Now it chanced that some of the woodmen of Brethil came by in that hour from a foray against Orcs, hastening over the Crossings of Teiglin to a shelter that was near; and there came a great flash of lightning, so that the Haudh-en-Elleth was lit as with a white flame.”

      And here is how Túrin discovers that he has killed Beleg (pg. 155):  “But as he stood, finding himself free, and ready to sell his life dearly against imagined foes, there came a great flash of lightning above them, and in its light he looked down on Beleg's face.”

      The narrative does draw a parallel between Níniel and Beleg, an extremely strong (if subtle) one.  It uses literally the same phrase to set up the scene: “there came a great flash of lightning”.  So there’s a pretty clear answer as to why Túrin might associate Níniel with romantic love—he doesn’t just find her on his as-it-were sister’s grave, he finds her in a way that hearkens strongly back to the last time he ever saw his lover’s face.

      So why doesn’t he think of Beleg now?

      Why is the thought of his lover—whose loss cut him so deeply he didn’t speak for a year—so far out of his mind at this moment that his name isn’t even mentioned, even when narratively there’s no way he shouldn’t think of him?

      Okay, I’ve drawn this out enough, so let’s cut to the chase: Glaurung.   Glaurung, who is responsible for the first hidden truth that I mentioned, the more textually explicit one, that Níniel is Niënor, Túrin’s sister.  He bespells Niënor upon Amon Ethir, “Then he drew her eyes into his, and her will swooned. And it seemed to her that the sun sickened and all became dim about her; and slowly a great darkness drew down on her and in that darkness there was emptiness; she knew nothing, and heard nothing, and remembered nothing,” (pg 209, “The Journey of Morwen and Niënor”) causing her to lose her memories and with her memories her name and therefore any way for Túrin to know who she is.  Glaurung earlier bespells Túrin as well, “Without fear Turin looked in those eyes as he raised up his sword; and straightway he fell under the dreadful spell of the dragon, and was as one turned to stone.” (pg. 178, “the Fall of Nargothrond”)  The first, obvious result of Glaurung’s spell (and the only explicit one) is that he leaves Finduilas and rushes off to try and find Morwen and Niënor.  Now, we’re meant to believe that this is all that the spell does, since in “The Return of Túrin to Dor-Lómin”, pg. 166, the text notes, “And suddenly a black wrath shook him; for his eyes were opened, and the spell of Glaurung loosed its last threads, and he knew the lies with which he had been cheated.”

      But I don’t think this makes sense.  I think Tolkien is being poetical here and the “last threads” he’s talking about are specifically the lies about Finduilas.  A number of Túrin’s conversations with Níniel point towards the fact that he’s forgotten something really important and that in that regard the dragon’s spell is still intact.  For example, when Túrin tells Níniel what to call him (pgs 217-218, “Niënor in Brethil”):

“Then she paused as if listening for some echo; but she said: 'And what does that say, or is it just the name for you alone?'

“’It means,' said he, 'Master of the Dark Shadow. For I also, Niniel, had my darkness, in which dear things were lost; but now I have overcome it, I deem.’”

“My darkness” is eerily similar to the repeated motif of Níniel’s darkness, which explicitly refers to the spell cast on her by Glaurung. 

      “Behind her lay only an empty darkness” (pg 213, “Niënor in Brethil”); “it seem to her that the darkness that lay behind her was overtaking her again” (pg 214, “Niënor in Brethil”); “it seemed to her that she had found at last something that she had sought in the darkness” (pg. 215, “Niënor in Brethil”); and the two most relevant quotations, “And at that name she looked up, and she shook her head, but said: 'Níniel.' And that was the first word that she spoke after her darkness, and it was her name among the woodmen ever after” (pg 216, ”Niënor in Brethil”); and “when at length she had learned enough to speak with her friends she would say: 'What is the name of this thing? For in my darkness I lost it.’” (pg. 217, “Niënor in Brethil”)

      So here it is: Túrin has lost “dear things” in “his darkness” (Glaurung’s spell) and he thinks that Níniel is what he has lost, but she isn’t—or she isn’t the only thing that’s missing.  Glaurung has ripped out of Túrin’s mind the memory of the only person he’s ever had romantic feelings for—Beleg—and because he’s confused and trying to find something to fill that gap, Níniel gets cast in a dual role—not just sister (with her ties to Finduilas) but also lover (with her subtler ties to poor, missing Beleg). 

      This theory also has significant implications for Túrin’s death, since that’s the only time that Beleg is mentioned again, apart from a tangential sidenote.  When Mablung finally confirms to Túrin what he’s already beginning to fear is the truth, that Níniel was his sister Niënor, he runs up to the Cabed-en-Aras, from which Níniel has thrown herself, and he asks his sword to kill him. His sword is Gurthang, which was Anglachel, made by Eöl, the sword that Thingol gave to Beleg and that Túrin used to accidentally kill him, and the response is somewhat unexpected, since up till now we haven’t had any indication that it’s a talking sword,

“‘And from the blade rang a cold voice in answer: 'Yes, I will drink your blood, that I may forget the blood of Beleg my master…I will slay you swiftly.’” (pg. 256, “The Death of Túrin”)

      Interestingly, this is after the sword has been reforged, and there’s no particular reason it should refer to Beleg as its master — after all, Túrin has been wielding it for years, and it was made by someone else entirely.  So then, why?  And why does it ask to forget his blood in particular?

      Because Túrin has remembered, finally.  Whether the sword is picking up on the mood, whether it’s a narrative device, or whether it isn’t even really talking and it’s just Túrin’s mind playing tricks on him in his last extremis, I don’t know—though I favor the latter interpretation, particularly because Túrin himself is referred to as “the Black Sword” on numerous occasions.  But the important point here is Túrin has remembered, because Glaurung is dead, and his memory spells die with him, “Then Nienor sat as one stunned, but Glaurung died; and with his death the veil of his malice fell from her, and all her memory grew clearer before her, from day unto day, neither did she forget any of those things that had befallen her since she lay on Haudh-en-Elleth.” (pg. 243, “The Death of Glaurung”)

      So Túrin knows by now exactly what he’s done—not only inadvertently marrying his sister but betraying the one great romantic love of his life.  The one he has probably just remembered accidentally killing in great detail.  It’s probably quite present in his mind when, rather than throw himself over the waterfall as Níniel did, he flings himself onto the very same sword that killed the only person he was ever in love with, whose name he has finally, finally been able to bring to mind…

            In sum, Glaurung erases Beleg’s memory so thoroughly from Túrin’s mind that only tiny, hidden glimpses remain, even in the text.  This is the solution to the mystery of the vanishing Elf; it explains why Beleg vanishes right up until the very end, and it ties together the sense I had when I was reading the second half of something missing, something hidden, something incomplete.  It is, I imagine, the same way Túrin must have felt after he awoke—as he thought, completely—from the spell that Glaurung laid upon him the first time they fought.

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Chapter End Notes

I also wrote a fic based on this premise: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28980519