An Overview of The Silmarillion: Part Six

These two volumes of The Book of Lost Tales contain the original version of the Quenta Silmarillion and the most complete and detailed narrative of the Fall of Gondolin Tolkien ever wrote.

Note:  This is the sixth part in a series of essays summarizing J.R.R. Tolkien's greatest literary work.  Characters, places, or events previously discussed will not be provided with reference links.  See the prior posts for those.

Death comes in many forms in The Silmarillion but, at this point in the Quenta Silmarillion, suicides are definitely well-represented as a way of dying.  Taking one's life usually occurs in a grandiose romantic fashion.  So it is only fitting that the Man who begins the end of the First Age simply kills himself. 

After 28 years, Morgoth releases Húrin from his bondage and sets him completely free, no strings attached.  But, in truth, the Dark Lord's desire “was that Húrin should still further his hatred for the Elves and Men, ere he died.”  And indeed he does, tragically and unwittingly.  For Húrin interacts with all the three great kingdoms of the Elves and sets into motion the final victory of Morgoth before the climax of Quenta Silmarillion.  This also gives the reader a final grand tour of Middle-earth at the end of the First Age.

First, Húrin ventures through his old land of Hithlum which is now populated with many Easterlings.  Húrin has aged severely during his imprisonment and no one will take him in.  He wanders to the outer reaches of the hidden Vale of Gondolin, Turgon will not risk giving himself away to have him there.  Morgoth smiles, for his spies have told him where Húrin shouted for help and now he knows, roughly, where Gondolin is.

So, Húrin wanders the wilds and happens upon his wife, Morwen, still grieving over all that happened to her family before she dies literally by his side.  But, like so many weaker Men might have, Húrin does not commit suicide here.  No, he decides to go to Nargothrond and wander the ruins before ending up in Doriath before Thingol and Melian.

Surprising the reader, Húrin has taken the Nauglamir from Nargothrond and he holds it before the Elfish King of the Sindar.  Tolkien describes it: “…the Necklace if the Dwarves, that was made for Finrod Felagund long years before by the craftsmen of Nogrod and Belegost, most famed of all the works in the Eldar Days.”

We have to forgive Tolkien here.  Glaurung the dragon recently conquered Nargothrond.  Are we supposed to believe the dragon, hoarder of all things, would abandon the place without ever knowing thatits greatest treasure under its nose?  It is a stretch.  This is one problem with the unfinished state of the narrative.  Christopher did a wonderful job of putting it all together and we have to overlook a slight few little details like this. 

Húrin is full of hate and rage in addition to his immense sadness.  But in speaking with Melian, he comes to realize that Morgoth has twisted a lot of what happened in his mind.  His anger leaves him and he is alone with his festering angst, he “tasted at last the fullness of woe.”  He has lost a fiefdom, a people, an army, his brother, wife, and children, who suffered greatly under Morgoth’s power.   Húrin gives the necklace to Thingol as a memorial to himself, Húrin of Dor-lomin.  And he “being bereft of any purpose and desire, and cast himself at last into the western sea; and so ended the mightiest of the warriors of mortal Men.”

Oddly, perhaps, Tolkien does not give anyone a religion in Arda.  No one worships Illúvatar.  The Valar certainly depend upon him for their existence but there are no hymns to Eru.  Elves know what actually happens, how death works should it happen to them.  But this is clearly not their “religion.”  We know they are artists and craftsmen but all their art and craft are about the past and their achievements are greater in the past. The Elves will never again hold such wondrous kingdoms as Nargothrond, Goldolin, and Doriath.  If anything, Elves might partake in what we would consider Ancestor Worship but I doubt Tolkien intended Middle-earth to be a religious place.  Men have no religion either.  So, there is nothing for Húrin to turn to in the depths of his despair, an interesting fact given Tolkien’s strong religious convictions.

Here lies the origin of Elf and Dwarf hating each other, one of the major signs of the end of the First Age.  Throughout this Age, only, they are always allies.  But now Thingol asks the Dwarves, who regularly come and go through the Girdle of Melian, to place the Silmaril into their race’s greatest achievement which was, in fact, originally given to Finrod as King of Nargothrond.

The power of the Silmaril is too great and the Dwarves, accomplishing the mighty task, decide Thingol should not have it.  It was not Húrin’s to give to Thingol in the first place, they reason, and since Finrod it now dead along with all his heirs, it should come back to its makers.  Of course, there is no way Thongol is going to allow the Dwarves to take the Silmaril, nor was he giving away his necklace rightly given to him by a once great warrior.

These Dwarves murder King Thingol and steal the Necklace with the Silmaril.  Unwilling to remain without her husband, in sadness, Melian leaves Middle-earth for Valinor.  As she passes away so too does the intricate maze she had placed around Doriath.  The Dwarves return from their mines and kill many Elves.  They pillage Menegroth.

At this point Beren and Lúthien briefly reenter the story, basically so the reader can quickly relate to their half-Human, half-Elf/Maiar son Dior, who marries Nimloth, the Elfish niece of Celeborn.  They have two sons and a daughter, Elwing.  Dior is heir to Doriath so he returns there after its ruin.  

Beren fights the Dwarves in the Battle at Sarn Athrad to reclaim the Necklace.  The Dwarves almost prevail but the “Shepherds of the Forest” (Ents) intervene on Beren’s behalf.  Beren gives it to his wife.  “…Lúthien wearing that necklace and that immortal jewel was the vision of greatest beauty and glory that has ever been outside of the realm of Valinor.”

Time passes.  Beren and Lúthien grow old and die naturally.  Before the end, Lúthien gives the Necklace to Dior and Tolkien writes of the Silmaril’s power: “But the wise have said that the Silmaril hastened their end; for the flame of the beauty of Lúthien as she wore it was too bright for mortal lands.”

But now what Morgoth first set in motion by releasing Húrin comes to fruition.  For the scattered remains of Elves learn that Dior has a Silmaril.  They attack Doriath.  “…so befell the second slaying of Elf on Elf.  There fell Celegrom by Dior’s hand, and there fell Curufin, the dark Caranthir; but Dior was slain also, and Nimloth his wife, and the cruel servants of Celegrom seized his young sons and left then to starve in the forest. Of this Maehdros indeed repented…”  Elwing flees the second ruin of Doriath with the Silmaril.

Now we come to the oldest consistent part of the narrative.  The Fall of Gondolin is an event Tolkien wrote in complete form in The Book of Lost Tales and never rewrote it in such detail again.  It was completed almost a century ago in the mid-1920’s.  This makes it somewhat unique among all tales of The Silmarillion for all the rest of the Quenta Silmarillion is a second version that Tolkien worked out later but never completed.

The telling offered in The Book of Lost Tales is very detailed, particularly with regard to how the battle transpires.  The challenges are that the narrative technique is different and many of the characters names are later changed, or no longer exist in the later text at all.  The Silmarillion offers a reconstructed version of the fall which focuses on Huor’s son, Tuor, the other side of the Húrin-Huor lineage after the Battle of Unnumbered Tears.  It is ironic that Christopher chose the oldest “finished” tale to be the “end of Tolkien” published in 2018.

Most of the Valar ignore Middle-earth since the Noldor left Valinor.  But a few still get involved with the events of Elves (mostly) and Men (occasionally).  Ulmo is a Vala that helps bring Tuor to Gondolin, the first Human to actually hike the hidden path there.  Tolkien wrote an extended incomplete story about Tuor’s journey to Gondolin.  It is published in Unfinished Tales.

Ulmo not only aided Tuor in coming to Gondolin but initially guided his speech and action such that all of Gondolin marveled that he could even be a Human.  “…he became mighty in stature and in mind, and learned deeply of the lore of the exiled Elves.”  Naturally, Tuor and Idril fall in love and marry much to the hatred of Maeglin, a situation set up in an earlier part of the narrative.  They give birth to Eärendil Halfelven in 503 of the First Age, by the reckoning of years, and for awhile all live happily and in peace.

But Morgoth knows the general whereabouts of Gondolin and concentrates Orcs and spies in that region.  When Maeglin, a master craftsman, decides to leave Gondolin briefly to mine for special metals, he is captured by Orcs.  He reveals to Morgoth the exact location of Gondolin in exchange for possession of Idril.  But, of course, the Dark Lord does not care about Maeglin at all.

He attacks Gondolin with Orcs, wolves and Balrogs.  Tolkien references the details of the fall as presented in The Book of Lost Tales: Part Two (published in 1984, seven years after The Silmarillion).  “Of the deeds of desperate valor there done, by the chieftains of the noble houses and their warriors, and not least by Tuor, much is told in The Fall of Gondolin: the battle of Ecthelion of the Fountain with Gothmog Lord of Balrogs in the very square of the King, where each slew the other, and of the defense of the tower of Turgon by the people of his household, until the tower was overthrown; and mighty was its fall and the fall of Turgon in its ruin.”

Gondolin is destroyed.  When Tuor and Idril gather Eärendil and a few other scattered Elves to make an escape, another Balrog attacks them.  Glorfindel makes a heroic stand, dying even as he slays the great monster, thereby allowing the rest of the group to escape to the mouths of the Sirion River.  There they find Elwing, who fled earlier from the ruin of Doriath.

Having now either conquered or, through malice, brought about the destruction of all the great halls and kingdoms of Middle-earth, Morgoth is content to let the workings of “oath and lie” continue and chooses not to assail the coast at Sirion.  Here the few remaining Elves and Edain manage to flourish.  In his old age Tuor builds the great sailing vessel named Eärrámë and sails with Idril into the West.  Neither is ever heard from again.

The heritage of Gondolin and Doriath still abides and is merged when Eärendil marries Elwing.  They have two sons, Elrond and Elros.  Eärendil is restless.  He builds the ship Vingilótë and goes seeking Tuor and Idril as well as possibly finding Valinor to ask the Valar to take pity upon Middle-earth.  He fails on both accounts and, when enormous angst fills him, the Mariner longs to return to Elwing.

Meanwhile, another group of surviving Elves resides under Maedhros.  When he learns that Elwing possesses the Silmaril he leads an attack upon the remnants along Sirion.  As Morgoth foresaw, “oath and lie” continue to do his work for him.  For the third time Elf kills Elf.  Elrond and Elros are taken prisoner but Elwing escapes with the Silmaril.  Ulmo turns Elwing into a bird and flies her to the Vingilótë where the Silmaril is bound to Eärendil’s brow.

Again he sails toward Valinor and this time the Valar meet with him, the first living Man (technically Halfelven) to come to the immortal lands.  He pleads for the sake of the Two Kindreds.  The Valar take counsel on this extraordinary matter and decides that Eärendil and Elwing may choose mortality or Elf-kind, the same choice Lúthien once had (and Arwen will have in The Lord of the Rings).  Unlike those incidences, here both partners choose immortality, though Eärendil admits he is “weary of the world”, having survived Morgoth’s decisive parade of death and mayhem in Beleriand.  Thus they are not allowed to return to Middle-earth.  

Instead, spectacularly, Vingilótë is “hallowed” and Eärendil the Mariner travels “into the starless voids” with the Silmaril now removed from his brow and placed among the stars.  And this is seen most usually in the morning or the evening upon Middle-earth, a passing reference to the planet Venus.  The bright “star” is taken as a sign of hope.  This is true both then and in future ages.  It is interesting to point out that the bright light of Venus is the inspiration for a shining Silmaril in Middle-earth. 

Then, after more debate, the Valar rise up with the Vanyar and what Noldor remained in Valinor and assault Morgoth.  The War of Wrath ensues, the greatest cataclysm ever.  In desperation, Morgoth unleashes numerous dragons and Balrogs.  Some Men fight for Morgoth and are driven east; the Edain fight alongside the Valar, no longer fearing them as before they knew the Elves.  In another epic combat, Eärendil slays Ancalagon, the mightiest of the dragon-host. 

The two Silmarils are taken from Morgoth’s crown, which is refashioned into a collar.  The Dark Lord is bound and collared and “thrust…into the Timeless Void” under guard, with Eärendil keeping watch.  All the dragons are dead; which allows the reader to understand how powerful these people were way back in the First Age.  In The Hobbit an entire region of Third Age Middle-earth is terrified of a dragon, who does whatever it pleases.  Back in the First Age, Elf and Man killed multiple dragons, a few dying in the act of it.  Some of the Balrogs manage to escape to “caverns inaccessible at the roots of the earth.”  One of these faces Gandalf later in the Third Age, but that’s getting ahead of ourselves again.

Most of the Noldor build ships and return to Valinor and are pardoned.  But Maedhros and Maglor, his only surviving brother, still driven by oath, steal the two remaining Silmarils. (The Valar are comically inept at preventing theft by anyone related to Fëanor, reflecting their basic naivety.)  By now, however, the sons of Fëanor have committed so much treachery that they are no longer worthy of the great jewels.  As when Carcharoth bit off Beren’s hand, sending the wolf into a mighty rampage, the Silmarils burn Fëanor’s sons and drive them to madness.  Maedhros “cast himself into a gaping chasm filled with fire…”  Maglor hurls his into the sea and, being a great minstrel, eternally roams the coasts singing his sadness.

All the three Great Jewels are now gone.  One into fire, one into sea, and one hangs in the sky as a shining beacon of hope. Thus ends the History of the Silmarils.

Not every Elf chooses to return to Valinor.  Celeborn and Galadrial remain among them along with Gil-galad, who is now High King of the Elves on Middle-earth.  Elrond and Elros survived their brief captivity.  Being the children of Eärendil and Elwing they are also given the choice of mortality or immortality.  Elrond chooses Elf-kind.  Elros chooses mortal Men, which is interesting.  Of his family only Elros made the choice to be mortal, which sets up the Second Age.

Angband, Beleriand and all such lands are destroyed by the War of Wrath and cast under the sea.  The coastline of Middle-earth shifts much further to the East, away from Valinor as the First Age comes to an end.  “Yet the lies that Melkor, the mighty and accursed, Morgoth Bauglir, the Power of Terror and of Hate, sowed in the hearts of Elves and Men are a seed that does not die and cannot be destroyed; and ever and anon it sprouts anew, and will bear dark fruit even unto the latest of days.”

(to be continued)