The Children of Húrin

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The Children of Húrin
Front cover illustration
AuthorJ. R. R. Tolkien;
Christopher Tolkien (ed.)
Cover artistAlan Lee
CountryEngland
LanguageEnglish
GenreHigh Fantasy
PublisherHarperCollins in UK,
Houghton Mifflin in USA
Publication date
April 16, 2007
Media typePrint (Hardback)
Pages320
ISBN[[Special:BookSources/ISBN+0618894640%3Cbr+%2F%3EISBN+978-0618894642 |ISBN 0618894640
ISBN 978-0618894642]] Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character

The Children of Húrin is an epic fantasy novel which forms the completion of a tale by J. R. R. Tolkien. He wrote the original version of the story in late 1910s, revised it several times later, but did not complete it before his death in 1973. His son, Christopher Tolkien, edited the manuscripts to form a consistent narrative, and published it in 2007 as an independent work.

Overview

The Children of Húrin was published on 17 April 2007, by HarperCollins in the United Kingdom and Canada, and by Houghton Mifflin in the United States. Alan Lee, illustrator of other fantasy works by J. R. R. Tolkien (The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings) created the jacket painting, as well as the illustrations within the book. Christopher Tolkien also included an excursus on the evolution of the tale, several genealogical tables, and a redrawn map of Beleriand.

J. R. R. Tolkien wrote that the setting is intended to be our Earth several thousand years ago,[1] although the geographical and historical correspondence with the real world is tenuous. The lands of Middle-earth were populated by Men and other humanoid races: Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs, as well as divine beings, Maiar and Valar. The story concentrates on a Man of the House of Hador, Túrin Turambar, and his sister Nienor Níniel, who are cursed along with their father Húrin by the Dark Lord Morgoth. The events take place more than 6,500 years before the War of the Ring.

The Children of Húrin takes the reader back to a time long before The Lord of the Rings, in an area of Middle-earth that was to be drowned before Hobbits appeared, and when the great enemy was still the fallen Vala, Morgoth, and Sauron was only Morgoth's lieutenant. This heroic romance is the tale of the Man, Húrin, who dared to defy Morgoth, and his family's tragic destiny, as it follows his son Túrin Turambar's travels through the lost world of Beleriand...

— —The Tolkien Estate

Background

Main article: The Silmarillion

The history and descent of the main characters are given as the leading paragraphs of the book, and the back story is elaborated upon in The Silmarillion. It begins five hundred years before the action of the book, when Morgoth, an incarnated immortal spiritual being possessed of great supernatural abilities and the prime evil power, escapes from the Blessed Realm of Valinor to the north-west of Middle-earth. From his fortress of Angband he endeavours to gain control of the whole of Middle-earth, unleashing a war with the Elves that dwell in the land of Beleriand to the south.

However, the Elves manage to stay his assault, and most of their realms remain unconquered; the most powerful of these is Doriath, ruled by Thingol Greycloak. In addition, after some time the Noldorin Elves forsake Valinor and follow Morgoth to Middle-earth in order to take vengeance upon him. Together with the Sindar of Beleriand, they proceed to lay a siege to Angband, and establish new strongholds and realms in Middle-earth, including Hithlum ruled by Fingon, Nargothrond by Finrod Felagund and Gondolin by Turgon.

Three centuries pass, during which the first Men appear in Beleriand. These are the Edain, descendants of those Men who have rebelled against the rule of Morgoth's servants and journeyed westward. Most of the Elves welcome them, and they are given fiefs throughout Beleriand. The House of Bëor rules over the land of Ladros, the Folk of Haleth retreat to the forest of Brethil, and the lordship of Dor-lómin is granted to the House of Hador. Later, other Men enter Beleriand, the Easterlings, many of whom are in secret league with Morgoth.

Eventually Morgoth manages to break the Siege of Angband in the Battle of Sudden Flame. The House of Bëor is destroyed and the Elves and Edain suffer heavy losses; however, many realms remain unconquered, including Dor-lómin, where the lordship has passed to Húrin Thalion.

Synopsis

See also: Túrin Turambar and Nienor

The story begins with the coming of Húrin and his brother Huor to the hidden city of Gondolin. After living there for a year, they swear an oath not to reveal its location to anybody and are permitted swift passage to Dor-lómin. Once there, Húrin marries Morwen Edhelwen and they produce two children, a son who they name Túrin and a daughter, Lalaith. The book continues with the story of Túrin growing up, Lalaith's early death and Húrin's departure to war.

In the disastrous defeat of the Battle of Unnumbered Tears Húrin is captured alive. Morgoth personally torments him, trying to force from him the location of Gondolin, but despite his efforts, Húrin defies and even scorns Morgoth. For this, Morgoth places a curse on him and his family whereby evil things will befall them.

At Morgoth's command, the allied Easterlings over-run Hithlum and Dor-lómin. Morwen, fearing her son's capture, sends Túrin to the realm of Doriath for safety. Shortly afterwards, Morwen gives birth to a second daughter, Nienor. In Doriath, Túrin is taken as foster-son by King Thingol and becomes a mighty warrior, befriending Beleg Strongbow as one of the march-wardens. However, after several years Túrin accidentally causes the death of one of Thingol's advisers, an elf Saeros, who has earlier harassed Túrin. Believing himself to be criminal in the eyes of Thingol, Túrin flees Doriath and enters the wilderness.

Túrin joins a band of outlaws, the Gaurwaith or "Wolf-folk", and soon becomes their leader. Meanwhile, Thingol learns of the circumstances of Saeros's death and pardons Túrin for the act, sending the Elf Beleg out to search for him. After a year, he succeeds in tracking down the band, and after being briefly tortured by the lawless gang in Túrin's absence, is set free and is able to deliver to Túrin the message of the king's pardon. However Túrin refuses to return to Doriath. Beleg then departs in order to participate in battles upon the north-marches of Doriath.

Some time later, Túrin and his men captures Mîm the Petty-dwarf, who ransoms his life by leading the band to the caves in the hill of Amon Rûdh where he has made his home. The outlaws entrench themselves in the caves, and soon Beleg returns and joins them. The band gradually become more daring and successful in their warfare against Morgoth's troops, and Túrin and Beleg even establish the realm of Dor-Cúarthol. However, after a couple of years Mîm (because of his hatred of the Elves and his jealousy over the attention Túrin has paid to Beleg) betrays the outlaws by revealing the band's headquarters to Melkor's forces. The outlaws are overrun: Túrin is captured, but Beleg escapes.

Beleg follows the company of Orcs, meeting a mutilated elf, Gwindor of Nargothrond, along the way. They find Túrin sleeping and release him from his bonds, but Túrin, thinking that an Orc had come to torment him, slays Beleg before realising his tragic error. Gwindor leads Túrin to Eithel Ivrin, where Túrin regains his senses, and later to Nargothrond. There Túrin gains favour with King Orodreth and earns the love of his daughter Finduilas. After leading the Elves to considerable victories, he becomes the chief counsellor of Orodreth and effectively commander of all the forces in Nargothrond.

Messengers sent from Círdan warn Túrin to hide Nargothrond from Morgoth, but Túrin believes Nargothrond to be strong enough to withstand assault. However, after five years Morgoth sends a great force of Orcs under the command of a dragon, Glaurung, and defeats the army of Nargothrond on the field of Tumhalad, where both Gwindor and Orodreth are killed. Morgoth's forces sack Nargothrond and capture its citizens, and in an attempt to prevent this, Túrin encounters Glaurung. The dragon enchants and tricks him into returning to Dor-lómin to seek out his mother and sister instead of rescuing Finduilas and other prisoners, which, according to the last words of Gwindor, is the only way to avoid his doom.

When Túrin returns to Dor-lómin, he learns that Morwen and Nienor have already fled for Doriath. An enraged Túrin incites a fight and has to flee once more. He tracks Finduilas's captors to the forest of Brethil, only to learn that she has been murdered by the Orcs when the woodmen attempted to rescue her. Almost broken by his grief, Túrin seeks sanctuary among the Folk of Haleth, who maintain a tenacious resistance against the forces of Morgoth. In Brethil Túrin renames himself Turambar, or "Master of Doom" in High-elven, and gradually overrules the Chieftain Brandir.

Meanwhile Morwen and Nienor hear rumours of Túrin's deeds at Nargothrond and attempt to find him. They are attacked by Glaurung, who enchants Nienor so that she forgets everything, while Morwen is lost. Eventually Nienor reaches Brethil, where she is met by Turambar, who has never seen her; not realising their kinship, they fall in love and marry, despite the counsel of Brandir.

After some time Glaurung comes to exterminate the Men of Brethil, but Turambar kills the dragon by stabbing him from beneath while he is crossing the ravine of Cabed-en-Aras. However, as Turambar pulls out his sword, Glaurung's poisonous blood scorches his hand, knocking him unconscious. The pregnant Nienor finds Turambar lying unconscious, and the dying Glaurung returns memory to her. Realising in horror that her husband is also her brother, she throws herself off the nearby cliff into the river Taeglin, and is washed away. When Turambar wakes and hears from Brandir that Nienor is dead, he kills him in wrath, believing that Brandir has lied in envy at Nienor's love and fearing the fulfilment of his own doom. However, after Túrin has learned all the truth from Mablung, he throws himself upon his sword Gurthang.

The main part of the narrative ends with the burial of Túrin. Appended to this is an extract from The Wanderings of Húrin, the next tale of Tolkien's legendarium. This recounts how Húrin is at last released by Morgoth and comes to the mound of his children. There he finds Morwen, who has also manages to find the place, but now dies in the arms of her husband with the following sunset.

Concept and creation

Influences

Túrin's resemblance to figures from medieval tales can be confirmed by a letter which Tolkien wrote to Milton Waldman, a publisher from HarperCollins, concerning the fate of his works:

There is the Children of Húrin, the tragic tale of Túrin Turambar and his sister Níniel – of which Túrin is the hero: a figure that might be said (by people who like that sort of thing, though it is not very useful) to be derived from elements in Sigurd the Volsung, Oedipus, and the Finnish Kullervo.[2]

The story is mainly based on the legend of Kullervo, a character from the Finnish folklore poems known as Kalevala. Túrin also resembles Sigmund, the father of Sigurd in the Volsunga saga, in the incestuous relationship he had with his sister. In Richard Wagner's opera, Die Walküre (also drawn in part from the Volsung myths), Siegmund and Sieglinde are parallels of Túrin and Nienor. Túrin further resembles Sigurd himself, as both achieve great renown for the slaying of a dragon of immense power and magic.

Writing

See also: Narn i Chîn Húrin

A brief version of the story formed the base of chapter XXI of The Silmarillion, setting the tale in the context of the wars of Beleriand. Although based on the same texts used to complete the new book, the Silmarillion account leaves out the greater part of the tale. The Silmarillion also includes the essay Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age, which tells the story of The Lord of the Rings in a much-compressed form and from an Elvish point of view, which could serve as a basis for comparison.

Other incomplete versions have been published in other works:

None of these writings forms a complete and mature narrative. The published Children of Húrin is a synthesis of these sources, and other texts not previously published.

Editorial Process

With the publication of The Children of Húrin, Christopher Tolkien quotes his father's own words on his fictional universe:

"once upon a time... I had in mind to make a body of more or less connected legend... I would draw some of the great tales in fullness, and leave many only placed in the scheme, and sketched."[3]

Christopher Tolkien gives this apology for his exercise of his authorized editorial function to produce this work of his father:

"...it has seemed to me that there was a good case for presenting my father's long version of the legend of the Children of Húrin as an independent work, between its own covers, with a minimum of editorial presence, and above all in continuous narrative without gaps or interruptions, if this could be done without distortion or invention, despite the unfinished state in which he left parts of it."[4]

Ethan Gilsdorf reviewing The Children of Húrin wrote of the editorial function:

"Of almost equal interest is Christopher Tolkien's task editing his father's abandoned projects. In his appendix, he explains his editorial process this way: "While I have had to introduce bridging passages here and there in the piecing together of different drafts, there is no element of extraneous 'invention' of any kind, however slight." He was criticized for having monkeyed with his father's text when putting "The Silmarillion" together. This pre-emptive strike must be meant to allay the fears of Tolkien's most persnickety readers."[5]

Reception

The initial reviews following the publication of The Children of Húrin were mostly positive. Likening it to a Greek tragedy, The Washington Post called it "a bleak, darkly beautiful tale" which "possesses the mythic resonance and grim sense of inexorable fate".[6] A positive review was carried by The Independent (UK) ("dry, mad, humourless, hard-going and completely brilliant").[7] Bryan Appleyard of The Sunday Times (UK) set The Children of Húrin above other writings of Tolkien, noting its "intense and very grown-up manner" and "a real feeling of high seriousness".[8] Maurice Chittenden of The Sunday Times, said that "it may merit an X-certificate" due to the amount of violent deaths.[9]

The book got negative reviews from the Detroit Free Press ("dull and unfinished"),[10] Entertainment Weekly ("awkward and immature", "impenetrable forest of names ... overstuffed with strangled syntax"),[11] and The Guardian ("a derivative Wagnerian hero ... on a quasi-symbolic quest").[12]

Other critics distinguished two audiences. Tom Deveson of The Sunday Times said that "although JRR Tolkien aficionados will be thrilled, others will find The Children of Hurin barely readable".[13] Kelly Grovier from The Observer, on the other hand, stated that it "will please all but the most puritanical of his fans", referring to the skepticism about Christopher Tolkien's involvement.[14] Jeremy Marshall of The Times generally echoed: "It is worthy of a readership beyond Tolkien devotees," although he thought it was flawed ("occasionally the prose is too stilted, the dialogue too portentous, the unexplained names too opaque"). He also presupposed that: "In The Children of Húrin we could at last have the successor to The Lord of the Rings that was so earnestly and hopelessly sought by Tolkien’s publishers in the late 1950s."[15]

The Children of Húrin debuted at number one on The New York Times Hardcover Fiction Best Seller list.[16]

According to Houghton Mifflin, the US publisher, already 900,000 copies were in print worldwide in the first two weeks, double the initial expectations of the publishers.[17] Harper Collins, the UK publisher, said 330,000 copies were in print in the UK in the first two weeks.[17]

See also

References

  1. ^ Carpenter, Humphrey, ed. (2023) [1981]. The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien Revised and Expanded Edition. New York: Harper Collins. #211. ISBN 978-0-35-865298-4.
  2. ^ Carpenter, Humphrey, ed. (2023) [1981]. The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien Revised and Expanded Edition. New York: Harper Collins. #131. ISBN 978-0-35-865298-4.
  3. ^ J R R Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien, The Children of Húrin, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 2007. ISBN 0618894640, p.9
  4. ^ J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien, editor, The Children of Húrin, p.7
  5. ^ The Boston Globe Book Review of The Children of Húrin by Ethan Gilsdorf, April 26, 2007.
  6. ^ Hand, Elizabeth (2007-04-27). "The Return of the King". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2007-09-22.
  7. ^ Boyce, Frank Cottrell (2007-04-18). "Spreading the elfish gene". The Independent. Retrieved 2007-09-22.
  8. ^ Appleyard, Bryan (2007-04-08). "What took them so long?". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 2007-09-22.
  9. ^ Chittenden, Maurice (2006-09-24). "X-rated Tolkien: it's not for the kiddies". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 2007-09-22.
  10. ^ Salij, Marta (2007-04-18). "Just kick the hobbit and don't suffer 'The Children of Hurin'". Detroit Free Press. Retrieved 2008-06-08.
  11. ^ Giles, Jeff (2007-04-17). "The Children of Hurin". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2007-09-22.
  12. ^ Crace, John (2007-04-24). "The Children of Húrin by JRR Tolkien". The Guardian. Retrieved 2007-09-22.
  13. ^ Deveson, Tom (2007-04-15). "Away with the fairies". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 2007-09-22.
  14. ^ Grovier, Kelly (2007-04-27). "In the name of the father". The Observer. Retrieved 2007-09-22.
  15. ^ Marshall, Jeremy (2007-04-14). "Tolkien, before Bilbo". The Times. Retrieved 2007-09-22.
  16. ^ "The New York Times: Books-Best-Seller Lists". The New York Times. 2007-05-04. Retrieved 2007-05-04.
  17. ^ a b Italie, Hillel (2007-05-01). "Sales soar for new Tolkien novel". Associated Press. Retrieved 2007-11-17.

External links

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