The Lays of Beleriand Read Online Free PDF Page A

into the night striding, and none stayed him; but some their swords half slipped from sheaths
    -- they were Orgof's kin -- yet for awe of Thingol they dared not draw while the dazed king
    stonefaced stared on his stricken thane
    and no sign showed them. But the slayer weary his hands laved in the hidden stream
    that strikes 'fore the gates, nor stayed his tears:
    'Who has cast,' he cried, 'a curse upon me;
    495
    500
    505
    510
    515
    520
    for all I do is ill, and an outlaw now,
    in bitter banishment and blood-guilty,

    of my fosterfather I must flee the halls,
    nor look on the lady beloved again' --
    yea, his heart to Hithlum had hastened him now, but that road he dared not, lest the wrath he draw of the Elves after him, and their anger alight should speed the spears in despite of Morgoth o'er the hills of Hithlum to hunt him down;
    lest a doom more dire than they dreed of old
    be meted his mother and the Maid of Tears.
    525
    530
    In the furthest folds of the Forest of Doriath, in the darkest dales on its drear borders,
    in haste he hid him, lest the hunt take him;
    and they found not his footsteps who fared after, the thanes of Thingol; who thirty days
    sought him sorrowing, and searched in vain
    with no purpose of ill, but the pardon bearing of Thingol throned in the Thousand Caves.
    He in council constrained the kin of Orgof
    to forget their grief and forgiveness show,
    in that wilful bitterness had barbed the words of Orgof the Elf; said 'his hour had come
    that his soul should seek the sad pathway
    to the deep valley of the Dead Awaiting,
    there a thousand years thrice to ponder
    in the gloom of Gurthrond his grim jesting,
    ere he fare to Faerie to feast again.'
    Yet of his own treasure he oped the gates,
    and gifts ungrudging of gold and gems
    to the sons he gave of the slain; and his folk well deemed the deed. But that doom of the King Turin knew not, and turned against him
    the hands of the Elves he unhappy believed,
    wandering the woodland woeful-hearted;
    for his fate would not that the folk of the caves should harbour longer Hurin's offspring.
    535
    540
    545
    550
    555
    *

    NOTES.
    8.
    13.
    17.
    20.
    22.
    25.
    29.
    50.
    51.
    73.
    (Throughout the Notes statements such as 'Delimorgoth A, and B as typed' (line x x) imply that the reading in the printed text (in that case Delu-Morgoth) is a later emendation made to B).
    Hurin is Urin in the Lost Tales (and still when this poem was begun, see note to line 213), and his name Thalion 'Steadfast', found in The Silmarillion and the Narn, does not occur in them (though he is called 'the Steadfast').11.
    Delimorgoth A, and B as typed. Morgoth occurs once only in the Lost Tales, in the typescript version of the Tale of Tinuviel (II.44); see note to line 20.
    Ninin Udathriol A, and B as typed; this occurs in the Tale (II. 84; for explanation of the name see II. 346). When changing Udathriol to Unothradin my father wrote in the margin of B: 'or Nirnaithos Unothradin'.
    Above Erithamrod is pencilled in A Urinthalion.
    B as typed had Belcha, which was then changed through Belegor, Melegor, to Bauglir. (A has a different reading here: as a myriad rats in measureless army/might pull down the proudest...) Belcha occurs in the typescript version of the Tale of Tinuviel (II. 44), where Belcha Morgoth are said to be Melko's names among the Gnomes.
    Bauglir is found as a name of Morgoth in The Silmarillion and the Narn.
    Melko's A; Belcha's B as typed, then the line changed to To the halls of Belegor (> Melegor), and finally to the reading given. See note to.line 20.
    Above Erithamrod in A is written Urin Thalion (see note to line 17); Urin > Hurin, and a direction to read Thalion Hurin.
    Finweg's son A, and B as typed; the emendation is a later one, and at the same time my father wrote in the margin of B
    'he was Fingolfin's son', clearly a comment on the change of son to heir. Finweg is Finwe Noleme Lord of the Noldoli, who in the Last Tales was Turgon's father (I. 115), not as he