The Silmarillion

stood as one graven of stone; and they two were alone, silent before the doors of Nargothrond. But Glaurung spoke again, taunting T?rin, and he said: 'Evil have been all thy ways, son of H?rin. Thankless fosterling, outlaw, slayer of thy friend, thief of love, usurper of Nargothrond, captain foolhardy, and deserter of thy kin. As thralls thy mother and thy sister live in Dor-l?min, in misery and want. Thou art arrayed as a prince, but they go in rags; and for thee they yearn, but thou carest not for that. Glad may thy father be to learn that he hath such a son; as learn he shall.' And T?rin being under the spell of Glaurung hearkened to his words, and he saw himself as in a mirror misshapen by malice, and loathed that which he saw.

 

And while he was yet held by the eyes of the dragon in torment of mind, and could not stir, the Orcs drove away the herded captives, and they passed nigh to T?rin and crossed over the bridge. Among them was Finduilas, and she cried out to T?rin as she went; but not until her cries and the wailing of the captives was lost upon the northward road did Claiming release T?rin, and he might not stop his ears against that voice that haunted him after.

 

Then suddenly Glaurung withdrew his glance, and waited; and T?rin stirred slowly, as one waking from a hideous dream. Then coming to himself he sprang upon the dragon with a cry. But Glaurung laughed, saying: 'If thou wilt be slain, I will slay thee gladly. But small help will that be to Morwen and Nienor. No heed didst thou give to the cries of the Elf-woman. Wilt thou deny also the bond of thy blood?'

 

But T?rin drawing back his sword stabbed at the dragon's eyes; and Glaurung coiling back swiftly towered above him, and said: 'Nay! At least thou art valiant; beyond all whom I have met And they lie who say that we of our part do not honour the valour of foes. See now! I offer thee freedom. Go to thy kin, if thou canst. Get thee gone! And if Elf or Man be left to make tale of these days, then surely in scorn they will name thee, if thou spurnest this gift.'

 

Then T?rin, being yet bemused by the eyes of the dragon, as were he treating with a foe that could know pity, believed the words of Glaurung and fuming away he sped over the bridge. But as he went Glaurung spoke behind him, saying in a fell voice: 'Haste thee now, son of H?rin, to Dor-l?min! Or perhaps the Orcs shall come before thee, once again. And if thou tarry for Finduilas, then never shalt thou see Morwen again, and never at all shalt thou see Nienor thy sister; and they will curse thee.'

 

But T?rin passed away on the northward road, and Claiming laughed once more, for he had accomplished the errand of his Master. Then he turned to his own pleasure, and sent forth his blast, and burned all about him. But all the Orcs that were busy in the sack he routed forth, and drove them away, and denied them their plunder even to the last thing of worth. The bridge then he broke down and cast into the foam of Narog; and being thus secure he gathered all the hoard and riches of Felagund and heaped them, and lay upon them in the innermost hall, and rested a while.

 

And T?rin hastened along the ways to the north, through the lands now desolate between Narog and Teiglin, and the Fell Winter came down to meet him; for in that year snow fell ere autumn was passed, and spring came late and cold. Ever it seemed to him as he went that he heard the cries of Finduilas, calling his name by wood and hill, and great was his anguish; but his heart being hot with the lies of Glaurung, and seeing ever in his mind the Orcs burning the house of H?rin or putting Morwen and Nienor to torment, he held on his way, and turned never aside.

 

At last worn by haste and the long road (for forty leagues and more had he journeyed without rest) he came with the first ice of winter to the pools of Ivrin, where before he had been healed. But they were now but a frozen mire, and he could drink there no more.'

 

Thus he came hardly by the passes of Dor-l?min, through bitter snows from the north, and found again the land of his childhood. Bare and bleak it was; and Morwen was gone. Her house stood empty, broken and cold; and no living thing dwelt nigh. Therefore T?rin departed, and came to the house of Brodda the Easterling, he that had to wife Aerin, H?rin's kinswoman; and there he learned of an old servant that Morwen was long gone, for she had fled with Nienor out of Dor-L?min, none but Aerin knew where.

 

Then T?rin strode to Brodda's table, and seizing him he drew his sword, and demanded that he be told whither Morwen had gone; and Aerin declared to him that she went to Doriath to seek her son. 'For the lands were freed then from evil,' she said, 'by the Black Sword of the south, who now has fallen, they say.' Then T?rin's eyes were opened, and the last threads of Glaurung's spell were loosed; and for anguish, and wrath at the lies that had deluded him, and hatred of the oppressors of Morwen, a black rage seized him, and he slew Brodda in his hall, and other Easterlings that were his guests. Thereafter he fled out into the winter, a hunted man; but he was aided by some that remained of Hador's people and knew the ways of the wild, and with them he escaped through the falling snow and came to an outlaws' refuge in the southern mountains of Dor-l?min. Thence T?rin passed again from the land of his childhood, and returned to Sirion's vale. His heart was bitter, for to Dor-l?min he had brought only greater woe upon the remnant of his people, and they were glad of his going; and this comfort alone he had: that by the prowess of the Black Sword the ways to Doriath had been laid open to Morwen. And he said in his thought: 'Then those deeds wrought not evil to all. And where else might I have better bestowed my kin, even had I come sooner? For if the Girdle of Melian be broken, then last hope is ended. Nay, it is better indeed as things be; for a shadow I cast wheresoever I come. Let Melian keep them! And I will leave them in peace unshadowed for a while.'

 

Now T?rin coming down from Ered Wethrin sought for Finduilas in vain, roaming the woods beneath the mountains, wild and wary as a beast; and he waylaid all the roads that went north to the Pass of Sirion. But he was too late; for all the trails had grown old, or were washed away by the winter. Yet thus it was that passing southwards down Teiglin T?rin came upon some of the Men of Brethil that were surrounded by Orcs; and he delivered them, for the Orcs fled from Gurthang. He named himself Wildman of the Woods, and they besought him to come and dwell with them; but he said that he had an errand yet unachieved, to seek Finduilas, Orodreth's daughter of Nargothrond. Then Dorlas, the leader of those woodmen, told the grievous tidings of her death. For the Men of Brethil had waylaid at the Crossings of Teiglin the Ore-host that led the captives of Nargothrond, hoping to rescue them; but the Orcs had at once cruelly slain their prisoners, and Finduilas they pinned to a tree with a spear. So she died, saying at the last: 'Tell the Mormegil that Finduilas is here.' Therefore they had laid her in a mound near that place, and named it Haudh-en-Elleth, the Mound of the Elf-maid.

 

T?rin bade them lead him thither, and there he fell down into a darkness of grief that was near death. Then Dorlas by his black sword, the fame whereof had come even inter the deeps of Brethil, and by his quest of the King's daughter, knew that this Wildman was indeed the Mormegil of Nargothrond, whom rumour said was the son of H?rin of Dor-l?min. Therefore the woodmen lifted him up, and bore him away to their homes. Now those were set in a stockade upon a high place in the forest, Ephel Brandir upon Amon Obel; for the People of Haleth were now dwindled by war, and Brandir son of Handir who ruled them was a man of gentle mood, and lame also from childhood, and he trusted rather in secrecy than in deeds of war to save them from the power of the North. Therefore he feared the tidings that Dorlas brought, and when he beheld the face of T?rin as he lay on the bier a cloud of foreboding lay on his heart Nonetheless being moved by his woe he took him into his own house and tended him, for he had skill in healing. And with the beginning of spring T?rin cast off his darkness, and grew hale again; and he arose, and he thought that he would remain in Brethil hidden, and put his shadow behind him, forsaking the past. He took therefore a new name, Turambar, which in the High-elven speech signified Master of Doom; and he besought the woodmen to forget that he was a stranger among them or ever bore any other name. Nonetheless he would not wholly leave deeds of war; for he could not endure that the Orcs should come to the Crossings of Teiglin or draw nigh to Haudh-en-Elleth, and he made that a place of dread for them, so that they shunned it. But he laid his black sword by, and wielded rather the bow and the spear.

 

Now new tidings came to Doriath concerning Nargothrond, for some that had escaped from the defeat and the sack, and had survived the Fell Winter in the wild, came at last to Thingol seeking refuge; and the march-wardens brought them to the King. And some said that all the enemy had withdrawn northwards, and others that Glaurung abode still in the halls of Felagund; and some said that the Mormegil was slain, and others that he was cast under a spell by the dragon and dwelt there yet, as one changed to stone. But all declared that it was known to many in Nargothrond ere the end that the Mormegil was none other than T?rin son of H?rin of Dor-l?min.

 

Then Morwen was distraught, and refusing the counsel of Melian she rode forth alone into the w

J. R. R. Tolkien; Christopher Tolkien; Ted Nasmith's books