How much of THE CHILDREN OF HÚRIN "really" happened?

[Skald the Rhymer]

Open spoilers ahoy. Please note that for purposes of this thread, I am engaging in what I called the Great Game. That is, after this paragraph, I will be assuming (okay, pretending) that Lord of the Rings is actually what it claims to be: history rather than fantasy, basically true but with a healthy dose of romanticization and redaction. By contrast, The Silmarillion and related works are more mythological (or at least less reliable). Okay?

Those familiar with the tragedy of Húrin Thalion and his children may recall a certain scene that occurred after Húrin was captured by Morgoth's forces. The Dark Lord sought first to bribe, then to threaten Húrin into telling him the location of Gondolin; Húrin refused. Afterwards Morgoth placed Húrin on a high seat and magically confines him to it, further allowing him supernatural perception of the world around him, with the drawback that everything he saw would be filtered through Morgoth's malice.

With that in mind: does it not seem likely that very little of what we are told of Túrin's exploits, missteps, and sins actually happened? For instance: might it not be that, while Túrin did in fact slay the great dragon Glaurung, he did not marry his own sister, and that she did not suicide after discovering she bore an incestuous union? Moreover, might it not be that Túrin's role in the fall of Nargothrond and the death of Finduilas was far less than we're used to thinking -- that it was not his arrogance and selfishness that lead to these events?

Thoughts, anyone? (Even you, Bueller.)

[Frodo]

All of it, The Silmarillion is the revealed word of Eru, you heretic blasphemer!

[Ogre]

Originally Posted by Skald the Rhymer

Open spoilers ahoy. Please note that for purposes of this thread, I am engaging in what I called the Great Game. That is, after this paragraph, I will be assuming (okay, pretending) that Lord of the Rings is actually what it claims to be: history rather than fantasy, basically true but with a healthy dose of romanticization and redaction. By contrast, The Silmarillion and related works are more mythological (or at least less reliable). Okay?

Those familiar with the tragedy of Húrin Thalion and his children may recall a certain scene that occurred after Húrin was captured by Morgoth's forces. The Dark Lord sought first to bribe, then to threaten Húrin into telling him the location of Gondolin; Húrin refused. Afterwards Morgoth placed Húrin on a high seat and magically confines him to it, further allowing him supernatural perception of the world around him, with the drawback that everything he saw would be filtered through Morgoth's malice.

With that in mind: does it not seem likely that very little of what we are told of Túrin's exploits, missteps, and sins actually happened? For instance: might it not be that, while Túrin did in fact slay the great dragon Glaurung, he did not marry his own sister, and that she did not suicide after discovering she bore an incestuous union? Moreover, might it not be that Túrin's role in the fall of Nargothrond and the death of Finduilas was far less than we're used to thinking -- that it was not his arrogance and selfishness that lead to these events?

Thoughts, anyone? (Even you, Bueller.)

I'm not sure that Hurin was the only possible source of the story of Turin Turambar. He had significant interaction with many, many other Elves and Men. I'm assuming that we get a good deal of the story from them as well.

[Skald the Rhymer]

Originally Posted by Frodo

All of it, The Silmarillion is the revealed word of Eru, you heretic blasphemer!

[silly hat]

Fool of a Cretan!

Everyone knows that the supreme God is Athena.

[/silly hat]

[Frodo]

Originally Posted by Skald the Rhymer

[silly hat]

Fool of a Cretan!

Everyone knows that the supreme God is Athena.

[/silly hat]

I was going to say "of course you know this means WAR", but then I remembered the sharks with the friggin lasers in their heads so....
Never mind then, Go Team Athena!

[Roderick Femm]

Originally Posted by Skald the Rhymer

[silly hat]

Fool of a Cretan!

Everyone knows that the supreme God is Athena.

[/silly hat]

Um, inhabitant of Crete? Or cretin?

Anyway, I have to agree with Ogre that there were lots of witnesses for most of those events. I guess the question is who wrote down the stories, and what were the sources?

It's been a while since I read this, so my memory may be faulty, but the tone seems a little closer to history, or perhaps oral tradition, rather than religious text. So I vote for mostly true-ish.

And then there's the meta-view, which is that there wouldn't be any point to telling the story unless there were some valuable lesson to be learned from it, such as don't be arrogant and selfish like Turin.


Roddy

[Skald the Rhymer]

Originally Posted by Roderick Femm

Um, inhabitant of Crete? Or cretin?

The former. But as puns are the lowest form of humor, you can't be surprised that I'd use one.

Anyway, I have to agree with Ogre that there were lots of witnesses for most of those events. I guess the question is who wrote down the stories, and what were the sources?

Part of what bothers me is the detail we have about Turin's exploits with the Gaurwaith. As close-mouthed as he was, it's hard to imagine him telling those stories with anybody.

It's been a while since I read this, so my memory may be faulty, but the tone seems a little closer to history, or perhaps oral tradition, rather than religious text. So I vote for mostly true-ish.

Well, there's religious texts and religious texts. Turin's story is little like Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, but it's somewhat like the David cycle (in that it has a strong narrative thrust).

[Chronos]

While Hurin was eventually released (after Turin's death), wasn't he pretty much a raving madman by that time? I can't imagine that the storytellers/redactors/archivists were able to get anything of substance from his accounts.

[Skald the Rhymer]

Originally Posted by Chronos

While Hurin was eventually released (after Turin's death), wasn't he pretty much a raving madman by that time? I can't imagine that the storytellers/redactors/archivists were able to get anything of substance from his accounts.

I'd not call him a raving madman; more an embittered, deeply cynical, largely broken old coot.

[Knorf]

I'll just echo that Húrin was not the primary source for the story. So, yes, I think we can reasonably believe it "happened."

[Chronos]

OK, yeah, "raving" implies something more energetic. How about "muttering", then?

[Elendil's Heir]

Good question. Although I'd never thought about it before, I guess I presumed that The Children of Hurin was a synthesis of the accounts of many people, as The Hobbit and LOTR also seem to be. Largely true, then, but tinged with and distorted by mythos and hyperbole, and presented as a tragic morality tale.

Originally Posted by Skald the Rhymer

I'd not call him a raving madman; more an embittered, deeply cynical, largely broken old coot.

Yeah. But at least he had the chance to comfort his long-separated wife before she died. So that's something, given all they - and their kids - had been through.

[C K Dexter Haven]

I had similar problems with The Silmarillion, long ago. In LOTR, the elves tell stories of long ago: how much of them are myth and how many are "real"? For example, the idea that the world was lighted by two trees -- a wonderful myth, but there are difficulties if that's "real." And the problem is that some elves, specifically Galadriel, were THERE at the beginnings, and so we have (presumably) eye-witness accounts. For me, that was very off-putting. Too much accumulation of impossibility and my acceptance-o-meter shuts down.

[Skald the Rhymer]

Originally Posted by C K Dexter Haven

I had similar problems with The Silmarillion, long ago. In LOTR, the elves tell stories of long ago: how much of them are myth and how many are "real"? For example, the idea that the world was lighted by two trees -- a wonderful myth, but there are difficulties if that's "real." And the problem is that some elves, specifically Galadriel, were THERE at the beginnings, and so we have (presumably) eye-witness accounts. For me, that was very off-putting. Too much accumulation of impossibility and my acceptance-o-meter shuts down.

That doesn't bother me much, because some of it strikes me as translation problems: an inability of Frodo, Merry, & Samwise to understand when Galadriel & Elrond were speaking metaphorically and when they were speaking literally.

[Bartman]

Originally Posted by Knorf

I'll just echo that Húrin was not the primary source for the story. So, yes, I think we can reasonably believe it "happened."

I agree. Given that we now have several version of the Narn i Chîn Húrin (The Silmarilian, Unfinished Tales, The Book of Lost Tales 2(HoME 2), The Lays of Beleriand (HoME 3), The War of the Jewels (HoME 11) all have versions) it seems likely that their differences can be at least partially attributed to multiple sources.

Add to that and we have a name, date and location of the original composition of the Narn, and Húrin becomes even less likely as a sole source. The Narn was supposedly composed by Dírhaval, a human at the Mouths of Sirion around the early 500s. By this time even Gondolin and Doriath had both been sacked. So the Mouths housed refugees from every part of Beleriand at that point. Sources would be available and gathered together in one place for every part of the story. Húrin may have been one of those sources, he is supposed to have cast himself into the sea after all. And there weren't a lot of other places left one could do it and have it be recorded. But at that point Húrin had helped cause the downfall three of the last safe refuges, so I'm not sure his views would be viewed as unbiased. And after the curing Melian performed on him, I'm not sure even he would believe his version.