About Tuor and the fall of Gondolin

Of Tuor and the Fall of Gondolin is one of the three major epics of the English writer JRR Tolkien , in the First Age of its fictional world of Middle-earth play. Tolkien himself represents that this is the oldest of the stories of Middle-earth. The different versions were published by Tolkien's son Christopher Tolkien . The story about Tuor is also told in the News from Middle-earth .

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It tells the story of the person Tuor , who is sent from the Vala Ulmo to the hidden Elven city of Gondolin to warn its king Turgon of the impending doom. This is a unique encounter between a human and one of the Valar.

Tuor first grew up with the Elben Hithlums who, after the devastating Nírnaeth Arnoediad ('Battle of Countless Tears'), hid in the caves of Androth ('Long Grotto'). Huor, Tuor's father, died in this battle and his mother Rían died shortly after his birth from grief over this loss. When he grew up to be a man, he set out to fulfill his destiny, as he says. On the coast near Mount Taras, where Turgon founded his first city in Middle-earth, he first finds complete armor with sword and shield, which Turgon had once left there on Ulmo's advice. Then he meets the Vala of the sea himself, who sends him to Turgon with a message, to whom Ulmo said these words a long time ago:

“'Remember that the Noldor's last hope will come from the sea.' [Or:] 'When the danger is near, someone from Nevrast will come to warn you.' "

- JRR Tolkien : News From Middle-earth

So Tuor finally arrives at Gondolin. In Gondolin Tuor is recognized as Ulmo's messenger, but Turgon is so in love with the work of his hands (Gondolin) that he does not manage to leave the beautiful city. Tuor stays there too and later falls in love with Idril Celebrindal, Turgon's daughter, who returns his love. The second sex, the so-called half-elves, arises from their relationship. After the betrayal of Maeglin, the city is destroyed by the armies of Morgoth . Tuor, Idril, their son Earendil and a few other survivors then flee through a secret escape tunnel to the mouth of the Sirion. At the end of his life, Tuor built the ship Earráme ('sea wing '), which carried him and Idril Celebrindal to the west. He has never been seen in Middle-earth since then.

See also : The Fall of Gondolin

Frames

In the Lost Tales

The first version of the story, Tolkien's first ever mythological work, was written around 1916/17 during Tolkien's convalescent leave in the First World War . He wrote them down in two exercise books, corrected them with the help of his wife Edith and read an extract from them in his college in Oxford.

Lay

As with some other stories, Tolkien began by Tuor saga in Leeds a poetry writing version, the Lay of the Fall of Gondolin . However, this version only reached a length of 130 lines before Tolkien gave up work on it. In these 130 lines, the story gets to the point where the dragons attack the city. This poem would have been very short even if it had been completed.

In the abstracts

Between 1926 and 1936, Tolkien wrote a summary of all of his mythology. This summary is available in several revisions.

The new version

• Arrival in Gondolin : Around 1951, after completing the first version of The Lord of the Rings , Tolkien began a completely new version of the story in his typical way. This version was written in much more detail and in a much more definitive stage, but it breaks off at the point when Tuor comes to Gondolin for the first time.
• Maeglin : Tolkien still completed another chapter for this version, the one on Maeglin.

More epics from the First Age

Tolkien himself names three of the stories of his fictional world as the central ones among the tales of the First Age. In fact, parts of it (e.g. names and individual elements of the stories) can be traced back to his earliest records from the 1910s. In addition to the Tuor legend, these are:

• The children of Húrin
• Lay of Leithian

Tolkien reworked these three stories intensively and over and over again, but left them at very different stages of completion. In the publication of the Túrin story 2007 ( The Children of Húrins ) Christopher Tolkien points out that the state of the other two epics is far more fragmentary and that their publication is therefore out of the question.

literature

• JRR Tolkien: Tuor and his arrival in Gondolin. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-423-59061-0 .
• JRR Tolkien: News from Middle-earth. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-423-20845-7 .
• JRR Tolkien: The Book of Lost Stories Part 1. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-608-93061-0 .
• JRR Tolkien: The Book of Lost Stories Part 2. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-608-93062-7 .
• JRR Tolkien: The Silmarillion. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-608-93829-6 .
• JRR Tolkien: The Fall of Gondolin. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2018, ISBN 978-3-608-96378-6 .

Original English title

• JRR Tolkien: The Silmarillion. Houghton Mifflin, Boston 1977, ISBN 0-395-25730-1 .
• JRR Tolkien: Unfinished Tales. Ballantine Books, New York 1980, ISBN 0-345-35711-6 .
• JRR Tolkien: The Book of Lost Tales Part I. George Allen & Unwin (HarperCollins), London 1983, ISBN 0-261-10222-2 .
• JRR Tolkien: The Book of Lost Tales Part II. George Allen & Unwin (HarperCollins), London 1983, ISBN 0-261-10214-1 .
• JRR Tolkien: The Fall of Gondolin. HarperCollins, London 2018, ISBN 978-0-00-830275-7 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ In: News from Middle-earth. 1980 edition, p. 31.
2. ↑ About Tuor and his arrival in Gondolin. P. 59.
3. ↑ A: A pencil manuscript comprising two exercise books, This first version is entitled Von Tuor und den Verbbaren von Gondolin ( Tuor and the Exiles of Gondolin ). Lost Tales II, pp. 146-147. There Christopher Tolkien also explains how he distributed the letters ABC. In the unfinished tales. Pp. 4–5, however, Christopher Tolkien claims that an ink version was written directly over the original pencil version. B: This manuscript was neatly copied by Tolkien's wife Edith around 1917 and made additions and changes in the following years. Tolkien read it for the first time in the spring of 1920 in the essay club at Exeter College Oxford. C: Tolkien typed a copy of these two manuscripts. But it broke off in Gondolin as soon as Tuor, who is here called Tûr, arrived. From these three versions, Christopher Tolkien made a text that he published in Lost Tales II, pp. 149–197. The German translation can be found in The Book of Lost Stories .
   Another fragment of prose: Under the title Turlin and the Exiles of Gondolin there is another fragment, which breaks off immediately after the beginning. Christopher Tolkien published it in The Shaping of Middle-earth, pp. 3–5.
4. ↑ The Lays of Beleriand. In: The History of Middle-earth. Volume 3, p. 175 ff. (??) / p. 144-149. Christopher Tolkien does not print the full text here, but only gives short excerpts.
5. ↑ Christopher Tolkien mentions these abstracts in the Unfinished Tales. P. 5, misleading without giving their title. 1: The sketch ( the sketch ): After returning from Leeds to Oxford Tolkien wrote from 1926 to 1930, a brief summary of his entire mythology that the reading of Túrin saga ( The Children of Hurin should facilitate). Tuor is also mentioned in it. The Shaping of Middle-earth , (pp. 35–37, § 16.) 2: The Qenta Noldorinwa : In 1930 Tolkien wrote a new version of the sketch, which was now called Qenta Noldorinwa and with two chronological tables ( Annals of Valinor I and Annals of Beleriand I) were provided. Here, too, there is a chapter about Tuor, which he has revised so much that he wrote this section again and added it to the text. The Shaping of Middle-earth. P. 140–146, § 16. The revision (Q II), (P. 146–148.) 3: The Quenta Silmarillion : Between 1930 and 1936 Tolkien wrote a complete revision of the Quenta. He broke off the text in the chapter on Túrin so that the chapter on Tuor remained unwritten. However, he has completed the attached time tables ( Annals of Valinor II and Annals of Beleriand II). The Lost Road . After the publication of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien revised the entire Quenta Silmarillion , but did not add to the missing chapters. For this he wrote new versions of the chronological tables ( Annals of Aman and Gray Annals ). Christopher Tolkien mainly used the Gray Annals for the Tuor chapter (chap. 23) in his 1977 Silmarillion .
6. ^ Unfinished Tales of Middle-earth. Pp. 17-56. Christopher Tolkien changed the title to Von Tuor and His Arrival at Gondolin so as not to confuse the reader: Unfinished Tales. S. 5. German translation in News from Middle-earth .
7. ^ War of the Jewels. Pp. 316–339, a twelve page manuscript. Christopher does not print the text here because he used it for chapter 16 in the 1977 Silmarillion . Tolkien made it together with the new version in 1951. He had two copies made of it with the typewriter. He made improvements to it by 1970. On one typescript there is the remark: An enlarged version of the coming of Maeglin to Gondolin, to be inserted in the FG in its place . FG has to be called Fall of Gondolin . This comment refers to another comment in the Tale version Lost Tales II, p. 165, note 23, where Tolkien expressly states that he does not want to tell the story of Maeglin (then Isfin) here. One can also see that Tolkien only wanted to revise the second half of the case of Gondolin little or no more, but would have used the old text.