NÓLË MAIRONO

The raid of the Orc-captain Boldog into Doriath, seeking to capture Lúthien for Morgoth, was an important element in the history of this time, though later it disappeared and there is no trace of it in The Silmarillion. Discussion of it is postponed till later in the Lay of Leithian, but it may be noticed here that an early reference to it is found in The Children of Hurin (p. 16 lines 392 - 4, p. 117 lines 764-6). There it was Thû himself who was bidden by Morgoth go ravage the realm   of the robber Thingol.

The name Dungalef (2121), though it sounds Orcish enough, was an oddly transparent device, since Felagund had just been mentioned; but it succeeded (2217). No doubt Thû's ponderings on the matter were too subtle. This is the first full portrait of Thû, who emerges as a being of great power, far advanced in sorcery, and is indeed here called 'necromancer' (2074). Here also is the first suggestion that his history would extend far beyond the tale of Beren and Lúthien, when 'in after days' Men would worship him, and build 'his ghastly temples in the shade'.

[Christopher Tolkien:] In fact, the riddling contest is present, but seems not to have been fully developed. In the original draft my father scribbled the following note before he wrote the passage lines 2100 ff.: Riddling questions. Where have you been, who have you slain? Thirty men. Who reigns in Nargothrond? Who is captain of Orcs? Who wrought the world? Who is king &c. They show Elfin [?bias] and too little knowledge of Angband, too much of Elfland. Thû and Felagund ..... enchantments against one another and Thû's slowly win, till they stand revealed as Elves.

They ambush an Orc-band, and disguising themselves in the raiment and fashion of the slain, march on Northward. Between the Shadowy Mountains and the Forest of Night, where the young Sirion flows in the narrowing valley, they come upon the werewolves, and the host of Thû Lord of Wolves. They are taken before Thû, and after a contest of riddling questions and answers are revealed as spies, but Beren is taken as a Gnome, and that Felagund is King of Nargothrond remains hidden. They are placed in a deep dungeon. Thû desires to discover their purpose and real names and vows death, one by one, and torment to the last one, if they will not reveal them. From time to time a great werewolf [struck through: Thû in disguise] comes and devours one of the companions.

Yet not all unavailing were / the spells of Felagund; for Thû / neither their names nor purpose knew. / These much he pondered and bethought, / and in their woeful chains them sought, / and threatened all with dreadful death, / if one would not with traitor's breath / reveal this knowledge. Wolves should come / and slow devour them one by one / before the others' eyes, and last / should one alone be left aghast, / then in a place of horror hung / with anguish should his limbs be wrung, / in the bowels of the earth be slow / endlessly, cruelly, put to woe / and torment, till he all declared. / Even as he threatened, so it fared. / From time to time in the eyeless dark / two eyes would grow, and they would hark / to frightful cries, and then a sound / of rending, a slavering on the ground, / and blood flowing they would smell. / But none would yield, and none would tell.

Behold! they are in their own fair shape, / fairskinned, brighteyed. No longer gape / Orclike their mouths; and now they stand / betrayed into the wizard's hand. / Thus came they unhappy into woe, / to dungeons no hope nor glimmer know, / where chained in chains that eat the flesh / and woven in webs of strangling mesh / they lay forgotten, in despair.

Then his flaming eyes he on them bent, / and darkness black fell round them all. / Only they saw as through a pall / of eddying smoke those eyes profound / in which their senses choked and drowned. / He chanted a song of wizardry, / of piercing, opening, of treachery, / revealing, uncovering, betraying. / Then sudden Felagund there swaying / sang in answer a song of staying, / resisting, battling against power, / of secrets kept, strength like a tower, / and trust unbroken, freedom, escape; / of changing and of shifting shape, / of snares eluded, broken traps, / the prison opening, the chain that snaps. / Backwards and forwards swayed their song. / Reeling and foundering, as ever more strong / Thû's chanting swelled, Felagund fought, / and all the magic and might he brought / of Elfinesse into his words.

But no true Man nor Elf yet free / would ever speak that blasphemy, / and Beren muttered: 'Who is Thû / to hinder work that is to do? / Him we serve not, nor to him owe / obeisance, and we now would go.' / Thû laughed: 'Patience! Not very long / shall ye abide. But first a song / I will sing to you, to ears intent.'

[Thû:] Whom do ye serve, Light or Mirk? / Who is the maker of mightiest work? / Who is the king of earthly kings, / the greatest giver of gold and rings? / Who is the master of the wide earth? / Who despoiled them of their mirth, / the greedy Gods? Repeat your vows, / Orcs of Bauglir! Do not bend your brows! / Death to light, to law, to love! / Cursed be moon and stars above! / May darkness everlasting old / that waits outside in surges cold / drown Manwe, Varda, and the sun! / May all in hatred be begun, / and all in evil ended be, / in the moaning of the endless Sea!'

[Thû:] 'Boldog, I heard, was lately slain / warring on the borders of that domain / where Robber Thingol and outlaw folk / cringe and crawl beneath elm and oak / in drear Doriath. Heard ye not then / of that pretty fay, of Lúthien? / Her body is fair, very white and fair. / Morgoth would possess her in his lair. / Boldog he sent, but Boldog was slain: / strange ye were not in Boldog's train. / Nereb looks fierce, his frown is grim. / Little Lúthien! What troubles him? / Why laughs he not to think of his lord / crushing a maiden in his hoard, / that foul should be what once was clean, / that dark should be where light has been?'

[Thû:] 'Come, tell me true, O Morgoth's thralls, / what then in Elfinesse befalls? / What of Nargothrond? Who reigneth there? / Into that realm did your feet dare?' / 'Only its borders did we dare. / There reigns King Felagund the fair.' / 'Then heard ye not that he is gone, / that Celegorm sits his throne upon?' / 'That is not true! If he is gone, / then Orodreth sits his throne upon.' / 'Sharp are your ears, swift have they got / tidings of realms ye entered not! / What are your names, O spearmen bold? / Who your captain, ye have not told.'

From his tower he gazed, and in him grew / suspicion and a brooding thought, / waiting, leering, till they were brought. / Now ringed about with wolves they stand, / and fear their doom. Alas! the land, / the land of Narog left behind! / Foreboding evil weights their mind, / as downcast, halting, they must go / and cross the stony bridge of woe / to Wizard's Isle, and to the throne / there fashioned of blood-darkened stone. / 'Where have ye been? What have ye seen?'

From Thû their coming was not hid; / and though beneath the eaves they slid / of the forest's gloomy-hanging boughs, / he saw them afar, and wolves did rouse: / 'Go! fetch me those sneaking Orcs,' he said, / 'that fare thus strangely, as if in dread, / and do not come, as all Orcs use / and are commanded, to bring me news / of all their deeds, to me, to Thû.'

Men called him Thû, and as a god / in after days beneath his rod / bewildered bowed to him, and made / his ghastly temples in the shade. / Not yet by Men enthralled adored, / now was he Morgoth's mightiest lord, / Master of Wolves, whose shivering howl / for ever echoed in the hills, / and foul enchantments and dark sigaldry / did weave and wield. In glamoury / that necromancer held his hosts / of phantoms and of wandering ghosts, / of misbegotten or spell-wronged / monsters that about him thronged, / working his bidding dark and vile: / the werewolves of the Wizard's Isle.

An isléd hill there stood alone / amid the valley, like a stone / rolled from the distant mountains vast / when giants in tumult hurtled past. / Around its feet the river looped / a stream divided, that had scooped / the hanging edges into caves. / There briefly shuddered Sirion's waves / and ran to other shores more clean. / An elven watchtower had it been, / and strong it was, and still was fair; / but now did grim with menace stare / one way to pale Beleriand, / the other to that mournful land / beyond the valley's northern mouth. / Thence could be glimpsed the fields of drouth, / the dusty dunes, the desert wide; / and further far could be descried / the brooding cloud that hangs and lowers / on Thangorodrim's thunderous towers. / Now in that hill was the abode / of one most evil; and the road / that from Beleriand thither came / he watched with sleepless eyes of flame.

[Melian:] 'Nay, Lúthien my child, I fear / he lives indeed in bondage drear. / The Lord of Wolves hath prisons dark, / chains and enchantments cruel and stark, / there trapped and bound and languishing / now Beren dreams that thou dost sing.'

There are indeed differences in the plot of the Lay from the story told in The Silmarillion (pp. 162ff.): thus the house where Gorlim saw the phantom of Eilinel was not in the Lay his own; his treachery was far deeper and more deliberate, in that he sought out the servants of Morgoth with the intention of revealing the hiding-place of the outlaws; and he came before Morgoth himself (not Thû-Sauron).