#hiril

A ficlet for @tolkiengenweek, Day 1

If any had asked of him, in that other life ere the Burning, which were those things that formed his life, the answer would have been quick and certain: his father’s guidance or his mother’s wisdom, his sister’s wry warmth, the solemnity of the gathered elders.

And it was true, of course. These had been his mainstays for as long as he could recall and there was no balm for the ache of their absence.

But as Beren lay hidden within the gorse, looking out over Ladros that was, he found his ears strained rather for the sound of Emeldir’s hammer, undoing as it had each spring the winter’s toll on the Hall, or for his father’s quiet humming as he pruned the garden herbs, rubbed down the newborn lambs with straw.

Sleepless on the scorched heath, it was Andreth’s voice that he sought, weathered as those fingers which in childhood had traced slow patterns along his hands, both soothing him into slumber.

Hiril’s shriek of laughter called to him from the icy springs when he drank. The little river beside the fell had held a similar chill and he would haul her after him whenever they fought, where any squabble would eventually wind its way to laughter within its waters.

Where was the bellow of his uncle’s voice? The bickering of his cousins?

No hammer could undo this toll, nor any song coax the thyme and hyssop from the soil or draw the bleating lambs back from the ashes. The chatter of the stream was choked, the water fouled as all the valley below him. His uncle was dead and burned. The cairn above his cousins’ broken bodies was raised by his own hands.

Bitter was this learning and bitter still the admission: it had been the unnoticed things his heart could not do without, the lost mundane that tangled grief within his breast.

by EilinelsGhost (@eilinelsghost)

In Nargothrond in the First Age, Bëor wrote down the oral tradition of his people to pass on to his younger son, Belen. Throughout the rest of that age and the next, his descendants preserve this book through grief and joy, war and cataclysm, from the highlands of Dorthonion to the fall of Númenor, and reencounter the mythology of their people in the ongoing dance of memory and immortality. Atanatári: (Quenya) The Fathers of Men Issë: (Quenya) Knowledge, Lore

"Belen [was the] second son of Bëor the Old, to whom the wisdom of Bëor (for Bëor himself had been one of the wise) was chiefly transmitted." - Introductory notes to the "Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth" Morgoth's Ring, page 306

Teen, No Archive Warnings

Beren & Hiril (his sister in some versions of canon) for Inktober.

@tolkienocweek day 4: forgotten character - Hiril

The Edain creation myth in Atanatárissë by @eilinelsghost is so inspiring! Here's my rendering of the page she describes from Beor's book of lore, an heirloom handed down through the generations from second child to second child. Do yourself a favour and treat yourself to this fic!

In the beginning of time there was the Dark. Within the Dark dwelt Melishk, the goddess of earth. And within the Dark dwelt Guënid, the god of water. Long they danced in the time ere forms were bound, long they wound together in the shapeless mingling. Each pressed into each, seeking ever to lessen the substance wherein they lay separate from the other, until from their union was wrought clay, there amid the timeless spheres.

Thence from the clay of their unity were wrought six forms, limbed and visaged in the fashion of Men. Then Melishk said to Guënid, “Now let us call forth our sisters to aid us, now let us summon hence our brothers for succor. Let us make within the dark a habitation, that these figures we have shaped may be filled with our breath and live, that within them we might dwell forever as one. From earth and from water have they been ordered, from earth and from water have they been formed, and within them shall earth and water walk ever in the bond of unity.” Then Melishk set forth hills rising up from the soil, upon its face she smoothed valleys and fields. And Guënid swiftly did follow her there: to the heights where he rushed down in torrents; to the valleys in sluggish, wide calm; to the fields where his tendrils spread through her loam.

At that time Fon rose up from his slumber and fire came forth within the world. He passed over hill and field and vale, till he stood beside the gods of water and earth and looked on the work of their mingling. Heat he gave unto the six waiting figures before him and receiving such, their clay limbs eased into flesh. Then Luftu soared through the timeless spheres and with the wind of her presence she laid breath within them. Iuthap awakened too at the call of her sister and illuminated the bare world about them. She set her lips to the face of each figure and sight came into their eyes. Then she leapt laughing into the firmament to take up once more the gods’ dance in the sky. At the last, Satheweis arose from the silence and his singing followed Iuthap’s dance through the air. He brushed his lips across each waiting mouth and at once speech came forth from their tongues. Thus were our people born from the Darkness, our tale called up from the Silence. Remember its measure and call out its rhythm: We are the sum of the parts of the world. We are the meeting of earth and of water. We are the fire and light. Ours, the song of the Dark.

Hiril (daughter of Barahir) vs One (1) Rivendell elf who sings tra-la-la-lally

Hiril (daughter of Barahir):

The sister of Beren mentioned in a genealogical table of the House of Bëor.

fundamentally changes regular Tolkien blorbo Beren’s character just by like. Existing. He’s a different person if he has a sister. You want to think about their dynamic soooo bad. she’s not only Hiril the daughter of Barahir she’s also Hiril daughter of Emeldir the man-hearted. Like there must be such a vibe there with her mother—like Emeldir trying to protect and train her teenage daughter in a terrifying war in a sort of hidden mirror to Beren and Barahir. trying to stick to things I haven’t made up BUT I feel like her being Beren’s older sister is just so obviously true (in my heart) and we do not have enough older sisters in the canon

One (1) Rivendell elf who sings tra-la-la-lally:

One of the Elves of Rivendell who sing tra-la-la-lally in The Hobbit.

This one specific elf sings tra la la lally with the rest but he is slightly off key and the other elves bully him for it