#leithblog

This is really cute. But also like... Rumil wants to kill this bird for speaking a language he doesn’t know... ANYWAY I think it’s a really cool backstory, he was imprisoned by Melkor so to make himself useful he learned EVERY LANGUAGE THERE IS. But human languages change too often, how troublesome.

Also, ‘may Tevildo Prince of Cats harry him.” If Tevildo is really Sauron mk 1 this is a really funny curse. PRESUMABLY Rumil has met him, if they both worked for Melkor. is he scary or is he just... a cat.

Here’s an extract from a poem called ‘the man in the moon.’ I didn’t read the intro carefully enough to figure out what it has to do with anything, but look at Tolkien’s vocabulary:

And at plenilune in his argent moon He had wearily longed for Fire -- Not the limpid lights of wan selenites, But a red terrestrial pyre With impurpurate glows of crimson and rose And leaping orange tongue',

Mr Rolkien you can’t rhyme “plenilune” and “moon,” they’re the same thing. It’s cheating. He also used the word “inaureoled” a couple stanzas earlier. Anyway I LOVE internal rhymes it’s the best thing ever.

OKAY I skipped to the tale of tinuviel (for my own reference, page 222), because I want to see my great kids and also the prince of cats. In the framing story Eriol is hanging out with a bunch of kids and telling them his own stories, and he asks them to pay their debt with a story in return. Within 15 seconds of beginning the story they start arguing over the name of Tinuviel’s father (apparently it’s Tinwelint), which is very kids and very cute.

'Hush thee, Ausir,' said Veanne, 'for it is my tale and I will tell it to Eriol. Did I not see Gwendeling and Tinuviel once with my own eyes when journeying by the Way of Dreams in long past days?’

'What was Queen Wendelin like (for so do the Elves call her), Veanne, if thou sawest her?' said Ausir.

They can’t agree on ANYONE’S name. G/wendelin/g is Melian btw. Apparently she has dark hair; I don’t like it, I think she has fire hair. So there’s a short recounting of how Tinwelint and Wendeling met, and then we note that they had two children, Dairon and Tinuviel. Interesting! Dairon is the third best musician ever, after Ivare and Tinfang Warble (pffft). “Tinuviel's joy was rather in the dance, and no names are setwith hers for the beauty and subtlety of her twinkling feet.” TWINKLETOES. I’m going to call her Twinkletoes from now on.

Beren, one of the gnomes of Dor-Lomin (and if I’m reading this right he’s of the people that were imprisoned by Melkor?) turns up (Veanne doesn’t know how, just that he liked wandering) and stares at her, even though gnomes and elves don’t get along. Yr all eldar, guys. There’s this really cool bit though where Dairon sees Beren and flees, but Tinuviel is too confused and she doesn’t think she’s very good at runnin (she’s a dancer! probably has better stamina than her brother!) so she just... melts into a puddle of moonlight. What it actually says is that she hides under a hemlock with large flowers, but Beren is literally watching her the entire time and he still doesn’t get where she went.

she slipped suddenly down among the white hemlocks and hid herself beneath a very tall flower with many spreading leaves; and here she looked in her white raiment like a spatter of moonlight shimmering through the leaves upon the floor.

Then Beren was sad,

So she gets away. He keeps wandering around looking for her and watches her dance a few times. She’s not afraid of him any more because she realizes he just likes her dancing. And she’s great at it! She should be proud! So he asks her to teach him to dance, and she like, cruelly makes fun of him for not being as good at dancing as she is? And she brings him into whatever they’re calling Menegroth these days and is like “:D hey everyone this wanderer wants to learn to dance! that’s pretty funny right!”

Tinwelint asks if he has ever hurt her and she’s like nooooo he appreciates my dancing more than ANYONE else. And when Tinwelint asks why Beren is here Beren says “I want to marry her.” everyone laughs at him, because that was totally unprompted and extremely rude. after Beren storms out, promising to get a silmaril, Tinuviel chides her father, saying “now no-one will ever appreciate my dancing as much again!” I am really enjoying how she’s clearly not in love with him at all yet, and thinks of him more as a captive audience for her GREAT DANCING than any kind of equal.

Beren is captured by orcs and taken to Melkor, cos he’s beefy and they think Melkor might appreciate it. Melkor is actually mad because he can tell from Beren’s phenotype that he should already be a slave. But Beren says he’s sooo tired of hanging out with humans (who Melkor hates) and would rather work for Melkor as a huntsman and trapper to get him food.

Melko marking his hardy frame believed him, and was willing to accept him as a thrall of his kitchens.

Scullery maid is much funnier, but it’s also more true than I was expecting...

Now he gave orders for Beren to be made a thrall of Tevildo Prince of Cats. Now Tevildo was a mighty cat -- the mightiest of all -- and he was in Melko's constant following; and that cat had all cats subject to him, and he and his subjects were the chasers and getters of meat for Melko's table and for his frequent feasts. Wherefore is it that there is hatred still between the Elves and all cats even now.

I’m so tickled by the image of the hugest domestic cat ever chasing down an elk. Alternately, Melkor eats only mice and rats. It’s just to make it harder for the cooks, who have to peel them individually. Anyway Beren goes to Tevildo’s house, which is full of “growling and monstrous purrings.”

All about shone cats' eyes glowing like green lamps or red or yellow where Tevildo's thanes sat waving and lashing their beautiful tails, but Tevildo himself sat at their head and he was a mighty cat and coal-black and evil to look upon. His eyes were long and very narrow and slanted, and gleamed both red and green, but his great grey whiskers were as stout and as sharp as needles. His purr was like the roll of drums and his growl like thunder, but when he yelled in wrath it turned the blood cold, and indeed small beasts and birds were frozen as to stone, or dropped lifeless often at the very sound.

I have to quote Tevildos extensively because everything I hear about him is just so good. I love when cats do a yell. Anyway Tevildo immediately narrows his eyes at Beren and says “I smell a dog,” and dislikes him forever because he used to have a dog. Which he hasn’t seen for months probably while he’s been in Doriath. Tevildo can smell his doggish personality. So he tells Beren that he’s probably an AWFUL hunter and trapper and tells him to catch three mice. But Beren has nothing to make traps with, so he can’t, and Tevildo sneeeers at him.

OH. OH. HE IS LITERALLY A SCULLERY MAID. WHEN HE COULDN’T CATCH THE MICE TEVILDO SET HIM TO SCRUBBING FLOORS. He is a general dogsbody for the cats (ha!) and doesn’t get much food or sleep.

Meanwhile Tinuviel realizes she actually misses him as a person, confusingly? And she asks her parents to let her go rescue him. Which is really absurd, considering they talked for all of ten minutes and he’s just some random guy from the forest. Her father shuts her in a house up in the boughs of HIRILORN, my favorite tree (queen of beeches!) and she has a great time there actually. I think she likes making people bring her stuff, and her brother spends a lot of time playing for her at the base of the tree.

The hair-growing spell actually fits in with this version of the story way better, because this whole thing is a fairy tale. That’s why I like it better than the final version tbh. Beren as a scullion for the prince of cats! That’s good fairy tale material! The cloak she weaves is also imbued with sleepiness, which rocks.

We now learn of Tevildo’s deep personal grudge against Huan, captain of the dogs, who almost caught him once chasing him away from the dwellings of humans. Tinuviel meets him in the forest and tells him she is looking for Beren. What luck! Huan and Beren have been friends for a long time! Double luck, Huan already hates the guy Beren needs rescuing from! Huan advises Tinuviel to go to Tevildo’s house at noon, when everyone is having their catnap in the sun on the terraces. Holy shit. I love thissss

She meets Umuiyan (umunyan) the doorkeeper and flatters him into letting her see Tevildo. And she dares to pet his head and he purrrrrs. He is much bigger than her, big enough to ride, so he carries her to where Tevildo is and then goes off to take a nap because of her Slumbersome Cloak. Tevildo takes her into the castle (she implied that she has news of his Enemy Huan) and she sees Beren carrying stuff around in the kitchens, so she tells her story to Tevildo REALLY LOUDLY. Beren drops everything he’s carrying. Now Tinuviel says that Huan is lying injured in the forest and is a REAL JERK so she thought she’d tell Tevildo and get him killed, which he deserves.

Blah blah Huan almost kills Tevildo, tries to ransom Beren and Tinuviel for his own safety. I want to note here that Tevildo says Beren is probably being scratched by the cook, Miaule. They have.... cat names.... they all have cat names.... this is like that fucking episode of Naruto where they have to infiltrate the cat fortress. anyway Tevildo is forced to give his golden collar to Tinuviel, and she also gets to use the spell that binds cats to his will and makes them huge and scary. So a bunch of normal sized scared cats come running out of the fortress. Huan takes the golden collar, which has “a great magic of strength and power.” Guys. It’s the one ring, but it’s a cat collar. I’m so fucking tickled.

Tinuviel and Beren wander around in the woods with a whole bunch of dogs for a while until Tinuviel gets homesick. Well there’s nothing to be done about it! I don’t want to live in the woods forever, and Beren can only come home with me if I get a silmaril! Apparently Huan has been carrying around a dead cat this entire time as a trophy, which he donates to Beren as a disguise:

Now doth Tinuviel put forth her skill and fairy-magic, and she sews Beren into this fell and makes him to the likeness of a great cat, and she teaches him how to sit and sprawl, to step and bound and trot in the semblance of a cat, till Huan's very whiskers bristled at the sight, and thereat Beren and Tinuviel laughed. Never however could Beren learn to screech or wail or to purr like any cat that ever walked, nor could Tinuviel awaken a glow in the dead eyes of the catskin -- "but we must put up with that," said she, "and thou hast the air of a very noble cat if thou but hold thy tongue."

Beren is a REALLY GOOD CAT THOUGH LOOK

Tinuviel's heart became lighter awhile than it had been for long, and she stroked Beren or pulled his tail, and Beren was angry because he could not lash it in answer as fiercely as he wished.

CUTE!!!

They go in to talk to Melkor. Although Tinuviel looks the same as normal, Melkor tells her to stop “flitting around like a bat.” So we see where the business with Thuringwethil came from! Anyway Tinuviel pretends she is a teen runaway and hates her dad and wants to come live in Angband because like, that’s the MOST OBVIOUS place for a teen runaway to get a job. He’s like, eh, but he lets her dance anyway because he’s bored. Beren uses his kitchen knife from Tevildo’s house to pry a silmaril out of the iron crown, which I think is very charming. He has no other weapons!