Post by Andorinha on Jan 19, 2009 8:13:25 GMT -6
Week seven - Turin
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Message 1 of 15 in Discussion
From: megn1
Sent: 6/5/2002 5:03 AM
Algamesh already started this discussion, but I'm going to start this thread so that the title is consistent.
Turin's story is a TRAGEDY, in all the senses of that word. I find myself wondering what kind of mind would create such a story. How can anyone be so cruel to his characters? We see a very dark side of Tolkien here.
So what's your impression? What are your feelings after reading this chapter? Tell us what you think of Turin's story...
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Message 2 of 15 in Discussion
From: megn1
Sent: 6/5/2002 5:06 AM
In the thread Algamesh started, Zauber said:
Poor Turin is such a tortured soul. Morgoth/Melkor, working through Glaurung the dragon, certainly did a number on him! Turin reminds me the most of all Tolkien's characters of a truly "northern" berzerker. He runs here and kills someone, runs there and kills someone else, as if he is under a complusion, driven by more than just pride and rage. This seems to me a very dark chapter, perhaps the darkest of the Silmarillion, as Turin brings ruin not just to himself but those he loves, those who are closest to him.
Turin moves fast, but seems to be guided by the wrong choice, and heads in the wrong direction, so he is just missing the person he is seeking. I think of Aragorn's decision to follow after the Orcs and Merry and Pippin, and how fast he and Legolas and Gimli moved. That was a journey that could have ended in sorrow, and been for effect for naught, but Aragorn had a healthy impulse, and made the 'right' decision, and although he didn't attain the goal he set out to do (rescue the Hobbits), his intution took him to the right place to be of use for many other happening.
Turin seems warped, unable to make good decisions, sort of anxious and panic stricken. Very sad.
Zauber
Zaube
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Message 3 of 15 in Discussion
From: megn1
Sent: 6/5/2002 5:07 AM
In the other thread, Sparrow said:
The story of Turin seems to be the saddest so far. His life seems to jump from love triangles/unrequited love to rash killing of a beloved friend by mistake to violent loss of a loved one to another of these. Overshadowing his entire life is Morgoth/Melkor's malice. Turin did seem to always make the wrong decision, and I felt sorry for him becuase he was doomed from a very young age.
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Message 4 of 15 in Discussion
From: megn1
Sent: 6/5/2002 5:16 AM
Zauber,
I like your description of Turin as a "berzerker." That is how he appears - randomly running around and killing people. You called him warped, and anxious. I think his problem is that he is cursed. I don't know how Morgoth is able to do it. If he has this much power, why doesn't he similarly curse all his enemies?
Sparrow mentions that he was doomed from a very young age. I would add that his doom comes from nothing in him, but from his father. It is solely because he is Hurin's son that he suffers. So where is the free will? Is Turin so completely trapped in his fate that it is inescapable? What did he do to deserve this? The story implies that his whole life is contrived by Morgoth as a punishment to his father. Not exactly fair, is it?
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Message 5 of 15 in Discussion
From: Zauber
Sent: 6/5/2002 6:20 AM
Very good point about Turin being CURSED. Morgoth seemed to have an ability to broadcast negative energies, expressed in the dark clouds both he and Sauron were able to produce from their strongholds. These dark clouds always harbored much more dispair and terror than an average thunderhead. But I expect a curse is more personal and pointed, and I am not too familiar with how they work. (Thank goodness!!) It does seem totally despicable to curse the son because of the father, but despicability is Morgoth's forte. But as you pointed out, why didn't he curse more enemies? Does the creation of a curse drain the curser in some way?
I came away with the feeling that Turin could have escaped his doom, or at least lessened its impact. I found myself wanting to grab hold of him and holler, "Stop! Think this out!" before he went racing off to the next disaster. I want to sign him up for the "Orc Rehabilitation Center" of the Role Play! I can see Gandalf saying, "Think, you fool!", and Turin sort of 'snapping out of it'.
Despite my compassion for Turin, I also found myself disliking him. That is an unsettling chapter. I too wonder what was going on in Tolkien's mind. I know the Northern sagas, which influenced Tolkien, have dooms and curses, and whole families being wiped out from one person's mistakes. Very dark and very sad
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Message 6 of 15 in Discussion
From: Karo6
Sent: 6/16/2002 3:17 PM
Dropping in briefly:
Several readers of the tales concerning Turin have remarked that it seems to be a particularly dark, foredoomed and downright depressing sort of narrative. This may be because Tolkien was trying here to re-tell the story of Kullervo, the tragic heroic figure of a goodly portion of the Finnish Kalevala. Check out this excerpt of the Kullervo epic, and see just how closely Tolkien was following the Kalevala in his creation of Turin and the recounting of his deeds, there is even the matter of a talking sword...
inkpot.com/classical/kullervo.html
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Message 7 of 15 in Discussion
From: Zauber
Sent: 6/17/2002 6:41 AM
HEY! Welcome back Karo! Always nice to hear from you, whether it's a short note or pages and pages and pages!
I will pursue your lead, since I find poor Turin rather haunting. Thanks, Zauber
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Message 8 of 15 in Discussion
From: Karo6
Sent: 6/18/2002 1:46 AM
Howdy, Zauber!
Thank You fer da welcoming note!
Ah, I have so often heard how influential was the Kalevala upon Tolkien's early mindset... now that I am actually reading the massive, disjointed thing (my momentary opinion only) I keep stumbling into startling revelations -- t'was not alone in the realm of linguistic inspiration that JRRT found fertile sources in this Finnish National epic - check me on this if you will, there are many direct coorespondences of characters, motivations, and even actions between Turin's Tale and that of the hapless Kullervo. Right down to the themes of incest, suicide by water, and suicide via talking sword...
kalevala.gov.karelia.ru/songs/song31_e.shtml
Back home for a while this weekend and I'll see if I can piece this together in a footnoted and defensible format.
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Message 9 of 15 in Discussion
From: Zauber
Sent: 6/18/2002 6:58 AM
A bit of confusion on my part: I started a message under HUAN, and sort of segued into TURIN without switching to over here. So, I refer you to my other message too! What editon/version of the Kalevala are you reading? I am going to look for a copy to undertake that reading adventure some time soon.
I will persue your new link to information; just from the SUMMARY I am amazed at the themes and images Tolkien used from the Kalevala. I will need to read more of Kullervo. The summary I read mentioned the incest, the sister drowning, the Finnish hari-kari, but no mention of the talking sword that started this whole investigation.
Zaube
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Message 10 of 15 in Discussion
From: DaleAnn
Sent: 6/18/2002 10:19 AM
Zauber and Karo6, according to Shippey, from Road to Middle Earth, the translation that Tolkien knew was of W.F. Kirby (London and New York: Dent and Dutton, 1907). It was reprinted in 1977, and called Kalevala: The land of the heroes.
Here is a link to, I believe, the entire Kalevala on-line: www.sacred-texts.com/neu/kveng/index.htm It is not Kirby's translation. ----DA
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Message 11 of 15 in Discussion
From: Karo6
Sent: 6/21/2002 9:52 PM
Kullervo and Turin
Part I: Introduction and Structural Sources of the Turin Mythos
Introduction:
I think here that as I mentioned earlier on the Huan discussion page, we have already fairly well exhausted the potentials in the original point of debate concerning whether Tolkien meant us to understand the voice from Turin's blade as being "real" within the context of his mythos, or just a matter of Turin's own insanity made manifest as he hallucinates its voice. It is, as I concluded there, still most likely a matter of individual taste as to which version you will accept, and so I have altered the nature of this posting to develope other themes as well, exploring Tolkien's use of patterns available in the Kalevala that might explain the "primitive magical" flavour which seems to set the characters and actions of the Turin Tale apart from much else to be found in his Middle-earth corpus.
When all the Silmarillion tales are examined, "primitive" folk tale magics seem most evident, to me, in the Tale of Turin, and the fact that in the Kalevala inanimate objects frequently have personae, and have the gift of speech, may be the only valid way of deciding that we should in fact opt for a "real" talking sword as being Tolkien's likely meaning in his use of Anglachel-Gurthang in the Tale of Turin.
I A.Structural Similarities of the Finnish Kalevala and The Tale of Turin:
The "primitive" flavour of the Tale of Turin, Son of Hurin, would seem to mark it out as one of Tolkien's earliest attempts to "subcreate" a connected, lengthy narrative wherein he might explore and rework the "Nordic" themes he had so recently absorbed from his adolescent studies in the Gothic, Old English, Welsh, and Finnish tongues. But JRRT did not leave us a precise record of dates showing which of his many tales was his first, and therefore the most likely to resemble his original sources of inspiration, the folk tales of the Germano-Finnish north of Europe. I would love to say that Turin's Tale came first of all, because in it I detect a treatment of character, and certain elements of action that seem very close to these traditional Nordic, folk tale themes. His other offerings do not show such a rough and "derived" sort of sturcture and content, but in the fully shaped narrative of the Silmarillion the placement of Turin comes rather late. Of course we do know that the chronological ordering of the Silmarillion was in many cases not native to JRRT's writing practices. Some of his tales were edited into "logical" sequence in the Silmarillion by Christopher Tolkien who arranged them into a flowing chronolgy that fits as closely as possible the narrative history of Middle-earth. But by this necessary act of editing, some of the earliest written texts were transposed toward the last pages of the Silmarillion book.
One of the earliest "written" chapters of the Silmarillion was the Tale of Tinuviel, a fairly smooth, and pleasing work (to the sensibilities of most modern readers) in comparison with the Tale of Turin. And we do have dated manuscript versions of Tinuviel which show it taking shape in a 1917 context, whereas our earliest Turin sheets are definitely no earlier than 1918. This would suggest that Tolkien wrote in a more mature style for the Tinuviel episode and then, for some unspecified purpose reverted to a rougher style as he scripted the later written forms of his Turin myth, a puzzling inversion of the expected sequence. But here we have some interesting textual clues which may allow us to transpose the order of his writing into a more sensible pattern. There are at least two sections in the Tinuviel which make reference to the Tale of Turin! Apparently Tolkien either had a pre-1917 version of Turin already composed, a version now lost, or he at least had notes for such a work, notes now lost, in which already some of the details of action from the Turin Tale pre-date his first version of Tinuviel. This puts us on more solid ground, methodologically, for now we can simply explain the "clumsiness" and "crudities" of the Turin Tale as the first essays and trials he made in composing his own mythologies. It is interesting to note, as one might expect, that even his first version of Tinuviel is rougher, and more "folksy" in its uses of themes and character portrayals than the later more polished third or fourth versions that finally show up in the published Silmarillion. In this first, 1917 Tinuviel there is a great deal more folk loric fantasy as Huan is the "Prince of Dogs" and speaks both long and often* (BLT - 2 , pp 1 - 69) and Huan is confronted by the Elves' chief foe, "The Prince of Cats," who is later anthropomorphosed into our more familiar Necromancer, Sauron. With all these fully speaking dogs and cats, is a talking sword, the stock item of "primitive" folk tales so hard to imagine?
But I am jumping ahead of my own tale here and we shall have to sweat through all this data in a more logical fashion to make any of our conclusions valid! Twice an excerpt from the Tale of Turin is mentioned in this near whimisical, early version of Tinuviel giving Turin's Tale an older pedigree than its 1918 first recorded edition:
"Yet ere long as Tinuviel went forward a sudden dread overtook her at the thought of what she had dared to do and what lay before; then did she turn back for a while, and she wept, wishing Dairon was with her, and it is said that he indeed was not far off, but was wandering lost in the great pines, the Forest of Night, where afterward Turin slew Beleg by mishap." (BLT - 2, p. 18)
"On a time he [Huan] fell in with Mablung who aided in the chase, and was now fallen much to hunting in lonely parts; and the twain hunted together as friends until the days of Glorund the Drake and of Turin Turambar, when once more Huan found Beren and played his part in the great deeds of the Nauglafring, the Necklace of the Dwarves." (BLT - 2, p.40)
Beyond such quick flashes of an "antique" Turin we must wait until 1918 to pick up our first preserved manuscript scraps of his tale, and it is only in 1919 that a fairly lengthy paragraph comes to light, written in the "Alphabet of Rumil" which Tolkien used in June of that year for the first time (according to H, Carpenter). Sometime in 1919 we have our first extended, near full drafts under the working title of "Turambar and the Foaloke." From these early days onward we have a genuine "Lay" version that is apparently developed along with a parallel prose version. This "Lay" of Turambar was a verse-chant form that survives only in bits and pieces, so far as I know, though a completed, poetic edition may yet be available in the further HOME volumes which I do not possess. But what little of this "Lay of the Children of Hurin" I do have access to I'll reproduce here as it will be of importance later in showing just how close this early form of Turin's Tale really is to its prototypic Kalevala, the source of much of Tolkien's mythic as well as linguistic inspiration.
These verses follow shortly after Beleg's death by "mischance," slain by his own dark sword, a deed from which Turin flees in guilty horror:
6-4 There the twain enfolded- phantom twilight
7 and dim mazes dark, unholy,
5-4 in Nan Dungorthin- where nameless gods
4-5 have shrouded shrines- in shadows secret,
5-5 more old than Morgoth- or the ancient lords
5-5 the golden Gods- of the guarded West.
6-5 But the ghostly dwellers- of that grey valley
5-5 hindered nor hurt them,- and they held their course
4-4 with creeping flesh- and quaking limb.
5-6 Yet laughter at whiles- with lingering echo,
6-5 as distant mockery- of demon voices
5-5 there harsh and hollow- in the hushed twilight
4-4 Flinding fancied,- fell, unwholesome...
(BLT - 2, "The Lay of Hurin's Children," pp 62-63)
The line breaks show the vocal patterns used in "proper chanting," a device that alters the pitch of the voice for the second half of the line producing a "sing-song" rhythm of phrasing that can, in the mouth of a skilled chanter, produce a dreamy sort of near hypnosis in the audience -- add the feasters' full bellies and fuller horns of mead and you have instant poetic magic!
Flindring is an earlier name for the broken Elf, Gwindor.
The Kalevala of Finland is composed in largely unrhyming verses, with no strict metering of its lines, though Keith Bosley points out that some of the Runos (song-poems) do often attempt a mixed "four beat, five beat rhythm," a form Tolkien sometimes uses in this very early poetic version of Turin's Tale (Kalevala p. xxi, K. Bosley 1998). The element of alliteration is prominent in many of the early Tolkien Lays, and as Bosley points out the Kalevala's "other formal features are alliteration and parallelism... Alliteration is irregular and sometimes absent..." ( Kal, K. Bosley, p xxii, 1998). In the example of Tolkien's "Lay," the alliteration is likewise prominent though incomplete, and at times simply missing. Additionally, both Tolkien and the Kalevala present their "Lays," as chanted verses being sung around the fires to both educate and entertain. The Kalevala in fact starts out in Runos One with the announcement that this is a "sung" historical narrative.
5-5 I have a good mind- take into my head
5-5 to start off singing- begin reciting
7-7 reeling off a tale of kin- and singing a tale of kind.
(Kalevala, Runos 1:1-6, K. Bosley, 1998, p. 1)
While I do not yet have the full alliterative, verse form of Turin's tale, and thus cannot ascertain if it copies the formal introduction used in the Kalevala -- wherein the chanter explains what tale is to be performed -- I do have the introduction from the Tinuviel Tale where the poet "Veanne sat up and clapped her hands, saying: 'I will tell you the Tale of Tinuviel.'" (BLT - 2, p. 4). Likewise the prose form of Turambar's Tale starts out with its introduction by the chanter: "... Etlas began a tale, and said: 'Now all folk gathered here know that this is the story of Turambar and the Foaloke..." (BLT - 2, p. 71).
So far then, the structures and forms of the verse-chanted Kalevala do seem to appear in Tolkien's early "Lays" as though he used the Finnish Epic as his template. Where one finds such structural congruence it is only likely that one will find content similarities as well, and here we are not disappointed. Now in the following comparisons I am not suggesting anything quite so crude as plagiarism on Tolkien's part, but were I grading his re-working of the Kalevala I would definitely expect him to acknowledge the source of his inspiration, something not made clear in Christopher Tolkien's edition of his father's work which became our present, published Silmarillion.
From my reading of both the Kalevala and The Silmarillion, I think that Tolkien altered his Finnish model tremendously, and I would agree with Zauber's implication that when Tolkien finished with his use of certain sections of the Kalevala he had added about 90% new and distinct material. Nonetheless, the points I'll bring up in this present paper show a series of very detailed "borrowings" that make it unmistakably certain that Tolkien was originally trying his hand at writing in both the structural and the content styles he found in the Kalevala. Tolkien, whatever his final production, could only be trying in these early writings to create a Kalevala of his own, especially if we regard his alliterative-verse, his "Lay" version of "Turambar and the Foaloke."
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*A separate paper on Tolkien's early use of the "Beast Fable," -- here the War between Dogs and Cats, needs to be done, and soon, any takers? What do you think of an evil "Cat Prince" later replaced by the figure of the Necromancer? BLT - 2, p. 53).
Soon to follow:
Part II: Content Similarities of the Kullervo Runos and The Tale of Turin Turambar.
Part III: Conclusions: A Tale of Talking Swords†
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Message 12 of 15 in Discussion
From: megn1
Sent: 6/22/2002 5:11 AM
Karo,
I will save my comments until I have read the full disertation, but I have one piece of evidence that should put your mind at ease.
As probably everyone knows by now, I am reading Tolkien's Letters, and taking lots of notes (and quoting lots of bits on these boards). The very first letter in the book, written to Edith in October 1914 contains these words:
"...then I went and had an interesting talk with that quaint man Earp I have told you of and introduced him (to his great delight) to the Kalevala the Finnish ballads.
Amongst other work I am trying to turn one of the stories - which is really a very great story and most tragic - into a short story somewhat on the lines of Morris' romances with chunks of poetry in between..."
Humphrey Carpenter's footnote reads
"Tolkien's reworking of one of the Kalevala stories, 'The Story of Kullervo', was never finishted, but proved to be the germ of the story of Turin Turambar in The Silmarillion. For Tolkien's account of this, see no. 163."
I haven't reached letter number 163, and turning to it I find it is one of the long ones. I will digest it later and tell you what I learn. For now, be comforted in knowing that the beginnings of Turin can be traced to 1914.
I wonder if some of the differences in the feel of the tales is that Turin was already somewhat formed in his mind before his experience of the War. Certainly his war experience shaped Tolkien, and (I think) his writings.
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Message 13 of 15 in Discussion
From: MSN NicknameIarwainBen-adar1
Sent: 6/22/2002 11:04 AM
Karo6,
Quite impressive, I eagerly await Episode II and III to become even more enlightened. Does anyone no where I can get a Karo6 countdown clock?
Namarie Eldameldor,
Iarwain
P.S. Apologies DaleAnn I was having too much fun in the Huan thread should have brought it here.
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Message 14 of 15 in Discussion
From: Karo6
Sent: 6/22/2002 12:05 PM
The more I work on Tolkien, the more inadequate I find my understanding!
Megn1: OH... GASP, The Letters! LOL. Sheesh, I quote them in one post and then forget to consult them at all for the next! Thank You for supplying the relevant data from that great source! I need to "automatically" go through its index before addressing each new topic. I think I am trying to squeeze too much writing into too little time (3 days) before I drop off the line for another month or so. I'll just consider this particular set of posts as "provisional," get my outline of thoughts down, then get the benefit of the inputs from the other participants, and at long last try to rewrite a "final" copy as a sort of communal effort thing.
But the 1914 date is wonderful support for my feeling that the Turin-Kullervo stuff should be very early, THIS early is just gravy. Yes, you are right I think, we are now dealing with a pre-war experience Tolkien, a young, exuberant Tolkien, in some ways an immature Tolkien, a Hobbit not yet forced out of his Shire? Lots to think about here as well!
Iarwain: Ack! I'm looking to YOU for enlightenment here! I'll try to get things wrapped up soon, then I expect you to pick it to pieces and show me my mistakes. After that maybe we can all work jointly on a final version that may be useful for DaleAnn's class, that is if you and the other discussants have the time and the interest. Your excellent research work on the Silmarillion "blade data" is saving me a lot of time and book-sweat, thanks again!
A countdown clock! Uh-Oh, visions of time bombs ticking away the last few seconds...
Well, back to cleaning up part II, and inserting the Letters stuff Megn1 has brought up, your material, DA's and some of Zauber's, LOL, a community project already.
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Message 15 of 15 in Discussion
Sent: 11/24/2002 1:51 PM
This message has been deleted by the author.
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Message 1 of 15 in Discussion
From: megn1
Sent: 6/5/2002 5:03 AM
Algamesh already started this discussion, but I'm going to start this thread so that the title is consistent.
Turin's story is a TRAGEDY, in all the senses of that word. I find myself wondering what kind of mind would create such a story. How can anyone be so cruel to his characters? We see a very dark side of Tolkien here.
So what's your impression? What are your feelings after reading this chapter? Tell us what you think of Turin's story...
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Message 2 of 15 in Discussion
From: megn1
Sent: 6/5/2002 5:06 AM
In the thread Algamesh started, Zauber said:
Poor Turin is such a tortured soul. Morgoth/Melkor, working through Glaurung the dragon, certainly did a number on him! Turin reminds me the most of all Tolkien's characters of a truly "northern" berzerker. He runs here and kills someone, runs there and kills someone else, as if he is under a complusion, driven by more than just pride and rage. This seems to me a very dark chapter, perhaps the darkest of the Silmarillion, as Turin brings ruin not just to himself but those he loves, those who are closest to him.
Turin moves fast, but seems to be guided by the wrong choice, and heads in the wrong direction, so he is just missing the person he is seeking. I think of Aragorn's decision to follow after the Orcs and Merry and Pippin, and how fast he and Legolas and Gimli moved. That was a journey that could have ended in sorrow, and been for effect for naught, but Aragorn had a healthy impulse, and made the 'right' decision, and although he didn't attain the goal he set out to do (rescue the Hobbits), his intution took him to the right place to be of use for many other happening.
Turin seems warped, unable to make good decisions, sort of anxious and panic stricken. Very sad.
Zauber
Zaube
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Message 3 of 15 in Discussion
From: megn1
Sent: 6/5/2002 5:07 AM
In the other thread, Sparrow said:
The story of Turin seems to be the saddest so far. His life seems to jump from love triangles/unrequited love to rash killing of a beloved friend by mistake to violent loss of a loved one to another of these. Overshadowing his entire life is Morgoth/Melkor's malice. Turin did seem to always make the wrong decision, and I felt sorry for him becuase he was doomed from a very young age.
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Message 4 of 15 in Discussion
From: megn1
Sent: 6/5/2002 5:16 AM
Zauber,
I like your description of Turin as a "berzerker." That is how he appears - randomly running around and killing people. You called him warped, and anxious. I think his problem is that he is cursed. I don't know how Morgoth is able to do it. If he has this much power, why doesn't he similarly curse all his enemies?
Sparrow mentions that he was doomed from a very young age. I would add that his doom comes from nothing in him, but from his father. It is solely because he is Hurin's son that he suffers. So where is the free will? Is Turin so completely trapped in his fate that it is inescapable? What did he do to deserve this? The story implies that his whole life is contrived by Morgoth as a punishment to his father. Not exactly fair, is it?
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Message 5 of 15 in Discussion
From: Zauber
Sent: 6/5/2002 6:20 AM
Very good point about Turin being CURSED. Morgoth seemed to have an ability to broadcast negative energies, expressed in the dark clouds both he and Sauron were able to produce from their strongholds. These dark clouds always harbored much more dispair and terror than an average thunderhead. But I expect a curse is more personal and pointed, and I am not too familiar with how they work. (Thank goodness!!) It does seem totally despicable to curse the son because of the father, but despicability is Morgoth's forte. But as you pointed out, why didn't he curse more enemies? Does the creation of a curse drain the curser in some way?
I came away with the feeling that Turin could have escaped his doom, or at least lessened its impact. I found myself wanting to grab hold of him and holler, "Stop! Think this out!" before he went racing off to the next disaster. I want to sign him up for the "Orc Rehabilitation Center" of the Role Play! I can see Gandalf saying, "Think, you fool!", and Turin sort of 'snapping out of it'.
Despite my compassion for Turin, I also found myself disliking him. That is an unsettling chapter. I too wonder what was going on in Tolkien's mind. I know the Northern sagas, which influenced Tolkien, have dooms and curses, and whole families being wiped out from one person's mistakes. Very dark and very sad
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Message 6 of 15 in Discussion
From: Karo6
Sent: 6/16/2002 3:17 PM
Dropping in briefly:
Several readers of the tales concerning Turin have remarked that it seems to be a particularly dark, foredoomed and downright depressing sort of narrative. This may be because Tolkien was trying here to re-tell the story of Kullervo, the tragic heroic figure of a goodly portion of the Finnish Kalevala. Check out this excerpt of the Kullervo epic, and see just how closely Tolkien was following the Kalevala in his creation of Turin and the recounting of his deeds, there is even the matter of a talking sword...
inkpot.com/classical/kullervo.html
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Message 7 of 15 in Discussion
From: Zauber
Sent: 6/17/2002 6:41 AM
HEY! Welcome back Karo! Always nice to hear from you, whether it's a short note or pages and pages and pages!
I will pursue your lead, since I find poor Turin rather haunting. Thanks, Zauber
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Message 8 of 15 in Discussion
From: Karo6
Sent: 6/18/2002 1:46 AM
Howdy, Zauber!
Thank You fer da welcoming note!
Ah, I have so often heard how influential was the Kalevala upon Tolkien's early mindset... now that I am actually reading the massive, disjointed thing (my momentary opinion only) I keep stumbling into startling revelations -- t'was not alone in the realm of linguistic inspiration that JRRT found fertile sources in this Finnish National epic - check me on this if you will, there are many direct coorespondences of characters, motivations, and even actions between Turin's Tale and that of the hapless Kullervo. Right down to the themes of incest, suicide by water, and suicide via talking sword...
kalevala.gov.karelia.ru/songs/song31_e.shtml
Back home for a while this weekend and I'll see if I can piece this together in a footnoted and defensible format.
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Message 9 of 15 in Discussion
From: Zauber
Sent: 6/18/2002 6:58 AM
A bit of confusion on my part: I started a message under HUAN, and sort of segued into TURIN without switching to over here. So, I refer you to my other message too! What editon/version of the Kalevala are you reading? I am going to look for a copy to undertake that reading adventure some time soon.
I will persue your new link to information; just from the SUMMARY I am amazed at the themes and images Tolkien used from the Kalevala. I will need to read more of Kullervo. The summary I read mentioned the incest, the sister drowning, the Finnish hari-kari, but no mention of the talking sword that started this whole investigation.
Zaube
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Message 10 of 15 in Discussion
From: DaleAnn
Sent: 6/18/2002 10:19 AM
Zauber and Karo6, according to Shippey, from Road to Middle Earth, the translation that Tolkien knew was of W.F. Kirby (London and New York: Dent and Dutton, 1907). It was reprinted in 1977, and called Kalevala: The land of the heroes.
Here is a link to, I believe, the entire Kalevala on-line: www.sacred-texts.com/neu/kveng/index.htm It is not Kirby's translation. ----DA
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Message 11 of 15 in Discussion
From: Karo6
Sent: 6/21/2002 9:52 PM
Kullervo and Turin
Part I: Introduction and Structural Sources of the Turin Mythos
Introduction:
I think here that as I mentioned earlier on the Huan discussion page, we have already fairly well exhausted the potentials in the original point of debate concerning whether Tolkien meant us to understand the voice from Turin's blade as being "real" within the context of his mythos, or just a matter of Turin's own insanity made manifest as he hallucinates its voice. It is, as I concluded there, still most likely a matter of individual taste as to which version you will accept, and so I have altered the nature of this posting to develope other themes as well, exploring Tolkien's use of patterns available in the Kalevala that might explain the "primitive magical" flavour which seems to set the characters and actions of the Turin Tale apart from much else to be found in his Middle-earth corpus.
When all the Silmarillion tales are examined, "primitive" folk tale magics seem most evident, to me, in the Tale of Turin, and the fact that in the Kalevala inanimate objects frequently have personae, and have the gift of speech, may be the only valid way of deciding that we should in fact opt for a "real" talking sword as being Tolkien's likely meaning in his use of Anglachel-Gurthang in the Tale of Turin.
I A.Structural Similarities of the Finnish Kalevala and The Tale of Turin:
The "primitive" flavour of the Tale of Turin, Son of Hurin, would seem to mark it out as one of Tolkien's earliest attempts to "subcreate" a connected, lengthy narrative wherein he might explore and rework the "Nordic" themes he had so recently absorbed from his adolescent studies in the Gothic, Old English, Welsh, and Finnish tongues. But JRRT did not leave us a precise record of dates showing which of his many tales was his first, and therefore the most likely to resemble his original sources of inspiration, the folk tales of the Germano-Finnish north of Europe. I would love to say that Turin's Tale came first of all, because in it I detect a treatment of character, and certain elements of action that seem very close to these traditional Nordic, folk tale themes. His other offerings do not show such a rough and "derived" sort of sturcture and content, but in the fully shaped narrative of the Silmarillion the placement of Turin comes rather late. Of course we do know that the chronological ordering of the Silmarillion was in many cases not native to JRRT's writing practices. Some of his tales were edited into "logical" sequence in the Silmarillion by Christopher Tolkien who arranged them into a flowing chronolgy that fits as closely as possible the narrative history of Middle-earth. But by this necessary act of editing, some of the earliest written texts were transposed toward the last pages of the Silmarillion book.
One of the earliest "written" chapters of the Silmarillion was the Tale of Tinuviel, a fairly smooth, and pleasing work (to the sensibilities of most modern readers) in comparison with the Tale of Turin. And we do have dated manuscript versions of Tinuviel which show it taking shape in a 1917 context, whereas our earliest Turin sheets are definitely no earlier than 1918. This would suggest that Tolkien wrote in a more mature style for the Tinuviel episode and then, for some unspecified purpose reverted to a rougher style as he scripted the later written forms of his Turin myth, a puzzling inversion of the expected sequence. But here we have some interesting textual clues which may allow us to transpose the order of his writing into a more sensible pattern. There are at least two sections in the Tinuviel which make reference to the Tale of Turin! Apparently Tolkien either had a pre-1917 version of Turin already composed, a version now lost, or he at least had notes for such a work, notes now lost, in which already some of the details of action from the Turin Tale pre-date his first version of Tinuviel. This puts us on more solid ground, methodologically, for now we can simply explain the "clumsiness" and "crudities" of the Turin Tale as the first essays and trials he made in composing his own mythologies. It is interesting to note, as one might expect, that even his first version of Tinuviel is rougher, and more "folksy" in its uses of themes and character portrayals than the later more polished third or fourth versions that finally show up in the published Silmarillion. In this first, 1917 Tinuviel there is a great deal more folk loric fantasy as Huan is the "Prince of Dogs" and speaks both long and often* (BLT - 2 , pp 1 - 69) and Huan is confronted by the Elves' chief foe, "The Prince of Cats," who is later anthropomorphosed into our more familiar Necromancer, Sauron. With all these fully speaking dogs and cats, is a talking sword, the stock item of "primitive" folk tales so hard to imagine?
But I am jumping ahead of my own tale here and we shall have to sweat through all this data in a more logical fashion to make any of our conclusions valid! Twice an excerpt from the Tale of Turin is mentioned in this near whimisical, early version of Tinuviel giving Turin's Tale an older pedigree than its 1918 first recorded edition:
"Yet ere long as Tinuviel went forward a sudden dread overtook her at the thought of what she had dared to do and what lay before; then did she turn back for a while, and she wept, wishing Dairon was with her, and it is said that he indeed was not far off, but was wandering lost in the great pines, the Forest of Night, where afterward Turin slew Beleg by mishap." (BLT - 2, p. 18)
"On a time he [Huan] fell in with Mablung who aided in the chase, and was now fallen much to hunting in lonely parts; and the twain hunted together as friends until the days of Glorund the Drake and of Turin Turambar, when once more Huan found Beren and played his part in the great deeds of the Nauglafring, the Necklace of the Dwarves." (BLT - 2, p.40)
Beyond such quick flashes of an "antique" Turin we must wait until 1918 to pick up our first preserved manuscript scraps of his tale, and it is only in 1919 that a fairly lengthy paragraph comes to light, written in the "Alphabet of Rumil" which Tolkien used in June of that year for the first time (according to H, Carpenter). Sometime in 1919 we have our first extended, near full drafts under the working title of "Turambar and the Foaloke." From these early days onward we have a genuine "Lay" version that is apparently developed along with a parallel prose version. This "Lay" of Turambar was a verse-chant form that survives only in bits and pieces, so far as I know, though a completed, poetic edition may yet be available in the further HOME volumes which I do not possess. But what little of this "Lay of the Children of Hurin" I do have access to I'll reproduce here as it will be of importance later in showing just how close this early form of Turin's Tale really is to its prototypic Kalevala, the source of much of Tolkien's mythic as well as linguistic inspiration.
These verses follow shortly after Beleg's death by "mischance," slain by his own dark sword, a deed from which Turin flees in guilty horror:
6-4 There the twain enfolded- phantom twilight
7 and dim mazes dark, unholy,
5-4 in Nan Dungorthin- where nameless gods
4-5 have shrouded shrines- in shadows secret,
5-5 more old than Morgoth- or the ancient lords
5-5 the golden Gods- of the guarded West.
6-5 But the ghostly dwellers- of that grey valley
5-5 hindered nor hurt them,- and they held their course
4-4 with creeping flesh- and quaking limb.
5-6 Yet laughter at whiles- with lingering echo,
6-5 as distant mockery- of demon voices
5-5 there harsh and hollow- in the hushed twilight
4-4 Flinding fancied,- fell, unwholesome...
(BLT - 2, "The Lay of Hurin's Children," pp 62-63)
The line breaks show the vocal patterns used in "proper chanting," a device that alters the pitch of the voice for the second half of the line producing a "sing-song" rhythm of phrasing that can, in the mouth of a skilled chanter, produce a dreamy sort of near hypnosis in the audience -- add the feasters' full bellies and fuller horns of mead and you have instant poetic magic!
Flindring is an earlier name for the broken Elf, Gwindor.
The Kalevala of Finland is composed in largely unrhyming verses, with no strict metering of its lines, though Keith Bosley points out that some of the Runos (song-poems) do often attempt a mixed "four beat, five beat rhythm," a form Tolkien sometimes uses in this very early poetic version of Turin's Tale (Kalevala p. xxi, K. Bosley 1998). The element of alliteration is prominent in many of the early Tolkien Lays, and as Bosley points out the Kalevala's "other formal features are alliteration and parallelism... Alliteration is irregular and sometimes absent..." ( Kal, K. Bosley, p xxii, 1998). In the example of Tolkien's "Lay," the alliteration is likewise prominent though incomplete, and at times simply missing. Additionally, both Tolkien and the Kalevala present their "Lays," as chanted verses being sung around the fires to both educate and entertain. The Kalevala in fact starts out in Runos One with the announcement that this is a "sung" historical narrative.
5-5 I have a good mind- take into my head
5-5 to start off singing- begin reciting
7-7 reeling off a tale of kin- and singing a tale of kind.
(Kalevala, Runos 1:1-6, K. Bosley, 1998, p. 1)
While I do not yet have the full alliterative, verse form of Turin's tale, and thus cannot ascertain if it copies the formal introduction used in the Kalevala -- wherein the chanter explains what tale is to be performed -- I do have the introduction from the Tinuviel Tale where the poet "Veanne sat up and clapped her hands, saying: 'I will tell you the Tale of Tinuviel.'" (BLT - 2, p. 4). Likewise the prose form of Turambar's Tale starts out with its introduction by the chanter: "... Etlas began a tale, and said: 'Now all folk gathered here know that this is the story of Turambar and the Foaloke..." (BLT - 2, p. 71).
So far then, the structures and forms of the verse-chanted Kalevala do seem to appear in Tolkien's early "Lays" as though he used the Finnish Epic as his template. Where one finds such structural congruence it is only likely that one will find content similarities as well, and here we are not disappointed. Now in the following comparisons I am not suggesting anything quite so crude as plagiarism on Tolkien's part, but were I grading his re-working of the Kalevala I would definitely expect him to acknowledge the source of his inspiration, something not made clear in Christopher Tolkien's edition of his father's work which became our present, published Silmarillion.
From my reading of both the Kalevala and The Silmarillion, I think that Tolkien altered his Finnish model tremendously, and I would agree with Zauber's implication that when Tolkien finished with his use of certain sections of the Kalevala he had added about 90% new and distinct material. Nonetheless, the points I'll bring up in this present paper show a series of very detailed "borrowings" that make it unmistakably certain that Tolkien was originally trying his hand at writing in both the structural and the content styles he found in the Kalevala. Tolkien, whatever his final production, could only be trying in these early writings to create a Kalevala of his own, especially if we regard his alliterative-verse, his "Lay" version of "Turambar and the Foaloke."
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*A separate paper on Tolkien's early use of the "Beast Fable," -- here the War between Dogs and Cats, needs to be done, and soon, any takers? What do you think of an evil "Cat Prince" later replaced by the figure of the Necromancer? BLT - 2, p. 53).
Soon to follow:
Part II: Content Similarities of the Kullervo Runos and The Tale of Turin Turambar.
Part III: Conclusions: A Tale of Talking Swords†
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Message 12 of 15 in Discussion
From: megn1
Sent: 6/22/2002 5:11 AM
Karo,
I will save my comments until I have read the full disertation, but I have one piece of evidence that should put your mind at ease.
As probably everyone knows by now, I am reading Tolkien's Letters, and taking lots of notes (and quoting lots of bits on these boards). The very first letter in the book, written to Edith in October 1914 contains these words:
"...then I went and had an interesting talk with that quaint man Earp I have told you of and introduced him (to his great delight) to the Kalevala the Finnish ballads.
Amongst other work I am trying to turn one of the stories - which is really a very great story and most tragic - into a short story somewhat on the lines of Morris' romances with chunks of poetry in between..."
Humphrey Carpenter's footnote reads
"Tolkien's reworking of one of the Kalevala stories, 'The Story of Kullervo', was never finishted, but proved to be the germ of the story of Turin Turambar in The Silmarillion. For Tolkien's account of this, see no. 163."
I haven't reached letter number 163, and turning to it I find it is one of the long ones. I will digest it later and tell you what I learn. For now, be comforted in knowing that the beginnings of Turin can be traced to 1914.
I wonder if some of the differences in the feel of the tales is that Turin was already somewhat formed in his mind before his experience of the War. Certainly his war experience shaped Tolkien, and (I think) his writings.
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Message 13 of 15 in Discussion
From: MSN NicknameIarwainBen-adar1
Sent: 6/22/2002 11:04 AM
Karo6,
Quite impressive, I eagerly await Episode II and III to become even more enlightened. Does anyone no where I can get a Karo6 countdown clock?
Namarie Eldameldor,
Iarwain
P.S. Apologies DaleAnn I was having too much fun in the Huan thread should have brought it here.
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Message 14 of 15 in Discussion
From: Karo6
Sent: 6/22/2002 12:05 PM
The more I work on Tolkien, the more inadequate I find my understanding!
Megn1: OH... GASP, The Letters! LOL. Sheesh, I quote them in one post and then forget to consult them at all for the next! Thank You for supplying the relevant data from that great source! I need to "automatically" go through its index before addressing each new topic. I think I am trying to squeeze too much writing into too little time (3 days) before I drop off the line for another month or so. I'll just consider this particular set of posts as "provisional," get my outline of thoughts down, then get the benefit of the inputs from the other participants, and at long last try to rewrite a "final" copy as a sort of communal effort thing.
But the 1914 date is wonderful support for my feeling that the Turin-Kullervo stuff should be very early, THIS early is just gravy. Yes, you are right I think, we are now dealing with a pre-war experience Tolkien, a young, exuberant Tolkien, in some ways an immature Tolkien, a Hobbit not yet forced out of his Shire? Lots to think about here as well!
Iarwain: Ack! I'm looking to YOU for enlightenment here! I'll try to get things wrapped up soon, then I expect you to pick it to pieces and show me my mistakes. After that maybe we can all work jointly on a final version that may be useful for DaleAnn's class, that is if you and the other discussants have the time and the interest. Your excellent research work on the Silmarillion "blade data" is saving me a lot of time and book-sweat, thanks again!
A countdown clock! Uh-Oh, visions of time bombs ticking away the last few seconds...
Well, back to cleaning up part II, and inserting the Letters stuff Megn1 has brought up, your material, DA's and some of Zauber's, LOL, a community project already.
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Message 15 of 15 in Discussion
Sent: 11/24/2002 1:51 PM
This message has been deleted by the author.