Abstract
The final weight of the Tale of the Children of Húrin is crushing. Only the prophecy that Túrin will slay Melkor in the Last Battle offers any relief. Yet its first version, “Turambar and the Foalókë,” has an ending one might call happy. For Túrin’s death is not the end of his story, but its turning point. A coda details the afterlife of Túrin and Nienor, which begins in sorrow and ends in joy, but it is Fionwë, not Túrin, who kills Melkor (LT I 219; II 116). By the “Sketch of the Mythology” in 1926 Túrin has replaced Fionwë, and all the other details of his afterlife have vanished. Seen as a turning point Túrin’s death opens unexplored paths into Tolkien’s early views on death and fate; into Ilúvatar’s original gift to Men, the “free virtue” to act beyond the Music; into the name “Turambar” as the fraught expression of this virtue.
Recommended Citation
Hillman, Thomas PhD
(2025)
"Túrin Was Dead: To Begin With. Death, Fate, And A Happy Ending In The Book of Lost Tales,"
Journal of Tolkien Research: Vol. 21:
Iss.
1, Article 12.
Available at:
https://scholar.valpo.edu/journaloftolkienresearch/vol21/iss1/12
Comments
This paper is the distillation of two chapters of an exploration of Tolkien's Great Tales and (as I call them) his Great Themes, namely, Death and Immortality, Fate and Free Will, and Theodicy and Evil, and their role within his legendarium overall. It was presented to The Tolkien Society at Westmoot I,10 May 2025, Kansas City, Missouri, USA.