The Sons of the Valar, the Valfǫður, and Túrin Turambar, Part Two

Continued from Part One

Túrin at the Last Battle

Clearly, in "the sons of the Valar" and "the sons of the Gods" the martial context is paramount. Understandably, while the references to them at the War of Wrath are many, the references to them at the Dagor Dagorath are few. From the in-world perspective of the writers of the works mentioning them, the War of Wrath is in the past, a matter of history and song, but the Dagor Dagorath lies far in the future. It is a matter of prophecy, speaking of a dead man returning in a battle at the world's end. 

That Túrin would be there is consistent with the development of his role in the legendarium from the first. In The Book of Lost Tales we find the first prophecy which mentions that he will be present at the last battle. This first prophecy is recorded, it seems, in two overlapping parts. The first part of this first prophecy appears in the chapter of The Book of Lost Tales called "The Hiding of Valinor." It states that Fionwë and Tulkas will both fight Melkor, but that Fionwë 

shall in the end be Melko’s bane, and shall destroy the world to destroy his foe, and so shall all things then be rolled away(LT I.219).

This is a very Ragnarök ending, a point to which I shall return. For now, note that Túrin is not mentioned here. Note also that neither he nor any other Man has yet entered the main narrative of The Book of Lost Tales, even if Eriol appears in the frame narrative. With that, let us turn to the second part of the first prophecy. In the frame narrative of the (later) chapter, "Turambar and the Foalókë," it is prophesied that 

Turambar indeed shall stand beside Fionwë in the Great Wrack, and Melko and his drakes shall curse the sword of Mormakil.  (LT II.116)

In contrast to the earlier passage Tulkas goes unmentioned here. It does not say that Túrin will kill Melkor, though some have interpreted it that way. In fact it says nothing at all about the death or Melkor or the end of the world. It has no need to tell us these details in "Turambar and the Foalókë" because it has already done so in "The Hiding of Valinor." Relevance determines who is included and who omitted in each passage. What we have here is a single prophecy repeated in two different chapters by two different narrators each of whom chooses to focus on details they find more important. An Elf narrates "The Hiding of Valinor," but a Man tells "Turambar and the Foalókë." This view of the prophecy harmonizes with its portrayal in subsequent works.

In the prophecy as recorded in the "Sketch," Túrin explicitly replaces Fionwë as the slayer,* but they are still fighting side by side, and Tulkas is once again present (Shaping 40). Túrin is also prophesied here to be the avenger of "the children of Húrin" (Shaping 40). In the "Quenta Noldorinwa" and "Quenta Silmarillion" Túrin, Tulkas, and Fionwë again join together against Melkor, whom Túrin slays; and he is now called the avenger of "the children of Húrin and all Men" (Shaping 165; Lost Road 333). Thus, Túrin's part increases in scope and importance in each new version up through the 1937 "Quenta Silmarillion," and all along the way he is associated with Fionwë, who is preeminent among the Sons of the Valar (Lost Road 333). Túrin's slaying of Melkor makes it possible for all three of the Silmarils to be reunited and given back to Fëanor, which enables the revival of the Two Trees and the renewal of the World. 

The second version of the prophecy, as given in the last paragraph, is most likely what Tolkien has in mind when he writes to Milton Waldman in 1951 that 

[My] legendarium ends with a vision of the end of the world, its breaking and remaking, and the recovery of the Silmarilli and the ‘light before the Sun’ – after a final battle which owes, I suppose, more to the Norse vision of Ragnarök than to anything else, though it is not much like it.

(Letters² no. 131 p. 208) 

Tolkien was back to working on the Silmarillion at this time, and this later version of the "Quenta Silmarillion" preserves the ending of the 1937 text. There it says that the world will "be broken and re-made" but the breaking seems part of the process of recovering the Silmarils rather than the total destruction spoken of in The Book of Lost Tales: "Fionwë... shall destroy the world to destroy his foe, and so shall all things then be rolled away"(LT II.219). This earlier ending is far more like Ragnarök. Tolkien's characterization of the ending of his legendarium in the Waldman Letter -- "though it is not much like [Ragnarök]" -- describes the later version aptly, and apologetically.

That the original ending was more like Ragnarök may well afford us a clue about The Sons of the Valar and Túrin's place among them. As we turn back to The Book of Lost Tales, keep in mind Túrin's enduring association with Fionwë who is himself closely identified with The Sons of the Valar. First time readers of The Book of Lost Tales often find it surprising that Men never leave the World after they die as they do in the later, more familiar parts of the legendarium. To some degree their fate resembles that of the Elves. The Vala Mandos judges the spirits of deceased Elves and keeps them in his halls until he finds them fit for reincarnation (LT I.76-77). While Men are never reborn, after death they go to Nienna, who judges and sorts them according to their deserts (77). The wicked she casts out to be tormented by Melkor (another surprising feature found only in The Book of Lost Tales, and nowhere else). Those neither too good nor too bad -- the great majority -- go to dwell in a part of Valinor called Arvalin, where they "wait in patience till the Great End come" (77). The few deemed truly good remain with Nienna until some or all of them go to dwell with the Valar, where they also wait "until the Great End come" (77). What are they waiting for? The text does not ask or answer this question. 

Two answers suggest themselves, both of which can be true. One need not exclude the other, but I believe that Tolkien has one primarily, perhaps exclusively, in mind here. The first is that Men, as it says in "The Music of the Ainur," will take part in the Second Music "after the Great End" (LT I.53). I am not going to quibble about the possible shades of difference between after versus until here. For, if one is waiting "until the Great End come" to sing, but does not know when it will come, one can begin to sing only in reaction to its arrival and, therefore, "after the Great End." The use of the subjunctive "come" in "until the Great End come" also emphasizes the uncertainty about when that event will take place, while "after the Great End" speaks of the end and the singing as certain. While these details should be noted, they are not decisive either singly or together.

The second possibility is that the spirits of these Men are waiting for the Ragnarök-like battle at the Great End, in which Túrin, Tulkas, and Fionwë fight against and slay Melkor, completely destroying the universe along the way. In Norse myth din gathers those who have died in battle to Valhǫll, that is, to Valhalla, 'the hall of the slain.' There they wait, feasting and fighting, until Ragnarök, when they will come forth to fight for the gods against the giants. These warriors, as Snorri says in the Gylfaginning become Ódin's óskasynir, his 'adopted sons,' for which reason Ódin is called Valfǫður, 'the father of the slain' (sec. 20). 

Óðinn heitir Alfǫðr,  þvíat hann er faðir allra goða. Hann heitir ok Valfǫðr, þvíat hans óskasynir eru allir þeir er í val falla. þeim skipar hann Valhǫll ok Vingólf, ok heita þeir þá einherjar.

Odin is called All-father, because he is father of all the gods. He is also called Father-of-the-Slain, because his adopted sons are all who fall in battle. For them he prepared Valhalla and Vingolf, and they [i.e. his adopted sons] are called the einherjar.

Sigurd will be one of the dead warriors returning at Ragnarök to fight for Ódin. Tolkien seems to be interpreting Sigurd's name mythologically rather than philologically. By this I mean that for the purposes of his story he preferred to look at the Old Norse version of the name, Sigurð, as if it were composed of the elements Sigi and urðr, which respectively mean victory and fate. In other words, the Master of Doom. That, of course, is the meaning of Turambar. In the Qenya Lexicon, which dates from the earliest days of the legendarium, Tolkien glosses the name Turambar with a note to compare it to Sigurð. The editors of the Qenya Lexicon comment on this note (Parma Eldalamberon 12, pp. 95-96):

The reference to Old Norse Sigurðr implies that it is a calque of Turambar, -amarto ‘Conqueror of Fate (II 86), i.e. sigr ‘victory’ + urðr ‘fate, destiny’, though scholars usually interpret the second element of the Old Norse name as derived from vǫrðr ‘watcher, guard(ian)’.

That some of Túrin's story draws on Sigurd's has long been known, and Tolkien himself declared as much (Letters # 133 p. 209). Most obviously, Túrin slays Glorund/Glaurung in much the same way as Sigurd does Fáfnir. That the name Túrin claims for himself as he seeks to defeat the dragon echoes Sigurd's makes sense. In the 1930s, moreover, Tolkien will construct a version of Sigurd that draws on Túrin. For the Sigurd of The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún is prophesied to return at Ragnarök, where he, not Thor, will kill the Midgard Serpent and quite literally save the world from destruction (53-54). So, Sigurd's replacement of Thor parallels Túrin's replacement of Fionwë as the slayer of Melkor, just as Sigurd's return from death parallels Túrin's return from death. We should also note that in Old Norse the element óska- in óskasynir lays emphasis on the wish or choice of the adopter. Another word for "a chosen, adopted child" is óskabarn; a Valkyrie is also an óskmӕr, a "chosen maiden," chosen by Ódin of course. So the óskasynir could also be called Ódin's chosen sons. Tolkien repeatedly refers to Sigurd as "the World's chosen," "the chosen of Ódin," and "the hope of Ódin" (53, 54, 65, 70-71, 73, 93, 121, 184-85, 179, 298). Christopher Tolkien himself calls this reversed inspiration of Túrin upon Sigurd "extremely probable" (184-85).

For Tolkien, then, what the spirits of the dead Men in Valinor seem to be waiting for is the Last Battle at the Great End, when they, along with Túrin, will join "the Sons of the Valar" to fight against Melkor. Does that mean that the dead will be counted among the Sons of the Valar, as Túrin is? I am strongly inclined to believe so given the evidence, especially the parallel with the einherjar, who are Ódin's chosen sons, whom we know are present at Ragnarök but nothing more, and who also do not appear ever to return before the final battle. What then of the statement by Tolkien with which we began?

But of Men in that day the prophecy of Mandos doth not speak, and no Man it names, save Túrin only, and to him a place is given among the sons of the Valar. (Lost Road 333).

The phrasing of this sentence is of a kind that Tolkien uses more than once to create a sense of awe and mystery by suggesting facts it does not reveal, affirm, or deny. We might call it a non-assertion assertion. Its portentous vagueness at best suggests; it cannot confirm or deny.We first encounter it in the sentence with which "The Music of the Ainur" ends:

Yet while the Sons of Men will after the passing of things of a certainty join in the Second Music of the Ainur, what Ilúvatar has devised for the Eldar beyond the world’s end he has not revealed even to the Valar, and Melko has not discovered it.’ (LT I.60)

 It is repeated with some variation in the Silmarillion:

Yet of old the Valar declared to the Elves in Valinor that Men shall join in the Second Music of the Ainur; whereas Ilúvatar has not revealed what he purposes for the Elves after the World’s end, and Melkor has not discovered it. (S 42)

Compare also the coda at the end of the Silmarillion:

Here ends the SILMARILLION. If it has passed from the high and the beautiful to darkness and ruin, that was of old the fate of Arda Marred; and if any change shall come and the Marring be amended, Manwë and Varda may know; but they have not revealed it, and it is not declared in the dooms of Mandos. (S 255)

Similarly but with a more positive spin, Aragorn's last words confidently and convincingly promise much, but reveal nothing:

In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. Behold! we are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory. Farewell!” (RK App. A I.v.1063)

If the prophecy about Túrin's return does not speak of Men or name any Man but Túrin, that really tells us only that the prophecy tells us nothing about Men other than Túrin. It does not say no Men were present. It does not say no other Men were counted among the Sons of the Valar. That would be our inference. But inferences about prophecy are notoriously dangerous, and this prophecy mentions only the most important players: Morgoth, Tulkas, Fionwë, and Túrin in the first part, and Eärendel, Fëanor, Yavanna, and Ilúvatar, in the second. Gods and heroes, all of them. As the avenger of all Mankind, Túrin stands at centerstage. He has at last met his fate and overcome it, just as just as the dragon had told him he would have to do (LT II.87). The doom Melkor had laid on him expired with his death, but his triumph at the Last Battle suggests that Ilúvatar had greater plans for Túrin beyond beath, much as Tolkien's Ódin had more farseeing hopes for Sigurd (S&G 70-71):

‘Whom Ódin chooseth

ends not untimely,

though ways of men

he walk briefly.

In wide Valhöll

he may wait feasting –

it is to ages after

that Ódin looks.’

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*Since Tolkien wrote the "Sketch" to supply background for The Lay of the Children of Húrin, we may reasonably guess that the "Sketch" gives us some idea of what he intended to include in the parts of the Lay he never wrote.


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