"...the language ... of Mordor, which I will not utter here."

 ‘I cannot read the fiery letters,’ said Frodo in a quavering voice. 

‘No,’ said Gandalf, ‘but I can. The letters are Elvish, of an ancient mode, but the language is that of Mordor, which I will not utter here. But this in the Common Tongue is what is said, close enough: 

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, 
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

(FR 1.ii.50)

From time to time someone will ask why Gandalf will not utter the Black Speech in Bag End, but will do so in Rivendell. I saw this just the other day. It's a reasonable question. Here's the passage from The Council of Elrond for comparison. 

Upon this very ring which you have here seen held aloft, round and unadorned, the letters that Isildur reported may still be read, if one has the strength of will to set the golden thing in the fire a while. That I have done, and this I have read: 

            Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatulûk
                                        agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.

The change in the wizard’s voice was astounding. Suddenly it became menacing, powerful, harsh as stone. A shadow seemed to pass over the high sun, and the porch for a moment grew dark. All trembled, and the Elves stopped their ears.

‘Never before has any voice dared to utter words of that tongue in Imladris, Gandalf the Grey,’ said Elrond, as the shadow passed and the company breathed once more.

(FR 2.ii.254)

Gandalf recites the enchantment in the Common Speech in Bag End. Nothing happens. Gandalf recites the enchantment in the Black Speech in Rivendell, the power of the Ring is invoked. The Elves don't just cover their ears because Gandalf has said some ugly words. His indiscretion is not social. He is not Gandalf the Gauche. He is Gandalf the Grey, a being of great power, calling upon the Ring of Sauron in a language it understands, as it were. A moment later he again recites the spell in the Common Speech. Again, nothing happens.

So, when Gandalf said to Frodo that he would "not utter [the language of Mordor] here," the word here does not mean here in the Shire. It means here in the presence of the Ring. He won't do it because he has an idea of what is going to happen. True, he doesn't want to frighten Frodo any more than he is already frightened. True, he doesn't want to risk drawing the attention of the Eye. The Shire is not safe enough. Rivendell is much safer than Hobbiton. Why does he do it at all? He is making a point and removing all doubt that this is in fact the One Ring.

"So let us forgive him" -- from the stairs of Cirith Ungol to the slopes of Mt Doom

The scene in The Two Towers where Gollum comes back down the stairs of Cirith Ungol to find Frodo and Sam asleep is remarkable for many reasons. Gollum, looking upon them, nearly repents of his decision to betray the hobbits to Shelob so he can get the Ring back. Sam, who has every reason to suspect Gollum is up to no good, treats Gollum harshly and Gollum responds in kind. Gollum's "repentance is blighted," as Tolkien says in one of his letters (Letters #246 p. 466). The reader is left in the unaccustomed position of pitying Gollum and being disappointed in Sam. Gollum, who began the scene close to repentance, ends it with a renewed commitment to treachery. Sam, who began in anger and suspicion, ends in grudging remorse and apology. Frodo's attempt at conciliation fails utterly.

The scene is about two pages long. Gollum is the only character awake for the first half page. Sam wakes up and clashes with Gollum on the second half of that page. At the start of the second page Sam awakens Frodo. Just before Sam wakes up, the narrator draws attention to the fact that neither Frodo nor Sam could have witnessed Gollum's moment of near repentance, and explains what they would have seen if they had been awake. It is the moment that sets up the astonishing pathos of the scene:

Gollum looked at them. A strange expression passed over his lean hungry face. The gleam faded from his eyes, and they went dim and grey, old and tired. A spasm of pain seemed to twist him, and he turned away, peering back up towards the pass, shaking his head, as if engaged in some interior debate. Then he came back, and slowly putting out a trembling hand, very cautiously he touched Frodo’s knee – but almost the touch was a caress. For a fleeting moment, could one of the sleepers have seen him, they would have thought that they beheld an old weary hobbit, shrunken by the years that had carried him far beyond his time, beyond friends and kin, and the fields and streams of youth, an old starved pitiable thing.

(TT 4.viii.714). 

One of the most basic conceits of The Lord of the Rings is that Frodo largely wrote the book he gave to Sam to finish. Obviously, Frodo could have written what he saw after he woke up, and Sam could have told him about what had gone on after he woke up. Not only would Gollum have been unlikely to have filled Frodo and Sam in on what he was experiencing at the start of the scene, but after the end of this scene they see very little of Gollum for the rest of the book. So the narrator of the book isn't supposed to be omniscient, and Sam couldn't have seen more than an old weary looking Gollum touching Frodo's knee. Incredulity is a very weak argument, but it is very hard to believe that Tolkien both slipped up on the narrator's perspective and then called attention to that slip by pointing out that no one could have seen Gollum before Sam woke up. What we see here is one of the most thematically significant moments in the whole story, the moment in which the reader suddenly sees Gollum precisely as Bilbo saw him in The Hobbit, precisely as Gandalf thought Frodo needed to see him, though he at first refused to do so, and precisely as Sam sees him on the slopes of Mt Doom. With pity. If this happened by chance, it's chance-if-chance-you-call it.

But what is more important than how we might square the creation of this scene with the supposed narrator's limited perspective -- and I have my theories -- is how we read this moment in the thematic context of the book. We need to read it in the context of the movement from pity to mercy and thence to forgiveness. That forgiveness comes only after Gollum betrays them once more and is again shown mercy, this time by Sam who has finally suffered enough to realize what he saw when he opened his eyes on the stairs of Cirith Ungol. That mercy enabled the eucatastrophe in the Chambers of Fire. I think we may be able to fully understand the importance of what happens on the stairs if we read it in dialogue with Frodo's words after the Ring is destroyed:

‘Your poor hand!’ he said. ‘And I have nothing to bind it with, or comfort it. I would have spared him a whole hand of mine rather. But he’s gone now beyond recall, gone for ever.’ ‘

Yes,’ said Frodo. ‘But do you remember Gandalf’s words: Even Gollum may have something yet to do? But for him, Sam, I could not have destroyed the Ring. The Quest would have been in vain, even at the bitter end. So let us forgive him! For the Quest is achieved, and now all is over. I am glad you are here with me. Here at the end of all things, Sam.' 

(RK 6.iii.947)

"Foul" and "Vile" in The Book of Lost Tales

The Book of Lost Tales uses the words "foul" and "vile" in pretty much the way you'd expect.

"Foul" describes the following beings or things associated with them:

• Orcs: LT II 14, 159, 193, 232
• Karkaras (Carcharoth): LT II 34, 38, 239
• Melkor: LT I 55; LT II 37, 42 
• Glaurung (Glorund): LT II 85, 86 (3 times), 98
• Thingol, reproached by Tinúviel for Beren's "foul captivity" by Melkor: LT II 37 
• Brandir (Tamar), his "foul speech" that Nienor committed suicide, as described by Túrin: LT II 111
• Ungoliant (Wirilómë): 152
• Water, as polluted by blood or evil: LT II 38, 287

"Vile" describes the following beings or things associated with them:

• Glaurung: LT II 106, 107
• The dragon's hoard is Thingol's "vile reward": LT  II 135

"Foul" occurs more often in direct or indirect connection with the dragon than with anyone or anything else. So, too, of course, it occurs most often in "Of Turambar and the Foalókë," seven out of a total of sixteen times in both volumes of The Book of Lost Tales. Túrin and Morwen both address Glaurung with this word, calling him "foul worm," and "foul beast" (LT II.86, 98). It appears four times in a single page when he first enters the tale and meets Túrin (LT II 85-86). "Vile" is twice applied to Glaurung, again in "Of Turambar and the Foalókë," and once in a deleted passage by Húrin when he scornfully gives him Glaurung's hoard from Nargothrond as his "vile reward" for what he wrongly thinks is Thingol's failure to care for Húrin's family (LT 135).

There is one final passage to look at, in which both words occur in the same sentence. Here, Túrin, having killed Glaurung, learned that his wife is actually his sister and that she has killed herself, and then killed the man who gave him the news, asks his sword to kill him:

"Thee only have I now—slay me therefore and be swift, for life is a curse, and all my days are creeping foul, and all my deeds are vile, and all I love is dead.”

(LT II.112).

Given the usage of these two words in The Book of Lost Tales, one might conclude that Túrin feels he has become as evil as Glaurung himself.

_______________________

I noticed not long before finishing this post that the second half of Túrin's words to his sword can be read as two lines of iambic pentameter:

and all my days are creeping foul, and all

my deeds are vile, and all I love is dead.

(The first half of the sentence is not far off either)

 

Númenor: the Downfall is in the Details

Tolkien speaks of (some of) the names the island we mostly call Númenor in three different versions of "The Fall of Númenor," and in a chapter of his unfinished novel "The Lost Road." The first two versions of "The Fall of Númenor" and the chapters from "The Lost Road," all written shortly before Tolkien began The Lord of the Rings, were published by Christopher Tolkien in The Lost Road. The third version of "The Fall of Númenor," written in the mid-1940s in connection with "The Notion Club Papers," was published in Sauron Defeated.

Please note that "The Lost Road" is not the same as The Lost Road. The first is an unfinished story, and the second is the volume of The History of Middle-earth in which the first is published. So, too, "The Fall of Númenor" is not The Fall of Númenor, the elegant compendium of Númenor's history published by Brian Sibley in 2022.

The first version of "The Fall of Númenor" says:

It was called by the Gods Andor, the Land of Gift, but by its own folk Vinya, the Young; but when the men of that land spake of it to the men of Middle-earth they named it Númenor, that is Westernesse, for it lay west of all lands inhabited by mortals. Yet it was not in the true West, for there was the land of the Gods. The chief city of Númenor was in the midmost of its western coasts, and in the days of its might it was called Andúnië, because it faced the sunset; but after its fall it was named in the legends of those that fled from it Atalantë the Downfall.

(Lost Road, 19). 

The second version of "The Fall of Númenor" says:

That land was called by the Valar Andor, the Land of Gift, and by its own folk it was at first called Vinya, the Young; but in the days of its pride they named it Númenor, that is Westernesse, for it lay west of all lands inhabited by mortals; yet it was far from the true West, for that is Valinor, the land of the Gods. But its glory fell and its name perished; for after its ruin it was named in the legends of those that fled from it Atalantë, the Downfallen.

(Lost Road 24-25)

In "The Lost Road" Elendil says:

"And for the men of the Three Houses they made Vinya, the New Land, west of Middle-earth in the midst of the Great Sea, and named it Andor, the Land of Gift; and they endowed the land and all that lived thereon with good beyond other lands of mortals."

(Lost Road 64-65).  

 The third version of "The Fall of Númenor" says:

That land the Valar called Andor, the Land of Gift; and by its own folk it was at first called Vinya, the Young; but in the days of its pride they named it Númenor, that is Westernesse, for it lay west of all lands inhabited by mortals; yet it was far from the true West, for that is Valinor, the land of the Gods. But the glory of Númenor was thrown down [> overthrown] and its name perished; and after its ruin it was named in the legends of those that fled from it Atalantë, the Downfallen.

(Sauron Defeated 332-333)

Of all the names we see in these texts, "Vinya, the Young," is the one I find most interesting. In the first place "Vinya" suggests that at this point Men possess an innocence and humility before the Gods/Valar and even a sense of wonder at this island manufactured expressly for them in the midst of the Sea. Yet the shadow is always closer than we think. The name Númenor is a mark of its pride, an assertion of its preeminent glory to the seemingly lesser mortals back in Middle-earth, and above all it asserts the claim of Númenor to be "the true West." In each version of "The Fall of Númenor" the claim is swiftly rejected, and the downfall follows at once as proof of the error of false pride. 

In the other text, "The Lost Road," Elendil twice refers to the island as Vinya and twice as Andor (Lost Road 58, 64-65). The uses of Vinya are particularly revealing in a couple of ways. In the passage quoted above, he is speaking of the history of the island to his son. In the other passage he wishes that it had not been his fate to be born in Vinya because he would rather be in Tol Eressëa (58). This is a measure of his respect and admiration for the Elves and Valar. In both passages, Tolkien originally had Elendil say "Númenor" but then changed it to "Vinya" (70 n.3). In fact, "Vinya" as well as "Andor" first appeared in a replacement passage. The original was much briefer and more neutral, with any hint of the pride of the Númenóreans buried much deeper, if it is there at all:

It was called Númenor, that is Westernesse, and Andúnië or the Sunsetland, and its chief city in the midmost of its western coasts was in the days of its might called Númar or Númenos; but after its fall it was named in legend Atalantë, the Ruin.

(14)

Vinya, the Young, disappears in the transition from the earlier versions of Númenor's story to Akallabêth, its final version. Why Tolkien made this change we do not know. Presumably, the change reflects the much greater prominence given to Eärendil as the star that guided the ships of the Edain to Númenor, and to the new name for the island, "Elenna," which means "Starwards" (S 260-61). More thought is needed on this change, but today is not that day. Still, I find something quite appealing in the notion that the name by which we all know the island, and by which everyone in The Lord of the Rings wistfully calls the island, was once a product of the pride that destroyed it. 

______________________

Aldarion founded a great harbor on the shores of Middle-earth, which he called "Vinyalondë." This is usually taken to mean "New Haven," perhaps the "vinya" here refers to Númenor itself, and so would mean "Númenor-haven."

From a Gift in Death to the Gift of Death: Túrin and the Doom of Men

In The Book of Lost Tales death is not the Gift of Ilúvatar to Men, at least not in the sense we usually think of it, and perhaps not at all. The spirits of Men do not leave the world for points unknown outside the physical universe. They are just as bound to Arda as the Elves. Just as the Elves do, Men go to the Undying Lands upon their death. There Fui Nienna judges them based on their deeds while alive, and she sends them to various afterlives within time and space where they will remain until the world ends. While Nienna's role with Men is set up as parallel to Mandos' with the Elves, unlike the Elves, Men never return to life and the Great Lands (Middle-earth) as the Elves do.

With the Sketch of the Mythology first written in 1926 it becomes apparent that Tolkien's conception of death for Men has begun changing. The Sketch was meant to provide background for The Lay of the Children of Húrin, which allows us to conclude that the Lay would very likely have seen death in the same way. Now, Men depart the world entirely after a time spent in Mandos, which seems to house the spirits of both kindreds, though apart from each other. No role for Nienna is mentioned. No one knows where the spirits of Men go after Mandos or who has charge of them once they leave. It is the same in the Quenta Noldorinwa of 1930 and its successors later in the mid-1930s, the Ainulindalë and the Quenta Silmarillion of 1937.*

The Book of Lost Tales says that death is "one with this gift of power" given to Men by Ilúvatar. "This gift" has already been described earlier on the same page:

"But to Men I will give a new gift, and a greater," [said Ilúvatar]. Therefore he devised that Men should have a free virtue** whereby within the limits of the powers and substances and chances of the world they might fashion and design their life beyond even the original Music of the Ainur that is as fate to all things else. This he did that of their operations everything should in shape and deed be completed, and the world fulfilled unto the last and smallest.

(LT I.59)

Now the Sketch and the Quenta Noldorinwa do not mention this, since their accounts of the Music are almost non-existent, but the Ainulindalë does, with a very interesting difference, which appears in bold:

"But to Men I will give a new gift," [said Ilúvatar].  

Therefore he willed that the hearts of Men should seek beyond the world and find no rest therein; but they should have a virtue to fashion their life, amid the powers and chances of the world, beyond the Music of the Ainur, which is as fate to all things else. And of their operation everything should be, in shape and deed, completed, and the world fulfilled unto the last and smallest.

(Lost Road 163).

By adding these words here Tolkien brings death to the fore and gives it (at least) equal weight with the power bestowed by Ilúvatar, which was previously not the case. He also binds the experience of the hearts of Men, which are within this world while yearning for another that is attainable only through death, to the astounding power or virtue he is giving them within this world. 

Without these new words here, the declaration later on in both texts that death is one with this power/virtue, death seems concomitant with the power or perhaps even a limit placed on it, as it does in "The Music of the Ainur." With these words, however, Men's power almost seems to proceed from their mortality and freedom from the circles of Arda. Indeed the word "freedom" is by far the most significant change in this latter sentence.

"The Music of the Ainur" in The Book of Lost Tales reads: "It is however of one with this gift of power that the Children of Men dwell only a short time in the world alive, yet do not perish utterly for ever..." (LT 59). 

The text of the 1930s Ainulindalë reads: "It is one with this gift of freedom that the children of Men dwell only a short space in the world alive, and yet are not bound to it, nor shall perish utterly for ever" (Lost Road 163).

The emphasis has shifted here. In "The Music of the Ainur," the power/virtue gifted to Men is of primary importance. Death comes along with or limits this power. In the Ainulindalë death is at least as important, and probably more so, because the power derives from the nature of Man's relationship to death.

Parallel with this development, as it were, we find the evolving story of Men. In The Book of Lost Tales Men are few and more often than not treacherous and hostile. The Elves, the Noldor in particular, look down on Men from the moment the Valar tell them that someday Men will exist (LT I.150). The stories of Túrin and Tuor play key roles in the narrative and are told at length, but The Book of Lost Tales belongs to the Elves even more than the Silmarillion does. That Men are meant to play a crucial part in the defeat of Melkor and the completion of Ilúvatar's plan for the world is equally clear. The elves telling the man, Eriol, these lost tales in the frame narrative know this, and Ulmo's attempts to bring Elves and Men together, especially in "The Fall of Gondolin," demonstrate it. Túrin's life is a catastrophe. Tuor fails to save Gondolin. And Tuor's son, Eärendil, also fails because he arrives too late. (If you are wondering why I've not mentioned Beren, it's because in The Book of Lost Tales he is an Elf, not a Man.)

Throughout the 1920s the significance of Men continues to grow, however. Tolkien spends the first half of the decade almost exclusively on Túrin and his family in The Lay of the Children of Húrin and the second half on The Lay of Leithian, in which the decision to recast Beren as a Man brings death into the story of Beren and Lúthien in a very different way than had been the case in The Book of Lost Tales where both Beren and Lúthien had been Elves. Eärendil now succeeds in his mission to persuade the Valar to rescue Middle-earth from Melkor. Perhaps most telling of all is the growth in importance of Túrin, not during his life -- which remains disastrously horrifying -- but after his death. His afterlife becomes a matter of apocalyptic prophecy. Beginning in The Book of Lost Tales it is prophesied that he will return at the end of time to fight in the Last Battle against Melkor. The Sketch develops this further, making him the one who will slay Melkor on that day, thus avenging himself and his family. The Quenta Noldorinwa and the Quenta Silmarillion go further still. Túrin will not only avenge himself and his family, but all Men.

It won't be surprising then to find that Men as a whole become more prominent in the background to the Great Tales. While the majority of Men in the wars of the First Age still side with Melkor, there is now more than one group of Men, the Men of Dor-Lómin, who prove loyal to the Elves. The House of Hador, from which both Túrin and Tuor (now first cousins) descend. The House of Bëor, to which Beren belongs, appears, as does the House of Haleth, which Túrin comes to lead before the end. These three groups become the Edain, "the Fathers of Men," and as a reward for their sufferings and their service against Melkor, the Valar create for them an island of their own called "Andor," which means "The Land of Gift," but which those who dwelt there came to call Númenor. Though the Númenóreans also receive greater lifespans than other Men, they have an increasingly difficult time accepting that death is a gift, or understanding it even though they do accept it. In both "The Fall of Númenor" and "The Lost Road," the texts of the 1930s in which Tolkien created Númenor and with it the Second Age, death comes to be explicitly spoken of as a gift, "which cometh to Men from Ilúvatar" (Lost Road 25). Even Elendil himself, who accepts that it is a gift, nevertheless seems at a loss to grasp how that is so:

"But Death is not decreed by the Lords: it is the gift of the One, and a gift which in the wearing of time even the Lords of the West shall envy. So the wise of old have said. And though we can perhaps no longer understand that word, at least we have wisdom enough to know that we cannot escape, unless to a worse fate."

(Lost Road 65)

Significantly, the power/virtue we have seen associated with death in earlier texts goes unmentioned. Yet another power receives attention. For Sauron -- also called Thû or Sûr in these texts -- promises the Númenóreans dominion over the earth and eternal life within the world. These he calls "the gifts of Morgoth," which he claims the Valar are keeping from them, but all Men need to do to get what is rightfully theirs is to conquer the Undying Lands (Lost Road 15). This goes rather badly. Númenor is destroyed utterly. Its king and army who "had set foot in the land of the Gods were buried under fallen hills, where legend saith that they lie imprisoned in the Forgotten Caves until the day of Doom and the Last Battle" (Lost Road 15).

This last detail recalls the fate of Men after death in The Book of Lost Tales. All except the most wicked are said to be waiting "in patience till the Great End come" (LT I.77). That they wait patiently suggests they are aware that they have something to do at the end. But what? This may refer to the Second Music in which all Men will participate (LT I.60; Lost Road 163). Yet there may be something else or something more. I would argue that they, too, are waiting for the Last Battle. It's certainly true, as we saw above, that after The Book of Lost Tales Men leave the world entirely after a time in Mandos. But if Túrin can return from Mandos for that battle, why not his fellow Men whom he is fighting to avenge? 

In The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún, yet another text of the 1930s, Tolkien invents a prophecy that Sigurd, a character with a significant influence over the character of Túrin, will return from Valhalla at Ragnarök and slay the Midgard Serpent, thus saving the world. With him will come the einherjar, the mortal warriors chosen at death to fight alongside the gods at the Last Battle. As Christopher Tolkien observes, it is very difficult not to see Túrin now in Sigurd, since there is no such prophecy about him in Norse mythology and he does not return (S&G 53-54, 63-64, 184) The influence is now flowing from Túrin to Sigurd. And as we also saw above, the prophecy that Túrin will return to fight that day is present from the first telling of his tale in The Book of Lost Tales. Even when every other detail of Túrin's afterlife disappears after The Book of Lost Tales, the prophecy about the Last Battle not only remains, but is further elaborated and given greater significance, from his only being present at the battle in the first version to his being the avenger of all Men in the Quenta Noldorinwa and Quenta Silmarillion.*** 

Nor is this all. Túrin's replacement of Fionwë as the slayer of Melkor accomplishes much more than vengeance. For Fionwë, his prophecy says, "shall destroy the world to destroy his foe" (LT I.219). Túrin, however, saves the world. (Be honest. You never saw that coming.) In the same way, Tolkien's rewritten Sigurd saves the world. In fact, Túrin makes possible the healing of Arda. With Melkor dead, the Silmarils are recovered and returned to Fëanor, who, coming back from Mandos himself, unlocks them and allows Yavanna to use their light to revive the Two Trees. The world is remade.

If we look back now at the other details of Túrin's afterlife, which may not be as forgotten as they seem,**** we may perhaps descry the beginning of death becoming a gift. Túrin died with a great deal of blood on his hands. I am not speaking of those he killed in battle, but of those he should not have killed at all (Orgof/Saeros, Beleg, Brodda, Orlin, and Tamar/Brandir). He abandoned Finduilas. He committed incest and suicide. When he arrives in the afterlife, Nienna and Mandos will not allow him or his sister, Nienor, to enter their realm. Eventually, at the "prayers" of their parents, the Valar have "mercy" on the siblings, and purify them in a "Bath of Flame" in which "all their sorrows and stains were washed away," and they dwell happily among the Valar. Everything from the prayers of Húrin and Morwen to the final happiness of Túrin and Nienor is described in one sentence, but that is not the whole sentence. The first part of the sentence tells what has already happened, but the second shifts from past to future, briefly and powerfully delivering the prophecy of Túrin's return (LT II.116). And there the story ends, leaving the audience in silence.

Many will surely see in the prayers and mercy and the washing away of the effects of Túrin and Nienor's misdeeds and misfortunes in a bath of flame references to Christianity, and in particular to Matthew 3:11 and Luke 3:16 where John the Baptist speaks of one who will come after him and baptize with fire and the Holy Spirit instead of water. And I have no doubt that Tolkien means to invoke these ideas. But let's not be hasty. According to standard Catholic doctrine, once a person dies repentance is no longer possible. Nor, for that matter, do we see any sign of repentance. 

We may also reasonably think of Purgatory, but the cleansing of Túrin and Nienor is an exception if the only comparable event is the purification of (the Maia) Urwendi and her maidens so that they can survive sailing the Ship of the Sun. But it is quite interesting to note that their purification prepared them for something greater than they could do otherwise. In that sense it not only purified, but enhanced them. Also, since all the faithful who have not atoned fully for their sins before death go to Purgatory for a time, the cleansing by fire undergone there is not going to be exceptional, as it is here, but rather common. Túrin's "sins" -- note that Tolkien does not use this loaded word -- are by no means trivial or venial.

Even ignoring the Christian echoes in this account of his afterlife, Túrin is so stained that the gods of the dead, Nienna and Mandos, want nothing to do with him, or even with his far more sinned-against sister. Yet he shall return to fight beside Tulkas and Fionwë and to discomfit Melkor and his dragons in the Ragnarök-like battle on the world's last day. Even before his role evolves into being the slayer of Melkor and avenger of Men, it is not unreasonable to think that Túrin's purification in the Bath of Flame is more than a cleansing. As with Urwendi and her maidens, it is a preparation for something greater and more demanding.

By blending Christian imagery and ideas into this largely pagan afterlife, Tolkien evokes a greater sense of the divine than would have been the case otherwise. The cleansing of Túrin and Nienor is an unexpected act of mercy by the gods, which arises from pity in response to the prayers of Húrin and Morwen (or Úrin and Mavwin as The Book of Lost Tales calls them). Unexpected, too, is Túrin and Nienor's reversal of fortune in the afterlife, as the "doom of woe and death of sorrow" to which Melkor cursed them and their parents comes to an end with their deaths, and the tides of fate flow towards a reunion and a love that is pure and heroism of the sort to be expected from the son of Húrin and Morwen and the foster-son of Thingol and Melian (LT II.71,115-16). And maybe not from the son only. For an early, unincorporated note records that Nienor, too, will return for the Last Battle (LT II.138; she is there called Vainóni). 

It is true in The Book of Lost Tales, as it is later in the legendarium, that a destiny or fate exists which is prior to all the destinies, dooms, or curses pronounced by the Valar and Melkor, and which can shape even their actions (LT I.142, 147, 151, 209). The Valar collectively know much of things to come, but Ilúvatar did not reveal everything. Some things are hidden, some unnoticed, and some not understood because the Valar cannot understand all of Ilúvatar's mind and purpose. There are things that happen "not without the knowledge of Ilúvatar" and "not without the desire of Ilúvatar" (151, 180). He also at times prompts the Valar and Maiar in various ways, as he does Manwë, Aulë, and Urwendi to use the last of the light of the trees to build the Ship of the Sun and the Bath of Flame (180, 185, 187-88). This particular prompting is significant in two ways. First, as we know, Túrin and Nienor also enter the Bath of Flame. Second, the first rising of the sun is connected to the awakening of Men, "who were waiting for light" (237). Men, to whom Ilúvatar gave the  power to go beyond the Music, awaken with the sun's rising. Túrin, the man whose Great Tale is the first we come to in The Book of Lost Tales as well as being its most shockingly memorable, bears the brunt of the special enmity and the curse of Melkor. This dark and troubled character, who quite literally makes the worst of his fate, at least as far as Melkor's doom is concerned, is cleansed after death in the very Bath of Flame that prepared Urwendi to sail the Ship of the Sun and awaken Men. Cleansed, he will play a significant part in the Last Battle against Melkor at the end of the world. As the legendarium evolves, he will go on to be the slayer of Melkor and the avenger of all Men. His deeds that day will not heal Arda by themselves, but they will clear the way for Fëanor to return at last from Mandos and to devote his art, the gift Ilúvatar bestowed upon the Elves, to its proper end. 

Nothing Túrin did in his life merited the purification and enhancement he received after death. Quite the opposite in fact. (This is even truer of Fëanor who suffered far less except in his own opinion, but his role at the end of the world isn't in The Book of Lost Tales.) This unmerited purification is what Tolkien would call grace. "Every gift of grace raises [the recipient] to something that is above human nature," says Thomas Aquinas (ST 2-2.171.2 ad 3). We need to draw a distinction here. Aquinas identifies two different kinds of grace, that which sanctifies and that which he calls gratuitous. Sanctifying grace brings its recipient closer to God; gratuitous grace helps its recipient help others (ST 1-2.111.1c, 4c; SCG 3.155). As such, gratuitous grace may empower that recipient, though temporarily and without changing their nature, to perform miracles, to prophesy, and so on. Gratuitous grace is sometimes also called actual grace because it is directed to acts. It is this grace that better explains what happens with Túrin after his death, if we are to view it through the lens of Tolkien's faith. Even so, that same faith must note that Túrin never repents. However distraught he may become after killing Orgof/Saeros, Beleg, Brodda, Orlin, and Tamar/Brandir, he never changes except to become worse. That same faith must also note that after death repentance is impossible. So, while the idea of the grace of Ilúvatar offers a reasonable explanation for Túrin's cleansing and enhancement, the metaphysics of Arda are not the same as those of the primary world, where Tolkien practiced his faith. The grace of Ilúvatar is not the same as the grace of God as Roman Catholicism understands it.

In The Book of Lost Tales the death of Túrin and Nienor is not the catastrophic ending to The Tale of the Children of Húrin, full of pity and horror, that it later becomes, or seems to become. But because the story continues even unto the ending of the world, their death becomes a turning point not just in their story, but in the story of the world. For in it we can see the first signs of the gifts of Men: the power to go beyond the Music and help to complete Ilúvatar's design for the world; and the connection between this power and Death. As Túrin's role on the last day becomes more significant and central, the gift that he receives in death will become the Gift of Death.

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* Prior to the writing of the Ainulindalë as a separate text its story of creation appeared in the second chapter of The Book of Lost Tales, called "The Music of the Ainur." The Sketch and the Quenta Noldorinwa contained much less detailed accounts in their first chapters. This could indicate that Tolkien was planning to shift the story of the Music into its own text as early as the mid to late 1920s.

** Within the legendarium "virtue" almost always means "power." Think of the "virtue" lembas possesses to give Sam and Frodo the strength to go on. By contrast, within Tolkien's letters "virtue" almost always has its more common modern meanings, such as a superior quality or particular excellence of character.

*** In The Book of Lost Tales the killing of Melkor at the Last Battle is explicitly attributed to Fionwë, who is better known by his later name, Eonwë (LT I.219). While Túrin fights beside him and causes Melkor to rue his presence, he does not kill Melkor (LT II.116).

I am limiting my comments here to the story of Túrin and its various forms before Tolkien set the Silmarillion aside in late 1937 to write The Lord of the Rings. So, I do not address whether Christopher Tolkien was right or wrong to leave the Second Prophecy of Mandos, where Túrin's return is prophesied, out of the published Silmarillion. While I agree with Douglas Charles Kane's argument in Arda Reconstructed that Christopher made a mistake here, the evidence that Christopher uses to justify the omission of the prophecy dates from after Tolkien's return to the Silmarillion after 1949. 

**** Consider Christopher's comment on the difficulty of knowing whether his father's removal of something from a particular text meant it had been abandoned for good or only for the time being. 

"The wizard Tû and the Dark Elf Nuin disappeared from the mythology and never appear again, together with the marvellous story of Nuin’s coming upon the forms of the Fathers of Mankind still asleep in the Vale of Murmenalda—though from the nature of the work and the different degrees of attention that my father later gave to its different parts one cannot always distinguish between elements definitively abandoned and elements held in ‘indefinite abeyance’"

(LT I.233, italics added)

***** Gratuitous has had a sad time of it in recent times. Commonly now, at least in much of the US, it means uncalled for or unjustifiable, as in a gratuitous remark or criticism. Here, it means freely given without expectation of return. The phrase is the standard English translation of the Latin gratia gratis data, literally grace freely given.