A Hard Man you have called yourself

Yesterday, the family completed a gruelling eight-hour road trip through the southwestern desert from California to Arizona. The heat in excess of 115 degrees largely negated the best efforts of the AC system of the car. But we enjoyed an audiobook all the same, The Children of Hurin read by Christopher Lee.

This is one of my favourite stories that Tolkien wrote, the story of Turin Turambar the doomed hero. For my wife, it was her first encounter with the tale (other than through brief verbal summary from me), having never read The Silmarillion or associated texts. By chapter 4, following the fallout of the Battle of Unnumbered Tears, my wife said to me: “Is the whole book like this? Just sad all the time?” 

The story of Turin is like a classic piece of Greek tragedy, equal in measure with the great Oedipal trilogy of Sophocles. I am not sure why the story so appeals to me, but it does, and I have read it more often than any of Tolkien’s tales save The Hobbit only. I keep coming back to it, perhaps as a reminder that no matter how bad my own life may seem at times, it could be much, much worse.

The first two or three chapters are a grind for the new reader, with names and places been dropped a dozen to a page with little reference. Tolkien just sort of expects that the reader will already be familiar with his world—indeed, the story is told not (like most modern fantasy) to an audience new to the tale but like the myths of the Greeks, it is told for an audience already in the know. I was worried when my wife’s phone was out before the end of the first chapter (it was her pick, after all, between Turin and The Hobbit—she wanted to experience a new story). But once the story focuses firmly on Turin, following the capture of his father, things pick up.

The tale is a deep meditation on the power of the Evil Eye, the truly Evil Eye for it is the eye of Morgoth that drives most of the story’s narrative. Having captured Hurin (Turin’s father), Morgoth begins interrogating the human hero for knowledge of the whereabouts of the hidden Elven city of Gondolin—whose king, Turgon, Morgoth fears and hates most of all. But Hurin, bound by an oath of silence, bravely defies the Dark Lord, and so Morgoth devises a torment that is truly worse than death:

Then Morgoth stretching out his long arm towards Dor-lómin cursed Húrin and Morwen and their offspring, saying: ‘Behold! The shadow of my thought shall lie upon them wherever they go, and my hate shall pursue them to the ends of the world.’

Morgoth affixes Hurin to a high seat atop his fortress and grants the hero magical sight to see all that happens to his family as Morgoth’s curse follows them. Regularly throughout the story, the narrator will comment on the sight of Morgoth gazing at Turin across a great distance.

Turin’s mother sends her young son (he is nine when Morgoth speaks his curse) into exile to live with Thingol and Melian in the mighty kingdom of Doriath. Melian, a Maia whose own power over her land exceed’s Morgoth’s ability to penetrate it, senses right away that there is a dark cloud over Turin, and seeking to forestall future evils, she attempts to convince Turin’s mother to come into exile with her son. But Morwen refuses, and Melian—so says the narrator—saw that the fate which she foreboded could not lightly be set aside.

Morwen makes the crucial decision to await her husband in the vain hope that he will return from the Battle of Unnumbered Tears. She is also pregnant and gives birth to a baby girl soon after Turin leaves. This moment when mother refuses to be reunited with her son but remain in her own land drowning in false hope is perhaps the most important moment in the entire story. If, as Melian desired, Morwen had left her homeland for Doriath, then much of Morgoth’s evil would have been averted. But in remaining in her home, Morwen inadvertently ensures the doom of both her children.

Turin grows up to be a proud man, a little arrogant, but mostly consumed by hubris—the classical heroic fault. He does not easily accept help from others; he is quick to anger and slow to repent; he is incredibly noble but hard-edged and unyielding when his mind is made up.

It is apparent throughout that Turin is trying to do his best, to be a hero, but Melian warns him early on to be humble, telling him that his fate is not so great as Beren One-hand’s, the greatest of the children of Men in the First Age. The sad thing is that Turin has it in himself to be a mighty captain, a great king, but even in childhood it is apparent that he is his own worst enemy. 

On our road trip, we got nearly halfway through the story, just to the point at which Beleg Strongbow dies. The overwhelming weight of the story is so tragic that my wife kept commenting: “That’s so sad!” And we haven’t even got to the really tragic stuff yet.

It is interesting experiencing this story with my wife, who is taking it in with fresh ears. I am so accustomed to thinking of Turin in high terms, as a tragic hero who struggles against evil and a dread doom, that it is easy to forget that he is the author of his own agonies in much of the story. 

This is just a bit of a ramble about a reading (listening) experience, but it slots in nicely with some of what I have written in recent weeks concerning Tolkien’s Letter 131. Evil works in the world through human agency, just as good does. Skeptics often deny God because they do not see His hand in the world, only the human agents that God uses. My own father has asked, “Why do people thank God after a successful operation? They should be thanking the doctor, as it was his skill that saved their life.”

He is not wrong, but who gave the doctor the skill of medicine in the first place? Who ensured that, this time, the operation would be successful? Who effected the healing on the body? 

A story like that of Turin is helpful in reminding us of the multidimensionality of reality. Turin’s evils are his own, but they are also very much the work of Morgoth who is manipulating situations towards the worst possible outcome. He cannot fully affect Turin’s free will—and as such the word “fate” to describe what happens to Turin is a little inaccurate. This is not exactly like a Greek tragedy. But the same effect, only from the opposite side of good, can be seen in Frodo’s successful quest to destroy the One Ring. The victory is Frodo’s, yes, but without the Hand of Providence working in the background, Frodo would have died a thousand times over—and, at the last, he would have returned the Ring to Sauron just as Boromir feared.

As Gandalf says to Frodo, I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its maker. In which case you also were meant to have it. There are other powers in the world than the will of evil. Turin’s story demonstrates what the will of evil looks like, but it must—and does—have its corollary, the will of Good.