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The account of Túrin’s character in boyhood (341 ff.) is very close to that in the Tale (II. 74), which as I have noted before (II. 121) survived into the Narn (p. 77): the latter account indeed echoes the poem (‘he learned much lore’, ‘neither did he win friendship easily’). In the poem it is now added that in weaving song / he had a minstrel’s mastery, but mirth was not in it.

An important new element in the narrative enters with the companionship of Beleg and Túrin (wearing the Dragon-helm, 377) in warfare on the marches of Doriath:

how Beleg the ageless was brother-in-arms

to the black-haired boy from the beaten people.

(416–17)

Of this there is no mention in the Tale at all (II. 74). Cf. my Commentary, II. 122:

Túrin’s prowess against the Orcs during his sojourn in Artanor is given a more central or indeed unique importance in the tale (‘he held the wrath of Melko from them for many years’), especially as Beleg, his companion-in-arms in the later versions, is not here mentioned.

In the poem the importance to Doriath of Túrin’s warfare is not diminished, however:

for by him was holden the hand of ruin

from Thingol’s folk, and Thû feared him (389–90)

We meet here for the first time Thû, thane most mighty / neath Morgoth Bauglir. It is interesting to learn that Thû knew of Túrin and feared him, also that Morgoth ordered Thû to assault Doriath: this story will reappear in the Lay of Leithian.

In the story of Túrin and Orgof the verses are very clearly following the prose of the Tale, and there are many close likenesses of wording, as already noted. The relation of this scene to the later story has been discussed previously (II. 121–2). Orgof still has Gnome-blood, which may imply the continuance of the story that there were Gnomes among Thingol’s people (see II. 43). The occasion of Túrin’s return from the forest to the Thousand Caves (a name that first occurs in the poem) becomes, as it seems, a great feast, with songs of Valinor – quite unlike the later story, where the occasion is in no way marked out and Thingol and Melian were not in Menegroth (Narn p. 79); and Túrin and Orgof were set on high / near the king and queen (i.e. presumably on the dais, at the ‘high table’). Whether it was a rejection of this idea that caused my father to bracket lines 461–3 and mark them with an X I cannot say. The secret songs of the sons of Ing referred to in this passage (421) are not indeed songs of the sons of Ing of the Ælfwine history (II. 301 ff.); this Ing is the Gnomish form of Ingwë, Lord of the First Kindred of the Elves (earlier Inwë Lord of the Teleri).^*