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In contrast to the Tale (see ssss1) Beleg is now frequently called Beleg the bowman, his great bow (not yet named) is fully described, and his unmatched skill as an archer (1071 ff.). There is also in the poem the feature of the arrow Dailir, unfailingly found and always unharmed (1080 ff.), until it broke when Beleg fell upon it while carrying Túrin (1189–92): of this there is never a mention later. The element of Beleg’s archery either arose from, or itself caused, the change in the story of the entry of Beleg and Flinding into the Orc-camp that now appears: in the Tale they merely ‘crept between the wolves at a point where there was a great gap between them’, whereas in the poem Beleg performed the feat of shooting seven wolves in the darkness, and only so was ‘a great gap opened’ (1097). But the words of the Tale, ‘as the luck of the Valar had it Túrin was lying nigh’, are echoed in

till the Gods brought them

and the craft and cunning of the keen huntsman

to Túrin the tall where he tumbled lay

(1130–2)

The lifting and carrying of Túrin by the two Elves, referred to in the Tale as ‘a great feat’, ‘seeing that he was a Man and of greater stature than they’ (II. 80), is expanded in the poem (1156 ff.) into a comment on the stature of Men and Elves in the ancient time, which agrees with earlier statements on this topic (see I. 235, II. 142, 220). The notable lines

though Men were of mould less mighty builded

ere the earth’s goodness from the Elves they drew

(1157–8)

are to be related to the statements cited in II. 326: ‘As Men’s stature grows [the Elves’] diminishes’, and ‘ever as Men wax more powerful and numerous so the fairies fade and grow small and tenuous, filmy and transparent, but Men larger and more dense and gross’. The mention here (1164) of the ten races of Hithlum occurs nowhere else, and it is not clear whether it refers to all the peoples of Men and Elves who in one place or another in the Lost Tales are set in Hithlum, which as I have remarked ‘seems to have been in danger of having too many inhabitants’ (see II. 249, 251).