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It is not made clear whether Mîm’s presence in Nargothrond goes back to the time of the Dragon (see II. 137), nor whether the outlaws of Húrin’s band were Men or Elves (in the Tale the text was emended to convert them from Men to Elves); and there is no indication of how the gold was brought to Doriath. The outlaws disappear in S after the slaying of Mîm, and there is no suggestion of the fighting in the Thousand Caves that in the Tale led to the mound made over the slain, Cûm an-Idrisaith, the Mound of Avarice.

The next part of the Tale (Ufedhin the renegade Gnome and the complex dealings of Thingol with him and with the Dwarves of Nogrod, II. 223–9) is reduced to a few lines in S, which could possibly stand as an extremely abbreviated account of the old story, even though Ufedhin is here not even mentioned. The making of the Necklace was not in the Tale, as it is in S, part of the king’s request: the idea of it was indeed hatched by Ufedhin during his captivity as a lure ‘for the greater ensnaring of the king’ (II. 226); but this also could be set down to compression. I think it is more probable, however, that my father had in fact decided to reduce and simplify the narrative, and that Ufedhin had been abandoned.

The problem of the entry of the Dwarvish army into Doriath, defended by the Girdle of Melian, is still solved by the device – the too simple device, see II. 250 – of ‘some treacherous Gnomes’ (in the Tale there was only one traitor); the slaying of Thingol while hunting remains, and as in the Tale Melian, inviolable, left the Thousand Caves seeking Beren and Lúthien. Though it is not so stated, it seems likely that in this version it was Melian who brought the news and the warning to Beren (this is the story in the Quenta, p. 134). In the Tale it was Huan who brought word to Beren and Lúthien of the assault on Artanor and the death of Tinwelint, and it was Ufedhin, fleeing from the Dwarf-host (after his abortive attempt to slay Naugladur and steal the Nauglafring, and his killing of Bodruith lord of Belegost), who revealed the course that the Dwarves were taking and made possible the ambush at the Stony Ford; but Huan has in S been slain in the Wolf-hunt (§10), and Ufedhin has (as I think) been eliminated.