The Hindu Business Line : Back to `Middle-earth in the Elder Days'

"When my father was a young man, during the years of the First World War and long before there was any inkling of the tales that were to form the narrative of `The Hobbit' or `The Lord of the Rings', he began writing of a collection of stories that he called The Book of Lost Tales," notes the preface.

Not `lost', really, because the son recollects the work as Tolkien's `first work of imaginative literature, and a substantial one'; though left unfinished, there were `fourteen completed works,' writes Christopher. Among the longer of these works is The Children of Húrin, released worldwide by HarperCollins in eight languages on April 17, with captivating illustrations by Alan Lee. Intro takes you to `Middle-earth in the Elder Days', the First Age of the world, `in a time unimaginably remote'.

Encounter Eldar, described in `list of names' as `the Elves of the Great Journey out of the East to Beleriand'. Had you mastered `The Lord of the Rings', you would have known Fëanor as `the greatest of the Eldar in arts and love', who `wrought the Three Jewels, the Silmarilli, and filled them with the radiance of the Two Trees, Telperion and Laurelin, that gave light to the land of the Valar'.

Valar means `the Powers, those great spirits that entered the World at the beginning of time'. Húrin, for starters, is "Lord of Dor-lómin, husband of Morwen and father of Túrin and Niënor; called Thalion `the Steadfast'."

Once upon a time, Húrin and his brother, Huor (`father of Tuor father of Eärendil; slain in the Battle of Unnumbered Tears'), went with a company of scouts, but they were ambushed by the Orcs and scattered, and the brothers were pursued to the ford of Brithiach (`over Sirion north of the Forest of Brethil').

What happened then? "There they would have been taken or slain but for the power of Ulmo (`one of the great Valar, Lord of the Waters')."

Ulmo was still strong in the waters of Sirion... A mist arose from the river and hid the bhais from their enemies and the duo escaped into Dimbar (the land between the rivers Sirion and Mindeb).

Read on: "There they wandered in great hardship among the hills beneath the sheer walls of the Crissaegrim (the mountain peaks south of Gondolin, where were the eyries of Thorondor), until they were bewildered in the deceits of that land and knew not the way to go on or to return."

Don't despair, as yet. Because Thorondor (King of Eagles) saw the brothers, and sent two of his Eagles to their aid.

"The Eagles bore them up and brought them beyond the Encircling Mountains to the secret vale of Tumladen and the hidden city of Gondolin, which no Man had yet seen... " Back cover shows the eagles in flight.

Good escape, especially as an in-flight read!

SayCheek@TheHindu.co.in