#lalaiths

[silmalope]

Laughter and Mourning, the daughters of Húrin. (Originally posted on the SWG for the Orctober challenge prompt “eyes”.)

[whosthatsilmcharacter]

(All art used with EXPRESS permission from the artist)

[huntseric]

Family portrait

I wanted to draw something happy for my birthday! So here's a happy family, I'm sure nothing bad will happen to them.

[lightofsorrows]

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."

— THE CHILDREN OF HÚRIN, CHAPTER III: THE WORDS OF HÚRIN AND MORGOTH

[daily-smol-silm]

Day #98 - Tada!

Túrin's second youngest sister, Lalaith. She's perfectly fine what are you talking about??

[chaos-of-the-abyss]

ok but thingol's words "for i took hurin's son as my son, and so shall he remain, unless hurin himself should return out of the shadows to claim his own" make me imagine a happier au where thingol and hurin are close friends co-fathering turin together.......... :')

[outofangband]

Compiling some of my thoughts on the impact of Urwen’s death on Húrin and Morwen

I love/hate the dual effects it has on Morwen and Húrin.

For Húrin this is one of the first great losses in his life. His father dies in battle and that's obviously awful but it's not shocking in the same way. (Though I think that Húrin’s attitude, even from a young age as we see in Gondolin, that his kinsmen including himself will die in battle is a tragedy in itself)

This is his young child and he is completely helpless. He's a warrior and he can't do anything against disease and death. No matter how many of Morgoth's orcs he kills he can't bring his daughter back I think about that line from Buffy the vampire slayer about the slayer being helpless against death and disease...Húrin is not a man who likes helplessness.

We see viscerally his devastation in his breaking his own harp when he finds himself unable to articulate his grief through song and then striding outside to declare that he should like to meet Morgoth and injure him "as my lord Fingolfin". , this can easily be interpreted not only as a desire to injure Morgoth but a desire to die in the process.

(note: I talked about the aftermath of this for him here in response to an excellent post by @middle-earth-mythopoeia :)

For Morwen this is a grief on top of innumerable ones she has already suffered.

She is the survivor of a massacre that has killed nearly all of her people. She is without her home, her parents, most of her family. She has to learn an entirely new language and culture.

At this point, Morwen has been in Hithlum for over a decade now and after years, has been able to find family and to have a hope at her people surviving in some ways through her children. I imagine the possibility of future loss was forever in her mind; because of the trauma she has endured but also because from that trauma comes the simple certainty that nothing is assured.

And indeed, this weapon of the enemy reaches her house once more. Her children sicken and Urwen does not recover.

Morwen is still losing family to Morgoth.

Is it any wonder she "met her grief in silence and coldness of heart". I think for Morwen this feels the only possibility.

“But you live, son of Morwen, and so does the enemy who has done this to us.”

There is no other choice.

(Second note: I have some posts already but I’m going to make another one about the legacy of Lalaith’s death for Morwen)

[camille-lachenille]

Day 4: Edain

When the world was wet with dew (…) And Arien was once set free The lightest footsteps ever heard They rushed past, and light they blurred. When brightest was the noonday sun (…) Her heart (…), her face was bright She lauged at each and every sight. When dark was stream and pale was moon And weary were the Edain (…) With meadow-flow’rs she wove her hair An elven-maid she seemed to be (…) Her spirit left and passed on, From Dor-Lómin she now is gone.

The text is fragments from the beautiful and haunting Lament for Lalaith, by Clamavi de Profundis

[tolkien-obsessed]

[child-of-hurin]

[bretwalda-lamnguin]

Morgoth's curse is the major inciting event for the plot of the children of Húrin, but I can't help but feel that Lalaith's death is the catalyst for both that and the ending. If Lalaith doesn't die to Morgoth's plague, Húrin's hatred of him is not so bitter. He might have held his tongue a bit more, or baited Morgoth into killing him, and avoided the much worse fate Morgoth devised for him.

Perhaps also if Lalaith still lived, Morwen may have gone to Doriath sooner, for her sake.

Lalaith's death also leaves a gaping hole in Túrin's heart, which only Nienor it seems can fill...

[edennill]

did morwen name niënor for sorrow remembering the death of the child named for laughter...? did she hope somehow that an opposite name would bring about an opposite fate...?

[thelordofgifs]

Obscure Tolkien Blorbo: Round 3

Berúthiel vs Urwen

Berúthiel:

A Queen of Gondor noted for her unhappy marriage and her cats.

An evil sorceress who is also a cat lady. Need I say more

Urwen:

Also known as Lalaith, she was the elder daughter of Húrin and Morwen and died age three of the Evil Breath from Angband.

MY SWEET LAUGHING DAUGHTER SHE DESERVED SO MUCH BETTER

In response to her death, Hurin says this "Marrer of Middle-earth, would that I might see you face to face, and mar you as my lord Fingolfin did!' His love and subsequent loss of her is definitely a motivator, I think, for his later valiant defiance of Morgoth! So she may have died young but she had a big impact. (I mean if we want to apply the butterfly effect she kinda caused the fall of Nargothrond: motivated Hurin to deny Morgoth, got Turin cursed to give really bad advice about bridges, no more Nargothrond.  How many 3 year olds could claim that? Also more seriously, a lot of the deaths in the Silm are violent and awful. But we little of mundane, quiet deaths from sickness. A young child dying in this way stands out in its more realist tragedy. And it shows the subtler ways Morgoth sowed despair in middle earth and also that he knew the Edain were a threat. The 'evil breath' mostly killed 'the children or the rising youth in the houses of Men.'

Round 3 masterpost

[echoofthemusic]

Túrin and Niënor were haunted for most of their lives by the lack of a sibling’s presence. Túrin found Niënor through the memory of Lalaith; Niënor found Túrin — and Lalaith through his memory. Home, though deprived in reality, lived on in memory: the shadow of loss sat silently where a patch of sunlight used to linger, where a laughter had died out; only a few thin rays, almost invisible, sank into the hearth and turned into embers, to be ignited when an ineffable, mysterious joy returned to the house of the mind. So it was in that firelight brother and sister saw each other’s faces clearly, but as in a dream, and with their joy came an overflow of affection, culminating in love — only they were mistaken about the nature of that love — and the truth destroyed them.

[chaos-of-the-abyss]