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The Children of Húrin is the first of the Great Tales, begun by J.R.R. Tolkien in 1918 and published in 2007 (ISBN 0-618-89464-0), once more than thirty years-worth of his notes were compiled and edited by his son, Christopher.

It is the expanded account of the story of the wanderings and deeds of Túrin Turambar, son of Húrin, and his sister Niënor, in their struggle against fate (and the curse cast upon Húrin's kin). It is considered to be among the darkest examples of any of Tolkien's works, as well as the foremost substantiation of any argument against disregarding the High Fantasy genre as colorless or "holier than thou". The hero is doomed yet strives toward goodness in spite of inadvertently murdering friends and becoming his sister's lover. Túrin fights against self-loathing as well as sorrow throughout, until the culmination of the novel's events.

The book was released on 17 April, 2007 by Houghton Mifflin in the United States, and by HarperCollins in the United Kingdom.

Synopsis[]

Christopher Tolkien:

"There are tales of Middle-earth from times long before The Lord of the Rings, and the story told in this book is set in the great country that lay beyond the Grey Havens in the North: lands where Treebeard once walked, but which were drowned in the great cataclysm that ended the First Age of the World.

In that remote time Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, dwelt in the vast fortress of Angband in the North; and the tragedy of Turin and his sister Niënor unfolded within the shadow of the fear of Angband and the war waged by Morgoth against the lands and secret cities of the Elves.

Their brief and passionate lives were dominated by the elemental hatred that Morgoth bore them as the children of Húrin, the man who had dared to defy and to scorn him to his face. Against them he sent his formidable servant, Glaurung, a powerful spirit in the form of a huge wingless dragon of fire. Into his story of brutal conquest and flight, of forest hiding-places and pursuit, of resistance with lessening hope, the mythological persons of the God and the Dragon enter in fearfully articulate form. Sardonic and mocking, Glaurung manipulated the fates of Túrin and Niënor by lies of diabolic cunning and guile, and the curse of Morgoth was fulfilled.

The earliest versions of this story by J.R.R. Tolkien go back to the end of the First World War and the years that followed; but long afterwards, when The Lord of the Rings was finished, he wrote it anew and greatly enlarged it in complexities of motive and character: it became the dominant story in his later work on Middle-earth. But he could not bring it to final and finished form. In this book I have endeavoured to construct, after long study of the manuscripts, a coherent narrative without any editorial invention."

Contents[]

Chapters[]

  1. The Childhood of Túrin
  2. The Battle of Unnumbered Tears
  3. The Words of Húrin and Morgoth
  4. The Departure of Túrin
  5. Túrin in Doriath
  6. Túrin among the Outlaws
  7. Of Mîm the Dwarf
  8. The Land of Bow and Helm
  9. The Death of Beleg
  10. Túrin in Nargothrond
  11. The Fall of Nargothrond
  12. The Return of Túrin to Dor-lómin
  13. The Coming of Túrin into Brethil
  14. The Journey of Morwen and Niënor to Nargothrond
  15. Niënor in Brethil
  16. The Coming of Glaurung
  17. The Death of Glaurung
  18. The Death of Túrin

Genealogies[]

  1. The House of Hador & the People of Haleth
  2. The House of Bëor
  3. The Princes of the Noldor

Appendices[]

  1. The Evolution of the Great Tales
  2. The Composition of the Text
  • List of Names

Development[]

When becoming a novel in form, it was designed as a single and continuous narrative, not necessarily a source covering every account of the narrative (or alternate version of the tale). Certain aspects related to Húrin following the story are left out but do get brought up in the follow up Beren and Lúthien, as does extended story for Mîm and his curse of the gold of Glaurung, and its relevance to the fall of Doriath, and corruption of the Dwarves and others who touch it. Though there is still much of Túrin's extended history left out of either source.

Additionally, certain aspects of events Túrin's band in Mîm's fortress and his curse there differ from what was described in The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales (though it contains much of the latter version), sometimes in the ordering of events, or inclusion/removal of certain characters. This was in part Christopher Tolkien's attempt to utilize newer sources he had discovered after those sources were published. There are a few additional details that differ between other sources, and other versions included in the The History of Middle-earth.

Most of the material of the story is from prose sources. Very little from the Lay of the Children of Húrin was used, and where it was, it was amended from verse-form to prose. When elements from Narn i Chîn Húrin, most of the side story of Húrin is excluded, i.e. his adventures and fate (which are fully recounted in the Lost Tale The Wanderings of Húrin).

Depiction in art[]

Outside the publication of The Children of Húrin, many scenes from the tale of Túrin have been illustrated by the independent artist Anke Eissmann.[1]

Translations[]

Foreign Language Translated name
Afrikaans Die Kinders van Húrin
Albanian Fëmijët e Húrin
Amharic ሑሪን ልጆች
Arabic أطفال حورين
Armenian երեխաները Հուռին
Azerbaijani Hurinin uşaqları
Basque Hurin Haurrak
Belarusian Cyrillic Дзеці Хурына
Bengali হুরিন সন্তান
Bosnian Hurinova Djeca
Bulgarian Cyrillic Децата на Хурин
Burmese အမြိုးသား ဟုရိန္
Cambodian កុមារនេះ ហុរិន
Catalan Els Fills d'en Hurin
Cebuano Ang mga Anak sa Húrin
Corsican U Baracca di Húrin
Croatian Húrinova Djeca
Czech Húrinovy Děti
Danish Húrins Børn
Dutch De Kinderen van Húrin
Esperanto La Infanoj de Hurin
Estonian Húrini lapsed
Fijian Na Luve ni Húrin
Filipino Ang mga Anak ni Húrin
Finnish Húrinin lasten tarina
French Les Enfants de Húrin
Frisian De Bern fan Húrin
Galician Os Fillos de Húrin
Georgian ჰურინის შვილები
German Die Kinder Húrins
Greek Τα Παιδιά του Χούριν
Gujarati હુરિન બાળકો
Haitian Creole A Timoun de Húrin
Hawaiian O na Mamo a Hurin
Hebrew ילדי הורין
Hindi हिन्दि के बच्चे
Hmong Cov Me nyuam ntawm Hurin
Hungarian Húrin Gyermekei
Icelandic Börn af Húrin
Irish Gaelic Clann na Húrin
Italian I Figli di Húrin
Japanese の子どもたち フーリン
Kannada ಹುರಿನ್ ಮಕ್ಕಳು
Kazakh Һұрінның балалары (Cyrillic) Hurinnıñ balaları (Latin)
Korean 후린의 아이들
Kurdish Zarokan ji Hurin (Kurmanji Kurdish)
Kyrgyz Cyrillic Hуриндын балдар
Latin Filiorum Húrin
Latvian Hurina bērni
Lithuanian Hurino vaikai
Luxembourgish D'Kanner vun Húrin
Macedonian Cyrillic Децата на Хурин
Malagasy Ny Ankizy ny Húrin
Malaysian Bani Húrin
Malayalam ഹുരിന് സന്തതികളെ
Maltese It-tfal ta ' l-Húrin
Maori Nga Tama a Hurin
Marathi हुरिन लोकांना
Mongolian Cyrillic Hурин-ийн хүүхдүүд
Nepalese हुरिन को बच्चाहरु
Norwegian Húrins Barn
Pashto د ماشومانو د حورین
Persian فرزندان هورین
Polish Dzieci Húrina
Portuguese Os Filhos de Húrin
Punjabi ਹੁਰਿਨ ਦੇ ਬੱਚੇ
Romanian Copiii lui Húrin
Russian Дети Хурина
Samoan O le Fanau a Húrin
Scottish Gaelic Clann de Húrin
Serbian Деца Хуринова (Cyrillic) Deca Hurinova (Latin)
Sesotho Bana ba Hurin
Sindhi جي ٻارن حعرڳن ?
Sinhalese හුරින් වල දරුවන්
Slovak Húrinove deti
Somalian Carruurta ee Húrin
Spanish Los Hijos de Húrin
Sundanese Nu Barudak tina Húrin
Swahili Watoto wa Húrin
Swedish Húrins Barn
Tahitian Te Mau tamarii o te Húrin
Tajik Cyrillic Кӯдакони Ҳурин
Tamil ஹுரிந் புத்திரர்
Telugu హురిన వంశస్థులు
Thai ตำนานบุตรแห่งฮูริน
Tongan E Fanau 'a e Húrin
Turkish Húrin'in Çocukları
Ukrainian Cyrillic Діти Гуріна
Urdu کے بچوں حورین
Uzbek Ҳурин Фарзандлари (Cyrillic) Hurin Farzandlari (Latin)
Yiddish די קינדער פון הורין
Zulu Abantwana bakwa-Hurin


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