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[]
"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[]
- The Childhood of Túrin
- The Battle of Unnumbered Tears
- The Words of Húrin and Morgoth
- The Departure of Túrin
- Túrin in Doriath
- Túrin among the Outlaws
- Of Mîm the Dwarf
- The Land of Bow and Helm
- The Death of Beleg
- Túrin in Nargothrond
- The Fall of Nargothrond
- The Return of Túrin to Dor-lómin
- The Coming of Túrin into Brethil
- The Journey of Morwen and Niënor to Nargothrond
- Niënor in Brethil
- The Coming of Glaurung
- The Death of Glaurung
- The Death of Túrin
Genealogies[]
- The House of Hador & the People of Haleth
- The House of Bëor
- The Princes of the Noldor
Appendices[]
- The Evolution of the Great Tales
- 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 |