17. The language of the Folk of Haleth was not used, for they had perished and would not rise again. Nor would their tongue be heard again, unless the prophecy of Andreth the Wise-woman should prove true, that Turin in the Last Battle should return from the Dead, and before he left the Circles of the World for ever should challenge the Great Dragon of Morgoth, Ancalagon the Black, and deal him the death-stroke.
[This remarkable saying has long roots, extending back to the
prophecy at the end of the old Tale of Turambar (II.115-16),
where it was told that the Gods of Death (Fui and Vefantur)
would not open their doors to Turin and Nienori, that Urin and
Mavwin (Hurin and Morwen) went to Mandos, and that their prayers
came even to Manwe, and the Gods had mercy on their un-
happy fate, so that those twain Turin and Nienori entered into
Fos'Almir, the bath of flame, even as Urwendi and her maidens
had done in ages past before the first rising of the Sun, and so
were all their sorrows and stains washed away, and they dwelt
as shining Valar among the blessed ones, and now the love of
that brother and sister is very fair; but Turambar indeed shall
stand beside Fionwe in the Great Wrack, and Melko and his
drakes shall curse the sword of Mormakil.
In the Sketch of the Mythology or 'earliest Silmarillion' of the
1920s the prophecy with which it ends (IV.40) declares that when
Morgoth returns, and 'the last battle of all' is fought,
Fionwe will fight Morgoth on the plain of Valinor, and the
spirit of Turin shall be beside him; it shall be Turin who with
his black sword will slay Morgoth, and thus the children of
Hurin shall be avenged.
The development of this in the Quenta (IV.165) tells that in the
day of the last battle, on the fields of Valinor,
Tulkas shall strive with Melko, and on his right shall stand
Fionwe and on his left Turin Turambar, son of Hurin,
Conqueror of Fate; and it shall be the black sword of Turin
that deals unto Melko his death and final end; and so shall the
children of Hurin and all Men be avenged.
And the final passage of the Quenta, concerning the prophecy of
the recovery of the Two Trees, ends with the words (ibid.):
But of Men in that day the prophecy speaks not, save of Turin
only, and him it names among the Gods.
These passages reappear in the revised conclusion of the Quenta
that belongs with the Quenta Silmarillion of 1937 (see V.323-4,
333), with two changes: Turin in the Last Battle is said to be
'coming from the halls of Mandos', and in the final sentence
concerning the prophecy 'no Man it names, save Turin only, and
to him a place is given among the sons of the Valar.' In the cursory
corrections that my father made much later to this conclusion
(see XI.245-7) he changed 'Turin ... coming from the halls of
Mandos' to 'Turin ... returning from the Doom of Men at the
ending of the world*, and against the concluding passage (in-
cluding the reference to Turin as 'a son of the Valar') he placed a
large X.
Another reference is found in the Annals of Aman (X.71, 76),
where it is said of the constellation Menelmakar (Orion) that it
'was a sign of Turin Turambar, who should come into the world,
and a foreshowing of the Last Battle that shall be at the end of
Days.'
In this last reappearance of the mysterious and fluctuating idea
the prophecy is put into the mouth of Andreth, the Wise-woman
of the House of Beor: Turin will 'return from the Dead' before his
final departure, and his last deed within the Circles of the World
will be the slaying of the Great Dragon, Ancalagon the Black.
Andreth prophesies of the Last Battle at the end of the Elder Days
(the sense in which the term 'Last Battle' is used shortly after-
wards in this text, p. 371); but in all the early texts (the Quenta,
IV.160; the Annals of Beleriand, IV.309, V.144; the Quenta
Silmarillion, V.329) it was Earendil who destroyed Ancalagon.]
-HoME XII, Part 2, The Problem of Ros
