Urwen

Urwen
	Tolkien character
Information
Aliases	Lalaith
Race	Men
Gender	female

‹ The template Infobox character is being considered for merging. ›

Search Lalaith on Amazon.

In J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium, Urwen, better known by her nickname Lalaith ("Laughter"), was the second child of Húrin Thalion and Morwen Edhelwen and the sister of Túrin Turambar.

Internal history[edit]

Lalaith was a happy child, and was compared to an Elven child by most people. Túrin loved his little sister, but "he played with her seldom, and liked better to guard her unseen and watch her going upon grass or under tree, as she sang such songs as the children of the Edain made long ago".^[1]

“

Her hair was like the yellow lilies in the grass as she ran in the fields, and her laughter was like the sound of the merry stream that came singing out if the hills past the walls of her father's house. Nen Lalaith it was named, and after it all the people of the household called the child Lalaith.^[1]

”

But in the autumn of the year when Urwen was three, a pestilent wind, called the 'Evil Breath', came to Hithlum from Angband, and both Túrin and Lalaith were taken sick. Túrin recovered from the plague, but his sister died. Thereafter "laughter was stilled" in Húrin's house, and Urwen's name Lalaith was not used. Túrin never got over her death and always looked for her likeness in women ever after, which is one possible reason for the tragedy which befell him when he took Níniel, who unknown to all was his second sister, as a wife later.

Character development[edit]

It has been observed that Tolkien modelled the events around his tragic hero Túrin after Kullervo from the Finnish Kalevala epos. Túrin's affection for Lalaith and later for Níniel can be compared to Kullervo's relation to his twin sister Wanona.^[2]

Other versions of the legendarium[edit]

Urwen only entered the story of the Narn i Chîn Húrin in a late stage of composition, after the publication of The Lord of the Rings in 1954–5. However, her name Lalaith is possibly not the last though of J. R. R. Tolkien, as he apparently changed the spelling to Lalaeth, which appears in genealogical tables done in ca. 1959 (around the same time as the writing of the initial parts of the Narn).^[3] However, Christopher Tolkien makes no comments on this, and in the index to The War of the Jewels her name is spelt Lalaeth. In unconnected remarks of Christopher Tolkien,^[4] he uses the form Lalaeth despite the spelling Lalaith in published Unfinished Tales that he explicitly references to.

Descent of Urwen Lalaith[edit]

References[edit]

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 Tolkien, J. R. R. (1980), Christopher Tolkien, ed., Unfinished Tales, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Narn i Hîn Húrin, The Childhood of Túrin, ISBN 0-395-29917-9
↑ Hammond, Wayne G.; Scull, Christina (2006). The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide. Houghton Mifflin. p. 445. ISBN 9780618391028. Search this book on
↑ Tolkien, J. R. R. (1994), Christopher Tolkien, ed., The War of the Jewels, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, New genealogies of the Edain, pp. 229-238, ISBN 0-395-71041-3
↑ The War of the Jewels, p. 314.
↑ Tolkien, J. R. R. (1977), Christopher Tolkien, ed., The Silmarillion, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, ISBN 0-395-25730-1

Some use of "" in your query was not closed by a matching "".Some use of "" in your query was not closed by a matching "".

External links[edit]

"Urwen Lalaith". Tolkien Gateway.

This article about a character from Middle-earth is a stub. You can help EverybodyWiki by expanding it.

fr:Lalaith nl:Húrin#Familie pl:Lista Edainów#Urwena Lalaith

This article "Lalaith" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Lalaith. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

[UT-1] 1.0 ^1.1 Tolkien, J. R. R. (1980), Christopher Tolkien, ed., Unfinished Tales, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Narn i Hîn Húrin, The Childhood of Túrin, ISBN 0-395-29917-9

[2] Hammond, Wayne G.; Scull, Christina (2006). The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide. Houghton Mifflin. p. 445. ISBN 9780618391028. Search this book on

[GM-3] Tolkien, J. R. R. (1994), Christopher Tolkien, ed., The War of the Jewels, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, New genealogies of the Edain, pp. 229-238, ISBN 0-395-71041-3

[4] The War of the Jewels, p. 314.

[5] Tolkien, J. R. R. (1977), Christopher Tolkien, ed., The Silmarillion, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, ISBN 0-395-25730-1

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]