THEIR LAW

“Eöl was brought to Turgon’s hall and stood before his high seat, proud and sullen. Though he was amazed no less than his son at all that he saw, his heart was filled the more with anger and with hate of the Noldor. 

But Turgon treated him with honour, and rose up and would take his hand; and he said: ‘Welcome, Kinsman, for so I hold you. Here you shall dwell at your pleasure, save only that you must here abide and depart not from My Kingdom; for it is My Law that none who finds the way hither shall depart.’ 

But Eöl withdrew his hand. ‘I acknowledge not Your Law,’ he said. ‘No right have you or any of your kin in this land to seize realms or to set bounds, either here or there. This is the land of The Teleri, to which you bring war and all unquiet, dealing ever proudly and unjustly. I care nothing for your secrets and I came not to spy upon you, but to claim My Own: My Wife and My Son. Yet if in Aredhel your sister you have some claim, then let her remain; let the bird go back to the cage, where soon she will sicken again, as she sickened before. But not so Maeglin. My Son you shall not withhold from me. Come, Maeglin Son of Eöl! Your Father commands you. Leave the house of his enemies and the slayers of his kin, or be accursed!’ 

But Maeglin answered nothing. 

Then Turgon sat in his high seat holding his Staff of Doom, and in a stern voice spoke: ‘I will not debate with you, Dark Elf. By the swords of the Noldor alone are your sunless woods defended. Your freedom to wander there wild you owe to my kin; and but for them long since you would have laboured in thraldom in the pits of Angband. And here I am King; and whether you will it or will it not, My Doom is Law. This choice only is given to you: to abide Here, or to die Here; and so also for your son.’ 

Then Eöl looked into the eyes of King Turgon, and he was not daunted, but stood long without word or movement while a still silence fell upon the hall; and Aredhel was afraid, knowing that he was perilous. 

Suddenly, swift as serpent, he seized a javelin that he held hid beneath his cloak and cast it at Maeglin, crying: ‘The second choice I take and for my son also! You shall not hold what is mine!’ 

But Aredhel sprang before the dart, and it smote her in the shoulder; and Eöl was overborne by many and set in bonds, and led away, while others tended Aredhel. But Maeglin looking upon his father was silent. It was appointed that Eöl should be brought on the next day to the King’s judgement; and Aredhel and Idril moved Turgon to mercy. But in the evening Aredhel sickened, though the wound had seemed little, and she fell into the darkness, and in the night she died; for the point of the javelin was poisoned, though none knew it until too late. 

Therefore when Eöl was brought before Turgon he found no mercy; and they led him forth to the Caragdûr, a precipice of black rock upon the north side of the hill of Gondolin, there to cast him down from the sheer walls of the city. 

And Maeglin stood by and said nothing; but at the last Eöl cried out: ‘So you forsake your father and his kin, ill-gotten son! Here shall you fail of all your hopes, and here may you yet die the same death as I.’ “

FUCK THEM, AND THEIR LAW