(Crossposted to Dreamwidth and Livejournal, and based on a post at the Barrow-Downs)

If asked what J.R.R. Tolkien wrote that would be appropriate to retell to children, you would probably immediately think of The Hobbit. Maybe you'd then go to Roverandom, or Farmer Giles of Ham, or - if you're particularly up on your obscure Tolkien books - Mr. Bliss.

You probably wouldn't think of the Silmarillion, Tolkien's posthumously-published pseudo-epic/history/scripture/myth of the Elder Days of Middle-earth. And yet, somehow, that's exactly what I've wound up retelling in the vernacular to my children.

Actually, the 'somehow' is quite simple: I wanted to use a story to demonstrate that doubling down on things that make you feel guilty is dumb, and landed on the tale of Feanor. I cut his story down to the barest bones - the only proper names I used were 'Feanor' and 'Melkor' (and yes, I should have said 'Morgoth', but that realisation came way too late) - but I covered all the high points: his creation of the Silmarils, his pride in them, Melkor's theft, the Kinslaying, his burning of the ships and abandonment of Fingolfin, and his death and cursing of his sons. I drove the point home by saying that six of Feanor's seven sons died because of the promise he made them keep, and that the seventh was basically miserable forever. Job done, end of story.

And then a couple of days later, one of the kids asked who was king of the Elves after Feanor died, and I found myself carrying on...

We're currently between parts five and six of the story. Part two was the coming of Fingolfin (they've got that name down pat), coupled with Maedhros' captivity and the eventual transfer of the crown to Fingolfin. Part three was, rather hilariously, a description of Beleriand, through the medium of the different ways the cities of the elves were protected from Melkor. I asked the kids for how they would do it, and for every suggestion they made, was able to find someone who'd taken the same approach. (They really liked Melian's magic shield, which is good, since we'll be seeing it again.)

Part four was The Coming of Men Humans, which let me lean into Finrod's presence and general awesomeness. We started with Finrod's coming to Beor's campsite, then did a little bit about the time Melkor impersonated a Human dissident, and then capped it off with the Lady Haleth, who went down well due to, again, general awesomeness.

For part five, I did the Bragollach - the Battle of Sudden Flame and the breaking of the peace in Beleriand. My daughter set up a "Fin-rod! Fin-rod!" chant for his minor part, and they managed to listen all the way through Fingolfin's duel. They do rather think the giant eagle who shows up occasionally is 'the god of the Air', but hey, they're kids; I'm not going to quibble. Next, as a special request, we're going to go back and cover the death of the Trees. I actually didn't mention it in the first part, only covering it in passing in part two, so it's kind of overdue. After that, it'll be on to Beren and Luthien, and I've already mentioned that one of the Silmarils gets rescued.

In fact, the whole way through I've foreshadowed what's to come. Sometimes that's been a direct lead-in to the next part - 'so hey, there's all these elves and dwarves around, but what about... us?'. But other times it's just been general ominous murmurings, like saying that Gondolin was the last of all the cities in Beleriand to fall. This is entirely deliberate; Tolkien did the same thing, and even more so in the earliest versions of the story, where the Doom of Mandos includes the words "Great is the fall of Gondolin!". (Come to think of it, the final version starts with 'Tears unnumbered...')

The whole affair has been almost hilariously simplified. I've chopped out almost all the names, and skipped over huge chunks of story when they don't fit the 15 minute block I have available. Character motivations are trimmed back to the absolutely necessary, and occasionally I invent whole sections - like how shocked the Elves were on discovering humans got old - when the kids raise questions that aren't in (my memory of) the book. I'm positive I'm getting things wrong all over the place, given how long it's been since I read the Silm cover to cover. But...

The further I get through the story, the more I feel like this is how Tolkien would want his stories to be experienced. The Legendarium is pseudo-mythic in origin. The very first stories were written as records of oral retellings - the Book of Lost Tales - and The Hobbit is also very much written to be read aloud (as, originally, it was). Tolkien mentioned somewhere that the First Age acted as an unexplored backdrop to Lord of the Rings. Reading the Silmarillion is a fantastic experience, but from an author's perspective it's pretty much like reading the Wikipedia entry for Beleriand. Retellings - whether in simplified form to kids, through fanfic, or, yes, in TV shows and movies to inevitably come - are how myths and legends were originally experienced, and I have a hard time shaking the idea that they still, in a way, are.

hS