In J. R. R. Tolkien

J. R. R. Tolkien

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...

's Middle-earth

Middle-earth

Middle-earth is the fictional setting of the majority of author J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy writings. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings take place entirely in Middle-earth, as does much of The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales....

 legendarium

Legendarium

Legendary may refer to:*A hagiography, or study of the lives of saints and other religious figures**The South English Legendary, a Middle English legendary*A legend-Entertainment:*Legendary, an album by Kaysha*Legendary...

, Urwen, better known by her nickname Lalaith ("Laughter"), was the second child of Húrin Thalion

Húrin

Húrin is a fictional character in the Middle-earth legendarium of J. R. R. Tolkien. He is introduced in The Silmarillion as a hero of Men during the First Age, said to be the greatest warrior of both the Edain and all the other Men in Middle-earth...

 and Morwen Edhelwen

Morwen

Morwen is a fictional character from J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. She is featured in The Silmarillion, The Children of Húrin and The Wanderings of Húrin.-Character overview:...

 and the sister of Túrin Turambar

Túrin Turambar

Túrin Turambar is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium. "Turambar and the Foalókë", begun in 1917, is the first appearance of Túrin in the legendarium. J.R.R...

. She was born is spring of the Year of the Sun 466 of the First Age

First Age

In the fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien, the First Age, or First Age of the Children of Ilúvatar is the heroic period in which most of Tolkien's early legends are set...

.
Lalaith was a happy child, and was compared to an Elven

Elf (Middle-earth)

In J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, Elves are one of the races that inhabit a fictional Earth, often called Middle-earth, and set in the remote past. They appear in The Hobbit and in The Lord of the Rings, but their complex history is described more fully in The Silmarillion...

 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

Edain

In the fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien, the Edain were men who made their way into Beleriand in the First Age, and were friendly to the Elves....

 made long ago".

But in the autumn of the year when Urwen was three, a pestilent wind, called the 'Evil Breath', came to Hithlum

Hithlum

In J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional universe of Middle-earth, Hithlum is the region north of Beleriand near the Helcaraxë.Hithlum was separated from Beleriand proper by the Ered Wethrin mountain chain, and was named after the sea mists which formed there at times: Hithlum is Sindarin for "Mist-shadow";...

 from Angband

Angband (Middle-earth)

-External links:*...

, 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

Nienor

Niënor, also known as Níniel , is a fictional character from J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium, appearing in the Narn i Chîn Húrin told in full in The Children of Húrin and briefly in The Silmarillion...

, who unknown to all was his second sister, as a wife later.

Other versions of the legendarium

Urwen only entered the story of the Narn i Chîn Húrin

Narn i Chîn Húrin

A portion of the Narn i Chîn Húrin or The Tale of the Children of Húrin is a part of the book Unfinished Tales by the English author J. R. R. Tolkien. It is a prose version of an earlier narrative poem called The Lay of the Children of Húrin...

in a late stage of composition, after the publication of The Lord of the Rings

The Lord of the Rings

The Lord of the Rings is a high fantasy epic written by English philologist and University of Oxford professor J. R. R. Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to Tolkien's earlier, less complex children's fantasy novel The Hobbit , but eventually developed into a much larger work. It was written in...

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). However, Christopher Tolkien

Christopher Tolkien

Christopher Reuel Tolkien is the third and youngest son of the author J. R. R. Tolkien , and is best known as the editor of much of his father's posthumously published work. He drew the original maps for his father's The Lord of the Rings, which he signed C. J. R. T. The J...

 makes no comments on this, and in the index to The War of the Jewels

The War of the Jewels

The War of the Jewels is the 11th volume of Christopher Tolkien's series The History of Middle-earth, analysing the unpublished manuscripts of his father J. R. R...

her name is spelt Lalaeth. In unconnected remarks of Christopher Tolkien, he uses the form Lalaeth despite the spelling Lalaith in published Unfinished Tales

Unfinished Tales

Unfinished Tales is a collection of stories and essays by J. R. R. Tolkien that were never completed during his lifetime, but were edited by his son Christopher Tolkien and published in 1980.Unlike The Silmarillion, for which the narrative fragments were modified to connect into a consistent and...

that he explicitly references to.