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. A complete version of the Narn called The Children of Húrin, edited by Christopher Tolkien, was released as a new book in 2007.

The Narn (as it has been called) is a long story of what happened to Húrin and his children Túrin Turambar and Nienor, after Húrin was cursed by Morgoth. A coherent but less detailed version of this story appears as Of Túrin Turambar in The Silmarillion, the first posthumous adaptation of Tolkien's works.

In the published Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales, the title of the Narn is given as Narn i Hîn Húrin. This was an editorial decision by Christopher Tolkien which he later regretted, done only to prevent people from pronouncing Chîn like English "Chin" with a voiceless palato-alveolar affricate, rather than a voiceless palatal fricative as in the German dich or the initial sound of the English word huge.The Children of Húrin uses "Chîn".

The original version of the Narn was supposedly composed in Sindarin in the Minlamad thent/estent meter by one Dírhaval, a mortal poet who had nevertheless great mastery of the elvish tongue, and the Elves praised the poem. The poem dates to only a few decades after Túrin's death (Y.S. 499); Dírhaval is said to have lived at the Mouths of Sirion and died in the raid by the Sons of Fëanor in Y.S. 538.

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