The Daughters of Hurin
April 23, 2007
Spied at PCRT in Grand Rapids: Ligon Duncan hunkered down in a corner of the Country Kitchen, his nose in a book. A new book by J. R. R. Tolkien, as it turns out, which Ligon was trying to read before Derek Thomas beat him to it: The Children of Hurin.
In a desperate attempt to keep up with the Jacksonians, I picked up my copy at O'Hare Airport. I am only a few chapters in, but have already read some deeply compelling myths and richly evocative lines.
"Her hair was like the yellow lilies in the grass as she ran in the fields," Tolkien writes of Urwen, the daughter of Hurin, "and her laughter was like the sound of the merry stream that came singing out of the hills past the walls of her father's house."
Tolkien's lines struck a responsive chord in my soul, whispering rumors of eternity. For I too have daughters with hair like yellow lilies, and their laughter will sing like a mountain stream when they run and play in their Father's House.
In a desperate attempt to keep up with the Jacksonians, I picked up my copy at O'Hare Airport. I am only a few chapters in, but have already read some deeply compelling myths and richly evocative lines.
"Her hair was like the yellow lilies in the grass as she ran in the fields," Tolkien writes of Urwen, the daughter of Hurin, "and her laughter was like the sound of the merry stream that came singing out of the hills past the walls of her father's house."
Tolkien's lines struck a responsive chord in my soul, whispering rumors of eternity. For I too have daughters with hair like yellow lilies, and their laughter will sing like a mountain stream when they run and play in their Father's House.
