Lalaith
the child of laughter; the lost sister
Name and Story
Lalaith — “Laughter” — the third child of Húrin and Morwen, the little sister of Túrin, so named because “she laughed ever, in her cradle” — the early brightness of the doomed house. In her second year — “in the days of the darkness of the north” — she was swept away by — she died of a sudden evil (the plague brought by the malice of Angband), “and her laughter was still”. Her death was Túrin’s first grief, and the Quenta tells that from that hour — the house’s “laughter” was gone; her name remained as the grief-mark of Dor-lómin.
Significance
Lalaith is the small prelude of the great tragedy: the child whom the darkness took, who taught the young Túrin the shape of loss before the dragons came. Her memory haunts Morwen’s long stand and the doom-songs of the Narn.