The Lay of the Children of Húrin is a long epic poem by J. R. R. Tolkien which takes place in his fictional fantasy-world, Middle-earth. It tells of the life and ill fate of Túrin Turambar, the son of Húrin. It is written in alliterative verse and exists in several versions, but was never finished. The poem was published after the author's death by his son Christopher Tolkien in the 1985 The Lays of Beleriand, the third volume of The History of Middle-earth; he later published a completed, book-length form of the poem in the 2007 The Children of Húrin.