Beren and Lúthien

Christopher Tolkien, the son and literary executor of J.R.R. Tolkien, presents what his father called "the chief of the stories of the Silmarillion": the legend of Beren and Lúthien. Rather than offering new material, the book extracts from previously published volumes of The History of Middle-earth the successive versions of a single story, arranging them so that the legend can be followed as a coherent, evolving narrative. Christopher Tolkien explains that the story is otherwise scattered across many years and several books. He notes its deeply personal significance to his father, who associated the tale's origins with a woodland glade near Roos in Yorkshire where his wife Edith danced in 1917, and who wished to have "Lúthien" inscribed beneath her name on her grave.

The book opens with background on the Elder Days, the ancient First Age of Middle-earth. Morgoth, originally the mightiest of the Valar (the godlike Powers who shaped the world), dwells as a dark tyrant in his fortress of Angband beneath the peaks of Thangorodrim. The Elves are divided: the Sindar, or Grey Elves, live in the forested realm of Doriath under King Thingol and his queen Melian, a Maia (a spirit of great power) who shields their kingdom with enchantment. The Noldor, another kindred of Elves, returned to Middle-earth as exiles from the Blessed Realm of Aman, driven by Fëanor, who created the Silmarils: three jewels containing the light of the Two Trees of Valinor. Morgoth stole the Silmarils, and Fëanor and his seven sons swore a terrible oath to recover them at any cost.

The earliest extant version, "The Tale of Tinúviel" (c. 1917), is presented first. In this telling, both Beren and Lúthien (called Tinúviel) are Elves, a detail Christopher Tolkien flags as fundamentally different from later versions, where Beren's mortality is essential. Beren, a Gnome (the early term for the Noldor, derived from Greek gnōmē, "thought"), wanders into the forest of Artanor (later Doriath) and discovers Tinúviel dancing among hemlocks in the twilight. Enchanted, he follows her until she leads him to the halls of her father, King Tinwelint (later Thingol). When Beren asks for Tinúviel's hand, the king sets a mocking bride-price: a Silmaril from the crown of Melko (Morgoth).

Beren departs for Angband but is captured and assigned as a slave to Tevildo, Prince of Cats, a malevolent creature serving Morgoth. Tinúviel, learning of Beren's captivity from her mother, resolves to rescue him. Her father imprisons her high in the beech tree Hirilorn, but she uses magic to grow her hair to enormous length, weaves it into a cloak of slumber and a rope, and escapes. In the wild, she meets Huan, Captain of Dogs. Together they lure Tevildo from his castle. Huan traps him and forces him to reveal the spell holding the castle together. Tinúviel speaks the spell, the castle's power collapses, and Beren is freed.

The two journey to Angband, Beren disguised in the skin of a slain warrior-cat. Tinúviel puts the great wolf Karkaras to sleep at the gates, and they enter Morgoth's hall. There she performs a dance and song of such power that every creature falls asleep, including Morgoth, who crashes from his throne. Beren pries a Silmaril from the iron crown, but his knife snaps. They flee, but Karkaras has awakened. The wolf bites off Beren's hand along with the Silmaril, and the holy jewel burns the beast from within.

After a desperate flight, Beren and Tinúviel return to Doriath. A hunt is organized; Karkaras is killed, but Beren is mortally wounded. The Silmaril is cut from the wolf's belly. Beren gives it to the king and dies in Tinúviel's arms. Tinúviel follows him to the halls of Mandos, the keeper of the Dead. Her sorrow moves Mandos to allow Beren to return to life, though both must accept mortality.

Christopher Tolkien then traces the legend's transformation through later texts. In the "Sketch of the Mythology" (1926), Beren becomes a mortal Man, son of the chieftain Barahir, and Tevildo vanishes entirely, replaced by Thû the Necromancer (later Sauron), a sorcerer and lord of wolves. The Quenta Noldorinwa (c. 1930) introduces a major new thread: Felagund, a Noldorin prince and founder of the underground fortress of Nargothrond, owes Barahir an oath of friendship after Barahir saved his life in the Battle of Sudden Flame. The Lay of Leithian, a verse retelling in rhyming couplets begun in 1925, expands these events, including the treachery of Gorlim, one of Barahir's companions, who is deceived by a phantom of his dead wife into revealing the outlaws' hiding place. Barahir is slain; Beren, the sole survivor, flees south into Doriath.

After Thingol demands the Silmaril, Beren travels to Nargothrond bearing Barahir's ring to claim Felagund's oath. Felagund honors his pledge, but Celegorm and Curufin, sons of Fëanor dwelling in Nargothrond, invoke their father's oath against anyone who seeks a Silmaril and turn the people against Felagund. Felagund casts down his crown and departs with Beren and ten loyal warriors. Disguised as Orcs, they are detected by Thû, who overcomes Felagund in a duel of songs of power. The company is imprisoned; wolves devour the captives one by one. When the wolf comes for Beren, Felagund bursts his chains, kills the beast barehanded, and dies of his wounds.

Lúthien, imprisoned first by Thingol and then treacherously held by Celegorm and Curufin in Nargothrond, is freed by Huan, Celegorm's great hound, who is grieved by his master's treachery. She travels north and sings outside Thû's dungeons. Huan slays Thû's wolves, then overthrows Thû himself, forcing him to yield the spells of his fortress. The towers crumble, and Lúthien finds Beren mourning beside Felagund's body. Later, when Celegorm and Curufin encounter the couple and Curufin seizes Lúthien, Beren leaps upon Curufin's horse and wrestles him down. Beren takes Curufin's weapons, including a dwarf-forged knife.

Disguised in a werewolf skin and a bat-wing garment, Beren and Lúthien approach Angband. Lúthien casts the wolf Carcharoth into sleep at the gates. Before Morgoth's throne, she dances until the entire court collapses into slumber. Beren cuts a Silmaril free with Curufin's knife, but the blade snaps on the second attempt, grazing Morgoth's face. At the gates, Carcharoth has awakened and bites off Beren's hand and the Silmaril. Three great eagles sent by Thorondor, lord of the Eagles, rescue Beren and Lúthien and bear them to Doriath's borders.

The book follows the Silmaril's fate beyond Beren and Lúthien's second life. They dwell in peace in Ossiriand in southern Beleriand, in a region called the Land of the Dead that Live. When Dwarves sack Thingol's halls and slay the king, Beren ambushes them and recovers the Nauglamír, a great necklace now holding the Silmaril. Lúthien wears it, but as Mandos foretold, she fades and vanishes; Beren dies. Their son Dior inherits the Silmaril, but the sons of Fëanor attack, and Dior is slain. His daughter Elwing flees with the necklace to the mouths of the river Sirion.

There Elwing weds Eärendil, son of Tuor and Idril of the hidden Elven city of Gondolin. When the sons of Fëanor attack the havens, Elwing casts herself into the sea with the Silmaril, but the Vala Ulmo bears her up. Eärendil, the Silmaril bound on his brow, sails to the Blessed Realm to plead before the Valar on behalf of Elves and Men. Offered a choice of kindred, Elwing chooses the Elves, because of Lúthien. Eärendil's ship Vingilot is hallowed and set to sail the heavens, the Silmaril blazing on his brow as a new star. The book closes with a line from the Quenta Silmarillion: "None saw Beren and Lúthien leave the world or marked where at last their bodies lay" (255).