Lúthien and Beren are characters in J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy world Middle-earth. Lúthien is an elf, daughter of the elf-king Thingol and goddess-like Melian. Beren is a mortal man. The complex tale of their love for each other and the quest they are forced to embark upon is a story of triumph against overwhelming odds but ending in tragedy. It appears in The Silmarillion, the epic poem The Lay of Leithian, the Grey Annals section of The War of the Jewels, and in the texts collected in the 2017 book Beren and Lúthien. Their story is told to Frodo by Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings.
The story of Lúthien and Beren, immortal elf-maiden marrying a mortal man and choosing mortality for herself, is mirrored in Tolkien's The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen. The names Beren and Lúthien appear on the grave of Tolkien and his wife Edith.
Scholars have noted the many sources that Tolkien used in constructing the story. It is based principally on the classical tale of Orpheus and Eurydice in the underworld, supplemented by multiple story elements from myths, legends, and folktales from different periods. These include the Finnish Kalevala, the Welsh Mabinogion, the Saga of the Volsungs, the Prose Edda, and the folktale "Rapunzel".
Context
Lúthien was a Telerin (Sindarin) princess, the only child of Elu Thingol, king of Doriath, and his queen, Melian the Maia, making her half-royal, half-divine. She was born in the Years of the Trees, according to the Grey Annals. At her birth, the white flower niphredil bloomed for the first time in Doriath.
Lúthien's romance with the mortal man Beren is considered the "chief" of the Silmarillion tales by Tolkien himself; he called it "the kernel of the mythology". Elrond was Lúthien's great-grandson and Aragorn was descended from her via Elros and the Royal Family of Númenor. She is described as the Morning Star of the Elves and as the most beautiful daughter of the one god, Ilúvatar. Beren was the son of Emeldir and Barahir, a man of the royal House of Bëor of Dorthonion.
Etymology
The name Lúthien appears to mean "daughter of flowers" in a Beleriandic dialect of Sindarin, but it can also be translated "blossom". The epithet Tinúviel was given to her by Beren. It literally means "daughter of the starry twilight", which signifies "nightingale". The name Beren means "brave" in Sindarin.
Fictional biography
<!--the article about the book by Tolkien telling the tale of these characters-->
Meeting
thumb|upright|Lúthien — a [[gouache painting depicting a scene from The Silmarillion by Ted Nasmith. It was published in the 1990 Tolkien Calendar.|alt=Painting of an Elf-woman dancing in a forest]]
Beren saw Lúthien dancing under moonrise in her father's forest, and fell in love with her, captivated by her beauty. He stood in the shadows wishing to be near enough to Lúthien to touch her, but Daeron, her childhood friend and partner in music and dance, noticed Beren and, believing him to be a wild animal, shouted for Lúthien to flee. She saw Beren's shadow and ran away. One day in summer when Lúthien was dancing on a green hill surrounded by hemlocks, she sang, awakening Beren. He ran to her, and again she tried to escape and he cried Tinúviel. When Lúthien gazed upon him she reciprocated his love. He kissed her, but she slipped away and he fell into a deep sleep. In his hour of despair, she appeared before him, and in the Hidden Kingdom of Doriath set her hand in his and cradled his head against her breast. From then on they met secretly.
The quest of the Silmaril
Daeron, who also loved her, reported her meetings with Beren to her father.<!--Silm. p. 166-->
Though Melian warned her husband against it, Thingol was determined not to let Beren marry his daughter, and set a seemingly impossible task as the bride price: Beren had to bring him one of the Silmarils from Morgoth's Iron Crown. There she sang a song of the suffering of Elves and Men, the greatest ever sung. This proved effective: it was the only time that Mandos ever acted out of pity. He summoned Beren from the houses of the dead, and Lúthien's spirit met his by the shores of the sea. Mandos consulted with Manwë, King of Arda. Even Manwë could not change the fate of Men, and so he gave Lúthien a choice: to live in Valinor, but without Beren; or to return to Middle-earth with Beren as a mortal herself, accepting the Doom of Men. She chose Beren and mortality.<!--Silm, p. 187-->
Thingol received the Nauglamír from Húrin, who had recovered it from the ruins of Nargothrond. Thingol decided to unite the greatest works of the Dwarves and the Elves – the Nauglamír and the Silmaril – and hired Dwarf smiths from Nogrod. The Dwarves murdered Thingol and took the Nauglamír. Beren and an army of Green Elves and Ents waylaid the returning Dwarves. Beren reclaimed the Nauglamír, and Lúthien kept the necklace and the great jewel all her life. This hastened Beren's and Lúthien's end, since her beauty enhanced by the jewel was too bright for mortal lands to bear.
Elrond and Arwen were descendants of Lúthien, as was Aragorn, a descendant of Elrond's brother Elros.
The story is also told in an epic poem in The Lays of Beleriand, upon which most of the finer details of her life and relationship to Beren are extracted from in this article, since The Silmarillion provides only a generalization of the tale.
Analysis
The philologist and Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey writes that Tolkien based the tale of Beren and Lúthien on the classical legend of Orpheus in the underworld, and embroiders this framework with story elements from multiple folktales, myths, and legends. These include the Finnish Kalevala, the Welsh Mabinogion, the Norse Saga of the Volsungs, the Icelandic Prose Edda, the Old English Genesis B, and the German folktale "Rapunzel". Shippey comments that Tolkien "had not yet freed himself from his sources – as if trying to bring in all the older bits of literature that he liked instead of forging a story with an impetus of its own."
thumb|center|upright=2.5|[[Tom Shippey on some of the many sources for Tolkien's tale of Beren and Lúthien: principally the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, but with the addition of story elements from myths, legends, and folktales from different periods.]]
Classical myth
Peter Astrup Sundt draws multiple parallels between Beren and Orpheus. More precisely, he compares both Beren and Lúthien and the classical character, as it is Lúthien not Beren who has magical powers, and far from playing a passive Eurydice to be rescued, or not, from the underworld, she too goes to sing for Mandos, the Vala who watches over the souls of the dead. Ben Eldon Stevens adds that Tolkien's retelling contrasts sharply with the myth. Where Orpheus nearly manages to retrieve Eurydice from Hades, Lúthien rescues Beren three times – from Sauron's fortress-prison of Tol-in-Gaurhoth, involving singing; from Morgoth's Angband, with the Silmaril; and by getting Mandos to restore both of them to life. In the original myth, Eurydice meets "a second death", soon followed by the griefstruck Orpheus, whereas Tolkien has Lúthien and Beren enjoy "a second life" after their "resurrection".
{| class="wikitable" style="margin:1em auto;"
|+ Peter Astrup Sundt's parallels between Beren/Lúthien and Orpheus
Folktale, fairytale
<!--https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Beren_and_L%C3%BAthien&oldid=643864963 is cited in Beal 2014 (ref below) as giving popular attention to folk-tales "The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs" and "The Griffin" as possible sources for Tolkien's L&B.-->
thumb|upright|Possible influence from the Welsh "[[Culhwch and Olwen": heroic hound, woman with magical powers, warrior seeking her hand in marriage, demanding father. Illustration "Culhwch at Ysbaddaden's court" by Ernest Wallcousins, 1920]]
Several scholars, from Randel Helms onwards, have noted that Tolkien's tale of Beren and Lúthien shares elements with folktales such as the Welsh "Culhwch and Olwen". One of these is the disapproving parent who sets a seemingly impossible task (or tasks) for the suitor, which is then fulfilled. The Brothers Grimm folktale "The Devil With the Three Golden Hairs" sets such a task, the King requiring the boy to obtain three golden hairs from the Devil's beard.<!-- A similar folktale is "The Griffin".--> Another is the hound Cafall, matching Tolkien's Huan, hound of Valinor.
Shippey Shippey adds that the hunt of the giant boar Twrch Trwyth is a "plausible" model for the hunt of Carcharoth the wolf.-->
The Tolkien scholar John Garth, writing in the New Statesman, notes that it took a century for The Tale of Beren and Lúthien, mirroring the tale of Second Lieutenant Tolkien watching Edith dancing in a woodland glade far from the "animal horror" of the trenches, to reach publication. Garth finds "much to relish", as the tale changes through "several gears" until finally it "attains a mythic power". Beren's enemy changes from a cat-demon to the "Necromancer" and eventually to Sauron. Garth comments that if this was supposed to be the lost ancestor of the Rapunzel fairytale, then it definitely portrays a modern "female-centred fairy-tale revisioning" with a Lúthien who may be fairer than mortal tongue can tell, but is also more resourceful than her lover.
Personal life
{| class="wikitable floatright"
|+ Grave of Edith and J. R. R. Tolkien
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In a letter to his son Christopher, dated 11 July 1972, Tolkien requested the inscription below for his wife Edith's grave "for she was (and knew she was) my Lúthien." He added, "I never called Edith Luthien – but she was the source of the story.... It was first conceived in a small woodland glade filled with hemlocks at Roos in Yorkshire where ... she was able to live with me for a while."
Notes
References
Primary
Secondary
Sources
- <!--Carpenter 1977-->
- <!--Carpenter 2023 [1981]-->
- <!--Shippey 2005-->