To show something of the process whereby this legend of Middle-earth evolved over the years, he has told the story in his father's own words by giving, first, its original form, and then passages in prose and verse from later texts that illustrate the narrative as it changed. In this book Christopher Tolkien has attempted to extract the story of Beren and Lúthien from the comprehensive work in which it was embedded but that story was itself changing as it developed new associations within the larger history. This is the kernel of the legend and it leads to the supremely heroic attempt of Beren and Lúthien together to rob the greatest of all evil beings, Melkor, called Morgoth, the Black Enemy, of a Silmaril. Her father, a great elvish lord, in deep opposition to Beren, imposed on him an impossible task that he must perform before he might wed Lúthien. Returning from France and the battle of the Somme at the end of 1916, he wrote the tale in the following year.Įssential to the story, and never changed, is the fate that shadowed the love of Beren and Lúthien: for Beren was a mortal man, but Lúthien was an immortal elf. Tolkien, which were published as The Silmarillion. The tale of Beren and Lúthien was, or became, an essential element in the evolution of the mythology of ancient Arda (the Creation through the First Age) conceived by J.R.R.

The story is one of three ' great tales' set in the First Age of Tolkien's Middle-earth, the other two being The Children of Húrin and The Fall of Gondolin. Tolkien wrote several versions of their story, the latest published in The Silmarillion, although the tale is also mentioned in The Lord of the Rings.

The common plot is the story of the love and adventures of the mortal Man Beren and the immortal Elf-maiden Lúthien, and how they stole a Silmaril from the Dark Lord Morgoth's crown.

It contains the various versions of the story of Lúthien and Beren previously published throughout the volumes of The History of Middle-earth. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien as a single book, published in 2017.

For the the chapter in The Silmarillion, see Of Beren and Lúthien.īeren and Lúthien is a collection of writtings by J.R.R. This article is about the book published in 2017.

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