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The Love and Heroism of Beren & Lúthien

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The Love and Heroism of Beren & Lúthien The Love and Heroism of Beren & Lúthien (a retelling for children using free artwork on the internet) 1 Among the tales of sorrow and of ruin that come down to us from the ancient days of the elves there are some that still inspire joy. The fairest of these in the ears of the Eldar, or high elves of the light, is the tale of Beren and Lúthien. Of their lives during the Elven wars with Morgoth was made the Lay of Leithian , which means the Release from Bondage. It is retold here briefly without verse. Barahir was a lord of men in the north of Beleriand, a world in which the high elves and their human allies faced the great evil of Morgoth, Lord of Angband in the far north. Although Morgoth's forces had overrun his lands of Dorthonion, which lay just south of the mountain fortress of Angband, Barahir would not abandon his home. But at last there remained to him only twelve companions, and they retreated to the sacred lake of Tarn Aeluin in the midst of the hills in south Dorthonian, a pathless and untamed area where they could hide. But eventually Morgoth's spies tricked one of Barahir's companions, Gorlim, making him believe they had captured his lost wife. In fact, they had already slain 1 This version edited by John Davenport adapts portions from Tolkien's texts, mainly from the Silmarillion . For the earliest version, see Tolkien, The Book of Lost Tales vol.II. For a full retelling based on all the primary sources, see Christopher Tolkien's Beren & Lúthien (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, May 2017). For the partial Lay of Lethian itself in verse, see the History of Middle Earth vol.III. All rights belong to the estate of J.R.R. Tolkien. I make this version freely available as a way of introducing younger children to one of Tolkien's greatest narratives, which stands at the heart of his vision, as is most clear in the Silmarillion . her long before. Using his spells of deception and guile, Sauron, a great evil spirit, tricked Gorlim into revealing the hiding place of Barahir, and then killed poor Gorlim. Thus Morgoth drew his net about Tarn Aeluin; and the Orcs (monsters made from elves by Morgoth) came in the hour before dawn, surprised the men of Dorthonion and slew them all, save one. For Beren son of Barahir had been sent by his father on a perilous errand to spy upon the ways of the Enemy, and he was far afield when his father's home was taken. But as he slept, the ghost of Gorlim warned Beren in his dreams, and he ran home to find Tarn Aeluin ruined. After Beren buried his father's bones, and raised a cairn of boulders above him, he pursued the Orcs and slew them all -- for Beren was tall and mighty with a blade, though he was still young. From the Orcs, he recovered the ring given to his father by Finrod Felegund, the Elven lord of Nargathrond, a kingdom hidden in the hills far southwest of Dorthonion. Thereafter Beren wandered still upon Dorthonion as a solitary outlaw; but Morgoth set a price upon his head, and Sauron, the dreadful servant of Morgoth, brought a host of werewolves to search for Beren. He was driven south into the terrible mountains of Ered Gorgoroth, the mountains of horror. For Sauron had cast shadows upon them under which evil things roamed. In the wilderness of Dungortheb, south of the cliffs of Gorgoroth, the sorcery of Sauron was met and opposed by the power of Melian, a Maia spirit equal in strength to Sauron himself. Maia beings are like angels embodied in some form on Earth, and Melian's subtlety was great among them. Around the elven forest realm of Doriath, she had set a wall of power that was named the Girdle of Melian. Beren fought his way though Dungortheb, fending off terrible giant spiders that walked there like hallucinations in the madness that arose from the battling powers of Sauron and Melian. Beren never thereafter spoke of that terrible journey, and none save Lúthien knew how he found a way through the barrier into the mazes that Melian wove about the kingdom of Thingol, even as she had foreseen; for a great doom lay upon him. Thus it is told in the Lay of Leithian that Beren came stumbling into Doriath grey and bowed as with woe, so great had been the torment of his path. While any other man who wandered into Melian's Girdle unguided would have been forever lost in the illusions it created, Beren's sorrow was so deep that he did not perceive the fair seemings and mirages of the Girdle as he passed through into the mild winter of Doriath itself. Then, wandering in the woods of Neldoreth, he finally came upon Lúthien, daughter of King Thingol and Melian, the fairest of all elves ever born (for she was half-Maia spirit herself), Beren first saw her from a distance in the evening under a full moon, as she danced upon the unfading grass in the glades beside lake Esgalduin. Upon seeing this vision, all memory of his pain departed from Beren, and he fell into an enchantment; for Lúthien was the most beautiful of all the Children of God (or Ilúvater as the elves name Him) who ever walked upon this Earth. Her raiment was blue as the unclouded heaven, but her eyes were silver as the starlit evening; her mantle was sewn with golden flowers, but her hair was dark as the shadows of twilight. As the light upon the leaves of trees, as the voice of clear waters, as the stars above the mists of the world, such was her glory and her loveliness; and in her face was a shining light. But on seeing him, she vanished from Beren sight; and he became dumb or speechless, as one that is bound under a spell, wandering in the woods like a wary beast, seeking for her. In his heart he called her Tinuviel, that signifies Nightingale, daughter of twilight, in the Grey-elven language -- for he knew no other name for her. Each night he saw her from afar, but when he caught up to her dancing place, she was vanished like a faerie. Then finally, near dawn on the eve of spring, and Lúthien danced upon a green hill under a full moon, and suddenly she began to sing. Her song was keen, heart-piercing, like the lark that rises from the gates of night and pours its voice among the dying stars, seeing the sun behind the walls of the world. For Lúthien was full of her mother's arts and powers, and her song indeed came from beyond this world, releasing the bonds of winter. During her threnody, the frozen waters thawed and flowed, and flowers sprang from the cold earth where her feet had passed. Then the spell of silence fell from Beren, and he called to her, crying "Tinuviel!" And the woods echoed the name. At this, she halted in wonder, and fled no more, and Beren came to her. But as she looked on him, doom fell upon her, and she loved him. She did not immediately understand the love she felt; instead, it made her afraid, as it was like nothing she had felt before. So she slipped from Beren's arms and vanished from his sight even as the day was breaking. Then Beren lay upon the ground in a swoon, as one slain at once by bliss and grief; and he fell into a dream in which he was like a person stricken with sudden blindness, who seeks with hands to find the vanished light. For he knew that Lúthien, being elven, was undying: her people had no natural limit to their life-span; and though their bodies could be killed by malice or accident, their spirits would remain with this Earth until the End of Time when all things will be remade. Beren had seen a high elven maiden once or twice in his youth, but Tinuviel was greater than these: her eyes expressed a glory within her unlike anything he had ever beheld. For even among the high elves Lúthien was special -- not only because she was the Princess of Doriath, but because in all Middle Earth, only Lúthien had a Maian mother (a being not only undying but immortal, made by God before this world). But Lúthien remembered the rough-hewn human man whose name she did not yet know, and she finally returned to him where he sat in darkness. Long ago there, in the Hidden Kingdom of Doriath, she laid her hand in his and they spoke for the first time. Thereafter often she came to him, and they went in secret through the woods together from spring to summer; and no others of the Children of God, have had joy so great, though the time was brief. But Daeron the minstrel also loved Lúthien, and he espied her meetings with Beren, and betrayed them to Thingol. Then the King was filled with anger, for Lúthien he loved above all things, setting her above all the princes of the Elves; whereas mortal Men he did not even take into his service. Therefore he spoke in grief and amazement to Lúthien, asking what she could see in a mere human being; but she would reveal nothing, until he swore an oath to her that he would neither slay Beren nor imprison him.
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