But the forest imagery also links Lúthien to a real-life episode in Tolkien’s courtship of his wife.Īs Christopher Tolkien writes in his preface, these two lovers were very close to his father’s heart. Of course, she is an elf, which dictates the sylvan qualities of her beauty. Beren takes on the challenge, and adventure ensues. Her father does not approve of this union between elf and non-elf, and sets him on an impossible quest: to bring him one of the Silmarils-ancient, powerful gems-from the crown of the evil Morgoth.

He stumbles upon the beautiful elf Lúthien, who is dancing in a glade, and they fall in love. The bones of the story have Beren wandering through a wood-in some versions he is a man, in others not. Beren and Lúthien are ancestors of Arwen and Aragorn, living thousands of years earlier, in the First Age of Middle Earth. Tolkien’s son Christopher, brings together the many versions of this tale, which is a key element of the Silmarillion, the universe-building compendium that precedes the action in The Lord of the Rings.

The Tale of Beren and Lúthien, a new book edited by J.R.R.

Romance, in fact, lies at the center of the Lord of the Rings mythology: Before Arwen and Aragorn, there was Beren and Lúthien. Their relationship gives emotional and narrative depth to Aragorn’s heroics, while in the books their marriage symbolizes the everlasting bond between their two races. As the movie adaptations of the 2000s brought out, the affair between Arwen the elf and Aragorn the man pits the lovers against impossible odds, and yet their love triumphs. But that epic of magic and monsters and fraternal friendship contains many slivers of romance. The Lord of the Rings is not usually portrayed as a love story.

Jrr tolkien luthien beren