‘Never again,’ said he, ‘O Beren I beg of thee, leave this court nor the side of Tinúviel, for thou art a great Elf and thy name will ever be great among the kindreds.’ Yet Beren answered him proudly, and said: ‘Nay, O King, I hold to my word and thine, and I will get thee that Silmaril or ever I dwell in peace in thy halls.’ And the king entreated him to journey no more into the dark and unknown realms, but Beren said: ‘No need is there thereof, for behold that jewel is even now nigh to thy caverns,’ and he made clear to Tinwelint that that beast that ravaged his land was none other than Karkaras, the wolfward of Melko’s gates—and this was not known to all, but Beren knew it taught by Huan, whose cunning in the reading of track and slot was greatest among all the hounds, and therein are none of them unskilled. Huan indeed was with Beren now in the halls, and when those twain spoke of a chase and a great hunt he begged to be in that deed; and it was granted gladly. Now do those three prepare themselves to harry that beast, that all the folk be rid of the terror of the wolf, and Beren keep his word, bringing a Silmaril to shine once more in Elfinesse. King Tinwelint himself led that chase, and Beren was beside him, and Mablung the heavyhanded, chief of the king’s thanes, leaped up and grasped a spear—a mighty weapon captured in battle with the distant Orcs—and with those three stalked Huan mightiest of dogs, but others they would not take according to the desire of the king, who said: ‘Four is enough for the slaying even of the Hell-wolf’—but only those who had seen knew how fearsome was that beast, nigh as large as a horse among Men, and so great was the ardour of his breath that it scorched whatsoever it touched. About the hour of sunrise they set forth, and soon after Huan espied a new slot beside the stream, not far from the king’s doors, ‘and,’ quoth he, ‘this is the print of Karkaras.’ Thereafter they followed that stream all day, and at many places its banks were new-trampled and torn and the water of the pools that lay about it was fouled as though some beasts possessed of madness had rolled and fought there not long before.
Now sinks the sun and fades beyond the western trees and darkness is creeping down from Hisilómë so that the light of the forest dies. Even so they come to a place where the spoor swerves from the stream or perchance is lost in its waters and Huan may no longer follow it; and here therefore they encamp, sleeping in turns beside the stream, and the early night wears away.
Suddenly in Beren’s watch a sound of great terror leaped up from far away—a howling as of seventy maddened wolves—then lo! the brushwood cracks and saplings snap as the terror draweth near, and Beren knows that Karkaras is upon them. Scarce had he time to rouse the others, and they were but just sprung up and half-awake, when a great form loomed in the wavering moonlight filtering there, and it was fleeing like one mad, and its course was bent towards the water. Thereat Huan gave tongue, and straightway the beast swerved aside towards them, and foam was dripping from his jaws and a red light shining from his eyes, and his face was marred with mingled terror and with wrath. No sooner did he leave the trees than Huan rushed upon him fearless of heart, but he with a mighty leap sprang right over that great dog, for all his fury was kindled suddenly against Beren whom he recognized as he stood behind, and to his dark mind it seemed that there was the cause of all his agony. Then Beren thrust swiftly upward with a spear into his throat, and Huan leapt again and had him by a hind leg, and Karkaras fell like a stone, for at that same moment the king’s spear found his heart, and his evil spirit gushed forth and sped howling faintly as it fared over the dark hills to Mandos; but Beren lay under him crushed beneath his weight. Now they roll back that carcase and fall to cutting it open, but Huan licks Beren’s face whence blood is flowing. Soon is the truth of Beren’s words made clear, for the vitals of the wolf are half-consumed as though an inner fire had long been smouldering there, and suddenly the night is filled with a wondrous lustre, shot with pale and secret colours, as Mablung draws forth the Silmaril. Then holding it out he said: ‘Behold, O King’, but Tinwelint said: ‘Nay, never will I handle it save only if Beren give it to me.’ But Huan said: ‘and that seems likely never to be, unless ye tend him swiftly, for methinks he is hurt sorely’; and Mablung and the king were ashamed.
Therefore now they raised Beren gently up and tended him and washed him, and he breathed, but he spoke not nor opened his eyes, and when the sun arose and they had rested a little they bore him as softly as might be upon a bier of boughs back through the woodlands; and nigh midday they drew near the homes of the folk again, and then were they deadly weary, and Beren had not moved nor spoken, but groaned thrice.
There did all the people flock to meet them when their approach was noised among them, and some bore them meat and cool drinks and salves and healing things for their hurts, and but for the harm that Beren had met great indeed had been their joy. Now then they covered the leafy boughs whereon he lay with soft raiment, and they bore him away to the halls of the king, and there was Tinúviel awaiting them in great distress; and she fell upon Beren’s breast and wept and kissed him, and he awoke and knew her, and after Mablung gave him that Silmaril, and he lifted it above him gazing at its beauty, ere he said slowly and with pain: ‘Behold, O King, I give thee the wondrous jewel thou didst desire, and it is but a little thing found by the wayside, for once methinks thou hadst one beyond thought more beautiful, and she is now mine.’ Yet even as he spake the shadows of Mandos lay upon his face, and his spirit fled in that hour to the margin of the world, and Tinúviel’s tender kisses called him not back.
*
[Here Vëannë suddenly ceased speaking, but she wept, and after a while she said ‘Nay, that is not all the tale; but here endeth all that I rightly know’. In the conversation that followed one Ausir said: ‘I have heard that the magic of Tinúviel’s tender kisses healed Beren, and recalled his spirit from the gates of Mandos, and long time he dwelt among the Lost Elves . . .’]
But another said: ‘Nay, that was not so, O Ausir, and if thou wilt listen I will tell the true and wondrous tale; for Beren died there in Tinúviel’s arms even as Vëannë has said, and Tinúviel crushed with sorrow and finding no comfort or light in all the world followed him swiftly down those dark ways that all must tread alone. Now her beauty and tender loveliness touched even the cold heart of Mandos, so that he suffered her to lead Beren forth once more into the world, nor has this ever been done since to Man or Elf, and many songs and stories are there of the prayer of Tinúviel before the throne of Mandos that I remember not right well. Yet said Mandos to those twain: “Lo, O Elves, it is not to any life of perfect joy that I dismiss you, for such may no longer be found in all the world where sits Melko of the evil heart—and know that ye will become mortal even as Men, and when ye fare hither again it will be for ever, unless the Gods summon you indeed to Valinor.” Nonetheless those twain departed hand in hand, and they fared together through the northern woods, and oftentimes were they seen dancing magic dances down the hills, and their name became heard far and wide.’
[Then Vëannë said:] ‘Aye, and they did more than dance, for their deeds afterward were very great, and many tales are there thereof that thou must hear, O Eriol Melinon, upon another time of tale-telling. For these twain it is that stories name i-Cuilwarthon, which is to say the dead that live again, and they became mighty fairies in the lands about the north of Sirion. Behold now all is ended—and doth it like thee?’
[Then Eriol said that he had not expected to hear such an astonishing story from one such as Vëannë, to which she answered:]
‘Nay, but I fashioned it not with words of myself; but it is dear to me—and indeed all the children know of the deeds that it relates—and I have learned it by heart, reading it in the great books, and I do not comprehend all that is set therein.’
*
DURING THE 1920s my father was engaged in the casting of the Lost Tales of Turambar and Tinúviel into verse. The first of these poems, The Lay of the Children of Húrin, in the Old English alliterative metre, was begun in 1918, but when far from completion he abandoned it, v
ery probably when he left the University of Leeds. In the summer of 1925, the year in which he took up his appointment to the professorship of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, he began ‘the poem of Tinúviel’, called The Lay of Leithian. This he translated ‘Release from Bondage’, but he never explained the title.
Remarkably and uncharacteristically he inserted dates at many points. The first of these, at line 557 (in the numbering of the poem as a whole) is 23 August 1925; and the last, 17 September 1931, is written against line 4085. Not far beyond this, at line 4223, the poem was abandoned, at the point in the narrative where ‘the fangs of Carcharoth crashed together like a trap’ on Beren’s hand bearing the Silmaril, as he fled from Angband. For the remainder of the poem that was never written there are prose synopses.
In 1926 he sent many of his poems to R.W. Reynolds, who had been his teacher at King Edward’s School in Birmingham. In that year he composed a substantial text with the title Sketch of the mythology with especial reference to The Children of Húrin, and on the envelope containing this manuscript he wrote later that this text was ‘the original Silmarillion’, and that he had written it for Mr Reynolds in order to ‘explain the background of the “alliterative version” of Túrin and the Dragon.’
This Sketch of the Mythology was ‘the original Silmarillion’ because from it there was a direct line of evolution; whereas there is no stylistic continuity with the Lost Tales. The Sketch is what its name implies: it is a synopsis, composed in a terse, present-tense manner. I give here the passage in the text that tells in briefest form the tale of Beren and Lúthien.
A PASSAGE FROM THE ‘SKETCH OF THE MYTHOLOGY’
The power of Morgoth begins to spread once more. One by one he overthrows Men and Elves in the North. Of these a famous chieftain of Men was Barahir, who had been a friend of Celegorm of Nargothrond.
Barahir is driven into hiding, his hiding betrayed, and Barahir slain; his son Beren after a life outlawed flees south, crosses the Shadowy Mountains, and after grievous hardships comes to Doriath. Of this and his other adventures is told in The Lay of Leithian. He gains the love of Tinúviel ‘the nightingale’—his own name for Lúthien—the daughter of Thingol. To win her Thingol, in mockery, requires a Silmaril from the crown of Morgoth. Beren sets out to achieve this, is captured, and set in dungeon in Angband, but conceals his real identity and is given as a slave to Thû the hunter. Lúthien is imprisoned by Thingol, but escapes and goes in search of Beren. With the aid of Huan lord of dogs she rescues Beren, and gains entrance to Angband where Morgoth is enchanted and finally wrapped in slumber by her dancing. They get a Silmaril and escape, but are barred at gates of Angband by Carcaras the Wolf-ward. He bites off Beren’s hand which holds the Silmaril, and goes mad with the anguish of its burning within him.
They escape and after many wanderings get back to Doriath. Carcaras ravening through the woods bursts into Doriath. There follows the Wolf-hunt of Doriath, in which Carcaras is slain, and Huan is killed in defence of Beren. Beren is however mortally wounded and dies in Lúthien’s arms. Some songs say that Lúthien went even over the Grinding Ice, aided by the power of her divine mother, Melian, to Mandos’ halls and won him back; others that Mandos hearing his tale released him. Certain it is that he alone of mortals came back from Mandos and dwelt with Lúthien and never spoke to Men again, living in the woods of Doriath and in the Hunters’ Wold, west of Nargothrond.
It will be seen that there have been great changes in the legend, the most immediately evident being that of Beren’s captor: here we meet Thû ‘the hunter’. At the end of the Sketch it is said of Thû that he was the ‘great chief’ of Morgoth, and that he ‘escaped the Last Battle and dwells still in dark places, and perverts Men to his dreadful worship’. In The Lay of Leithian Thû emerges as the fearful Necromancer, Lord of Wolves, who dwelt in Tol Sirion, the island in the river Sirion with an Elvish watchtower, which came to be Tol-in-Gaurhoth, the Isle of Werewolves. He is, or will be, Sauron. Tevildo and his realm of cats have disappeared.
But in the background another significant element in the legend had emerged after The Tale of Tinúviel was written: this concerns the father of Beren. Egnor the forester, the Gnome ‘who hunted in the darker places of Hisilómë’ (p. 41) has gone. Now, in the passage from the Sketch just given, his father is Barahir, ‘a famous chieftain of Men’: driven into hiding by the growing hostile power of Morgoth, his hiding was betrayed, and he was slain. ‘His son Beren after a life outlawed flees south, crosses the Shadowy Mountains, and after grievous hardships comes to Doriath. Of this and his other adventures is told in The Lay of Leithian.’
A PASSAGE EXTRACTED FROM THE LAY OF LEITHIAN
I give here the passage in the Lay (written in 1925; see p. 88) that describes the treachery of Gorlim, known as Gorlim the Unhappy, who betrayed to Morgoth the hiding place of Barahir and his companions, and the aftermath. I should mention here that the textual detail of the poem is very complex, but since my (ambitious) purpose in this book is to make a readily readable text that shows the narrative evolution of the legend at different stages, I have neglected virtually all detail of this nature, which could only confuse that purpose. An account of the textual history of the poem will be found in my book The Lays of Beleriand (The History of Middle-earth, Vol. III, 1985). I have taken the extracts from the Lay in the present book word for word from the text that I prepared for The Lays of Beleriand. The line-numbers are simply those of the extracts, and have no relation to those of the whole poem.
The extract that follows is taken from Canto II of the Lay. It is preceded by a description of the ferocious tyranny of Morgoth over the northern lands at the time of Beren’s coming into Artanor (Doriath), and of the survival in hiding of Barahir and Beren and ten others, hunted in vain by Morgoth for many years, until at last ‘their feet were caught in Morgoth’s snare’.
Gorlim it was, who wearying
of toil and flight and harrying
one night by chance did turn his feet
o’er the dark fields by stealth to meet
5with hidden friends within a dale,
and found a homestead looming pale
against the misty stars, all dark
save one small window, whence a spark
of fitful candle strayed without.
10Therein he peeped, and filled with doubt
he saw, as in a dreaming deep
when longing cheats the heart in sleep,
his wife beside a dying fire
lament him lost; her thin attire
15and greying hair and paling cheek
of tears and loneliness did speak.
‘A! fair and gentle Eilinel,
whom I had thought in darkling hell
long since emprisoned! Ere I fled
20I deemed I saw thee slain and dead
upon that night of sudden fear
when all I lost that I held dear’:
thus thought his heavy heart amazed
outside in darkness as he gazed.
25But ere he dared to call her name,
or ask how she escaped and came
to this far vale beneath the hills,
he heard a cry beneath the hills!
There hooted near a hunting owl
30with boding voice. He heard the howl
of the wild wolves that followed him
and dogged his feet through shadows dim.
Him unrelenting, well he knew,
the hunt of Morgoth did pursue.
35Lest Eilinel with him they slay
without a word he turned away,
and like a wild thing winding led
his devious ways o’er stony bed
of stream, and over quaking fen,
40until far from the homes of men
he lay beside his fellows few
in a secret place; and darkness grew,
and waned, and still he watched unsleeping,
and saw the dismal dawn come creeping
45in dank heavens above
gloomy trees.
A sickness held his soul for ease,
and hope, and even thraldom’s chain
if he might find his wife again.
But all he thought twixt love of lord
50and hatred of the king abhorred
and anguish for fair Eilinel
who drooped alone, what tale shall tell?
Yet at the last, when many days
of brooding did his mind amaze,
55he found the servants of the king
and bade them to their master bring
a rebel who forgiveness sought,
if haply forgiveness might be bought
with tidings of Barahir the bold,
60and where his hidings and his hold
might best be found by night or day.
And thus sad Gorlim, led away
unto those dark deep-dolven halls,
before the knees of Morgoth falls,
65and puts his trust in that cruel heart
wherein no truth had ever part.
Quoth Morgoth: ‘Eilinel the fair
thou shalt most surely find, and there
where she doth dwell and wait for thee
70together shall ye ever be,
and sundered shall ye sigh no more.
Thus guerdon shall he have that bore
these tidings sweet, O traitor dear!
For Eilinel she dwells not here,
75but in the shades of death doth roam
widowed of husband and of home—
a wraith of that which might have been,
methinks, it is that thou hast seen!
Now shalt thou through the gates of pain
80the land thou askest grimly gain;
thou shalt to the moonless mists of hell
descend and seek thy Eilinel.’
Beren and Lúthien Page 7
