Beren by oshun

Part 1

We recently published a lengthy, if not exhaustive, three-part biography of Lúthien but want to follow it with the history of her lover and husband Beren. As Romeo to Lúthien's Juliet, Beren's story is covered in its most basic form in the earlier bio. However, despite playing the main supporting role in Lúthien's story, Beren nonetheless requires a separate biography of his own. His own history within Tolkien's legendarium is as unique as is his contribution to the legacy of the first of "two marriages of mortal and elf – both later coalescing in the kindred of Eärendil, represented by Elrond the Half-elven who appears in all the stories, even The Hobbit."¹ Beren is an only child born in the year 432 of the First Age of Middle-earth to Barahir the Lord of the House of Bëor, the first people of the race of Men to enter Beleriand, and his wife Emeldir of the same house of the Edain. Beren grew into manhood shortly before the dark lord Morgoth's breaking of the watchful peace known as the Siege of Angband.

The story of the romance of Beren and Lúthien was one of Tolkien's earliest tales which he would rewrite and revise throughout the rest of his life. In the Kirkus Reviews' article issued on the publication of Christopher Tolkien's Beren and Lúthien collection in 2017, they characterize the tale as "a foundational story a century in the making, one yarn to rule them all." ² Tolkien associated this saga with his own relationship with his wife Edith whom he married only a short while before he was deployed to the Somme. ³ The following year he was to begin

composing the earliest version of a tale to which he would always return: The love of Beren, a mortal man, and Lúthien, daughter of the Elven King of the forest realm of Doriath. The disapproval of Lúthien's horrified and irate father ultimately sends the two lovers on a series of perilous quests …. they rescue each other through bravery, music and love — with an assist from a magical dog. ⁴

The love affair which led to the marriage of the young Ronald Tolkien and his sweetheart Edith Bratt might not have been as colorful or as challenging and fraught with resistance as that of Beren and Lúthien. But to two youngsters in love, such experiences can and do assume an epic scale in the minds of their protagonists: "Young Tolkien had fallen in love with Edith when he was 16 and she 19, but his guardian disapproved (both he and Edith were orphans). They finally married when Tolkien was 24." Most readers have heard of the tale of the gravestone that Tolkien chose for them bearing "the names of Edith Mary Tolkien and her husband John Ronald, but underneath each name was another: ‘Lúthien' and ‘Beren.'"⁵

Beren's tale is often presented by scholars and fans alike in retellings as the quest of a raggedy mortal fugitive to win the hand in marriage of a legendary beauty, a semi-divine Elven princess. And it's true that Lúthien was truly that special but Beren himself was a young and handsome warrior of renowned skill and the scion of honorable lineage amongst the leaders of Men. The House of Bëor was an ancient one and of great significance within the history of the Edain who were to become central actors in Tolkien's epic drama, beginning with their initial appearance in the First Age in Middle-earth. Not only was this house the earliest tribe of the Mortal Men who made their way into Beleriand during the Long Peace, but Beren's antecedents became the first to meet the Eldar in the person of the great Elf lord Finrod Felagund.

Finrod Felagund, wandering in the deep forests of Beleriand without any compelling purpose but with his characteristic burning curiosity and thirst for exploration, encounters the tribesmen of what would come to be called the House of Bëor. This is a fascinating and consequential moment of The Silmarillion. On a hunting trip with Maglor and Maedhros, Finrod grew restless and left on his own to investigate a part of the forest unfamiliar to him. This initial encounter with the race of Men has been often memorialized in Silmarillion art (high and low, lofty and comedic; for an example of the latter, see pandemonium_213's illustration of that memorable moment in my biography of Finrod Felagund):

. . . and at a time of night he came upon a dale in the western foothills of the Blue Mountains. There were lights in the dale and the sound of rugged song. Then Felagund marvelled, for the tongue of those songs was not the tongue of Eldar or of Dwarves. Nor was it the tongue of Orcs, though this at first he feared. There were camped the people of Bëor, a mighty warrior of Men, whose son was Barahir the bold. They were the first of Men to come into Beleriand . . .⁶

Knowing instantly that these creatures were not of the Eldar he observed them for a long while with fascination and without revealing himself. Tolkien describes how "love for them stirred in his heart." After the Men fell asleep, Finrod drew closer to sit "beside their dying fire where none kept watch; and he took up a rude harp which Bëor had laid aside, and he played music upon it such as the ears of Men had not heard; for they had as yet no teachers in the art, save only the Dark Elves in the wild lands."⁷ That love of Finrod for the people of the House of Bëor never diminished, nor did their respect and reverence for him: "Felagund dwelt among them and taught them true knowledge, and they loved him, and took him for their lord, and were ever after loyal to the house of Finarfin."⁸

In keeping with those close ties of the house of Beren's antecedents to Finrod, several years later Beren's father Barahir personally saved the life of Finrod. Morgoth's firestorm of a surprise offensive ended the Siege of Angband, scattering the Noldor and driving them south. That fourth of the great Battles of Beleriand, called the Dagor Bragollach (Sindarin for "Battle of Sudden Flame"), resulted in the deaths of Finrod's brothers Angrod and Aegnor and dealt devastation and destruction amongst the settlements of the peoples of the Edain. Surrounded, Finrod himself would have been killed in a massacre but was saved by Barahir and his followers.

When Barahir received the news that Finrod Felagund was trapped in a skirmish near the Fen of Serech, he rushed to intervene with a small group of his bravest and best warriors. They formed a wall of spears around Finrod and cut their way out of the battle at a terrible cost in lives to Barahir's contingent: "Thus Felagund escaped, and returned to his deep fortress of Nargothrond; but he swore an oath of abiding friendship and aid in every need to Barahir and all his kin, and in token of his vow he gave to Barahir his ring."⁹

Beren was not only the son of a heroic father, the leader of one of the major houses of the Edain, but he likewise was raised by a brave and illustrious mother, Emeldir. The formidable Emeldir also traced her roots to the founding fathers of the House of Bëor. In her biography of Emeldir the Manhearted, Robinka notes that she was "clearly a woman capable of wielding weapons and knowledgeable as to the ways of defence" and further that she took upon herself the "task of saving the women, children, and probably the elderly, too, of her tribe. And she succeeded, even though there were casualties during the escape." Robinka explains how this mission was undertaken "under the nose of an ever-watchful enemy and his spies. The tragic cost of her providing rescue came also in the fact that she never saw her husband and her son again."¹⁰ It is important to note the strength and spirit of Beren's mother because it doubtless influenced his attitude toward Lúthien, who would not be a quiet stay-at-home wife. With a mother like Emeldir, Beren was unlikely to have expected or desired a subservient or placid wife.

Thus when Felagund survived, escaping to return to his cavernous fortress of Nargothrond, he swore an oath of abiding friendship and the promise of aid in every need to Barahir and all of his kin, and in token of his vow he gave to Barahir his ring. Not long after receiving the fateful ring from Finrod Felagund, Barahir met a hard and tragic end:

It is told that Bëor was slain and Barahir yielded not to Morgoth, but all his land was won from him and his people scattered, enslaved or slain, and he himself went in outlawry with his son Beren and ten faithful men. Long they hid and did secret and valiant deeds of war against the Orcs. But in the end, as is told in the beginning of the lay of Lúthien and Beren, the hiding place of Barahir was betrayed, and he was slain and his comrades, all save Beren who by fortune was that day hunting afar.¹¹

In the very first version of Beren's character in the Lost Tales, he is not the Mortal Man of the later story of Beren and Lúthien that we know so well. He is a Gnome—an earlier version of the Elves we learn to know so well in the latter versions of The Silmarillion. (Beren's type of Gnome will later transmogrify into that breed of crafty Elves, the Noldor.) As Christopher Tolkien explains, "In The Book of Lost Tales the princes of the Noldor have scarcely emerged, nor the Grey-elves of Beleriand; Beren is an Elf, not a Man, and his captor, the ultimate precursor of Sauron in that rôle, is a monstrous cat inhabited by a fiend."¹² I knew at some point in my long years of studying Tolkien that I had read a description of Beren, and I looked long and hard to find it a second time.¹³ His appearance was of particular interest to me because I recalled Tolkien presenting a slightly different account of the physical traits of the House of Bëor. My blurry memory prompted me to imagine Beren with lighter hair than Lúthien's raven locks. Most notably in Unfinished Tales, in the incomplete novella of Aldarion and Erendis: The Mariner's Wife, Tolkien describes Erendis as a descendant of the House of Bëor who bears their distinctive physical traits:

‘The Men of that House [i.e. of Bëor] were dark or brown of hair, with grey eyes.' According to a genealogical table of the House of Bëor, Erendis was descended from Bereth, who was the sister of Baragund and Belegund, and thus the aunt of Morwen mother of Túrin Turambar and of Rían the mother of Tuor.¹⁴

Both Erendis, a Númenórean of the Second Age, and Morwen, mother of the ill-fated Túrin of the First Age, are said to be dark-haired and notably beautiful women. Beren, however, is described as having lighter hair "of a golden brown and grey eyes; he was taller than most of his kin, but he was broad-shouldered and very strong in his limbs."¹⁵ Beren, like his kinsmen, was good-looking if perhaps somewhat fairer in coloring.

The world of Beren the Gnome is a very different one from the one we read of in The Silmarillion. Finrod Felagund does not even exist within the pages of The Book of Lost Tales, eliminating the most dramatic and philosophically profound elements from Beren's story.

Katherine Neville notes that in her opinion, "'The Tale of Tinúviel' is a ‘single and well-defined narrative,' one which reads like a true fairy tale." She writes of it containing spells of enchantment, for example, of Lúthien's Rapunzel-like escape from her treetop prison using her hair magically grown long. She points out that "our hero Beren is a great hunter and bold trickster who is forced to become a scullery maid before being rescued by his true love and her faithful talking dog."¹⁶

In that fairytale account in The Tale of Tinúviel in Lost Tales, Beren is captured and imprisoned by Melko (name later changed to Melkor), who hands him over as a slave to his partner in crime Tevildo, called the Prince of Cats (who later will become Sauron). Tevildo is in this draft an actual cat, if a very magnificent and powerful one.¹⁷ Many readers are particularly enchanted by this initial version for its fantastic and whimsical fairytale quality:

All about shone cats' eyes glowing like green lamps or red or yellow where Tevildo's thanes sat waving and lashing their beautiful tails, but Tevildo himself sat at their head and he was a mighty cat and coal-black and evil to look upon. His eyes were long and very narrow and slanted, and gleamed both red and green, but his great grey whiskers were as stout and as sharp as needles. His purr was like the roll of drums and his growl like thunder, but when he yelled in wrath it turned the blood cold, and indeed small beasts and birds were frozen as to stone, or dropped lifeless often at the very sound. Now Tevildo seeing Beren narrowed his eyes until they seemed to shut, and said: ‘I smell dog', and he took dislike to Beren from that moment.¹⁸

Poor Beren is reminiscent herein as less the manly protagonist in a hero's tale and more a masculine version of Cinderella. He was charged day and night with menial tasks like "the turning of spits whereon birds and fat mice were daintily roasted for the cats." He was seldom allowed to eat or rest and "became haggard and unkempt, and wished often that never straying out of Hisilómë he had not even caught sight of the vision of Tinúviel."¹⁹ Oh, my! This does not sound like our ever-determined and never-faltering Beren of Silmarillion fame. Lúthien is also much less serious. Instead of the indefatigable, unwavering heroine, she is shown in the Lost Tales as being ready to return to her mother because she missed her home—"wild and rugged and very lonely were those days, for never a face of Elf or of Man did they see." She misses the twilight falling "in the woodlands by their ancient halls." Nope. Silmarillion Lúthien would have never been willing to leave Beren and Huan to continue their quest alone.²⁰

It is evident that many changes will be necessary to be made to Lost Tales' Beren in order to create the final version of the legendarium in which Aragorn and Arwen in The Lord of the Rings mirror the legendary history of Beren and Lúthien in the First Age. Among those changes, "In the later versions of the legend it was an altogether essential element that Beren was a mortal man, whereas Lúthien was an immortal Elf; but this was not present in the Lost Tales."²¹

The fully developed romance of Beren and Lúthien is only initiated in this original fairy story version. The evolution which began in the "Tale of Tinúviel" continues over the course of years and requires most significantly that Beren become a mortal man. The link that will tie Beren and Lúthien and Aragorn and Arwen together is the element of a love so strong that it enables a potentially deathless Elf-maid to choo¬se mortality and her human lover over a quasi-immortal existence and the mythical land of the Valar across the sea, the paradisiacal Far West. Tolkien "takes Strider from rascal to forest ranger to king, progressively peeling away the layers that have concealed his identity" as perhaps "the most civilized man in the book—certainly the one with the longest lineage, the most distinguished heritage, and the most brilliant future."²²

These two marriages of Mortal and Elf are at the very center of Tolkien's legendarium:

In all its versions, the story concerns Lúthien (or Tinúviel), the half-divine daughter of an elven king and a fairy queen, who falls in love with Beren, a wayfarer who stumbles into their protected kingdom. Together, they set off to steal a Silmaril (a divine gem with which the fate of the world is intertwined) from Morgoth (the satanic dark lord who preceded Sauron) in order to prove Beren's worth to Lúthien's father.²³

But it took Tolkien decades to place this tale within its preeminent position within the belief system reflected within his Middle-earth. As we are fond of repeating, when he died he had not yet finished tinkering with The Silmarillion, his elusive prequel to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Tolkien points out that these important unions of Elf and Man later coalesced "in the kindred of Eärendil, represented by Elrond the Half-elven who appears in all the stories."²⁴ It is perhaps first within the person of Beren in the tale of Beren and Lúthien that Tolkien asserts his distinguishing concept that "‘the wheels of the world', are often turned not by the Lords and Governors, even gods, but by the seemingly unknown and weak."²⁵

Lúthien, as I pointed out in her biography, is the real star of their story—a shining epitome of female beauty, courage, and magical skill—a scene stealer par excellence. But it is Beren who succeeds in actually wresting the Silmaril from Morgoth's iron crown.²⁶ Jeff LaSala notes in an article for the Tor publisher's website that in the first version of Beren and Lúthien

there is no political element—no sons of Fëanor, no Nargothrond, no Finrod—and everyone's big enemy is named Melko (he's just not quite as wicked without that terminal "r"). And good old Huan, the dog to end all dogs, still shows up. But he talks a lot more—like, a lot more—and he's also got an epithet. Here, he's the Captain of Dogs. Milkbones for everyone!²⁷

It is interesting to note that the story of Beren and Lúthien could nearly have existed on its own, and even as one reads The Silmarillion, there is almost a sense that it has been dropped into that epic account of the First Age intact with very little introduction and only a few short references back to it later. And yet those references are weighty ones and followed through to the end of The Silmarillion and into The Lord of the Rings. Christopher Tolkien's commentary throughout his standalone publication Beren and Lúthien is useful in trying to tie together the entire story and reflect in a useful and informed way upon the history and evolution of its narrative. He notes how "the story of Beren and Lúthien is spread over many years and several books." More importantly, not only did his father edit the original story over decades but as he edited and added to the narrative he allowed it to become "entangled with the slowly evolving Silmarillion, and ultimately an essential part of it." As Tolkien returns again and again to Beren and Lúthien it progressively gains a greater importance within the entire history of the Elder Days.²⁸

We are finally given in The Silmarillion a solid introduction and background for Beren grounding the story narratively within the general plot of the First Age and its ongoing struggles against the dark Vala Morgoth. The story begins simply:

Beren falls in love with Lúthien at first sight. She sings gloriously and is beautiful beyond anything he has ever seen. However, when Lúthien is discovered with Beren, and he is brought before Thingol, Lúthien's father vehemently objects to their love. He separates the two, eventually imprisoning Lúthien so that she will not run off to Beren. Thingol sets an impossible Quest for Beren: he must retrieve one of the Silmarils, currently in a crown worn by the powerful Morgoth, and give it to Thingol. (Lúthien, of course, cleverly manages to escape so that she may help Beren with his Quest.)²⁹

The fact that Beren first enters into the magnificent throne room of Thingol badly needing a shave and a haircut is not only reminiscent for many of us of the 2020 pandemic but also of our first encounter with Strider in The Lord of the Rings. One cannot avoid making the connection with Aragorn, who first appears as a scruffy mortal in The Lord of the Rings yet, in fact, is to be the surviving heir of the Númenórean kings. Lúthien wastes no time in telling her parents that Beren is a noble among men and has a widespread reputation in the world outside of their protected circle.

Tolkien scholar Richard C. West further notes that

[t]he earliest "Tale of Tinúviel" has no back story for Beren, and Tolkien added one making him a noted hero in the struggle against Morgoth, the last survivor of a band of guerrillas resisting the invader. There seems to me to be an underlying taste of Robin Hood and his outlaw band driven by oppressors into the forest, and also a whiff of James Fenimore Cooper's Hawkeye tracking down marauders in the wilderness. There is also something of those other devoted lovers, Tristan and Iseut, in Tolkien's pair (Lúthien is willing simply to go on living with Beren in the woods, should he abandon the quest). And we may remember that Tristan was a great hunter, said to have invented much of the terminology of the hunt, much as Beren early on is a skillful hunter and trapper (although he later develops rather into a friend of beasts and birds).³⁰

Although Beren was the son of a prominent leader, he was nevertheless outclassed socially by Lúthien, the daughter of Melian, one of the Maiar, and Thingol, the great Elven king of the Sindar. Melian served under Vána and Estë in Aman and is one of the stronger women characters in the legendarium, powerful enough to serve as helpmate and collaborator with powerful goddess-like figures in Aman and as tutor to Galadriel, one of the strongest of the Noldorin princes in Middle-earth. Thingol, the father of Lúthien, is one of the three leaders preeminent among the Elves first chosen by Oromë the Huntsman of the Valar who were taken across the sea to Aman to be shown the light of the Two Trees.

In the "Index of Names" to The Silmarillion, Tolkien gives us an unusually complete summary of Beren's life and times. Lúthien's beloved husband is not one of the characters within The Silmarillion or The Lord of the Rings who receives a lot of speaking lines or a well-developed voice. He is not described in novelistic detail. He is a hero and an important character, but in many ways he is also a symbol:

Beren - Son of Barahir; cut a Silmaril from Morgoth's crown to be the bride-price of Lúthien Thingol's daughter, and was slain by Carcharoth the wolf of Angband; but returning from the dead, alone of mortal Men, lived afterwards with Lúthien on Tol Galen in Ossiriand, and fought with the Dwarves at Sarn Athrad. Great-grandfather of Elrond and Elros and ancestor of the Númenórean Kings. Called also Camlost, Erchamion, and One-hand.³¹

Beren represents the race of Mortal Men and traces his line to the first to pledge their allegiance to Finrod Felagund, the least problematic and most admirable among the exiled Noldor, one who is called even by Thingol, not one to be loose with praise, "Finrod the beloved."³² Barahir is given the ring and cherishes it throughout his life. When he and his last loyal supporters are overrun by Orcs and killed, they chop off his hand, ring and all. Young Beren, absent at the time of the attack, tracks down the company of Orcs, seeking to avenge for his father. When he finds them he retrieves his father's hand, taking the ring that had been buried it with his body. Thereafter Beren always wears the ring.³³ It is interesting indeed that the famous ring ends up with Aragorn two long Ages of Arda later:

The ring remained with Beren's line and came into the possession of his descendants of the royal House of Númenor from whom Elendil's line was descended. In the middle of the Third Age it was given by Arvedui, the last king of Arnor, to the Lossoth people from Forochel in gratitude for their help following his defeat in battle with the Witch-king of Angmar. The Dúnedain later ransomed it and it was subsequently kept in Rivendell until Elrond presented it to Aragorn.³⁴

But, to return to the forests of the First Age, bereft of kin and alone in that perilous wilderness Beren's greatest fear is that he would be entrapped and captured as his father and his last companions had been. The Lay of Leithian gives us a heartbreaking portrait of this young man.

As fearless Beren was renowned,
as man most hardy upon ground,
while Barahir yet lived and fought;
but sorrow now his soul had wrought
to dark despair, and robbed his life
of sweetness, that he longed for knife,
or shaft, or sword, to end his pain,
and dreaded only thraldom's chain.³⁵

Even in that state of loneliness and seeming abandonment, Beren is never truly pitiful. The Silmarillion describes him as strong and admirable. He is much-lauded by Elves and Men and feared by his enemies. Beren may wander alone for four full years, befriended only by birds and beasts, but those forest creatures help him stay alive. And his valorous deeds do not pass unnoticed, not even within Thingol's protected realm:

He did not fear death, but only captivity, and being bold and desperate he escaped both death and bonds; and the deeds of lonely daring that he achieved were noised abroad throughout Beleriand, and the tale of them came even into Doriath. At length Morgoth set a price upon his head no less than the price upon the head of Fingon, High King of the Noldor; but the Orcs fled rather at the rumour of his approach than sought him out.³⁶

At what must have seemed his darkest hour, Beren saw Lúthien dancing.

Michael Martinez was one of the better-known writers on Tolkien's legendarium when I first encountered the online Tolkien fandom. I have often been drawn to his work for two reasons: 1) he wrote a lot of his essays before the film trilogy was released, so those were not colored or influenced by Peter Jackson's vision, and 2) he also wrote before the notable upsurge in Tolkien scholarship over the last decade-and-a-half or more. Because his audience was more the earnest, often somewhat isolated, Tolkien fan than the serious academic, his language can be refreshingly straightforward and direct. I like his brief description of Beren as a hero written in 1999:

Probably the most moving story in all the Tolkien legendarium is that of Beren and Luthien. They are the true heroes of Middle-earth, the first and only people among Elves and Men to achieve any palpable result against Morgoth in the ill-fated War of the Silmarils. They are also the only heroes of the First Age to actually be given any significant consideration in the pages of The Lord of the Rings.³⁷

One certainly cannot argue that the Elves, beautiful and wise, highly skilled and preternaturally gifted, fresh from Aman where they have been schooled and refined by the gods themselves, fail where a rugged Mortal Man and his Elven sweetheart succeed. This fact, to me as a lifelong Tolkien reader, most significantly links The Silmarillion to The Lord of the Rings.

The greatest Elven warriors of the First Age fail where Tolkien's star-crossed lovers fulfill their quest. It foreshadows the anti-heroic focus found in The Lord of the Rings. The Silmarillion's heroes (as much as it pains me to admit it, unrelenting Noldor-lover that I am) are not some combination of Maedhros, Fingon, Finrod, Glorfindel, or Idril, or even the hosts of Aman coming in from the West to save the day in the War of Wrath, the final conflict against Morgoth at the end of the First Age. The heroes of The Silmarillion are Beren and Lúthien. Their tale foreshadows beautifully Tolkien's eucatastrophic finale wherein, in spite of the leadership of many illustrious heroes from nearly every culture found within Middle-earth, the true heroes of The Lord of the Rings in Tolkien's mind are Frodo and his Hobbit kinsmen, along with his humble servant Sam.

Where and when did Tolkien decide to turn a classic hero's tale on its head and chose a lesser creature, a Mortal Man, to be his example of true heroism? In an article written by Diana Glyer and Josh Long in a study of Tolkien's sources, they note that "Tolkien's love of language, his interest in Anglo-Saxon poetry, his perspective on the nature of fairy stories, and his convictions as a Roman Catholic will exert their influence on his work to a greater or lesser degree."³⁸ There are many examples in Tolkien's work of varying degrees of heroism and heroic courage. Tolkien, however, tends to paint characters in shades of color, ranging from the darkest villains to the brightest examples of goodness. His antiheroes, like the Fëanorian brothers, are not without their moments of heartbreaking beauty and heroism, nor are his examples of noble leadership without flaws.

In writing a separate biography of Beren, I had hoped to look more closely at him and even perhaps find out in what ways he reflects who Tolkien was or how the author beginning this tale as a young man wanted his own life to go. But we never do get a definitive version of his story—what Tolkien liked to think of as the tale at the center of his life's work. One does get the sense that Tolkien was not satisfied. His last words on the subject are restated in Lisa Graham's review cited earlier: "'The story is gone crooked, and I am left,' Tolkien wrote of his legendarium after Edith died, when he decided to have the names of Beren and Lúthien added to the tombstone they would share." ³⁹ Tolkien was never entirely satisfied with Beren. We, however, have been gifted with the next best thing: in Christopher Tolkien's Beren and Lúthien wherein he compares and contrasts, explains and develops what he believes his father tried to express with this tale.

Chapter 2

Picking Up the Pieces

It is difficult to complete a stand-alone biography of Beren without revisiting parts of earlier biographies. Before leaping into the second part, I would like to refer the reader to my recent biography Lúthien Tinúviel. That text covers many details of their meeting and Thingol's demand for a Silmaril from the crown of Morgoth as a bride price for his daughter. The character biography of Finrod Felagund covers Beren's trip to Nargothrond where, presenting the Ring of Barahir, he secures the sworn aid of its King, a great and loyal friend of the House of Bëor. Therein one can also read the story of the journey to Angband by Beren, Finrod, and the Elven king's few loyal supporters, their capture, Finrod's famed song battle with Sauron, and their valiant resistance unto death in captivity, with only Beren surviving.

The hardest part of trying to capture the personality of Beren is to determine who he is in his own right and not only as a part of this much-storied couple. The effort to find the real Beren is further complicated in that his story constantly evolved and changed throughout Tolkien's many years of returning time and again to the tale. We have visited aspects of Beren's history throughout the various biographies noted above. We mentioned earlier in the first section of this one that Beren was first written as an Elf. Richard West opines that "Tolkien decided, apparently, that the greater disparity between mortal and immortal beings made for a better story than one involving merely differing rank among beings of much the same kind." More importantly, "he wanted his myth of a marriage between Elf and Human, of which Beren and Lúthien are the first of a very small number of examples in his own legendarium."¹ West continues to explain that

The earliest 'Tale of Tinúviel' has no back story for Beren, and Tolkien added one making him a noted hero in the struggle against Morgoth, the last survivor of a band of guerrillas resisting the invader. There seems to me to be an underlying taste of Robin Hood and his outlaw band driven by oppressors into the forest, and also a whiff of James Fenimore Cooper's Hawkeye tracking down marauders in the wilderness.²

One of the most heroic descriptions of Beren may be found in The Lay of Leithian, which Tolkien also lengthened and revised over the course of many years:

As fearless Beren was renowned:
when men most hardy upon ground
were reckoned folk would speak his name,
foretelling that his after-name
would even golden Hador pass
or Barahir and Bregolas. . .³

In this version we find Beren inside of the famous protected Girdle of Melian within the forest of Doriath, by chance the lone survivor among his father and his companions (he was away when their party was attacked and slaughtered by a company of Orcs). He had recently tracked the Orcs, avenged his father's killing, and retrieved the most precious heirloom of his house—the ring that Finrod Felagund had gifted to Barahir. Friendless and alone, living as an outlaw, Beren's courage and his feats of daring by the time he encounters Lúthien had gained him great personal renown in the dark and unsettled days following the Battle of Sudden Flame.

Nevertheless, despite Beren's reputation, popular interpretations within the Tolkien fandom have at times allowed Beren to be overshadowed by Lúthien (perhaps somewhat similar to Peter Jackson's overly simplistic and diminished interpretation of Aragorn in his movie trilogy). One might even note that I have found myself in danger at times of falling into that trap when I sought, for example, in Lúthien's biography to emphasis her notable strengths, unusual in women characters within the genre of epic fantasy. But, as Lúthien points out to her father when she introduces Beren before the court in Menegroth, this man is not simply some unknown homeless wanderer she has stumbled upon in the forest. He is renowned, legendary even. In the published Silmarillion version we are told that "the deeds of lonely daring that he achieved were noised abroad throughout Beleriand, and the tale of them came even into Doriath."⁴

The fact that Thingol appears to know nothing of Beren tells us as much about the Elven King's character as that of this itinerant hero. Despite all of Thingol's desire to assert himself as the master of his domain and the one true king in First Age Beleriand, he struggles when faced with the challenges of the increasing threat of Morgoth, the problematic and troublesome Noldor, his already shaky relationship with the Dwarves, and finally these pesky new inferior beings thrust upon him in the form of Mortal Men. Thingol's display of extreme hostility to Beren and his desire to lay his hands upon a Silmaril shows that he has already begun a precipitous fall from grace. Melian shudders and draws back in fear when she realizes that Thingol's proposed solution to the potential problem of losing his daughter will not only lead inevitably to Beren's death but places the king himself and his realm in mortal peril. Melian had already experienced forewarnings that Thingol could not long protect his world from these rapidly approaching changes. A short time earlier, when Thingol first ordered that he would allow no Men to dwell within the boundaries of Doriath, Melian confided, in strangely explicit detail, to Galadriel that

the world runs on swiftly to great tidings. And one of Men, even of Bëor's house, shall indeed come, and the Girdle of Melian shall not restrain him, for doom greater than my power shall send him; and the songs that shall spring from that coming shall endure when all Middle-earth is changed.⁵

Who is the true hero? The footsore Mortal Man or the once near-unassailable Elven-king? The answer must be Beren. How the mighty leader of the Sindar has fallen. Beren stands before his throne, reckless and rough, yet without a doubt determined and courageous, a stalwart suitor who will prove himself to be truly worthy of Lúthien. Although Beren is a great warrior and the scion of a noble house, he is not arrogant or ambitious. Perhaps his gentleness of character added a great deal to his appeal to Lúthien; he differs greatly in temperament from her father in his decline. When Lúthien first encounters Beren in the forest he has already endured a lonesome period of trial and transformation, becoming a "friend of birds and beasts, and they aided him, and did not betray him, and from that time forth he ate no flesh nor slew any living thing that was not in the service of Morgoth."⁶

It is through Thingol's interaction with the character of Beren son of Barahir that he unknowingly attempts to intervene into and interrupt the single most important event within Tolkien's legendarium, the consequences of which will lead to the final resolution of the struggle of good against evil three Ages of the world later. However, Thingol's stubborn arrogance and narrow perspective will lead this once great leader to an ignoble and tragic doom. It is the tale of Beren and Lúthien which first introduces Tolkien's fundamental concept that

the great policies of world history, 'the wheels of the world', are often turned not by the Lords and Governors, even gods, but by the seemingly unknown and weak – owing to the secret life in creation, and the part unknowable to all wisdom but One, that resides in the intrusions of the Children of God into the Drama.⁷

Beren Sets Out Alone to Recruit a Brilliant Ally

Humble yet tough, Beren sets out alone upon his quest. He is, however, not entirely without resources. He carries the Ring of Barahir which will enable him to elicit the not inconsiderable help of Finrod, King of Nargothrond. In the subsection "Beren has a Plan," within our previously published Part II of Lúthien's biography, we present how our determined hero makes his way to the underground caverns of Nargothrond.

When Beren arrives at Nargothrond and presents his ring to Finrod, calling upon him to fulfill the promise of future aid he had made to his father, he learns that he has stepped into a messy and convoluted situation. Beren came to Nargothrond unaware of the presence in Nargothrond of the Fëanorian brothers Curufin and Celegorm.

For his part, Finrod instantly realizes that his doom has caught up with him. He never questions that he must and can fulfill his pledge made to Barahir to aid the bearer of the ring, but he realizes that he is unlikely to survive. Not only is their attempt to reach Morgoth and take the stone from his crown a suicide mission, but in the unlikely event that they succeed, the sons of Fëanor will immediately demand the ring as their own.

Naturally, when the Fëanorions hear of Beren's plan, their own resting oath to retrieve the Silmarils awakens. They cannot allow this quest to continue unchallenged. Each brother exercises his not inconsiderable purpose, charisma, and powers of persuasion to convince the people of Nargothrond not to support and follow Finrod into this risky venture.

One is not told in the narrative of the debate in Nargothrond whether Beren ever regrets his request. He certainly does not turn back. He must realize that its success will come at a high cost: "Beren and Lúthien's quest together encompasses the deaths of many, including those of Finrod and the hound Huan, and indirectly brings about the fall of Doriath."⁸ But neither does Finrod ever question his promise, instead executing a multilayered plan that he hopes will give them a fighting chance at worst and, with some luck and magic, perhaps even a shot at success. Reduced to a party of only Beren, Finrod, and ten loyal followers, they set their course for the gates of Angband.

Along the way, Beren and Finrod encounter a group of Orcs. They steal their clothing and weapons and Finrod, using his highly developed superpowers (Elven magic) hides the forms of faces of his band causing them to take on the likenesses of Orcs. One cannot help but compare this to the scene where Frodo and Sam in the Tower of Cirith Ungol dress up like Orcs.⁹ (Tolkien certainly does have a penchant for reusing his "good parts.") However, the twelve brave companions are captured by Sauron and imprisoned on Tol-in-Gaurhoth (the Isle of Werewolves).

In The Lay of Leithian, Tolkien recounts the story of a song duel between Felagund and Sauron in which Finrod demonstrates his skill and supernatural powers:

Backwards and forwards swayed their song.
Reeling foundering, as ever more strong
The chanting swelled, Felagund fought,
And all the magic and might he brought
Of Elvenesse into his words.¹⁰

It seems for moment that Finrod might have a chance of winning but his opponent bests him by reminding him of his complicity in the misdeeds of the self-exiled Noldor. This segment from The Lay of Leithian ends with the famous lines:

The captives sad in Angband mourn,
Thunder rumbles, the fires burn—
And Finrod fell before the throne.¹¹

The Elves of Nargothrond, along with Beren, have remained concealed behind their disguises until this point when their natures are revealed—a party of Elves accompanied by a single Mortal Man: "But though their kinds were revealed, Sauron could not discover their names or their purposes."¹²

However, he does know from Finrod's revelation of his skill and command in the song duel that he is a potent Elf-lord undoubtedly come out of the West. He sends werewolves into their dungeon ("two eyes kindled in the dark"¹³ ) to pick off Finrod's companions one by one, hoping to perhaps induce a turncoat to reveal their identities and their intention. They are locked into a dark and silent dungeon where they are cruelly slain, each devoured by a werewolf, but not one of them betrayed their lord or their purpose. Finally, only Beren and Finrod remain. Finrod, seeing that Beren will be the next to lose his life, summons all of his remaining strength and attacks the wolf and rips out his throat with his teeth, dying in the process.¹⁴

Beren and Lúthien Reunited

Meanwhile, Lúthien, on her way to assist Beren, is captured and held by Curufin and Celegorm at Nargothrond. Huan the Hound of Valinor takes pity upon her and rescues her and accompanies her on her quest. They set off in search of Beren. At last Lúthien and Huan reached the Isle of Werewolves, almost simultaneous with the moment when Finrod died. "Standing upon the bridge that led to Sauron's isle she sang a song that no walls of stone could hinder,"¹⁵ and Beren heard her and answered, although he thought it was a dream. Sauron heard the song also, and he sent his wolves to assault them, but Huan fought and killed them. "Then Sauron sent Draugluin, a dread beast, old in evil, lord and sire of the werewolves of Angband," who only escaped to fall at Sauron's feet and report to him that Huan had come with Lúthien.¹⁶ Sauron decided to act upon the prophecy that only the strongest of wolves would be able to slay Huan and so he took upon himself the form of a wolf and fought with Huan and Lúthien to no avail. Sauron barely escaped with his life. Lúthien took control of his island and broke down the walls and released the captives of Sauron. But Beren, grieving the loss of Finrod, did not appear.

So deep was his anguish that he lay still and did not hear her feet. Thinking him already dead she put her arms about him and fell into a dark forgetfulness. "But Beren coming back to the light out of the pits of despair lifted her up, and they looked again upon one another; and the day rising over the dark hills shone upon them."¹⁷ They buried Finrod's body on a hill on Tol Sirion and Huan returned to his master, although he loved him less than he had before.

The reader might expect at this point that Beren and Lúthien would set off again on the road for Angband to finally snatch that Silmaril. (One suspects most readers already know the ending before they read this chapter of The Silmarillion. For them, the mystery is not if they succeed but how.) But, no! They run across Curufin and Celegorm in the forest, who are resentful and unhappy because they have just been booted out of Nargothrond. After Lúthien had freed the remaining captives from Sauron's dungeons on the Isle of Werewolves, they made their way home and explained everything that had happened. Most Importantly, they told how their king had died. The tale of their release and Finrod's death led the people of Nargothrond to believe that "treachery rather than fear" had motivated the two brothers. "Therefore the hearts of the people of Nargothrond were released from their dominion, and turned again to the house of Finarfin; and they obeyed Orodreth."¹⁸ Celegorm and Curufin barely escaped with their lives. The biography of Lúthien Tinúviel, Part 3, contains meticulous accounting of Beren and Lúthien's last encounter with the brothers and their reunification with Huan. Beren tries to slip away once alone to Angband, but at last they arrive as a team, where Lúthien shows the full extent of her powers, enabling Beren the opportunity to cut the stone from Morgoth's crown. After finally securing the Silmaril, Lúthien is finally spent and Beren fights off the powerful wolf Carcharoth at the gates of Angband and loses a hand holding the Silmaril. The beast Carcharoth is unable to tolerate the stone he has swallowed. When he bit Beren's hand off at the wrist, his innards "were filled with a flame of anguish, and the Silmaril seared his accursed flesh. Howling he fled before them, and the walls of the valley of the Gate echoed with the clamour of his torment."¹⁹

The reaction of Carcharoth to the Silmaril caused a terrible burning inside of him caused "all living things both good and evil"²⁰ to flee before him because in his torment he killed all that he encountered. Verlyn Flieger notes that

the Silmaril reveals the clear difference between Beren and Thingol in respect of its possession. Beren's quest for the jewel is in its motive and nature unselfish; he does not desire to possess it, but by it to attain another light, that of Lúthien. The Silmaril is the object of the quest, but Lúthien is the subject. Since he does not want the Silmaril, but light as manifest in Lúthien, Beren can touch and hold the jewel without taking harm. Those with darker motives who try to take it wrongfully, such as Morgoth, the wolf Carcharoth, and the sons of Fëanor, will be scorched by its light. The image of Beren's hand holding the Silmaril and illuminated by it from within is the emblem of this story. Beren can grasp the jewel precisely because he is not grasping in the metaphorical sense, because he does not want it.²¹

At last after Lúthien nurses Beren back to health the lovers return to Menegroth to present the Silmaril to Thingol and demand that he fulfill his side of the bargain he had first made with Beren:

Beren knelt before him, and said: 'I return according to my word. I am come now to claim my own.'

And Thingol answered: 'What of your quest, and of your vow?'

But Beren said: 'It is fulfilled. Even now a Silmaril is in my hand.'

Then Thingol said: 'Show it to me!'

And Beren put forth his left hand, slowly opening its fingers; but it was empty. Then he held up his right arm; and from that hour he named himself Camlost, the Empty-handed.²²

As soon as Beren and Lúthien were wed, the news reached them that a pain-maddened Carcharoth neared Menegroth, ravaging and destroying every living creature in his path. The story of the Hunting of the Wolf is also described in the character biography of Mablung of Doriath. The monstrous wolf was finally brought down inside the borders of Doriath and the Silmaril retrieved once again, but in the process Huan was killed and Beren was mortally wounded. The hunters carried Beren back to Menegroth. Lúthien met them and had barely time enough to ask Beren to wait in the halls of Mandos for her to come to him there and say her last goodbye. Beren looked into her eyes and died. Lúthien's spirit also left her body and came to the halls of Mandos:

The song of Lúthien before Mandos was the song most fair that ever in words was woven, and the song most sorrowful that ever the world shall hear. Unchanged, imperishable, it is sung still in Valinor beyond the hearing of the world, and listening the Valar are grieved. For Lúthien wove two themes of words, of the sorrow of the Eldar and the grief of Men, of the Two Kindreds that were made by Ilúvatar to dwell in Arda, the Kingdom of Earth amid the innumerable stars. And as she knelt before him her tears fell upon his feet like rain upon the stones; and Mandos was moved to pity, who never before was so moved, nor has been since.²³

Mandos consulted with Manwë, begging him to seek the will of Ilúvatar, for this decision was beyond the purview of the Valar. In the end, Lúthien was presented with two choices. She was permitted to choose to dwell among the Valar, forgetting all of her sorrows, or to return to life in Middle-earth with Beren. But the two of them would live out and normal life and then suffer a second death: "This doom she chose, forsaking the Blessed Realm, and putting aside all claim to kinship with those that dwell there; that thus whatever grief might lie in wait, the fates of Beren and Lúthien might be joined, and their paths lead together beyond the confines of the world."²⁴

Conclusion

There are those who choose to compare Lúthien's rescue of Beren from the halls of Mandos and their return to Middle-earth where they live out their mortal lives together to the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. One may be sure that Tolkien recognized the similarities as well. It is, however, unlikely that he would have appreciated the comparison. Tolkien's intent and purpose is different. David Day, a longtime contributor of commentary upon Tolkien's writing, observes the following:

To underscore the connection between the Greek myth and his tale, Tolkien duplicates the journey by having Lúthien pursue Beren's soul after his death. This time, in the real House of the Dead in the Undying Lands, Lúthien exactly repeats Orpheus's journey by singing to Mandos-Hades and winning a second life for her lover. Unlike Orpheus and Eurydice, however, Lúthien and Beren are allowed to live out their newly won mortal lives. And so, in the Quest of the Silmaril, Tolkien not only reversed the roles of Orpheus and Eurydice, but also overturned that story's tragic end. And in so doing, for a time at least, Tolkien allowed love to conquer death.²⁵

Tolkien goes beyond the Greek myth and further still beyond any romantic fantasy posited upon the simplistic concept that "love conquers death." The story of Beren and Lúthien's deeds gave an inspiration to the peoples opposing Morgoth during the period of the couple's life and deeds. Their ability to stand up to the Dark Lord inspired others to unite to attempt to vanquish his seemingly unassailable power. For example, the deeds of Beren and Lúthien inspired the valiant if doomed Union of Maedhros.²⁶ Beren's determined and courageous love for Lúthien engendered greater respect and understanding of the strength of Mortal Men by the Eldar. He became the father of the first bloodline of Elves and Men, which made him the father of the line of Númenórean nobility²⁷ and led to the story completed in The Lord of Rings. In Katherine Neville's Mythlore review of Beren and Lúthien, she explains that Christopher Tolkien

refers to what Tolkien called the three Great Tales of his history: the story of Turin, the story of Beren and Lúthien, and the Fall of Gondolin . . . . Beren and Lúthien were not involved in the Fall of Gondolin, but their granddaughter Elwing married Eärendil son of Tuor and Idril, and, through the power of the Silmaril released from Morgoth's crown, Eärendil was able to find his way to Valinor . . . . thereby bringing their story full circle to Frodo and Sam on the stairs of Cirith Ungol.²⁸

Neville, of course, refers to Sam's remarks to Frodo at their lowest point in their portion of the neverending tale. That quotation in its entirety is particularly relevant here since it refers to Beren's and his lasting importance within Tolkien's legendarium:

Beren now, he never thought he was going to get that Silmaril from the Iron Crown in Thangorodrim, and yet he did, and that was a worse place and a blacker danger than ours. But that's a long tale, of course, and goes on past the happiness and into grief and beyond it—and the Silmaril went on and came to Eärendil. And why, sir, I never thought of that before! We've got—you've got some of the light of it in that star-glass that the Lady gave you! Why, to think of it, we're in the same tale still! Don't the great tales never end?²⁹

Works Cited

1. Richard C. West, "Real-World Myth in a Secondary World," in Tolkien the Medievalist, ed. Jane Chance (London: Routledge, 2003), 262.
2. Ibid, 264.
3. The Lays of Beleriand, The Lay of Leithian Recommenced.
4. The Silmarillion, "Of Beren and Lúthien."
5. The Silmarillion, "Of the Coming of Men into the West."
6. The Silmarillion, "Of Beren and Lúthien."
7. The Silmarillion, "From a Letter by J.R.R. Tolkien to Milton Waldman, 1951."
8. W.A. Senior, "Loss Eternal in J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth," in J.R.R. Tolkien and His Literary Resonances: Views of Middle-Earth, ed. George Clark and Daniel Timmons (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000), 177.
9. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, "The Tower of Cirith Ungol."
10. The Lays of Beleriand, The Lay of Leithian.
11. Ibid.
12. The Silmarillion, "Of Beren and Lúthien."
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
15. The Silmarillion, "Of Beren and Lúthien."
16. Ibid.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid.
21. Flieger, Splintered Light, 142.
22. The Silmarillion, "Of Beren and Lúthien."
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid.
25. David Day, The Heroes of Tolkien (Pyramid, 2017), Kindle Edition.
26. The Silmarillion, "Of the Fifth Battle: Nirnaeth Arnoediad."
27. The Silmarillion, Akallabêth.
28. Katherine Neville, "Beren and Lúthien," Mythlore 36, no. 1 (2017), 212.
29. The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers, "The Stairs of Cirith Ungol."