Lúthien

In the fictional world of Tolkien, Lúthien (which seems to mean enchanter) Tinúviel (Sindarin “nightingale”) is a Elfe of the people of the Sindar and the only girl of the king Thingol of Doriath and Melian, a Maia. It is the first Elf to marry a mortal, Beren.

History of Beren and Lúthien

Beren met Lúthien in the wood of Doriath, and they fell in love. But the father of Lúthien did not want to leave it with a mortal. To reject it without betraying its oath not to put Beren at evil, he asks this last to obtain a Silmaril crown of Morgoth. Lúthien is locked up for not that it helps Beren, but when Beren is made prisoner with Tol-in-Gaurhoth, it flees all the same there to face Sauron and to deliver Beren, with the assistance of Huan.

By the capacities of Lúthien, they pass the doors of Angband and the large wolf Carcharoth which kept them. They go in front of the throne of Morgoth and Lúthien arrives, thanks to its dance and with its song, to plunge Morgoth in a deep sleep, making it possible Beren to withdraw a Silmaril Couronne of Iron.

But when they flee, Carcharoth manages to eat the hand of Beren and Silmaril with; burned by the holiness of this last, it makes devastations in all Beleriand, until Doriath, where it is killed during the Chasse for the wolf. But during this hunting, Beren is killed; it offers Silmaril to Thingol while dying.

The spirit of Lúthien flees then towards the Cavernes of Mandos and pleads in front of Mandos itself to recover Beren. It was the most beautiful song ever sung in Arda, and it moved Mandos at the point to grant a second life to Beren, provided that Lúthien becomes itself mortal. They then live some time with Doriath before settling with Tol Galen where they had a son, Dior. By Dior, all the kings of Númenor go down from Lúthien.

Publication of and references to the legend

With died of his wife, Edith Bratt, Tolkien made engrave Lúthien on its tomb, in reference to the history of love of Beren and Lúthien, inspired by its own meeting with it. With died of Tolkien, one added Beren with this inscription.

This history is told:

in worms

very briefly, in Leaf one Lindentree , published in Alluviums of Beleriand ;
by Aragorn, in a version making echo there, the Lord of the Rings: The Community of the Ring;
and, especially, in Alluviums of Beleriand, as a Lay of Leithian, a long poem in tetrameters iambic with followed rhymes (translated into French by the octosyllabic ones with followed rhymes).

in prose

in the Book of the Lost Tales , for the first form of the legend, the Tale of Tinúviel;
in the Quenta Silmarillion (published in Silmarillion ).

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