Beren and Luthien Review

Review of Beren and Luthien

By: JRR Tolkien

            A man, Beren, saw the beautiful Elf princess, Luthien, dancing in the forest and it was love at first sight. He wanted to marry her, so Beren went to her father, the Elf Lord Thingol and asked for her hand. Lord Thingol didn’t approve of humans and opposed the marriage and sent Beren on an impossible quest to retrieve a Simaril, a jewel, that was currently on the crown of the Dark Lord Morgoth.

            Beren and Luthien’s the story of a mortal and immortal falling love, was the story he wrote before Aragorn and Arwen’s epic love story in the Appendices of “Lord of the Rings”. Like a lot of Tolkien’s early work, it was written in the form of an epic poem and explored the theme of love conquering evil, though the ending was bittersweet.  Since it was fairytale, it had the love at first trope on Beren’s end, but not right away on Luthien’s.  She was scared of him at first, but she grew to love him, especially with what he was willing to do to prove himself to her and her father.  

I imagine modern readers could make the case that Beren watching her multiple times could be seen as creepy, but others could argue it was romantic.  The “love at first sight” trope has been under scrutiny and has often been criticized, but this was intended as a Middle Earth fairytale. The danger Beren faced made his actions all the more impressive and he did have to face off with Morgoth, Sauron’s mentor.  The question is who would a reader want to do battle, with Morgoth or Sauron?

Unlike “Lord of the Rings” or “The Hobbit” there were more animals in this story such as a dog Beren and Luthien ally with and a dog’s worst enemy, a giant cat that was an ally to Morgoth.  As well as werewolves. “Beren and Luthien” was a story that built upon the world of Middle Earth, not just with more established settings, but also adding parts of the history of the world, which could only be included in the appendices. In “Lord of the Rings”.  This was a way around the iceberg effect, which was a concept writers of fantasy and science fiction relied on implying that everything else about the world’s they created was below the surface, and didn’t need to be included in the main story. 

Beren and Luthien weren’t super complex characters and felt one dimensional, but both brave and admirable.  I appreciated that Tolkien didn’t have Luthien as a “damsel in distress”, but someone who actually took action to help and save Beren.  When her father had her locked in tower, knowing she would try to help Beren, she used her magic to escape and used it to help Beren to defeat Morgoth.

Tolkien’s son Christopher edited this one just, as he edited ‘The Fall of Arthur”, including excerpts from Tolkien’s pre-writings and secrets about the first drafts of the story such as Tolkien originally making Beren an Elf but changing him into a mortal man later.  “Beren and Luthien” was inspired by his wife Edith and on their graves were the names Beren and Luthien. If you’re a Tolkien completist then I would recommend reading this beautiful story, but it is not necessary. The finer points of this story were explained in the Silmarillion.