The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Volume 2: Reader’s Guide PART 1. Christina Scull
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in a hidden realm in the forest of Artanor protected by the magic of Gwendeling, also have two children, Dairon the piper and Tinúviel (her real name, not that given her by Beren) whose greatest joy is dancing. One night in June Beren the Gnome (a Noldo Elf) sees Tinúviel dancing to Dairon’s flute and is enchanted. As in the final version, she flees from Beren and he seeks her. There is no betrayal by Dairon, but Beren steps boldly before her and asks her to teach him to dance. She dances away, and leads Beren to her father’s halls. There is no suggestion that she has already committed herself to him. Tinwelint, who distrusts the Noldoli, is not welcoming, but Tinúviel pleads for Beren because of his great appreciation of her dancing. When Tinwelint asks Beren what he seeks, Beren replies: ‘thy daughter … for she is the fairest and most sweet of all the maidens I have seen or dreamed of’. Tinwelint laughs, and asks for a Silmaril from the Crown of Melko as the price of his daughter’s hand. All present think that he is jesting, but Beren replies: ‘Nay, but ’tis too small a gift to the father of so sweet a bride. … I … will fulfil thy small desire …’ (*The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two, p. 13). He leaves, and Tinúviel weeps, fearing that ‘Melko will slay him, and none will look ever again with such love upon my dancing’ (p. 14).
Beren, travelling towards Melko’s stronghold, is captured by orcs. He pretends that he is a trapper of small animals and birds who wishes to serve Melko. He is sent as a thrall to Tevildo, Prince of Cats, the mightiest of all Cats and ‘possessed of an evil sprite’ (p. 16) with many cats subject to him. When Beren fails in the tasks Tevildo sets him, he is made a scullion in Tevildo’s kitchen. As in the final version, Tinúviel learns of Beren’s captivity, is betrayed by Dairon, and is imprisoned by her father. She achieves her escape in the same way, but the tale describes at length the spells by which she makes her hair grow and gives the cloak and rope made from it the power of compelling sleep. Dairon tries to follow her but becomes lost. On her journey north Tinúviel meets Huan, Captain of Dogs, a friend of Beren and great enemy of Tevildo, who devises a plan to rescue Beren. Tinúviel goes to Tevildo’s stronghold, says that she has seen Huan lying sick in the woods, and offers to lead Tevildo to him. Through a hatch she catches a glimpse of Beren in the kitchen and speaks loudly so that he knows she is there. So deceived, Tevildo with two other cats follows Tinúviel to where Huan lies pretending to be sick. Huan kills one of the cats, Oikeroi, and the other two climb trees to escape him. Huan says that he will not let them come down until Beren is set free. Eventually Tevildo yields, throws down his gold collar as a token of authority to his followers, and reveals to Huan ‘the secret of the cats and the spell that Melko had entrusted to him … words of magic whereby the stones of his evil house were held together, and whereby he held all beasts of the catfolk under his sway, filling them with an evil power beyond their nature …’ (The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two, p. 28). Tinúviel returns to Tevildo’s stronghold, speaks the spell, and rescues Beren.
Tinúviel wanders a long time in the woods with Beren and Huan, but ‘grew at last to long sorely for Gwendeling’. She wishes to return home but does not want to leave Beren. He suggests that the only thing they can do is to find a Silmaril. They consult Huan (who has no restriction on his speech), who gives them the skin of Oikeroi which he had taken as a trophy; Tinúviel sews Beren into it and teaches him how to behave like a cat. They leave Huan and make their way to Melko’s stronghold, Angband. Here the earlier story differs only in detail: Tinúviel pretends that she has been driven out by her father; Beren uses a knife from Tevildo’s kitchen to prise the Silmaril from Melko’s crown; and their escape is aided by Huan, not by eagles.
Beren feels that he should leave Tinúviel, since he has no Silmaril to give her father, but she persuades him to go in hope with her, for her father might have relented. They find that her father’s realm has suffered in her absence, most recently by the incursion of Karkaras (the precursor of Carcharoth) who, driven mad by anguish, has run wild through the woods and killed many. When they come before Tinwelint Beren declares that he has a Silmaril in his hand, but shows that his hand is no longer on his arm. As in The Silmarillion, Tinwelint’s heart is softened, and he accepts Beren; but in the revised Tale of Tinúviel Karkaras comes on the hunters while they are sleeping, with Beren keeping watch; Beren does not lose his life protecting Tinwelint; Tinwelint, not Huan, kills Karkaras; and Huan survives the fight. Tinúviel is not offered a choice, but Mandos allows both her and Beren to return into the world, warning them that ‘it is not to any life of perfect joy that I dismiss you … and know ye 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’ (The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two, p. 40). They return to dance in the woods and hills.
Since in this version both Beren and Tinúviel are Elves, the conflict between differing fates which becomes such an important element in later versions is absent. Here they are permitted a fate which differs from that usual for Elves who die. Instead of waiting in the Halls of Mandos and being reborn again in their children, they are sent back as themselves, but now as mortal as Men. In another tale Tolkien wrote that ‘upon Beren and Tinúviel fell swiftly that doom of mortality that Mandos had spoken’, and while their child was still young Tinúviel slowly faded, and Beren searched for her until he too faded (The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two, p. 240). Unfortunately it is not known how the matter was resolved in the lost first version, when Beren was a Man. *Christopher Tolkien has said that in this version of the story Tevildo and his castle occupy ‘the same “space” in the narrative’ as Sauron and Tol-in-Gaurhoth, but otherwise the two have nothing in common (The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two, p. 53; see his detailed comparison of The Tale of Tinúviel with ‘Of Beren and Lúthien’ in The Silmarillion, in The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two, pp. 51–60).
The names of Tinúviel’s parents achieved their final form, Thingol and Melian, in a typescript which Tolkien began soon after the second version of the story, but abandoned after Tinúviel’s meeting with Huan.
The earliest extant texts of the poem *Light as Leaf on Lindentree were made in Leeds c. 1923–4, when also some introductory lines of alliterative verse were added. Tolkien inserted this poem and various references to the story of Beren and Tinúviel into the second version of his alliterative poem *The Lay of the Children of Húrin, probably c. 1924–5. These show some development in the story, though Tolkien still hesitated whether Beren should be a Man or an Elf. The elven princess was now called Lúthien, and Tinúviel is the name given her by Beren. Dairon is no longer her brother but in love with her, and being jealous of Beren, ceases to play his flute. Perhaps most significantly, the inserted poem stresses the immediacy of Lúthien’s love for Beren when she first comes face to face with him.
In the brief *Sketch of the Mythology (c. 1926) Tolkien evidently was still undecided about Beren: his father Barahir is a chieftain of Ilkorindi (Elves), but Beren himself is said to be mortal. More is said about Beren’s earlier history: ‘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’ (*The Shaping of Middle-earth, p. 24). A statement that Barahir had been a friend of Celegorm of Nargothrond is not developed further, but foreshadows a major new element. Beren is given as a slave to Thû the hunter, not to Tevildo. Huan is killed in the fight with Carcaras while defending Beren. Events after Beren’s death are uncertain: ‘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 …’ (The Shaping of Middle-earth, p. 25). An addition made probably soon after this says that Mandos exacted in payment that Lúthien should become as mortal as Beren. The text was revised c. 1926–30 in response to the way the story was developing in the *Lay of Leithian, so that Beren is definitely a Man and the Nargothrond element enters.
Tolkien began to write the Lay of Leithian in summer 1925, telling the story of Beren and Lúthien at length in octosyllabic couplets. At various points while this was in progress he made five synopses for parts of the story still to be written, which indicate how the story changed in stages and expanded as new ideas came to the