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IN A LETTER of my father’s written on the 16th of July 1964 he said:

The germ of my attempt to write legends of my own to fit my private languages was the tragic tale of the hapless Kullervo in the Finnish Kalevala. It remains a major matter in the legends of the First Age (which I hope to publish as The Silmarillion), though as ‘The Children of Húrin’ it is entirely changed except in the tragic ending. The second point was the writing, ‘out of my head’, of ‘The Fall of Gondolin’, the story of Idril and Earendel, during sick-leave from the army in 1917; and by the original version of the ‘Tale of Lúthien Tinúviel and Beren’ later in the same year. That was founded on a small wood with a great undergrowth of ‘hemlock’ (no doubt many other related plants were also there) near Roos in Holderness, where I was for a while on the Humber Garrison.

My father and mother were married in March 1916, when he was twenty-four and she was twenty-seven. They lived at first in the village of Great Haywood in Staffordshire; but he embarked for France and the Battle of the Somme early in June of that year. Taken ill, he was sent back to England at the beginning of November 1916; and in the spring of 1917 he was posted to Yorkshire.

This primary version of The Tale of Tinúviel, as he called it, written in 1917, does not exist – or more precisely, exists only in the ghostly form of a manuscript in pencil that he all but entirely erased for most of its length; over this he wrote the text that is for us the earliest version. The Tale of Tinúviel was one of the constituent stories of my father’s major early work of his ‘mythology’, The Book of Lost Tales, an exceedingly complex work which I edited in the first two volumes of The History of Middle-earth, 1983–4. But since the present book is expressly devoted to the evolution of the legend of Beren and Lúthien I will here very largely pass by the strange setting and audience of the Lost Tales, for The Tale of Tinúviel is in itself almost entirely independent of that setting.

Central to The Book of Lost Tales was the story of an English mariner of the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ period named Eriol or Ælfwine who, sailing far westwards over the ocean, came at last to Tol Eressëa, the Lonely Isle, where dwelt Elves who had departed from ‘the Great Lands’, afterwards ‘Middle-Earth’ (a term not used in the Lost Tales). During his sojourn in Tol Eressëa he learned from them the true and ancient history of the Creation, of the Gods, of the Elves, and of England. This history is ‘The Lost Tales of Elfinesse’.

The work is extant in a number of battered little ‘exercise books’ in ink and pencil, often formidably difficult to read, though after many hours of peering at the manuscript with a lens I was able, many years ago, to elucidate all the texts with only occasional unsolved words. The Tale of Tinúviel is one of the stories that was told to Eriol by the Elves in the Lonely Isle, in this case by a maiden named Vëannë: there were many children present at these story-tellings. Sharply observant of detail (a striking feature), it is told in an extremely individual style, with some archaisms of word and construction, altogether unlike my father’s later styles, intense, poetic, at times deeply ‘elvish-mysterious’. There is also an undercurrent of sardonic humour in the expression here and there (in the terrible confrontation with the demonic wolf Karkaras as she fled with Beren from Melko’s hall Tinúviel enquires ‘Wherefore this surliness, Karkaras?’).

Rather than awaiting the conclusion of the Tale I think it may be helpful to draw attention here to certain aspects of this earliest version of the legend, and to give brief explanations of some names important in the narrative (which are also to be found in the List of Names at the end of the book).

The Tale of Tinúviel in its rewritten form, which is the earliest form for us, was by no means the earliest of the Lost Tales, and light is shed on it by features in other Tales. To speak only of narrative structure, some of them, such as the tale of Túrin, are not very far removed from the version in the published Silmarillion; some, notably the Fall of Gondolin, the first to be written, is present in the published work only in a severely compressed form; and some, most remarkably the present Tale, are strikingly different in certain aspects.

A fundamental change in the evolution of the legend of Beren and Tinúviel (Lúthien) was the entry into it later of the story of Felagund of Nargothrond and the sons of Fëanor; but equally significant, in a different aspect, was the alteration in the identity of Beren. 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 Tale: Beren, also, was an Elf. (It is seen, however, from my father’s notes to other Tales, that he was originally a Man; and it is clear that this was true also in the erased manuscript of The Tale of Tinúviel.) Beren the Elf was of the Elvish people named the Noldoli (later Noldor), which in the Lost Tales (and later) is translated ‘Gnomes’: Beren was a Gnome. This translation later became a problem for my father. He was using another word Gnome, wholly distinct in origin and meaning from those Gnomes who nowadays are small figures specially associated with gardens. This other Gnome was derived from a Greek word gnōmē ‘thought, intelligence’; it barely survives in modern English, with the meaning ‘aphorism, maxim’, together with the adjective gnomic.

In a draft for Appendix F of The Lord of the Rings he wrote:

I have sometimes (not in this book) used ‘Gnomes’ for Noldor and ‘Gnomish’ for Noldorin. This I did, for to some ‘Gnome’ will still suggest knowledge. Now the High-elven name of this people, Noldor, signifies Those who Know; for of the three kindreds of the Eldar from their beginning the Noldor were ever distinguished, both by their knowledge of the things that are and were in this world, and by their desire to know more. Yet they in no way resembled the Gnomes either of learned theory or popular fancy; and I have now abandoned this rendering as too misleading.

(In passing, I would mention that he said also [in a letter of 1954] that he greatly regretted having used the word ‘Elves’, which has become ‘overloaded with regrettable tones’ that are ‘too much to overcome’.)

The hostility shown to Beren, as an Elf, is explained thus in the old Tale (p. 42): ‘all the Elves of the woodland thought of the Gnomes of Dor-lómin as treacherous creatures, cruel and faithless’.

It may well seem somewhat puzzling that the word ‘fairy, fairies’ is frequently used of Elves. Thus, of the white moths that flew in the woods ‘Tinúviel being a fairy minded them not’ (p. 41); she names herself ‘Princess of Fairies’ (p. 64); it is said of her (p. 72) that she ‘put forth her skill and fairy-magic’. In the first place, the word fairies in the Lost Tales is synonymous with Elves; and in those tales there are several references to the relative physical stature of Men and Elves. In those early days my father’s conceptions on such matters were somewhat fluctuating, but it is clear that he conceived a changing relation as the ages passed. Thus he wrote:

Men were almost of a stature at first with Elves, the fairies being far greater and Men smaller than now.

But the evolution of Elves was greatly influenced by the coming of Men:

Ever as Men wax more powerful and numerous so the fairies fade and grow small and tenuous, filmy and transparent, but Men larger and more dense and gross. At last Men, or almost all, can no longer see the fairies.

There is thus no need to suppose, on account of the word, that my father thought of the ‘Fairies’ of this tale as filmy and transparent; and of course years later, when the Elves of the Third Age had entered the history of Middle-earth, there was nothing ‘fairylike’, in the modern sense, about them.

The word fay is more obscure. In The Tale of Tinúviel it is used frequently of Melian (the mother of Lúthien), who came from Valinor (and is called [p. 40] ‘a daughter of the Gods’), but also of Tevildo, who was said to be ‘an evil fay in beastlike shape’ (p. 69). Elsewhere in the Tales there are references to ‘the wisdom of fays and of Eldar’, to ‘Orcs and dragons and evil fays’, and to ‘a fay of the woods and dells’. Most notable perhaps is the following passage from the Tale of the Coming of the Valar:

About them fared a great host who are the sprites [spirits] of trees and woods, of dale and forest and mountain-side, or those that sing amid the grass at morning and chant among the standing corn at eve. These are the Nermir and the Tavari, Nandini and Orossi [fays (?) of the meads, of the woods, of the valleys, of the mountains], fays, pixies, leprawns, and what else are they not called, for their number is very great; yet must they not be confused with the Eldar [Elves], for they were born before the world, and are older than its oldest, and are not of it.

Another puzzling feature, appearing not only in The Tale of Tinúviel, of which I have found no explanation, nor any more general observation, concerns the power that the Valar possess over the affairs of Men and Elves, and indeed over their minds and hearts, in the far distant Great Lands (Middle-earth). To give examples: on p. 78 ‘the Valar brought [Huan] to a glade’ where Beren and Lúthien were lying on the ground in their flight from Angband; and she said to her father (p. 82): ‘The Valar alone saved [Beren] from a bitter death’. Or again, in the account of Lúthien’s flight from Doriath (p. 57), ‘she entered not that dark region, and regaining heart pressed on’ was later changed to ‘she entered not that dark region, and the Valar set a new hope in her heart, so that she pressed on once more.’

As regards the names that appear in the Tale, I will note here that Artanor corresponds to later Doriath and was also called The Land Beyond; to the north lay the barrier of the Iron Mountains, also called the Bitter Hills, over which Beren came: afterwards they became Ered Wethrin, the Mountains of Shadow. Beyond the mountains lay Hisilómë (Hithlum) the Land of Shadow, also called Dor-lómin. Palisor (p. 37) is the land where the Elves awoke.

The Valar are often referred to as the Gods, and are called also the Ainur (singular Ainu). Melko (later Melkor) is the great evil Vala, called Morgoth, the Black Foe, after his theft of the Silmarils. Mandos is the name both of the Vala and the place of his abode. He is the keeper of the Houses of the Dead.

Manwë is the lord of the Valar; Varda, maker of the stars, is the spouse of Manwë and dwells with him on the summit of Taniquetil, the highest mountain of Arda. The Two Trees are the great trees whose flowers gave light to Valinor, destroyed by Morgoth and the monstrous spider Ungoliant.

Lastly, this is a convenient place to say something of the Silmarils, fundamental to the legend of Beren and Lúthien: they were the work of Fëanor, greatest of the Noldor: ‘the mightiest in skill of word and of hand’; his name means ‘Spirit of Fire’. I will quote here a passage from the later (1930) ‘Silmarillion’ text entitled Quenta Noldorinwa, on which see p. 103.

In those far days Fëanor began on a time a long and marvellous labour, and all his power and all his subtle magic he called upon, for he purposed to make a thing more fair than any of the Eldar yet had made, that should last beyond the end of all. Three jewels he made, and named them Silmarils. A living fire burned within them that was blended of the light of the Two Trees; of their own radiance they shone even in the dark; no mortal flesh impure could touch them, but was withered and was scorched. These jewels the Elves prized beyond all the works of their hands, and Manwë hallowed them, and Varda said: ‘The fate of the Elves is locked herein, and the fate of many things beside.’ The heart of Fëanor was wound about the things he himself had made.

A terrible and deeply destructive oath was sworn by Fëanor and his seven sons in assertion of their sole and inviolable right to the Silmarils, which were stolen by Morgoth.

Vëannë’s tale was expressly addressed to Eriol (Ælfwine), who had never heard of Tinúviel, but as she tells it there is no formal opening: she begins with an account of Tinwelint and Gwendeling (afterwards known as Thingol and Melian). I will however turn again to the Quenta Noldorinwa for this essential element in the legend. In the Tale the formidable Tinwelint (Thingol) is a central figure: the king of the Elves who dwelt in the deep woodlands of Artanor, ruling from his vast cavern in the heart of the forest. But the queen was also a personage of great significance, although seldom seen, and I give here the account of her given in the Quenta Noldorinwa.

In this it is told that on the Great Journey of the Elves from far off Palisor, the place of their awakening, with the ultimate goal of reaching Valinor in the far West beyond the great Ocean

[many Elves] were lost upon the long dark roads, and they wandered in the woods and mountains of the world, and never came to Valinor, nor saw the light of the Two Trees. Therefore they are called Ilkorindi, the Elves that dwelt never in Kôr, the city of the Eldar [Elves] in the land of the Gods. The Dark-elves are they, and many are their scattered tribes, and many are their tongues.

Of the Dark-elves the chief in renown was Thingol. For this reason he came never to Valinor. Melian was a fay. In the gardens of [the Vala] Lórien she dwelt, and among all his fair folk none were there that surpassed her beauty, nor none more wise, nor none more skilled in magical and enchanting song. It is told that the Gods would leave their business and the birds of Valinor their mirth, that Valmar’s bells were silent, and the fountains ceased to flow, when at the mingling of the light Melian sang in the gardens of the God of Dreams. Nightingales went always with her, and their song she taught them. But she loved deep shadow, and often strayed on long journeys into the Outer Lands [Middle-earth], and there filled the silence of the dawning world with her voice and the voices of her birds.

The nightingales of Melian Thingol heard and was enchanted and left his folk. Melian he found beneath the trees and was cast into a dream and a great slumber, so that his people sought him in vain.

In Vëannë’s account, when Tinwelint awoke from his mythically long sleep ‘he thought no more of his people (and indeed it had been vain, for long now had those reached Valinor)’, but desired only to see the lady of the twilight. She was not far off, for she had watched over him as he slept. ‘But more of their story I know not, O Eriol, save that in the end she became his wife, for Tinwelint and Gwendeling very long indeed were king and queen of the Lost Elves of Artanor or the Land Beyond, or so it is said here.’

Vëannë said further that the dwelling of Tinwelint ‘was hidden from the vision and knowledge of Melko by the magics of Gwendeling the fay, and she wove spells about the paths thereto that none but the Eldar [Elves] might tread them easily, and so was the king secured from all dangers save it be treachery alone. Now his halls were builded in a deep cavern of great size, and they were nonetheless a kingly and a fair abode. This cavern was in the heart of the mighty forest of Artanor that is the mightiest of forests, and a stream ran before its doors, but none could enter that portal save across the stream, and a bridge spanned it narrow and well guarded.’ Then Vëannë exclaimed: ‘Lo, now I will tell you of things that happened in the halls of Tinwelint’; and this seems to be the point at which the tale proper can be said to begin.