Tevildo however, himself a great and skilled liar, was so deeply versed in the lies and subtleties of all the beasts and creatures that he seldom knew whether to believe what was said to him or not, and was wont to disbelieve all things save those he wished to believe true, and so was he often deceived by the most honest.

I’ve long cherished a great fondness for Tolkien’s tale of Beren and Luthien, which impressed me long ago when I read the Silmarillion. And of course, it’s referenced often in The Lord of the Rings. So before I moved on from The Hobbit to the Trilogy, I thought I’d read the (fairly) recent book devoted to that story.

It wasn’t entirely what I expected. It’s sort of a scholarly exercise. In it, the late Christopher Tolkien, the author’s son and literary executor, traces the development of the story through various stages in the collected manuscripts, where it is altered in numerous ways. There are surprises. For instance, an early version of the story has as one of its major villains a great cat called Tevildo (see quotation above), who lives in a castle and serves the evil Melkor. In later versions, Tevildo would be replaced by a great magician who would in time become the Sauron of the Trilogy.

I think we may deduce that Prof. Tolkien was not very fond of cats.

Those who find Tolkien’s work lacking in female heroes need to read Beren and Luthien. Although Beren is a doughty hero, he also seems to be headstrong to point of stupidity. And the two great crises in the story both involve Luthien rescuing him.

I was, frankly, looking for something more like a straight narrative when I bought this book. I’m not enough of a Tolkien scholar to linger happily forever over details of composition and myth-building.

On the other hand, I’d never encountered the words “inexaggerable” and “quook” (past tense of quake) before, so the reading was not without surprises.

The tale of Beren and Luthien was a central matter in Tolkien’s life’s work. If I understand the story correctly, it went back to his attempt to immortalize the day when Edith Bratt danced for him in the woods and he fell in love forever. In a sense, he built all Middle Earth as a kind of ornate setting for the jewel of that memory.

Beren and Luthien is recommended for those who can never get enough Tolkien. If you’re looking for a less strenuous approach to the story, you might just read The Silmarillion.

Oh yes, it has Alan Lee illustrations, so it’s got that going for it.