Beren and Lúthien: The Tale of the Silmaril, Told from the Books
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Quick Answer: Beren and Lúthien are the central lovers of Tolkien's Silmarillion. Beren, a mortal outlaw, sees the Elf-princess Lúthien dancing in the forest of Doriath and falls in love. Her father Thingol demands a Silmaril from Morgoth's crown as the bride-price. Together they take one: Lúthien sings Morgoth to sleep and Beren cuts the jewel free. Beren dies, Lúthien follows him to the Halls of Mandos and chooses a mortal life so they can be together. Tolkien put their names on his and his wife's grave.
Tolkien called it the chief of the stories of The Silmarillion, and it is easy to see why. It has a forbidden love, an impossible quest, a duel of songs with Sauron, a hound that can speak three times, a jewel cut from the crown of the Dark Lord himself, and an ending that does what almost no myth dares: it lets love overrule death, and pays for it with immortality.
This guide tells the story as it appears in the books, in order, with the chapter references, then looks at the names, the language, the films, the different versions Tolkien wrote, and the personal reason the tale mattered so much to him. For the meaning of Lúthien's two names in detail, see our post on Lúthien's name. This article is part of our series on the Elves of Middle-earth.
Who Were Beren and Lúthien?
| Beren | Lúthien | |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | mortal Man | Elf, daughter of a Maia |
| Family | son of Barahir, of the House of Bëor | daughter of Thingol and Melian |
| Home | Dorthonion, the highlands north of Doriath | Doriath, the hidden forest kingdom |
| Known as | Erchamion "One-handed", Camlost "Empty-handed" | Tinúviel, "daughter of twilight", the nightingale |
| Fate | died, returned, died the death of Men | chose mortality, died with him |
The two titles of Beren, "One-handed" and "Empty-handed", are given in the text of The Silmarillion itself. Lúthien's name means "enchantress" and Tinúviel "daughter of twilight", Tolkien's poetic word for the nightingale.
Beren the Outlaw
"Mae govannen" — want to actually speak Elvish?
Try It Free →The story opens in the chapter "Of Beren and Lúthien" with the ruin of Beren's people. After the Dagor Bragollach, the Battle of Sudden Flame, Morgoth's forces overran Dorthonion. Beren's father Barahir held out in the hills with a band of twelve outlaws.
They were betrayed. One of them, Gorlim, was tricked by Sauron with a vision of his lost wife and revealed the hiding-place. The camp was attacked while Beren was away, and all the others were killed. Beren followed the Orcs, killed their captain, and took back his father's hand, which bore the ring of Barahir, a ring that Finrod Felagund had given to Barahir for saving his life.
Beren then lived alone for years in Dorthonion as an outlaw so feared that Morgoth put a price on his head as great as that on a king of the Noldor. In the end he was driven south. He crossed the terrible mountains of Ered Gorgoroth, full of monstrous spiders, and came out half-dead on the borders of Doriath.
Through the Girdle of Melian
Doriath was protected by the Girdle of Melian, an enchanted barrier that no one could pass against the will of its king and queen. Beren passed it anyway. The Silmarillion explains that Melian had foreseen it: a doom greater than her own power was on him. Our guide to Doriath and the Girdle of Melian explains the kingdom and its defences.
Tinúviel
In the forest of Neldoreth, at evening, Beren saw Lúthien dancing on the grass to the music of Daeron the minstrel. He was struck dumb. She vanished, and he wandered the woods looking for her through the winter. In spring she danced again, and he called out to her by the name Tinúviel. She stopped, and when she looked at him she loved him.
Aragorn sings part of this scene to the hobbits on Weathertop in The Lord of the Rings, Book I, chapter 11, "A Knife in the Dark". It is how most readers first meet the story.
Thingol's Price
Daeron, who also loved Lúthien, told Thingol what was happening. Lúthien brought Beren to Menegroth. Thingol was furious that a mortal had come into his realm and dared to love his daughter.
He did not have Beren killed, because he had promised Lúthien he would not harm him. Instead he set a price for her hand: Beren must bring him a Silmaril from the Iron Crown of Morgoth. Thingol thought this was the same as a death sentence. Melian told him that with those words he had doomed either his daughter or himself.
Beren accepted, and left.
Finrod and the Contest with Sauron
Beren went to Nargothrond, the hidden cave-city of Finrod Felagund, and showed him the ring of Barahir. Finrod had sworn an oath to help Barahir's kin, and he kept it, even though he foresaw that it would cost him his life. Ten of his people went with him.
They killed a band of Orcs and took their gear, and went north in disguise. But their road passed the island-fortress of Tol-in-Gaurhoth, the Isle of Werewolves, where Sauron was lord. Sauron stopped them.
What follows is one of the most famous scenes in Tolkien: Finrod and Sauron fight a duel not with swords but with songs of power. Finrod sings of the secrets and resistance of the Elves; Sauron sings of treachery and betrayal. Sauron wins, and the disguises fall away.
The companions were thrown into a pit, and a werewolf came each night and killed one of them. When it came for Beren, Finrod broke his bonds and fought the wolf with his bare hands. He killed it and died of his wounds. Finrod's death in Sauron's dungeon is one of the bitterest losses of the First Age.
Lúthien Escapes
Meanwhile in Doriath, Lúthien learned through Melian that Beren was a prisoner. Thingol, to stop her following him, shut her in a house built high in a great beech tree. She escaped by an enchantment: she made her hair grow long, wove from it a cloak that cast sleep on all around her, and let herself down from the tree.
On her way north she was found by Celegorm and Curufin, two of the sons of Fëanor, who were then living in Nargothrond. They took her prisoner, meaning to force Thingol into an alliance by marrying her to Celegorm.
Huan, the hound of Valinor
Celegorm's great hound Huan, a hound of Valinor that had been given to him by Oromë, took Lúthien's side. Huan could understand speech and was fated, The Silmarillion says, to be killed only by the greatest wolf that ever lived. He helped Lúthien escape and went with her to Tol-in-Gaurhoth.
There Sauron sent his wolves out against them, one after another, and Huan killed them all. At last Sauron came out himself in the shape of a wolf. Huan seized him by the throat. Sauron changed shape again and again but could not escape, and Lúthien made him give up the tower. He fled as a vampire bat.
Lúthien sang, the fortress broke, and she found Beren mourning Finrod. They buried Finrod on the island.
Into Angband
Beren tried to leave Lúthien behind and go on alone. She would not let him. With Huan's advice they disguised themselves: Beren in the skin of the werewolf Draugluin, Lúthien in the form of the bat-messenger Thuringwethil. Together they crossed the waste to Angband, the "Iron Prison", Morgoth's fortress.
At the gate lay Carcharoth, a wolf Morgoth had raised to guard it. Lúthien put him to sleep. They went down into the depths to the throne of Morgoth.
The song before the throne
Morgoth saw through Lúthien's disguise. She danced and sang before him, and her song cast such a spell that the whole court fell asleep and Morgoth himself slid from his throne. His crown rolled away.
Beren drew the knife Angrist, which he had taken from Curufin, and cut a Silmaril from the Iron Crown. The jewel did not burn his hand. He tried for a second, and the knife snapped. A splinter struck Morgoth's face and his servants began to stir.
The wolf at the gate
They ran. At the gate, Carcharoth was awake. Beren held up the Silmaril to drive the wolf back, and Carcharoth bit off his hand with the jewel in it. The holy gem burned the wolf from the inside, and he ran mad across the land.
Beren was close to death from the poison. Thorondor, the lord of the Eagles, and two of his vassals came down and carried them both back toward Doriath. Read more about Thorondor in our guide to the Great Eagles of Middle-earth.
The Hunting of the Wolf
Back in Doriath, Beren stood before Thingol and said that a Silmaril was in his hand at that very moment. He showed his empty arm. Thingol was moved, and gave him Lúthien.
But Carcharoth, maddened by the Silmaril, broke through the Girdle into Doriath. Thingol, Beren, Huan and the captains of Doriath went out to hunt him. The wolf was killed, but he wounded Beren mortally, and Huan, who had waited his whole life for this fight, died beside the wolf, as it had been fated.
The Silmaril was cut from the wolf's body. Beren gave it to Thingol, and died.
The Choice of Lúthien
Lúthien's spirit followed Beren to the Halls of Mandos in the West, where the dead of the Elves wait. She would not let him go on to the fate of Men, which lies beyond the world.
She sang before Mandos a song of the grief of the Eldar and Men, and it moved him to pity as nothing had before. Mandos could not change the fate of Men, so he sought Manwë, who brought it to Ilúvatar. Lúthien was given two choices: to dwell in Valinor among the Valar without Beren, or to return with Beren to Middle-earth, live there again as a mortal, and die the death of Men. She chose the second.
The second life
Beren and Lúthien returned and lived on the isle of Tol Galen in Ossiriand, apart from the wars. Their son was Dior, later heir of Thingol. They came out once more: when Dwarves of Nogrod killed Thingol and sacked Menegroth, Beren and the Green-elves ambushed the Dwarves at a ford and took back the Silmaril, now set in the necklace Nauglamír. Lúthien wore it. After that they are not seen again, and in the end they died, together, beyond the knowledge of the Elves.
The Silmaril went to Dior, then to his daughter Elwing, and finally to Eärendil, who wore it on his brow sailing the sky. It is the star that the Elves call by his name, and that Galadriel captures in the phial she gives Frodo. The quest of Beren and Lúthien reaches all the way to Shelob's lair.
The Names and the Language
Elvish names in the story
| Name | Meaning | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Lúthien | enchantress | The Silmarillion; Tolkien's name notes |
| Tinúviel | daughter of twilight, the nightingale | The Silmarillion, "Of Beren and Lúthien" |
| Beren | bold, brave (Sindarin) | The Silmarillion; Eldamo |
| Erchamion | One-handed | given in The Silmarillion |
| Camlost | Empty-handed | given in The Silmarillion |
| Angband | Iron Prison | The Silmarillion; Eldamo |
| huan | great dog, hound | The Etymologies; Eldamo |
| Taur-nu-Fuin | Forest under Night(shade), the later name of Dorthonion | The Silmarillion; Eldamo |
The hound's name is simply an Elvish word for a great dog. Names like Carcharoth, Tol-in-Gaurhoth and Thuringwethil also have meanings, but where we do not have a checked gloss we leave them without one.
Which language?
Lúthien's people in Doriath spoke Sindarin, and Beren, raised among the Elves of the north, spoke it too. All the names in this table are Sindarin. Quenya, the language of the Noldor, was banned in Doriath by Thingol, which is part of why the whole tale is a Sindarin tale. If you want to start learning the language of Doriath, see the Sindarin Grammar Complete Guide, or write Lúthien in Elvish script with the Tengwar name generator.
Beren and Lúthien in The Lord of the Rings
The story is in the background of The Lord of the Rings in three ways.
- The song on Weathertop. In Book I, chapter 11, Aragorn chants part of the Lay of Leithian in English and tells its story to the hobbits.
- Arwen. Arwen is a descendant of Lúthien and makes the same choice of a mortal life for love of a mortal man. Aragorn first sees Arwen in Rivendell and calls out "Tinúviel", mistaking her for Lúthien; this is told in Appendix A, "The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen". See Arwen Name Meaning.
- The Silmaril in the phial. The light Frodo and Sam carry into Mordor is the light of Eärendil's star, which is the Silmaril Beren and Lúthien took.
In the Films and The Rings of Power
- Peter Jackson's films do not tell the story. Lúthien appears only through brief references connected with Aragorn and Arwen.
- The Rings of Power is set in the Second Age and does not hold the rights to The Silmarillion, so Beren and Lúthien are not part of it.
If you have only seen the films, everything in this guide is new material from the books.
The Many Versions of the Tale
Tolkien wrote this story many times.
- "The Tale of Tinúviel" (1917), the first version, in The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two. In it Beren is an Elf, not a Man, and the villain at the werewolf tower is a monstrous cat, Tevildo, not Sauron.
- "The Lay of Leithian", a long poem in rhyming couplets begun in 1925 and never finished, in The Lays of Beleriand.
- The Silmarillion (1977), the prose version most readers know, edited by Christopher Tolkien from later drafts.
- Beren and Lúthien (2017), Christopher Tolkien's book that sets all these versions side by side.
Why the Story Mattered to Tolkien
In a letter to his son Christopher, published in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Tolkien describes how the tale began. In 1917, in a wood near Roos in Yorkshire, his wife Edith danced for him in a glade of hemlock flowers. That image became Lúthien dancing in Neldoreth.
When Edith died in 1971, Tolkien had Lúthien carved under her name on their gravestone in Wolvercote Cemetery, Oxford. When he died in 1973, Beren was added under his. He wrote that she had been his Lúthien and knew it.
That is why the story is more than a quest. It is about a love strong enough to change fate, and about the price of that change. Lúthien does not win back immortality for Beren. She gives up her own.
People Also Ask
Who are Beren and Lúthien?
Beren is a mortal Man and Lúthien is the Elf-daughter of Thingol and Melian. They fell in love, won a Silmaril from Morgoth together, and Lúthien chose to become mortal to share Beren's fate.
Why did Thingol ask for a Silmaril?
Thingol did not want his daughter to marry a mortal and set a price he thought impossible, meaning it as a death sentence for Beren.
How did Beren lose his hand?
At the gate of Angband the wolf Carcharoth bit off Beren's hand with the Silmaril in it. Beren was called Erchamion, the One-handed, and Camlost, the Empty-handed.
Did Lúthien become mortal?
Yes. After both died, Lúthien sang before Mandos and chose to return to Middle-earth with Beren as a mortal woman.
Related Reading
- Lúthien Name Meaning: "Enchantress" and Tinúviel the Nightingale
- Elves of Middle-earth: Kindreds, Immortality and Languages Explained
- Doriath and the Girdle of Melian: Thingol's Hidden Kingdom Explained
- Fëanor and the Silmarils: The Jewels That Doomed the Elves
- Gondolin: The Hidden City of Turgon, Its Rise and Its Fall
- Arwen Name Meaning: "Noble Maiden" and the Evenstar Undómiel
- Wargs and Wolves of Middle-earth: Wolf-riders, Werewolves and Carcharoth
- Sindarin Grammar Complete Guide — Every Rule with Examples
Learn Elvish free. Beren and Lúthien spoke Sindarin, the Elvish of Doriath. All of Tengwar's Elvish lessons are free with an account. Start learning Elvish.
People Also Ask
Who are Beren and Lúthien?
Beren is a mortal Man of the House of Bëor and Lúthien is the daughter of Thingol, king of Doriath, and Melian the Maia. They fell in love, won a Silmaril from Morgoth's crown together, and Lúthien gave up her immortality to share Beren's mortal fate. Their story is told in The Silmarillion, chapter "Of Beren and Lúthien".
Why did Thingol ask for a Silmaril?
Thingol did not want his daughter to marry a mortal, and he set a price he thought was impossible: one of the Silmarils from the Iron Crown of Morgoth. He meant it as a way to send Beren to his death. Melian warned him that the demand would bring doom on Doriath.
How did Beren lose his hand?
After Beren cut a Silmaril from Morgoth's crown, the great wolf Carcharoth met them at the gate of Angband. Beren held up the jewel and the wolf bit off his hand with the Silmaril in it. From then on Beren was called Erchamion, the One-handed, and Camlost, the Empty-handed.
Did Lúthien become mortal?
Yes. When Beren died, Lúthien died of grief and her spirit went to the Halls of Mandos. She sang before Mandos and was given a choice. She chose to return to Middle-earth with Beren as a mortal woman, and they lived a second life together before dying the death of Men.
Are Beren and Lúthien on Tolkien's grave?
Yes. Tolkien had the name Lúthien engraved under his wife Edith's name on their gravestone in Oxford, and after his death Beren was added under his own. In his letters he wrote that Edith had been his Lúthien.
Where can I read the story of Beren and Lúthien?
The short version is in The Silmarillion. The poem The Lay of Leithian is in The Lays of Beleriand, and the 2017 book Beren and Lúthien, edited by Christopher Tolkien, collects every version from 1917 onward.
