#beren

[lordgrimwing]

Is that Beren in the back?

[arlenianchronicles]

Do you have any Genderbend Beren aka Beril and Luthien eldritch AU stuff? Maybe thats too far stretched since this pairing is rare🥲 Or maybe Beril and Lúthion? (And happy pride month🌸)

I do have some Beril/Luthien content for the AU! Here is a full painting I did of them together; I also have this small sketch:

And here's another one of them having a romantic stroll XD Happy Pride Month everyone!! <333

[melaina-art]

Lúthien and the Hound of Valinor, Huan

[nochd]

This was on @whatareyoureallyafraidof's post where they put up this:

And I responded with this image:

and promised in the tags to elaborate if asked. And, @frodo-the-weeb, I will. But it's going to get long and I'm going to have to split it up into several reblogs.

First of all, since not everybody in the world is a Silmarillion enthusiast, let me explain what we're referring to.

One of the stories in the Silmarillion, and possibly the one Tolkien cared about the most, is the tale of Lúthien and Beren; a highly condensed version of a narrative poem called the Lay of Leithian, which Tolkien began writing in the 1930s and tried to get his publisher interested in after the success of The Hobbit.

(Their readers said no, and they tactfully asked him to focus on his Hobbit sequel instead. "The result," in Tolkien's own words, "was The Lord of the Rings.")

The skeleton of The Lay of Leithian is as follows; I'm intentionally leaving out a bunch of information that weaves it into the overarching story of the Silmarillion but isn't relevant to the thesis I'm advancing here.

Lúthien, an Elven princess and enchantress, falls in love with a mortal man, a ranger called Beren. Her father, the Elven King Thingol, disapproves and sends him Beren off to fetch one of the jewels from the crown of the Dark Lord Morgoth. Lúthien tries to join Beren but her father imprisons her in a tower to stop her, only it's actually a treehouse because they're forest elves. Lúthien magically grows her hair long and uses it to escape. By the time she catches up with Beren he is chained in the dungeons of Morgoth's second-in-command, Thû (whom Tolkien later renamed Sauron). She rescues him with the help only of a dog, who defeats Thû himself in single combat. They then live in the forest together for quite some time, but Beren feels bad about being the reason she can't go home to her family, and still intends to finish his mission and get the jewel. He leaves one morning while she's still asleep, so as not to put her in danger, and then when he's on the threshold of Morgoth's underground fortress in the far North of Middle-Earth she catches up with him again and he accepts that she's not going to be put off. Together they enter Morgoth's fortress and make their way to his throne room. They are in disguise but Morgoth is not fooled and uncovers Lúthien in front of everyone, declaring his intention to make her one of his many slaves. Lúthien offers to sing and dance for him, which is the way she works her magic. She puts everyone in the throne room to sleep, including both Beren and eventually Morgoth. She wakes Beren and he takes the jewel and they flee, but as they get to the outer door they are stopped by Morgoth's guard-wolf, who bites off Beren's hand holding the jewel.

That's as far as Tolkien ever got with the poem, but we have the synopsis in the prose Silmarillion to tell us the rest of the story; again cutting it down to the quick, Thingol accepts Beren as his son-in-law, Morgoth's guard-wolf attacks Doriath, Beren goes and hunts it but is mortally wounded, his spirit goes to the Halls of Waiting in the Undying Lands where the dead in Middle-Earth go, Lúthien also goes there and, again through her magical song, persuades Mandos the god of the dead to let him come back. Mandos offers her a choice: live on immortally as an Elf without Beren, or return to Middle-Earth with Beren but both of them will grow old and die. She chooses the latter.

Tolkien created Lúthien as a portrait of his wife Edith, which makes Beren a picture of himself. We know this for a fact because he had LUTHIEN written on her grave when she died, and when he joined her in it two years later the name BEREN was written for him:

Now on the lower right side of my response image you'll see Pauline Baynes' illustration of the Lady in the Green Kirtle from The Silver Chair, one of C. S. Lewis's Narnia stories. A quick synopsis of the Lady of the Green Kirtle's part in the story:

The Lady is a witch who rules a gloomy kingdom underneath Narnia, accessible through a fissure in the earth in an old ruined city far to the North. Before the story opens she has enspelled and kidnapped King Caspian's son Prince Rilian, whom she intends to send leading an army to conquer Narnia in her name. For twenty-three hours a day he is her willing slave and lap-dog; to maintain the spell, he must be bound to the titular silver chair for the remaining hour, during which he is sane and aware of his imprisonment. The protagonists, Eustace and Jill and their guide Puddleglum, meet her and Rilian unawares on their journey to the North; she sends them astray and almost succeeds in getting them eaten by giants. Eventually they rescue Rilian from the chair, but she sings a magical song which very nearly puts them all to sleep but for Puddleglum's intervention. Foiled, she transforms into a serpent, attacks them, and they kill her.

It is my contention that the Lady in the Green Kirtle is Lewis's caricature of Lúthien, with the enslaved and befuddled Prince Rilian representing Beren; and further, that Lewis knew or recognised that Lúthien and Beren were a literary portrait of the Tolkiens, so that The Silver Chair is ultimately a nasty commentary on their marriage.

In forthcoming reblogs I will lay out my evidence for this thesis.

[morphmaker]

i rewatched the lotr films. wondering if arwen felt any pressure for the first 2700 years of her life

[chechula]

Last one(?) of my super late Inktobers! Lúthien dancing among hemlocks....which is quitte strange looking and poisonious plant. Hemlock's czech name is "Bolehlav" which means "Headache". This adds really weird vibe to Aragorn's poem :D

[silme-lorien]

headcanon that small talk literally does not exist for elves. they just tell the truth and speak their minds at all times- no “how are you” or “the weather is really nice today” just straight into “oh yes my fifteenth cousin was murdered brutally in battle”. (this is difficult for boromir because he’s traumatized by every conversation he has with legolas) (aragorn is so used to it that he does it too) (beren is unsettled by luthien for the first couple months until he just learns to appreciate the deadpan lore drops)

[figbythistle]

It is told in the Lay of Leithian that Beren came stumbling into Doriath grey and bowed as with many years of woe, so great had been the torment of the road. But wandering in the summer in the woods of Neldoreth he came upon Lúthien, daughter of Thingol and Melian, at a time of evening under moonrise, as she danced upon the unfading grass in the glades beside Esgalduin. Then all memory of his pain departed from him, and he fell into an enchantment; for Lúthien was the most beautiful of all the Children of Ilúvatar.

Painting based on "Deer in a forest landscape" by Gustave Doré

[elena-kukanova]

In the meantime, a whole plot bundle has come together

Fen of Serech

[rinthecap]

TINÚVIELLLLL!!!!!!

(i can't help myself 😓😓)

[whatareyoureallyafraidof]

[wanderer-clarisse]

been thinking about Beren and Lúthien ballet adaptation again...

[arlenianchronicles]

Just a little sketch of Beren and Luthien sharing a hidden kiss! I wasn't sure what to do for the background so I just gave up on it loll But I still love these two very much :'''D

Also, I've been posting my "not appropriate for eyeballs" Beren/Luthien art on AO3, so if y'all are interested, feel free to check it out! It includes a bunch of melons, peaches, and a side helping of eggplants; and it's my first foray into the super spicy art stuff, so I appreciate the support! loll ^^;;

[tripadvisor-said-fivestar-mordor]

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t remember in the Silmarillion or the Lord of the Rings any characters who fell out of love (like mutual love not unrequited crushes (and unless death (or presumed death) separated them)). Arwen and Aragorn remained together till death did them part, and so did Beren and Lúthien. Elrond never replaced Celebrían, Celeborn followed Galadriel wherever she went, Eärendil chose immortality and remained by Elwing’s side, Idril stayed with Tuor, I’m not talking about Nimrodel and Amroth, and Gorlim betrayed everyone for Eilinel.

I just feel like that says a lot about Tolkien’s view on love / Edith

[thelien-art]

December; the 15th

Advent Game: Lúthien x Beren

Where is Beren´s hat?

Join the Advent and Yule calendar to win a drawing - rules here and all the other drawings here

[addicted-to-12th-intro]

got thrown back into the silmarillion fixation due to a convergence of factors. immediately made this worst thing

art credit: x | x | x | x