The first of three episodes on The Silmarillion Chapter 19, “Of Beren and Lúthien.” The fugitive son of Barahir comes to Doriath and has a fateful meeting with the daughter of Thingol. Unimpressed with Lúthien’s new boyfriend, Thingol sends Beren on an impossible quest to win her hand. We discuss the personal significance of the story Tolkien called “the kernel of the mythology” and compare excerpts from the epic poem The Lay of Leithian. Plus, what do Thingol and Archie Bunker have in common?
Recommended Reading:
Tolkien, J. R. R. The Silmarillion (Mariner Books, paperback) pp. 162-170, “Of Beren and Lúthien”
Tolkien, J. R. R. (Christopher Tolkien, ed.) Beren and Lúthien (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, hardcover)
Just got the chance to start listening to this episode today. Tolkien’s use of the nightingale and the lark in this chapter is remarkable, but that’s part of the wonder of Luthien: She brings together the morning and the evening. And your mention of the lark in R&J was spot on. But here’s the thing. The lark is not a bird that lovers want to hear. It’s pretty much the last one they want to hear in fact, since it usually means they must part because the day has come. Yet here it is the song of the lark at morning that brings the lovers together.
(By the way, I believe Thingol did not call Beren ‘Meat-head’ only because he did not want to confuse him with Celeborn.)
I’m wavering between commenting on the deep insight about the lark and your Celeborn/Meat-head crack. Yeah, I’m leaning towards that one. 🙂
You make great play with the apparent silliness of the character of Tevildo, but you seem to have overlooked a whole area of potential inspirations for Tolkien here. Tevildo is far more than mere whimsy.
Tolkien’s Tevildo, Prince of Cats, like Shakespeare’s Tybalt, with the same appellation, both make play with the similarly named character from the cycle of animal fables, Reynard the Fox. Why would Tolkien seek to incorporate these fables into his mythology, and why would he abandon the attempt? Recall that as a philologist Tolkien took an approach to mythology and his legendarium which he had always taken to language. As Tom Shippy might have put it, he is seeking the *-version of stories. If the legendarium is to be the *-version of what would become the myths of the north, then it needs to be able to incorporate any such elements.
Why would Tolkien then abandon this element? I have seen no textual commentary on this so we’re into the realms of speculation. Firstly, we have the “my crest has long since fallen”, idea: perhaps Tolkien no longer sees the importance of incorporating every element found throughout European folklore! Secondly, he may, like us, have seen the tonal inconsistencies. Thirdly, he was likely to have felt able to excuse the omission of this element from his *-reality on the basis that the fables may have their roots as late the 9th century. This could mean that the myths could be dismissed as a later invention rather than something that necessarily must have emerged from his ‘true’, *-world of elves and Valar from which, in his central conceit, our myths are required to derive.