Hold onto your hats, Tolkien fans, and sit down for your second breakfast to celebrate! A new J.R.R. Tolkien story, published last week, was recently uncovered! It’s called: The Tale of Beren and Lúthien. This new tale is set in Tolkien’s wonderful Middle-Earth universe and adds even more to the lore any Lord of the Rings fan adores.
Tolkien wrote The Tale of Beren and Lúthien in 1917. This prequel story takes place several thousand years before the events of The Lord of the Rings. The story tells the tale of Beren and Lúthien, two distant ancestors of Aragorn and Arwen. Beren is a mortal man, and Lúthien is an immortal elf. The story tells the tale of their shared romance and adventures.
Argorn metions Lúthien in an Elven song sung in an extended cut of The Fellowship of the Ring. According to TheWrap, the tale is a “deeply personal” one, following Tolkien‘s traumatic experience during the Battle of the Somme, and took to writing the tale after returning from World War I. Tolkien took to writing as a form of healing. He wrote the story as an expression of love for his wife, Edith. They even had the names ‘Beren’ and ‘Lúthien’ etched on their gravestones.
Here is the full description: (via GeekyTyrant):
“The tale of Beren and Lúthien was, or became, an essential element in the evolution of The Silmarillion, the myths and legends of the First Age of the World conceived by J.R.R. Tolkien. Returning from France and the battle of the Somme at the end of 1916, he wrote the tale the following year.
Essential 
to the story, and never changed, is the fate that shadowed the love of Beren and Lúthien: for Beren was a mortal man, but Lúthien was an immortal elf. Her father, a great elvish lord, in deep opposition to Beren, imposed on him an impossible task that he must perform before he might wed Lúthien. This is the kernel of the legend; and it leads to the supremely heroic attempt of Beren and Lúthien together to rob the greatest of all evil beings, Melkor (called Morgoth the Black Enemy) of a Silmaril.
Christopher Tolkien attempted to extract the story of Beren and Lúthien from the comprehensive work in which it was embedded. But that story was itself changing as it developed new associations within the larger history. He has told the story in his father’s own words by giving, first, its original form, and then passages in prose and verse from later texts that illustrate the narrative as it changed. They reveal aspects of the story, both in event and in narrative immediacy, that were afterwards lost.
Published on the tenth anniversary of the last Middle-Earth book, the international bestseller The Children of Húrin, this new volume will similarly include drawings and color plates by Alan Lee, who also illustrated The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and went on to win Academy Awards for his work on The Lord of the Rings film trilogy.”
Tolkien‘s son, Christopher Tolkien, now published the story one hundred years after its creation. Exciting for any Middle-Earth fan!
The Tale of Beren and Lúthien is available now.
I know I’m going to be picking up my copy at my first chance! Have you picked up your copy yet? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
Doing a little of this, a little of that. If you see me holding a camera, run!
