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twenty years from the original Tale of Tinúviel. After initial hesitation Beren, whose father
was at first Egnor the Forester, of the Elvish people called the Noldoli, translated into
English as ‘Gnomes’, has become the son of Barahir, a chieftain of Men, and the leader of a
band of rebels in hiding against the hateful tyranny of Morgoth. The memorable story has
emerged (in 1925, in The Lay of Leithian) of the treachery of Gorlim and the slaying of
Barahir (pp. 94 ff.); and while Vëannë who told the ‘lost tale’ knew nothing of what had
brought Beren to Artanor, and surmised that it was a simple love of wandering (p. 41), he
has become after the death of his father a far-famed enemy of Morgoth forced to flee to the
South, where he opens the story of Beren and Tinúviel as he peers in the twilight through the
trees of Thingol’s forest.
Very remarkable is the story, as it was told in The Tale of Tinúviel, of the captivity of
Beren, on his journey to Angband in quest of a Silmaril, by Tevildo Prince of Cats; so too is
the total subsequent transformation of that story. But if we say that the castle of the cats ‘is’
the tower of Sauron on Tol-in-Gaurhoth ‘Isle of Werewolves’ it can only be, as I have
remarked elsewhere, in the sense that it occupies the same ‘space’ in the narrative. Beyond
this there is no point in seeking even shadowy resemblances between the two establishments.
The monstrous gormandising cats, their kitchens and their sunning terraces, and their
engagingly Elvish-feline names, Miaugion, Miaulë, Meoita, have all vanished without trace.
But beyond their hatred of dogs (and the importance to the story of the mutual loathing of
Huan and Tevildo) it is evident that the inhabitants of the castle are no ordinary cats: very
notable is this passage from the Tale (p. 69) concerning ‘the secret of the cats and the spell
that Melko had entrusted to [Tevildo]’:
and those were words of magic whereby the stones of his evil house were held together, and whereby
he held all beasts of the catfolk under his sway, filling them with an evil power beyond their nature;
for long has it been said that Tevildo was an evil fay in beastlike shape.
It is also interesting to observe in this passage, as elsewhere, the manner in which aspects
and incidents of the original tale may reappear but in a wholly different guise, arising from a
wholly altered narrative conception. In the old Tale Tevildo was forced by Huan to reveal
the spell, and when Tinúviel uttered it ‘the house of Tevildo shook; and there came
therefrom a host of indwellers’ (which was a host of cats). In the Quenta Noldorinwa (p.
135) when Huan overthrew the terrible werewolf-wizard Thû, the Necromancer, in Tol-in-
Gaurhoth he ‘won from him the keys and the spells that held together his enchanted walls and
towers. So the stronghold was broken and the towers thrown down and the dungeons opened.
Many captives were released . . .’
But here we move into the major shift in the story of Beren and Lúthien, when it was
combined with the altogether distinct legend of Nargothrond. Through the oath of undying
friendship and aid sworn to Barahir, the father of Beren, Felagund the founder of
Nargothrond was drawn into Beren’s quest of the Silmaril (p. 117, lines 157 ff.); and there
entered the story of the Elves from Nargothrond who disguised as Orcs were taken by Thû
and ended their days in the gruesome dungeons of Tol-in-Gaurhoth. The quest of the Silmaril
involved also Celegorm and Curufin, sons of Fëanor and a powerful presence in
Nargothrond, through the destructive oath sworn by the Fëanorians of vengeance against any