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THE NARRATIVE IN THE LAY OF LEITHIAN TO ITS
TERMINATION
This substantial portion of the poem takes up from the last line of Canto VII in The Lay of
Leithian (‘But none would yield, and none would tell’, p. 132), and the opening of Canto
VIII corresponds to the very compressed account in the Quenta (p. 133) of the confinement
of Lúthien in Nargothrond, imposed on her by Celegorm and Curufin and from which she
was rescued by Huan, whose origin is told. A line of asterisks in the text of the Lay marks
the start of a further Canto; Canto IX at line 329; Canto X at line 619; Canto XI at line 1009;
Canto XII at line 1301; Canto XIII at line 1603; and Canto XIV, the last, at line 1939.
Hounds there were in Valinor
with silver collars. Hart and boar,
the fox and hare and nimble roe
there in the forests green did go.
Oromë was the lord divine
of all those woods. The potent wine
went in his halls and hunting song.
The Gnomes anew have named him long
Tavros, the God whose horns did blow
over the mountains long ago;
who alone of Gods had loved the world
before the banners were unfurled
of Moon and Sun; and shod with gold
were his great horses. Hounds untold
baying in woods beyond the West
of race immortal he possessed:
grey and limber, black and strong
white with silken coats and long,
brown and brindled, swift and true
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