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aspect of those editions was the presentation of the texts in a way that adequately displayed my
father’s apparently eccentric mode of composition (often in fact imposed by external pressures), and
so to discover the sequence of stages in the development of a narrative, and to justify my
interpretation of the evidence.
At the same time, the First Age in The History of Middle-earth was in those books conceived as a
history in two senses. It was indeed a history—a chronicle of lives and events in Middle-earth; but it
was also a history of the changing literary conceptions in the passing years; and therefore the story of
Beren and Lúthien is spread over many years and several books. Moreover, since that story became
entangled with the slowly evolving ‘Silmarillion’, and ultimately an essential part of it, its
developments are recorded in successive manuscripts primarily concerned with the whole history of
the Elder Days.
To follow the story of Beren and Lúthien, as a single and well-defined narrative, in The History of
Middle-earth is therefore not easy.
In an often quoted letter of 1951 my father called it ‘the chief of the stories of the Silmarillion’, and
he said of Beren that he is ‘the outlawed mortal who succeeds (with the help of Lúthien, a mere
maiden even if an elf of royalty) where all the armies and warriors have failed: he penetrates the
stronghold of the Enemy and wrests one of the Silmarilli from the Iron Crown. Thus he wins the hand
of Lúthien and the first marriage of mortal and immortal is achieved.
‘As such the story is (I think a beautiful and powerful) heroic-fairy-romance, receivable in itself
with only a very general vague knowledge of the background. But it is also a fundamental link in the
cycle, deprived of its full significance out of its place therein.’
In the second place, my purpose in this book is twofold. On the one hand I have tried to separate
the story of Beren and Tinúviel (Lúthien) so that it stands alone, so far as that can be done (in my
opinion) without distortion. On the other hand, I have wished to show how this fundamental story
evolved over the years. In my foreword to the first volume of The Book of Lost Tales I said of the
changes in the stories:
In the history of the history of Middle-earth the development was seldom by outright
rejection—far more often it was by subtle transformation in stages, so that the growth of the
legends (the process, for instance, by which the Nargothrond story made contact with that of
Beren and Lúthien, a contact not even hinted at in the Lost Tales, though both elements were
present) can seem like the growth of legends among peoples, the product of many minds and
generations.
It is an essential feature of this book that these developments in the legend of Beren and Lúthien are
shown in my father’s own words, for the method that I have employed is the extraction of passages
from much longer manuscripts in prose or verse written over many years.
In this way, also, there are brought to light passages of close description or dramatic immediacy
that are lost in the summary, condensed manner characteristic of so much Silmarillion narrative
writing; there are even to be discovered elements in the story that were later altogether lost. Thus, for
example, the cross-examination of Beren and Felagund and their companions, disguised as Orcs, by
Thû the Necromancer (the first appearance of Sauron), or the entry into the story of the appalling
Tevildo, Prince of Cats, who clearly deserves to be remembered, short as was his literary life.