#Lay of Leithian

[thelien-art]

Lúthien Tinúviel

"-for Lúthien was the most beautiful of all the Children of Ilúvatar. Blue was her raiment as the unclouded heaven, but her eyes were grey as the starlit evening; her mantle was sewn with golden flowers, but her hair was dark as the shadows of twilight."

The Silmarillion - J.R.R. Tolkien

[elena-kukanova]

In the meantime, a whole plot bundle has come together

Fen of Serech

[thetiredprometheus]

Celegorm and Curufin explaining the Luthien situation to Maedhros

[tanoraqui]

my real Leithian hot take is that Thingol did not mean it. He did not value his daughter at 1 Silmaril - he did not "value" his daughter like a thing to be paid for, ever. He did not mean to set her would-be-betrothed a politically fraught and inevitably deadly task, or even a Legendary Impossible Task. He did mean to tell Beren to fuck off and never darken their treestep again, but he said, "Bring to me in your hand a Silmaril from Morgoth’s crown; and then, if she will, Lúthien may set her hand in yours." the same way you or I would sarcastically say, "I'll do that when Hell freezes over" - and the great and terrible harmony of the Music of Ëa itself rose to back his words, in a chorus that would echo throughout Arda and reprise until the very End of Days, and every since person in the room with the faintest Song-sense went, oh fuck; except Beren, who, being a Man, had only the very faintest Song-sense anyway, just went, "Bet."

(This didn't entirely help Thingol's case in his daughter's eyes, because he very much had intended for Beren to fuck off and die, albeit only in the way that Men always do and Lúthien, in her father's eyes, was never supposed to; and when it was clear that this was now a Legendary Impossible Task, he very much did have her locked in a treehouse rather than let her go help her lover. He still made some Choices. But he didn't start All Of That; That just happened.)

[verecunda]

If Sauron was hanging about Eregion for about four hundred years, then I'm assuming he didn't spend the whole time cooped up in the smithies, but also had to maintain his Friendly Neighbourhood Emissary of the Valar persona by mingling with the populace, taking part in their social calendar, attending their festivals, feasts, hunts, etc.

As one of the great tales, the Lay of Leithian must be a particularly popular subject for Elvish art, whether in song, poetry, maybe even in theatrical performance, and I find it impossible to believe that Sauron could have avoided hearing or seeing some rendition of it during his time among the Elves. And sure, maybe the bits with Finrod and Gorlim would occasion him a private chuckle, but the rest of it... well, he really doesn't appear to advantage!

Let's just say, if you were in the audience at such a performance - say, oh, the bit where Lúthien and Huan rescue Beren from the Isle of Werewolves - just say you were able to tear your attention from the drama on stage for just a second and happened to look around, you might be somewhat surprised to catch a glimpse of Lord Annatar sitting bolt upright in his seat, wearing a decidedly fixed smile, one hand rubbing unconsciously at his throat...

[serene-faerie]

Was thinking about Celebrimbor and Lúthien's friendship again

And then I had this thought

Sometime in the Second Age, Celebrimbor is telling Annatar all about how he was once friends with Lúthien Tinúviel. He helped her escape from Nargothrond, and turned against his uncle and father after that. He speaks of Lúthien so fondly, wishing that he could've seen her again before she died.

Meanwhile, Annatar's just having a 'Nam flashback to the time when Lúthien and Huan completely kicked his ass and took Tol-in-Gaurhoth from him, but he's desperately trying to hide it behind the most tense smile he's ever had on his face.

And Celebrimbor is just completely oblivious to his discomfort lmao

[sometimesartmostlychaos]

I made this concept art recently for the outfits of Thuringwethil, the vampire and messenger servant of Sauron in the Silmarillion! They were for a little presentation I gave at the Hern Ennorath (Australian Tolkien fan club) zoom meeting, just about my plans for cosplaying her again! Hope you like these 🥰🦇🖤

[kitty--white]

Sauron: Who the fuck are you?

Finrod (philosophically): Who the fuck are any of us?

[velvet4510]

Please never forget the huge number of people who Lúthien Tinúviel saved.

Of course, her getting the Silmaril eventually allowed Elwing and Eärendil to bring salvation to all of Middle-earth years later; we all know that. But that’s not what I’m referring to.

Never think that Beren was the only person saved by Lúthien’s direct actions during her lifetime. An entire tower full of Sauron’s captives in Tol-in-Gaurhoth were saved and set free when she took control of the island.

She didn’t just grab her boyfriend and run. She tore open all of the dungeons and enabled dozens, if not hundreds, of people to escape with their lives. If it weren’t for her, all of those prisoners would’ve died in torment.

Lúthien is far more than a devoted girlfriend; she’s a true hero of Middle-earth who single-handedly saved at least a dozen lives!!!

[thelien-art]

December; the 15th

Advent Game: Lúthien x Beren

Where is Beren´s hat?

Join the Advent and Yule calendar to win a drawing - rules here and all the other drawings here

[warrioreowynofrohan]

Character Analysis – Huan

I was thinking about why Huan leaves Celegorm when he does, and it’s clearly not just “he likes Lúthien better.”

The first question to answer is, why does it happen during the Leithian and not during or after Alqualondë? And while the Doylist (out-of-universe) reason for that is provably that Tolkien thought up the character of Huan specifically for the Leithian and didn’t think much about his role in the story before then, I think there’s a decent Watsonian (in-universe) one as well. Huan is a dog; an intelligent dog, yes, but a dog. He thinks like a dog, and he has the political understanding of a dog, which is to say: not much. If he wasn’t involved in the fighting at Alqualondë himself – and there’s no textual reason to think he was – I don’t think he would have had much understanding of what was going on beyond “people are fighting”.

But in Nargothrond Lúthien is talking to him, and she’s saying, “Someone that I love and am devoted to is in terrible danger from Sauron and his werewolves, and Celegorm is holding me prisoner and won’t let me help him”. That is something a dog can understand. And Celegorm understands the speech of animals – Huan can talk to Celegorm without needing elven or hunan language – but Celegorm isn’t listening. So Huan decides that Celegorm is doing sonething wrong, and that he’s going to help Lúthien rescue Beren.

And then, this is crucial, Huan goes back. He goes back to Celegorm, despite Celegorm being mad as hell at him for helping Lúthien escape. If he was just leaving because he liked Lúthien better, he wouldn’t have done that; he could have just gone with her and Beren then. He is actively choosing to renain loyal.

My understanding of Huan’s decision there is that he’s going to continue as he’s started: he’s going to be loyal to Celegorm and follow him, but if Celegorm tries to do things that Huan cannot morally countenance, Huan will try to stop him, and accept the consequences if Celegorm is angry at him for that.

So now let’s go to Celegorm and Curufin’s final attack on Beren and Lúthien. What changes then? The argument I’ve seen is, ‘But why at that precise moment? Celegorm wasn’t even doing anything particularly problematic compared to his other actions at the moment Huan changed sides! He was just trying to stop Beren from strangling Curufin!’

So, walking through what happens. Everything is happening extremely fast at the beginning – this isn’t an isolated sequence of events. Celegorm and Curufin see Beren and Lúthien walking unawares; they suddenly spur their horses at them, Celegorm comes at Beren with a spear while Curufin grabs Lúthien, and right when Celegorm’s about to spear Beren, Beren makes a jump and tackles Curufin off his horse. Huan doesn’t know what Celegorm and Curufin are doing until they do it, and there’s about a second between that and Beren tackling Curufin off his horse.

And what’s changed now is that Huan’s previous choice of action is no longer possible. He can’t just choose to oppose specific actions. Working for or with Celegorm means being complicit in good peoples’ deaths; there’s no opt-out, nobody-gets-hurt option. If Huan does nothing, Beren dies, in a fight that was caused by Celegorm and Curufin attacking two unarmed people at unawares.

And that’s when Huan changes sides. Not because he’s just decided he likes Beren and Lúthien better than Celegorm (he clearly likes them, but he stayed with Celegorm all the same after Tol-in-Gaurhoth), but because Celegorm has become someone who cannot be served innocently. The options are to let Celegorm kill people, or to stop serving him.

And crucially, this does not lead to Curufin dying – because Lúthien asks Beren to spare him, and Beren listens to her. Because Lúthien and Beren are good people whose character can be relied on, and heling them doesn’t mean people die – not even their enemies. If that hadn’t happened, I don’t think Huan would have stayed with them, even if he had still left Celegorm.

A lot of the story of the Fëanoreans and their followers can be fit into a framework of the question “At what point does loyalty become immoral?” It’s evoked in Maedhros defying Fëanor at Losgar; in some of the Fëanorean forces changing sides at Sirion and dying in defence of their victims; in the final conversation between Maedhros and Maglor. Loyalty to your father, to your liegelords, to your brother; and loyalty of a dog to his master.

[aotearoa20]

Beren: Don't kill me, I have a wife!

Sauron: You think I care about that?

Beren: Huh? Oh no no no, this isn't a plea for mercy. It's a warning.

Sauron: Wha-

Lúthien: (busting in with a dog and a can-do attitude) ARE YOU READY TO DIE?!

[hamletphase]

Luthien Confronts Melkor

[quixoticanarchy]

Just realizing it’s kind of strange how the published Silmarillion leaves out Sauron actually finding out Beren and Finrod’s names. Like I’ve seen posts wondering when Sauron might find out and what if it’s not til the Third Age, but in the poetic Lay of Leithian he finds out in Tol-in-Gaurhoth because Finrod and Beren use each other’s real names and he overhears them. It’s already funny that the Nereb-and-Dungalef tactic works on Sauron but even funnier that it finally fails not because Sauron figures it out but because they give themselves away

And moreover, Sauron knowing Finrod’s identity is key to Finrod’s whole death: Sauron’s reaction to learning their names is to say the outlaw mortal’s life is worthless and he can die now, but Finrod will be kept and tortured long beyond what a Man could endure, until Sauron learns the secret of their errand. He also threatens to ransom Finrod back to Nargothrond if his people care enough about him – or suggests perhaps Celegorm will just keep the treasure and not bother. The published Silmarillion just says “…Sauron purposed to keep Felagund to the last, for he perceived that he was a Noldo of great might and wisdom, and he deemed that in him lay the secret of their errand.”

Whereas the poetic Lay has:

“’’Twere little loss if he were dead, the outlaw mortal. But the king, the Elf undying, many a thing no man could suffer may endure. Perchance, when what these walls immure of dreadful anguish thy folk learn, their king to ransom they will yearn with gold and gem and high hearts cowed; or maybe Celegorm the proud will deem a rival’s prison cheap, and crown and gold himself will keep. Perchance, the errand I shall know, ere all is done, that ye did go.’”

And it’s right after this that he sends the wolf to kill Beren. So Finrod essentially is not just keeping his oath to protect Beren but also responding to this threat he’s just received that Beren will be killed and he himself will be tortured to death afterwards. And the irony of course is Sauron could get the secret of their mission from either Finrod or Beren, and it’s Beren, who he wants to kill immediately (and who in the poetic version even says at one point that he’s willing to confess everything to try to trade for Finrod’s life), that the secret actually most matters to. But Sauron immediately discounts the mortal in favor of torturing the elf. Finrod has no stake in completing the Silmaril quest once Beren is dead so it’s a moot point by the time Sauron would discover it. But in dying, he denies Sauron the satisfaction of torturing him and the indignity of ransoming/failing to ransom him. And Beren, whose errand it is, stays alive a little longer. Finrod’s death protects Beren but critically it also denies Sauron what he wants - especially if he thinks only Finrod knew the secret he wants - and avoids a Maedhros-esque fate for himself.

[sewn-with-lilies-fair]

Lay of Leithian: The Rock Opera

Subtitled Livestream- 9 November, 2024

Two different fates are woven together when Lúthien, an elven princess, falls in love with Beren, a hero of mortal men. To win her hand, Beren is sent on an impossible quest- to cut a legendary gem from the crown of the Dark Lord. So begins this battle between light and darkness, love and duty, in the most enduring tale of Tolkien’s Middle Earth.

Want to experience a new Tolkien adaptation? Our little Leithian fandom would like to invite you to one of our livestreams! Come join myself and some other fun Silmarillion fans as we watch this Tolkien rock opera together.

Where: Cytube (video stream) / Discord (live chat) Links will be reblogged here, 1 hour before the stream. When: Sunday, 9th November, 9am PST / 12pm EST / 18:00 CET Run Time: 1hr, 35m, with a 15 minute intermission Performance Details: June 2024 recording in 4K Language: Russian / Subtitles: English* *Subtitles are an uncorrected draft; they may contain slight timing errors or performance/script inconsistencies that should not detract from the stream. Note: This recording contains flashing lights. Additional Material: • Lay of Leithian translation • Links and resources

See you soon! 🤘

[serene-faerie]

You’ve heard of the whole “Saint Sebastianification of Celebrimbor” in Elven paintings

But I bet that the meeting of Beren and Lúthien was also a popular subject for horny Elven painters

On one hand, you’ve got paintings that have Beren in full armor and Lúthien in a blue gown, the both of them chastely holding hands in a meadow of hemlock and niphredil

On the other hand, there are paintings of a shirtless Beren embracing a blushing Lúthien, who is dressed in some translucent gown, her hair woven with flowers, her lips only inches away from Beren’s lips

I’m just saying, “The Meeting of Beren and Lúthien” has potential for a lot of unintentionally horny paintings among the Elves