Lúthien

Birth and nature

Lúthien was the only child of Thingol, King of Doriath, and of Melian, a Maia who had come into Middle-earth in the Years of the Trees and taken the form of one of the Eldar. She was born in the forest of Neldoreth while the stars alone lit Beleriand, and she carried in her something of both kindreds: the beauty and long life of the Elves, and from her mother a power of enchantment, song and foresight that no Elf otherwise possessed. She was dark-haired and grey-eyed, and her singing was said to loosen the grip of winter. In Menegroth the minstrel Daeron loved her and played while she danced, but she did not return his love. The lay of her life, the Lay of Leithian, was accounted the longest and most beloved of all Elvish songs.

Beren

In F.A. 464 Beren, the last survivor of the outlaws of Dorthonion, came through the Girdle of Melian, which no other mortal had passed, and saw Lúthien dancing under the moon in Neldoreth. He named her Tinúviel, nightingale, and after a long year of watching they met and she loved him. Daeron betrayed them to the king. Thingol, bound by oath not to kill Beren, demanded a Silmaril from the crown of Morgoth as the price of his daughter, and Beren went out alone to seek it. When she learned that Beren had been taken by Sauron in Tol Sirion, Lúthien resolved to follow. Her father shut her in a tree-house in the great beech Hírilorn; she grew her hair to a great length by enchantment, wove of it a cloak of shadow and sleep, and climbed down and went away out of Doriath.

Huan and the fall of Sauron

Beyond the Girdle she was caught by Celegorm and Curufin, who were hunting on the borders of Doriath, and carried to Nargothrond, where Celegorm meant to keep her and force Thingol into a marriage. But the great hound Huan, who had been given to Celegorm by Oromë, loved her and turned against his master. He set her free, and speaking for one of the three times allowed to him in his life, he took her to Sauron's isle. There she sang on the bridge and Sauron sent his wolves against her, and Huan slew them one after another, until Sauron came as a wolf himself. Huan seized him by the throat, and Lúthien demanded the mastery of the tower as the price of his life. Sauron fled as a vampire to Taur-nu-Fuin, and the isle fell open. Lúthien found Beren beside the body of Finrod, who had died to save him.

Angband

Beren would have sent her home, but she would not be parted from him, and Huan brought them the skin of the werewolf Draugluin and the bat-fell of Thuringwethil. So disguised they crossed Anfauglith and came to the gate of Angband, where the great wolf Carcharoth sat on watch. Lúthien cast off her disguise and bound him with sleep, and they went down into Morgoth's hall. There Morgoth stripped away her cloak and looked on her, and she offered to sing for him. Her song and the shadow she wove laid every creature in the hall in slumber, and at last the Iron Crown drooped and Morgoth himself fell from his throne. Beren cut a Silmaril from the crown with the knife Angrist, and when he tried for a second the blade broke. At the gate Carcharoth woke and bit off Beren's hand, and the Silmaril within it; the jewel burned him from inside and he ran mad into the world. The Eagles of Thorondor bore the pair away, and Lúthien healed Beren of the wolf's poison.

The wolf, and Mandos

They returned to Doriath, and Thingol, seeing what his demand had cost, relented; Beren's hand held the Silmaril, he said, even if it was in the belly of a wolf. Carcharoth broke through the Girdle, and Thingol, Beren, Mablung, Beleg and Huan hunted him. Both the hound and Beren were mortally wounded before the wolf was killed, and Mablung cut the Silmaril from him. Beren died in Lúthien's arms, asking her to wait for him beyond the Sea; and Lúthien, grieving, let her own spirit go. In the halls of Mandos she sang before the Doomsman of the Valar a song of the twin sorrows of Elves and Men, and he was moved to pity for the only time. Two choices were laid before her: to dwell in Valinor forgetting her griefs, or to return to Middle-earth with Beren and share the death of Men. She chose the second, and so alone among the Elves she passed out of the world for ever.

Tol Galen and the second death

Beren and Lúthien returned and lived on the green isle of Tol Galen in the river Adurant in Ossiriand, and there their son Dior was born. They did not enter Doriath again, and the Elves called the land where they dwelt the land of the Dead that Live. After Thingol's murder and the sack of Menegroth, Beren waylaid the returning Dwarves of Nogrod at Sarn Athrad and recovered the Nauglamír with the Silmaril in it, and Lúthien wore the jewel. It is said that her beauty with the Silmaril was such as no eye ever looked on again, and that its power hastened her end. No one saw Beren and Lúthien die; a messenger came to Dior one autumn night bearing the necklace, and he knew that his parents had gone beyond the world.

Legacy

Lúthien was the only Elf who truly died and left Arda, and the only one who ever brought a Silmaril out of Morgoth's fortress. From her and Beren descended Dior, Elwing, Elrond and Elros, the kings of Númenor, and at the end of the Third Age both Arwen, who was said to resemble her, and Aragorn, who sang of her on Weathertop. Her choice became the pattern for Arwen's own, and the Silmaril she wore became the star of Eärendil.

Died of grief after Beren's death, returned from Mandos as a mortal, and died a second and final time on Tol Galen; alone among the Elves she left the world for ever.