John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa in 1892 and raised in England after his mother brought him home at age three. Orphaned before he was thirteen — his mother died a devout Catholic convert — Tolkien went on to study Old and Middle English, Germanic languages, Welsh, and Finnish at Oxford. He graduated in 1915, married Edith Bratt before shipping out to the Western Front, and fought in the Battle of the Somme. Nearly all of his closest friends were killed. He contrac...
The Lays of Beleriand
The Lays of Beleriand
Synopsis
Volume Three of the History of Middle-earth presents the great narrative poems of the First Age: the Lay of Leithian, a lengthy alliterative poem telling the story of Beren and Lúthien's quest for a Silmaril, and the unfinished Lay of the Children of Húrin. Tolkien drafted these in the 1920s and 1930s, drawing on Old English and Norse poetic forms, and they represent his most sustained attempt to render the mythology of Middle-earth in verse rather than prose. Christopher Tolkien's editorial commentary traces how the stories evolved between these poem-drafts and their final prose forms in The Silmarillion.
Vibe
Genres
Characters
BerenProtagonist
The mortal hero of the Lay of Leithian, here presented in Tolkien's most extended verse treatment of his quest to steal a Silmaril.
MorgothAntagonist
The supreme Dark Lord in whose iron crown the Silmaril rests; the quest's ultimate and seemingly insurmountable obstacle.
LúthienSupporting
The immortal Elven maiden whose love and courage match and exceed Beren's throughout the lay.
Túrin TurambarSupporting
The subject of the second poem, the Lay of the Children of Húrin, which presents his tragedy in alliterative verse.
Subjects
Places
Edition
The lays of BeleriandUnknown, 1985
393 pages
G. Allen & UnwinLanguage: EnglishISBN: 97800482327795 editions available
