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The journey from The Prancing Pony in Bree, through Weathertop, and on to the elven kingdom of Rivendell is a dark and perilous road. In Peter Jackson’s 2001 film adaptation of the Lord of the Rings, Aragorn leads the four hobbits through the Midgewater Marshes, a damp and foul-smelling place that is likely to darken anyone’s spirits. So Aragorn sets a fire to keep watch, and sings to himself, a beautiful song in elvish words, which Frodo overhears. When asked of whom he sings, Aragorn, who is much older than the hobbits and wants to reassure them, informs his friend "It is the Lay of Luthien, an elf maiden who gave her love to Beren, a mortal man."
So who are Beren and Luthien, and what is it about their story that feels so timelessly familiar? Interestingly, in order to understand these two characters, whose journey happened in the First Age of Middle Earth, around 6,500 years before the events of The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings, the audience need only look to their descendents in the Third Age: Aragorn and Arwen.
Aragorn, who has an unusual history, is a descendent of the line of Beren, who was thought to have been a king, and a staunch defender of the land against the Dark Lord of the time, Morgoth. When he first encounters Arwen, wandering the gardens in Rivendell having just come back from visiting in Lothlorien with her mother’s people, he likens her, as many have, to Luthien, the famed beautiful elf from whom she is in fact descended.
Within the parallels between Arwen and Aragorn’s story, with that of Beren and Luthien, we get a sense of timelessness, as if this is a story that has been repeated countless times across thousands of years. The fact that Aragorn and Arwen are both distant descendants of the lines of Beren and Luthien, shows even more that their love was meant to be. It is more than just the man and the elf maid, it is the reuniting of a noble and powerful bloodline that was split many many years before.
Beren and Luthien’s story, like that of Arwen and Aragorn, is a tale of two lovers who are destined to be torn apart, but ultimately always find their way back to one another. Throughout much of the trilogy, Aragorn is away fighting in the battle of the war of the ring, whilst Arwen is fading away in Rivendell. Although the portrayal of the elves is different in the books and the films, this fading of the Evenstar and her immortality remains consistent in both. The same can be said of Beren and Luthien, who are also kept apart by war and captivity, after Luthien’s father sends Beren on an impossible mission to retrieve a Silmaril from the crown of the evil Morgoth, in order to receive his blessing to wed his daughter.
the theme of being captured and escaping is an important recurrence throughout Middle Earth, as can be seen by Gandalfs torment on the tower of Orthanc, and Eowyn's fear of a cage, and the noble Beren is no exception as he is incarcerated by the dark lord and his assistant Sauron, who later becomes the creator of the One Ring. Luthien, having had a vision of her love, rushes to his rescue, tricking the enemy into a deep sleep with her beautiful voice. She is then able to rescue him from his cell, and they go to the great hall together to cut a Silmaril from Morgoth's crown.
In doing so, they accidentally wake him, and he sets his wolf on the brave hero. Beren sustains a mortal wound as the beast bites off his hand, swallowing the Silmaril with it, and they are rescued by the giant eagles, and returned to safety. Seeing the bravery that Beren has undergone for the love of his daughter, Thingol gave his blessing and allowed them to marry. Beren soon meets a tragic end however in another battle, and Luthien, desperate to save him, gives up her immortality to bring him back to life. They enter their own realm, where the two not-quite-dead, not-quite-alive lovers raise a son and live out the rest of their days there.
This is a similar ending to that of Arwen, who gives up her own immortality to be with Aragorn, the love of her life. They also have a son, who later takes over the throne as the king of Gondor, and live a long life together before passing out of the world when they are ready. It is a tale as old as time, with influence from the likes of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, and even further back to the Medieval Romances of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.
It is this presentation of love surviving in the face of true evil, the idea that "there is some good in the world, and it is worth fighting for" no matter how evil things seem, that makes stories like Beren and Luthien, Arwen and Aragorn, and indeed that of the Lords of The Rings in general, so timelessly relatable, no matter how long ago they were told.