J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, was an English writer, poet and academic, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion. He served as the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and Fellow of Pembroke College, from 1925 to 1945 and Merton Professor of English Language and Literature and Fellow of Merton College, from 1945 to 1959, he was at one time a close friend of C. S. Lewis—they were both members of the informal literary discussion group known as the Inklings. Tolkien was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II on 28 March 1972. After Tolkien's death, his son Christopher published a series of works based on his father's extensive notes and unpublished manuscripts, including The Silmarillion. These, together with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, form a connected body of tales, fictional histories, invented languages, literary essays about a fantasy world called Arda and Middle-earth within it.
Between 1951 and 1955, Tolkien applied the term legendarium to the larger part of these writings. While many other authors had published works of fantasy before Tolkien, the great success of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings led directly to a popular resurgence of the genre; this has caused Tolkien to be popularly identified as the "father" of modern fantasy literature—or, more of high fantasy. In 2008, The Times ranked him sixth on a list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". Forbes ranked him the 5th top-earning "dead celebrity" in 2009. Tolkien's immediate paternal ancestors were middle-class craftsmen who made and sold clocks and pianos in London and Birmingham; the Tolkien family originated in the East Prussian town Kreuzburg near Königsberg, where his first known paternal ancestor Michel Tolkien was born around 1620. Michel's son Christianus Tolkien was a wealthy miller in Kreuzburg, his son Christian Tolkien moved from Kreuzburg to nearby Danzig, his two sons Daniel Gottlieb Tolkien and Johann Benjamin Tolkien emigrated to London in the 1770s and became the ancestors of the English family.
In 1792 John Benjamin Tolkien and William Gravell took over the Erdley Norton manufacture in London, which from on sold clocks and watches under the name Gravell & Tolkien. Daniel Gottlieb obtained British citizenship in 1794, but John Benjamin never became a British citizen. Other German relatives joined the two brothers in London. Several people with the surname Tolkien or similar spelling, some of them members of the same family as J. R. R. Tolkien, live in northern Germany, but most of them are descendants of recent refugees from East Prussia who fled the Red Army invasion and subsequent ethnic cleansing. According to Ryszard Derdziński the Tolkien name is of Low Prussian origin and means "son/descendant of Tolk." Tolkien mistakenly believed his surname derived from the German word tollkühn, meaning "foolhardy", jokingly inserted himself as a "cameo" into The Notion Club Papers under the translated name Rashbold. However, Derdziński has demonstrated this to be a false etymology. While J. R. R. Tolkien was aware of the Tolkien family's German origin, his knowledge of the family's history was limited because he was "early isolated from the family of his prematurely deceased father".
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on 3 January 1892 in Bloemfontein in the Orange Free State to Arthur Reuel Tolkien, an English bank manager, his wife Mabel, née Suffield. The couple had left England when Arthur was promoted to head the Bloemfontein office of the British bank for which he worked. Tolkien had one sibling, his younger brother, Hilary Arthur Reuel Tolkien, born on 17 February 1894; as a child, Tolkien was bitten by a large baboon spider in the garden, an event some think echoed in his stories, although he admitted no actual memory of the event and no special hatred of spiders as an adult. In another incident, a young family servant, who thought Tolkien a beautiful child, took the baby to his kraal to show him off, returning him the next morning; when he was three, he went to England with his mother and brother on what was intended to be a lengthy family visit. His father, died in South Africa of rheumatic fever before he could join them; this left the family without an income, so Tolkien's mother took him to live with her parents in Kings Heath, Birmingham.
Soon after, in 1896, they moved to Sarehole a Worcestershire village annexed to Birmingham. He enjoyed exploring Sarehole Mill and Moseley Bog and the Clent and Malvern Hills, which would inspire scenes in his books, along with nearby towns and villages such as Bromsgrove and Alvechurch and places such as his aunt Jane's farm of Bag End, the name of which he used in his fiction. Mabel Tolkien taught her two children at home. Ronald, as he was known in the family, was a keen pupil, she taught him a great deal of botany and awakened in him the enjoyment of the look and feel of plants. Young Tolkien liked to draw landscapes and trees, but his favourite lessons were those concerning languages, his mother taught him the rudiments of Latin early. Tolkien could write fluently soon afterwards, his mother allowed him to read many books. He disliked Treasure Island and The Pied Piper and thought Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll was "amusing but disturbing", he liked stories about "Red Indians" and the fantasy wor
The One Ring Roleplaying Game
The One Ring Roleplaying Game is a tabletop role-playing game published by Cubicle 7. It is set in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth, in the time between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Since its release, a number of other materials have been published, with more on the way; the game was first published in 2011 under the title The One Ring: Adventures over the Edge of the Wild. This first edition core book and the majority of subsequent products supported play in the portion of the region of Rhovanion known as "The Wild", the setting of the portions of The Hobbit east of the Misty Mountains; that was due to the project of releasing two other up-coming core books dealing with other regions and kingdoms of Middle-earth, but instead of pursuing the idea of releasing two more core books, a revised edition was released in Summer 2014, which saw the original two-volume slipcase set combined into a single hardback edition. This version was re-edited and re-laid out, with errata and clarifications added.
Cubicle 7 released a Clarifications and Amendments Document at the same time, to support owners of the previous edition. The name was changed from The One Ring: Adventures Over the Edge of the Wild to The One Ring Roleplaying Game; the supplement Rivendell expands the original territory described in the first edition to the eastern portions of Eriador, the setting of The Fellowship of the Ring, "covering not only Rivendell itself, but Angmar, Mount Gram and everywhere in between." Future supplements have been announced that will open up Rohan as an area to explore. The base game and some of the supplements have been released in French, German and Spanish. Games of The One Ring are split into two phases: the Fellowship phase. In an Adventuring phase, a company of adventurers heads off from their homes and into the Wild, in search of adventure; the One Ring Roleplaying Game uses a special set of dice: the twelve-sided Feat die, marked with numbers 1-10, as well as two special symbols, Gandalf’s rune and the Eye of Sauron, a six-sided Success die, numbered 1-6, with a Tengwar rune on the 6.
A regular d12 and d6 can be substituted. When a roll is made, it consists of the Feat die plus a number of Success dice equal to the skill being used; the sum is compared to the Target Number of the action. What sets the game apart from other fantasy/adventure RPGs is the factoring-in of the hardship involved in traveling in the wilderness for any length of time; the rules covering the making of journeys across country in Rhovanion involve an easy-to-administer mechanism for attrition, making such journeys a challenge in and of themselves. Consequences of this play out as challenges arising for a given "role" in a party of adventurers, with suggested roles taken by specific player characters at the journey's start being those of scout, guide and hunter. Lore-master's Screen and Lake-town Supplement contains a GM screen with reference tables on one side and Jon Hodgson’s depiction of Esgaroth on the other, it contains the Lake-town supplement, including the Men of the Lake heroic culture. Tales from Wilderland contains seven ready-to-play adventures that can either be played on their own, or together to form a campaign.
The Heart of the Wild is the setting supplement for Wilderland, including the banks of the Anduin, the foothills of the Misty Mountains and Mirkwood. It contains descriptions of new characters and monsters; the Darkening of Mirkwood is a companion volume to The Heart of the Wild, using the material in that supplement to form a 30-year epic campaign. Rivendell is the first supplement to be set outside of Wilderland, it covers Rivendell itself and the old kingdoms of Arnor and Angmar. It includes rules for Rangers of the North and High Elves of Rivendell. Ruins of the North is a companion volume to Rivendell, it includes six ready-to-play adventures that can either be played on their own, or together to form a campaign. Hobbit Tales is a standalone storytelling card game that includes rules for using the cards in The One Ring Roleplaying Game. Production and sales have stopped. Horse-lords of Rohan is the supplement describing the kingdom of Rohan, its history, its lands, the people who live there.
It includes rules for the hillfolk of Dunland. Erebor: the Lonely Mountain expands the details of the Kingdom Under the Mountain, including its history, crafts and people. Rules are included for characters to play Dwarves of the Iron Hills and Dwarves of the Grey Mountains, as well as rules for GMs to create dragons. Journeys and Maps is a collection of 4 double sided poster maps, along with a 32-page booklet adding more options to the Journey phase, an index of places in Middle-earth. Adventurer's Companion is the supporting or expansion supplement, expanding the game system by introducing five new cultures and optional rules for players. Bree is a mini region guide and adventure supplement as it contains three adventures set close to the Shire in Eriador. Oaths of the Riddermark is the latest supplement, containing new adventures set in and around the region of Rohan. Most of these are designed to be a campaign. Upcoming titles are "Moria" - The "MORIA" product will contain linked materials to the'Dungeons & Dragons' style game running parallel to this game
White Dwarf (magazine)
White Dwarf is a magazine published by British games manufacturer Games Workshop, which has long served as a promotions and advertising platform for Games Workshop and Citadel Miniatures products. During the first ten years of its publication, it covered a wide variety of fantasy and science-fiction role-playing games and board games the role playing games Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest and Traveller; these games were all distributed by Games Workshop stores. The magazine underwent a major change in content in the late 1980s, it is now dedicated to the miniature wargames produced by Games Workshop. Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone produced a newsletter called Owl and Weasel, which ran for twenty-five issues from February 1975 before it evolved into White Dwarf. Scheduled for May/June 1977, White Dwarf was first published one month later; the magazine had a bimonthly schedule, with an initial print run of 4,000. White Dwarf continued the fantasy and science fiction role-playing and board-gaming theme developed in Owl and Weasel.
Due to the increase in available space, there was an opportunity to produce reviews and scenarios to a greater depth than had been possible in Owl and Weasel. During the early 1980s the magazine focused in the'big three' role playing games of the time: AD&D, RuneQuest and Traveller. In addition to this a generation of writers passed through its offices and onto other RPG projects in the next decade, such as Phil Masters and Marcus L. Rowland. One huge attraction of the magazine was its incorporation of mini-game scenarios, capable of completion in a single night's play, rather than the mega-marathon games typical of the off the shelf campaigns; this would be in the form of an attractive and interesting single task for either existing or new characters to resolve. These could either be slipped into existing campaign plots, or be used stand-alone, just for a fun evening, were grasped by those familiar with RPG rules. During this period the magazine included lots of features such as the satirical comic strip Thrud the Barbarian and Dave Langford's "Critical Mass" book review column, as well as a comical advertising series "The Androx Diaries", always had cameos and full scenarios for a broad selection of the most popular games of the time, as well as a more rough and informal editorial style.
In the mid-late 1980s, there was a repositioning from being a general periodical covering all aspects and publishers within the hobby niche to a focus exclusively on Games Workshop's own products and publications. The last Dungeons and Dragons article appeared in issue 93, with the changeover being complete by issue #102. In this respect it took over some of the aspects of the Citadel Journal, an intermittent publication that supported the Warhammer Fantasy Battle game; the magazine has always been a conduit for new rules and ideas for GW games as well as a means to showcase developments. It includes scenarios, hobby news, photos of released miniatures and tips on building terrain and constructing or converting miniatures. Grombrindal the White Dwarf is a special character for the Dwarf army, whose rules are published only in certain issues of White Dwarf, it is never stated who the White Dwarf is, but it is implied that he is the spirit of Snorri Whitebeard, the last king of the Dwarfs to receive respect from an Elf.
The image of the White Dwarf has graced the covers of many issues of the magazine. The image was used on the character sheet for the Dwarf character in HeroQuest. In December 2004, White Dwarf published its 300th issue. In the United Kingdom and North America; each issue contained many special "freebies" as well as articles on the history of the magazine and the founding of Games Workshop. The monthly battle reports are a regular feature. Battle reports detail a battle between two or more forces with their own specific victory conditions; the reports follow the gamers through their army selection and deployment, through the battle to their respective conclusions. The format varies - ranging from a simplified, generalized style to a more detailed and visual style; the page count of the US and UK publications was different with substantial differences in actual amount of content and each magazine had substantial overlap with the other as well as unique articles. In June 2010 Andrew Kenrick replaced Mark Latham as editor.
Andrew had been sub-editor, as well as sub-editing other Games Workshop material such as the most recent edition of Codex: Space Marines. As of the October 2012 issue, White Dwarf has been redesigned with a new 9 member production staff with Matthew Hutson, Kris Shield and Andrew Kenrick continuing from the previous version and 6 new members including Jes Bickham as the new editor. Jes has edited the Battle Games in Middle-earth magazine. On 1 February 2014, White Dwarf moved to a weekly release; the final monthly issue of White Dwarf was issue #409 released in January. Warhammer Visions, a new monthly title produced by the same team was launched at the same time, in a format favoring the imagery over the text. In 2016 however, White Dwarf returned to its original format, increasing in size to make up for the three fewer issues per month, the death of Warhammer Visions. In the early 1980s, mail-order subscriber copies of White Dwarf received a small companion magazine Black Sun edited by Steve Williams, with
Role-playing game
A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making regarding character development. Actions taken within many games succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and guidelines. There are several forms of role-playing games; the original form, sometimes called the tabletop role-playing game, is conducted through discussion, whereas in live action role-playing, players physically perform their characters' actions. In both of these forms, an arranger called a game master decides on the rules and setting to be used, while acting as the referee. Several varieties of RPG exist in electronic media, such as multiplayer text-based Multi-User Dungeons and their graphics-based successors, massively multiplayer online role-playing games. Role-playing games include single-player role-playing video games in which players control a character, or team of characters, who undertake quests, may include player capabilities that advance using statistical mechanics.
These electronic games sometimes share settings and rules with tabletop RPGs, but emphasize character advancement more than collaborative storytelling. This type of game is well-established, so some RPG-related game forms, such as trading/collectible card games and wargames, may not be included under the definition; some amount of role-playing activity may be present in such games. The term role-playing game is sometimes used to describe games involving roleplay simulation and exercises used in teaching and academic research. Both authors and major publishers of tabletop role-playing games consider them to be a form of interactive and collaborative storytelling. Events and narrative structure give a sense of a narrative experience, the game need not have a strongly-defined storyline. Interactivity is the crucial difference between traditional fiction. Whereas a viewer of a television show is a passive observer, a player in a role-playing game makes choices that affect the story; such role-playing games extend an older tradition of storytelling games where a small party of friends collaborate to create a story.
While simple forms of role-playing exist in traditional children's games of make believe, role-playing games add a level of sophistication and persistence to this basic idea with additions such as game facilitators and rules of interaction. Participants in a role-playing game will generate an ongoing plot. A consistent system of rules and a more or less realistic campaign setting in games aids suspension of disbelief; the level of realism in games ranges from just enough internal consistency to set up a believable story or credible challenge up to full-blown simulations of real-world processes. Role-playing games are played in a wide variety of formats ranging from discussing character interaction in tabletop form to physically acting out characters in LARP to playing characters in digital media. There is a great variety of systems of rules and game settings. Games that emphasize plot and character interaction over game mechanics and combat sometimes prefer the name storytelling game; these types of games tend to minimize or altogether eliminate the use of dice or other randomizing elements.
Some games are played with characters created before the game by the GM, rather than those created by the players. This type of game is played at gaming conventions, or in standalone games that do not form part of a campaign. Tabletop and pen-and-paper RPGs are conducted through discussion in a small social gathering; the GM describes its inhabitants. The other players describe the intended actions of their characters, the GM describes the outcomes; some outcomes are determined by the game system, some are chosen by the GM. This is the format; the first commercially available RPG, Dungeons & Dragons, was inspired by fantasy literature and the wargaming hobby and was published in 1974. The popularity of D&D led to the birth of the tabletop role-playing game industry, which publishes games with many different themes and styles of play; the popularity of tabletop games has decreased since the modern releases of online MMO RPGs. This format is referred to as a role-playing game. To distinguish this form of RPG from other formats, the retronyms tabletop role-playing game or pen and paper role-playing game are sometimes used, though neither a table nor pen and paper are necessary.
A LARP is played more like improvisational theatre. Participants act out their characters' actions instead of describing them, the real environment is used to represent the imaginary setting of the game world. Players are costumed as their characters and use appropriate props, the venue may be decorated to resemble the fictional setting; some live action role-playing games use rock-paper-scissors or comparison of attributes to resolve conflicts symbolically, while other LARPs use physical combat with simulated arms such as airsoft guns or foam weapons. LARPs vary in size from a handful of players to several thousand, in duration from a couple of hours to several days; because the number of players in a LARP is larger than in a tabletop role-playing game, the players may be interacting in separate physical spaces, there is less of an emphasis on maintaining a narrative or directly entertai
The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings is an epic high fantasy novel written by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien; the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 fantasy novel The Hobbit, but developed into a much larger work. Written in stages between 1937 and 1949, The Lord of the Rings is one of the best-selling novels written, with over 150 million copies sold; the title of the novel refers to the story's main antagonist, the Dark Lord Sauron, who had in an earlier age created the One Ring to rule the other Rings of Power as the ultimate weapon in his campaign to conquer and rule all of Middle-earth. From quiet beginnings in the Shire, a hobbit land not unlike the English countryside, the story ranges across Middle-earth, following the course of the War of the Ring through the eyes of its characters, not only the hobbits Frodo Baggins, Samwise "Sam" Gamgee, Meriadoc "Merry" Brandybuck and Peregrin "Pippin" Took, but the hobbits' chief allies and travelling companions: the Men, Aragorn, a Ranger of the North, Boromir, a Captain of Gondor.
The work was intended by Tolkien to be one volume of a two-volume set, the other to be The Silmarillion, but this idea was dismissed by his publisher. For economic reasons, The Lord of the Rings was published in three volumes over the course of a year from 29 July 1954 to 20 October 1955; the three volumes were titled The Fellowship of The Two Towers and The Return of the King. Structurally, the novel is divided internally into six books, two per volume, with several appendices of background material included at the end; some editions combine the entire work into a single volume. The Lord of the Rings has since been translated into 38 languages. Tolkien's work has been the subject of extensive analysis of its origins. Although a major work in itself, the story was only the last movement of a larger epic Tolkien had worked on since 1917, in a process he described as mythopoeia. Influences on this earlier work, on the story of The Lord of the Rings, include philology, mythology and the author's distaste for the effects of industrialization, as well as earlier fantasy works and Tolkien's experiences in World War I.
The Lord of the Rings in its turn is considered to have had a great effect on modern fantasy. The enduring popularity of The Lord of the Rings has led to numerous references in popular culture, the founding of many societies by fans of Tolkien's works, the publication of many books about Tolkien and his works; the Lord of the Rings has inspired, continues to inspire, music and television, video games, board games, subsequent literature. Award-winning adaptations of The Lord of the Rings have been made for radio and film. In 2003, it was named Britain's best novel of all time in the BBC's The Big Read. Thousands of years before the events of the novel, the Dark Lord Sauron had forged the One Ring to rule the other Rings of Power and corrupt those who wore them: three for Elves, seven for Dwarves, nine for Men. Sauron was defeated by an alliance of Men led by Gil-galad and Elendil, respectively. In the final battle, son of Elendil, cut the One Ring from Sauron's finger, causing Sauron to lose his physical form.
Isildur claimed the Ring as an heirloom for his line, but when he was ambushed and killed by the Orcs, the Ring was lost in the River Anduin. Over two thousand years the Ring was found by one of the river-folk called Déagol, his friend Sméagol fell under strangled Déagol to acquire it. Sméagol was hid under the Misty Mountains; the Ring gave him long life and changed him over hundreds of years into a twisted, corrupted creature called Gollum. Gollum lost the Ring, his "precious", as told in The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins found it. Meanwhile, Sauron took back his old realm of Mordor; when Gollum set out in search of the Ring, he was tortured by Sauron. Sauron learned from Gollum. Gollum was set loose. Sauron, who needed the Ring to regain his full power, sent forth his powerful servants, the Nazgûl, to seize it; the story begins in the Shire, where the hobbit Frodo Baggins inherits the Ring from Bilbo Baggins, his cousin and guardian. Neither hobbit is aware of the Ring's nature, but Gandalf the Grey, a wizard and an old friend of Bilbo, suspects it to be Sauron's Ring.
Seventeen years after Gandalf confirms his guess, he tells Frodo the history of the Ring and counsels him to take it away from the Shire. Frodo sets out, accompanied by his gardener and friend, Samwise "Sam" Gamgee, two cousins, Meriadoc "Merry" Brandybuck and Peregrin "Pippin" Took, they are nearly caught by the Black Riders, but shake off their pursuers by cutting through the Old Forest. There they are aided by Tom Bombadil, a strange and merry fellow who lives with his wife Goldberry in the forest; the hobbits reach the town of Bree, where they encounter a Ranger named Strider, whom Gandalf had mentioned in a letter. Strider persuades the hobbits to take him on as their protector. Together, they leave Bree after another close escape from the Black Riders. On the hill of Weathertop, they are again attacked by the Black Riders, who wound Frodo with a cursed blade. Strider leads the hobbits towards the Elven refuge of Rivendell. Frodo falls deathly ill from the wound; the Black Riders nearly capture him at the Ford of Bruinen, but flood waters summoned by Elrond, master of Rivendell, rise up and overwhelm them.
Frodo
The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien
The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien is a selection of J. R. R. Tolkien's letters published in 1981, edited by Tolkien's biographer Humphrey Carpenter assisted by Christopher Tolkien; the selection contains 354 letters, dating between October 1914, when Tolkien was an undergraduate at Oxford, 29 August 1973, four days before his death. The letters can be divided in four categories: Personal letters to Tolkien's wife Edith, to his son Christopher Tolkien and his other children, Letters about Tolkien's career as a professor of Anglo-Saxon Letters to his publishers at Allen & Unwin explaining his failing to meet the deadline and related topics Letters about Middle-earthThe last category is of interest to Tolkien fans, as it provides a lot of information about Middle-earth which cannot be found anywhere in the works published by Tolkien himself. In letters 29 and 30, it appears that a German translation of The Hobbit was being negotiated in 1938; the German firm enquired. Tolkien was infuriated by this, wrote two drafts of possible replies for his publisher to choose.
The first one is not present – in it Tolkien is assumed to have refused to give any declaration whatsoever of his racial origins. The second, draft included: Thank you for your letter... I regret. I am not of Aryan extraction:, Indo-Iranian, but if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. A former signals officer at the Battle of the Somme, Tolkien expressed his great dislike for war, whatever the cause; this is evident in a great many letters which he wrote during the Second World War to his son Christopher, which invoke a sense of gloom. Notable among these is his reaction to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, in which he refers to the bombmakers of the Manhattan Project as "lunatics" and "Babel builders". Tolkien Letters FAQ at the Wayback Machine The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien on Tolkien Library The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien video
Beren and Lúthien
The tale of Beren and Lúthien, told in several works by J. R. R. Tolkien, is the story of the love and adventures of the mortal Man Beren and the immortal Elf-maiden Lúthien. Tolkien wrote several versions of their story, the latest in The Silmarillion, the tale is mentioned in The Lord of the Rings; the story takes place during the First Age of Middle-earth, about 6,500 years before the events of The Lord of the Rings. Beren, son of Barahir, cut a Silmaril from Morgoth's crown as the bride price for Lúthien, daughter of the elf-king Thingol and Melian the Maia, he was slain by Carcharoth, the wolf of Angband. He lived with Lúthien on Tol Galen in Ossiriand, fought the Dwarves at Sarn Athard, he was the great-grandfather of Elrond and Elros, thus the ancestor of the Númenórean kings. After the fulfilment of the quest of the Silmaril and Beren's death, Lúthien chose to become mortal and to share Beren's fate; the first version of the story is the Tale of Tinúviel, written in 1917 and published in The Book of Lost Tales.
During the 1920s Tolkien started to reshape the tale and to transform it into an epic poem which he called The Lay of Leithian. He never finished it. After his death The Lay of Leithian was published in The Lays of Beleriand, together with The Lay of the Children of Húrin and several other unfinished poems; the latest version of the tale is told in prose form in one chapter of The Silmarillion and is recounted by Aragorn in The Fellowship of the Ring. The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen, told in the appendices of The Lord of the Rings, served as a sequel to this story. Indeed, both Aragorn and Arwen were descendants of Lúthien; as told in The Silmarillion, the version of the tale: Beren was the last survivor of a group of Men in Dorthonion led by his father Barahir that had still resisted Morgoth, the Dark Enemy, after the Battle of Sudden Flame, in which Morgoth had conquered much of northern Middle-earth. After the defeat of his companions he fled from peril into the elvish realm Doriath. There he met Lúthien, the only daughter of King Thingol and Melian the Maia, as she was dancing and singing in a glade.
Upon seeing her Beren fell in love. She fell in love with him as well, when he, moved by her beauty and enchanting voice, gave her the nickname "Tinúviel" As Thingol disliked Beren and regarded him as being unworthy of his daughter, he set a impossible task on Beren that he had to achieve before he could marry Lúthien. Thingol asked Beren to bring him one of the Silmarils, the three hallowed jewels made by Fëanor, which Morgoth had stolen from the elves. Beren set out on his quest to Angband, the enemy's fortress. Although Thingol tried to prevent it, Lúthien followed him. On his journey to the enemy's land Beren reached Nargothrond, an Elvish stronghold, was joined by ten warriors under the lead of King Finrod, who had sworn an oath of friendship to Beren's father. Although Fëanor's sons and Curufin, warned them not to take the Silmaril that they considered their own, the company was determined to accompany Beren. On their way to Angband they were seized by the servants of Sauron, despite the best efforts of Finrod to maintain their guise as Orcs, imprisoned in Tol-in-Gaurhoth.
One by one they were killed by a werewolf until only Beren and Finrod remained. When the wolf went for Beren, Finrod broke his chains and wrestled it with such fierceness that they both died; when she was following Beren, Lúthien was captured and brought to Nargothrond by Celegorm and Curufin. Aided by Huan, Celegorm's hound, she was able to flee. With his aid she came to Sauron's fortress where Huan defeated the werewolves of the Enemy, Draugluin the sire of werewolves, Sauron himself in wolf-form. Lúthien forced Sauron to give ownership of the tower to her, she freed the prisoners, among them Beren. Meanwhile, Sauron fled to Taur-nu-Fuin. Beren wanted to try his task once more alone; however they were attacked by Celegorm and Curufin, exiled from Nargothrond. Beren was wounded by Curufin. Through magic they took the shapes of the bat Thuringwethil and the wolf Draugluin that Huan had killed. Thereby they were able to enter the enemy's land and at last came to Angband and before Morgoth's throne.
There Lúthien sang a magical song which made his court fall asleep. As he tried to cut out the others, his knife broke and a shard glanced off Morgoth's face, awakening him; as they attempted to leave, the gate was barred by Carcharoth, a giant werewolf, bred as an opponent to Huan. He swallowed Beren's hand, in which Beren was holding the Silmaril. Carcharoth ran off madly. Eagles helped Beren and Lúthien escape. Beren and Lúthien returned to Doriath, where they told of their deeds and thereby softened Thingol's heart, he accepted the marriage of his daughter and the mortal Man, although Beren's task had not been fulfilled. Beren and Huan participated in the hunt for Carcharoth, who in his madness had come into Doriath and caused much destruction there. Both of them were killed by the wolf, but Carcharoth was slain. Before he d
