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# Tolkien's love for Edith from 1906 and the story of Beren and Luthien in “The Silmarillion”
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/v-1972-godu-vskore-posle-smerti-zheny-tolkin-pisal-chto-nikogda-ne-nazyval-ee-lutien-no-ona-byla-istochnikom-istorii-v-osnove-silmarilliona/
- Published: 2024-04-23T06:31:56.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T18:42:07.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Archive, Books, Mores, People

In 1972, shortly after his wife's death, Tolkien wrote that he had never called her Lúthien, but that she was the source of the story at the heart of The Silmarillion.

Ronald met Edith in 1906 and fell in love, but the orphaned Tolkien's guardian opposed the relationship because of the difference in age (Edith was three years older than Ron) and in faith: she was a Protestant, he a Catholic. The 16-year-old was forbidden, on pain of losing his chance of an education, to see or write to his beloved until he turned 21\. It was rather like the impossible task of recovering one of the sacred Silmarils, stolen by the dark lord Morgoth, which Thingol, Lúthien's father, set for Beren, who loved her.

Tolkien obeyed his guardian and kept his word, writing to Edith only on the evening of his 21st birthday, declaring his love and asking her to marry him. But Edith was engaged to his best friend, and agreed only to see him one last time.

Remember that Lúthien had to renounce her immortality, her home and her family in order to be with Beren? After that single meeting with Ronald, Edith decided to marry him, but she lost her best friend and then her home as well, since she was obliged to convert to Catholicism.

They married in the spring of 1916, and in the summer Tolkien left for the front of the First World War. Edith might have become a widow within a few months of the wedding: much like Lúthien, who seemed to gain very little and lose a great deal for the love of Beren.

Like Lúthien, Edith bade farewell to her home and followed her beloved from one military camp to another; the only thing she could not do was follow him into battle. Beren proved the sole survivor of the band that stood against Morgoth. Tolkien was the only one of his group of university friends to survive the war. He was not banished, as Beren was, to the realm of the elves, but sent back to England. It was then that he began writing The Silmarillion, and on seeing Edith one day dancing and singing in a glade of flowering hemlock, he understood that she was Lúthien.

Beren and Lúthien gave rise to the dynasty of the kings of Númenor. Ronald and Edith had four children and lived happily ever after.

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_12002@23-04-2024_09-31-56.jpg)

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_12003@23-04-2024_09-31-56.jpg)

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_12004@23-04-2024_09-31-56.jpg)