Editing Lúthien and Beren (section)

=== Folktale, fairytale ===
<!--https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Beren_and_L%C3%BAthien&oldid=643864963 is cited in Beal 2014 (ref below) as giving popular attention to folk-tales "The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs" and "The Griffin" as possible sources for Tolkien's L&B.-->

{{see also|Tolkien and the Celtic}}

[[File:Ysbaddaden.jpeg|thumb|upright|Possible influence from the Welsh "[[Culhwch and Olwen]]": heroic hound, woman with magical powers, warrior seeking her hand in marriage, demanding father. Illustration "Culhwch at Ysbaddaden's court" by [[Ernest Wallcousins]], 1920]]

Several scholars, from [[Randel Helms]] onwards, have noted that Tolkien's tale of Beren and Lúthien shares elements with folktales such as the Welsh "[[Culhwch and Olwen]]". One of these is the disapproving parent who sets a seemingly impossible task (or tasks) for the suitor, which is then fulfilled.<ref>{{cite web |last=Hnutu-healh |first=Glyn |title=Culhwch and Olwen |url=https://www.arthurlegends.com/culhwch-and-olwen/ |website=Arthurian Legends |access-date=6 August 2020 |date=6 January 2020 |archive-date=30 October 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201030021951/https://www.arthurlegends.com/culhwch-and-olwen/ }}</ref> The [[Brothers Grimm]] folktale "[[The Devil With the Three Golden Hairs]]" sets such a task, the King requiring the boy to obtain three golden hairs from the Devil's beard.<ref name="Dickerson O'Hara 2006">{{cite book |last1=Dickerson |first1=Matthew |author1-link=Matthew Dickerson |last2=O'Hara |first2=David |title=From Homer to Harry Potter |year=2006 |publisher=[[Brazos Press]] |pages=141–142 |isbn=978-1-44120-214-7}}</ref><!-- A similar folktale is "[[The Griffin (fairy tale)|The Griffin]]".--> Another is the hound [[Cafall]], matching Tolkien's Huan, hound of Valinor.<ref name="Beal 2014">{{cite journal |last=Beal |first=Jane |year=2014 |title=Orphic Powers in J.R.R. Tolkien's Legend of Beren and Lúthien |journal=[[Journal of Tolkien Research]] |volume=1 |issue=1 |at=Article 1 |url=http://scholar.valpo.edu/journaloftolkienresearch/vol1/iss1/1}}</ref> 

Shippey<ref name="Shippey 2010"/> and [[Richard C. West]]<ref name="Beal 2014"/> have warned that claims about Tolkien's use of sources must be cautious, because as Tolkien said, he thoroughly boiled down his "soup" from the original "bones of the ox" of his sources.<!--The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays, p. 120)--> Shippey agrees with Alex Lewis and Elizabeth Currie that Tolkien very likely used the ''[[Mabinogion]]'', as he certainly knew "Culhwch and Olwen", but finds their suggestion that Tolkien also used von Eschenbach's ''[[Parzival]]'' as an Arthurian source improbable, stating that "similarity does not prove connection".<ref name="Shippey 2010">{{cite journal |last=Shippey |first=Tom |author-link=Tom Shippey |department=Reviews |title=A Question of Source |journal=[[Mallorn (journal)|Mallorn]] |issue=49 |year=2010 |pages=10–12 |jstor=48614691}}</ref> Shippey adds that the hunt of the giant boar [[Twrch Trwyth]] is a "plausible" model for the hunt of Carcharoth the wolf.<ref name="Shippey 2010"/> On the other hand, he writes, the incomplete fulfilment of Chief Giant [[Ysbaddaden|Yspaddaden]]'s list of items to be supplied for Olwen's hand in marriage does not match the attempt to meet Thingol's demand for the Silmaril, and "the scenes aren't like each other at all!"<ref name="Shippey 2010"/><!--<ref>{{cite book |last=Phelpstead |first=Carl |title=Tolkien and Wales: Language, Literature, and Identity |date=2011 |publisher=[[University of Wales Press]] |location=Cardiff |isbn=978-0-7083-2372-4 |page=}}</ref>{{pn|date=September 2024}}-->

The Tolkien scholar [[John Garth (author)|John Garth]], writing in the ''[[New Statesman]]'', notes that it took a century for ''[[The Tale of Beren and Lúthien]]'', mirroring the tale of Second Lieutenant Tolkien watching Edith dancing in a woodland glade [[The Great War and Middle-earth|far from the "animal horror" of the trenches]], to reach publication. Garth finds "much to relish", as the tale changes through "several gears" until finally it "attains a mythic power". Beren's enemy changes from a cat-demon to the "Necromancer" and eventually to Sauron. Garth comments that if this was supposed to be the lost ancestor of the [[Rapunzel]] [[fairytale]], then it definitely portrays a modern "female-centred fairy-tale revisioning" with a Lúthien who may be fairer than mortal tongue can tell, but is also more resourceful than her lover.<ref name="Garth 2017">{{cite news |last=Garth |first=John |author-link=John Garth (author) |title=Beren and Lúthien: Love, war and Tolkien's lost tales |url=https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2017/05/beren-and-l-thien-love-war-and-tolkien-s-lost-tales |access-date=31 July 2020 |work=[[New Statesman]] |date=27 May 2017}}</ref>