And Lúthien now was left alone.
A magic song to Men unknown
she sang, and singing then the wine
with water mingled three times nine;
and as in golden jar they lay (275)
she sang a song of growth and day;
and as they lay in silver white
another song she sang, of night
and darkness without end, of height
uplifted to the stars, and flight (280)
and freedom. And all names of things
tallest and longest on earth she sings:
the locks of the Longbeard dwarves; the tail
of Draugluin the werewolf pale;
the body of Glaurung the great snake; (285)
the vast upsoaring peaks that quake
above the fires in Angband’s gloom;
the chain Angainor, that ere Doom
of Bauglir had by Valar been wrought
of steel and torment. Names she sought, (290)
and sang of Glend, the sword of Nan;
of Gilim, the giant of Eruman;
and last and longest named she then
the endless hair of Uinen,
the Lady of the Sea, that lies (295)
through all the waters under skies.
The Lay of Leithian; Luthien’s enchantment to make her hair grow long so she can Rapunzel her way outta town.
I happen to think the list of invocations here is quite interesting; as with her bat-skin costume, Luthien is one of the few Tolkien characters who uses “darker” or “evil” elements in her magic in order to accomplish noble goals. She’s also one of the few to ever have words of sympathy for a servant of darkness, specifically one that was born and bred as such and was never given the opportunity to know anything but thralldom. She talks her way into Melkor’s graces before zapping him with the sleeping spell. She threatens Sauron with the consequences he’ll face from his own master, rather than from a higher moral judgement. She whisks her boyfriend clean out of Mandos, and after all that, her end goal is simply to be left alone– mortal and happy.
I think Luthien occupies a rare niche in Tolkien’s lore as a “grey” character, in a cast that is mostly polarized into light (stemming from Valinor) and dark (stemming from Melkor). The rule of thumb is you can’t use bad things for good intentions, the bad things will always corrupt or ruin the result; but a few characters are able to accomplish their goals using whatever means are at hand; not limited to purely light or dark qualities, they instead utilize more neutral heroic cunning. This position is reserved mostly for hobbits and wizards, and appears far less frequently in the Silmarillion. ~Wes
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