Contents The book contains the long
heroic lays or
lyric poetry from
Tolkien's legendarium, omitted from
The Silmarillion: these are
The Lay of the Children of Húrin about the saga of
Túrin Turambar, and
The Lay of Leithian (also called
Release from Bondage) which tells
the Tale of Beren and Lúthien. Although Tolkien abandoned them without completing either of them, they are both long enough to occupy many stanzas, each of which can last for over ten pages. The first poem is in
alliterative verse, and the second is in rhyming
couplets. Both exist in two versions. In addition to these two poems, the book contains three short, soon-abandoned alliterative poems,
The Flight of the Noldoli from Valinor,
The Lay of Eärendel, and
The Lay of the Fall of Gondolin. The first versions of the long lays fit chronologically in with Tolkien's earliest writings, as recounted in
The Book of Lost Tales, but the later version of
The Lay of Leithian is contemporary with the writing of
The Lord of the Rings. The book is split into these main sections: •
The Lay of the Children of Húrin, the tale of Túrin in 2276 lines of verse. • First version • Second version • Poems Early Abandoned: •
The Flight of the Noldoli • Fragment of an alliterative
Lay of Earendel •
The Lay of the Fall of Gondolin • The Lay of Leithian (unfinished poem:
the Tale of Beren and Lúthien in verse (over 4200 lines of
iambic tetrameters, in rhyming
couplets): •
The Gest of Beren son of Barahir and Lúthien the Fay called Tinúviel the Nightingale or the Lay of Leithian - Release from Bondage (split into fourteen cantos) • Unwritten cantos • Appendix: Commentary by
C. S. Lewis These are followed by: 4.
The Lay of Leithian Recommenced In the book Christopher Tolkien mentions a third Túrin poem, this time in rhyming couplets and incomplete. It is called
The Children of Húrin and is only 170 lines long (compared to the 2276 lines of the first of the alliterative poems); that poem, however, has been omitted from the book.
Inscription There is an inscription in the
Fëanorian characters (
Tengwar, an alphabet Tolkien has devised for High-Elves) in the first pages of every History of Middle-earth volume, written by Christopher Tolkien and describing the contents of the book. The inscription in Book III reads: "In the first part of this Book is given the Lay of the Children of Húrin by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, in which is set forth in part the Tale of Túrin. In the second part is the Lay of Leithian, which is the Gest of Beren and Lúthien as far as the encounter of Beren with Carcharoth at the gate of Angband". == Reception and legacy ==