Book Blogger Hop June 24th - June 30th: 160 Is the Sum of the First Eleven Prime Numbers

Jen at Crazy for Books restarted her weekly Book Blogger Hop to help book bloggers connect with one another, but then couldn't continue, so she handed the hosting responsibilities off to Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. The only requirements to participate in the Hop are to write and link a post answering the weekly question and then visit other blogs that are also participating to see if you like their blog and would like to follow them.

This week Billy asks: Who is your favorite fictional couple?

My favorite fictional couple is Beren and Lúthien Tinúviel, whose story is found primarily in the Silmarillion. Beren was a mortal man, the mightiest hunter of his age, and Lúthien was an half-elven half-maia princess, the daughter of Thingol, the king of Doriath and his angelic consort Melian.

Beren was originally a prince, the son of King Barahior, but Morgoth's forces destroyed his kingdom and eventually slew his entire family. Beren continued to fight Morgoth with the aid of friendly animals until he was driven by his homeland by the combined might of Sauron and Draugluin. He then fled on a path of terror eventually finding his way across the Girdle of Melian into Doriath where he saw Lúthien and immediately fell in love with her.

Lúthien was also in love with Beren, but her father was unimpressed with a mere mortal man, and would only allow him to marry his daughter if he could recover one of the silmarils from Morgoth's crown. Given that recovering the silmarils was the reason that an entire race of elves killed their own kin and returned to Middle-Earth from the Blessed Lands before unsuccessfully waging war for centuries against overwhelming and insurmountable forces, this was something of a difficult request.

Not to be deterred, Beren set out to do the impossible. Not content to wait at home, Lúthien set out to help him. In a series of adventures that saw the pair fighting Sauron himself, charming Morgoth's entire court and confronting Carcharoth, the greatest werewolf who ever lived, the pair succeeded, but at the cost of Beren's hand, and ultimately, their own lives. The pair were married, but Beren was later mortally wounded while hunting Carcharoth, causing Lúthien to die of grief. Her lamentations were so great that Mandos brought the two back from the dead so they could live out their lives, although their resurrection was at the cost of her immortality.

Previous Book Blogger Hop: The Alfa Romeo 158/159 Was a Grand Prix and Formula One Racing Car Used Primarily from 1937 to 1953

Subsequent Book Blogger Hop: The Penal Colony in the Film Alien 3 Would Have Been Named Fiorina Fury 161 (If There Had Been an Alien 3 Film)

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