“Leithian”, “🧝Luthien”, and “Release(s) from Bondage(s)”

[Eljorahir]

Questions:
Is the similarity between the words Leithian and Luthien meaningful and interesting, or is it merely coincidental and of no consequence?

Did Tolkien have more than one meaning in mind for ‘Release from Bondage’?
If yes, which meaning is the most important?
Even if Tolkien only had one in mind, how many different “releases from bondage” can you think of within the Beren and Luthien story?

Quotes:
From ‘Of Beren and Luthien’…
And of these histories most fair still in the ears of the Elves is the tale of Beren and Luthien. Of their lives was made the Lay of Leithian, Release from Bondage, which is the longest save one of the songs concerning the world of old…

From the Index…
Leithian is translated ‘Release from Bondage’.

From Elsewhere…
Lúthien is a Sindarin name meaning "Daughter of Flowers".

 

[Elhath Reborn]

The similarity of Sindarin -ian and -ien brings to mind the similarity between Quenya -ndë (an action-noun suffix for A-stem verbs, PE22:110) and -(i)ndë (a feminine agental suffix in Serindë). In Modern Hebrew, the regular action-nouns like כְּתִיבָה are feminine nouns, and in Old English there was the feminine suffix -ung (Wiktionary: "forming nouns from verbs, denoting verbal action or an instance of it; or denoting a substance involved in the verbal action").

 

[Eljorahir]

Starting the counting of the Releases from Bondages, the most obvious first:

#1 Release from Bondage...

A Silmaril is released from its bondage in Morgoth's crown.

"The iron crown rolled echoing from his head...Then he [Beren] drew forth the knife Angrist; and from the iron claws that held it he cut a Silmaril."

 

[Eljorahir]

Leithian, Release from Bondage #2 I think is the meaning that carries the primary importance for the story and the principle meaning of Leithian in the title:

(Imperfectly worded, maybe, but my best shot at putting my thoughts into words...) Luthien in the Halls of Mandos chooses to be released from the bondage between her "self" and her "being as an elf" so she can remain with Beren.

'So it was that alone of the Eldalie she has died indeed and left the world long ago.'

Her release from bondage in Mandos and her release from the bondage of her being as an elf I think probably both count as the same release.
_______________
A related observation regarding a previous line of text (one of my favorite lines):
'...in his fate Luthien was caught, and being immortal she shared in his mortality, and being free received his chain; and her anguish was greater than any other of the Eldalie has known.'

She 'received his chain'. So, in a way, she exchanged one bondage for another.

 

[Elthir]

Interesting subject Eljorahir.

My opinion has been, if the Lay was written by an Elf or Elves -- or at least given such a title, in origin, by an Elf -- one of the meanings could indeed refer to the release from the Circles of the World, or that is, freedom from the "bondage" of the "immortal" life of the Quendi.

In short, an echo of the Elvish perspective.

That said, my opinion isn't much helped by Tolkien's later imaginative framework, in which we find the following authorial revision: "Of their lives was made the Lay of Leithian, Release from Bondage, which is the longest save one of the songs of [the Noldor >] Númenor."

Even so, there may be a way around this. . . and in any event, as you already note, it could be said that exchanging one fate for another is going to land differently in different minds.

I actually haven't delved into the question too deeply, but for now, just to add (for the thread in general): in his introduction to the Lay of Leithian, Christopher Tolkien writes:

My father never explained the name Leithian 'Release from Bondage', and we are left to choose, if we will, among various applications that can be seen in the poem. Nor did he leave any comment on the significance - if there is a significance - of the likeness of Leithian to Leithien 'England'. In the tale of Ælfwine of England the Elvish name of England is Lúthien (which was earlier the name of Ælfwine himself, England being Luthany), but at the first occurrence (only) of this name the word Leithian was pencilled above it (II. 330, note 20).

In the 'Sketch of the Mythology' England was still Lúthien (and at that time Thingol's daughter was also Lúthien), but this was emended to Leithien, and this is the form in the 1930 version of 'The Silmarillion'. I cannot say (i) what connection if any there was between the two significances of Lúthien, nor (ii) whether Leithien (once Leithian) 'England' is or was related to Leithian 'Release from Bondage'. The only evidence of an etymological nature that I have found is a hasty note, impossible to date, which refers to the stem leth- 'set free', with leithia 'release', and compares Lay of Leithian.

 

[Eljorahir]

Thanks @Elthir for providing the comments and especially the excerpts.

At the risk of being annoyingly tedious and taking liberties with the meaning of an equal sign (here the equal sign means at some point within Tolkien’s creation process the terms seem to be equivalent), Christopher’s words can be converted to the following shorthand:

Leithien = England
**Luthien = England
Luthien = Aelfwine
**Luthany = England
**Luthany = Leithian
Leithien = Thingol’s Daughter

The ones with the double asterisks become the key pairings:
If Luthien = England and Luthany = England, then Luthien = Luthany.
If Luthien = Luthany and Luthany = Leithian, then Luthien = Leithian.

And, Luthien = Leithian is just what I was hoping to find; it gives what I think is a more appropriate title:

“The Lay of Luthien, The Release from Bondage”.

Or, adding a little extra flair:

“The Story of Luthien Tinuviel, Daughter of Flowers and Twilight, and Her Release from the Bonds of the Circles of the World”