The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun

Unavailable for more than 70 years, this early but important work is published for the first time with Tolkien's `Corrigan' poems and other supporting material, including a prefatory note by Christopher Tolkien. Together with Tolkien's "Corrigan Poems", which are included in this book, the Aotrou and Itroun texts comprise a sequence that was the outcome of a comparatively short but intense period in Tolkien's life when he was deeply engaged with Celtic languages and mythologies. The sequence shows the corrigan's increasingly powerful presence, as she takes an ever more active role in the lives of Aotrou and Itroun, Lord and Lady. She would finally emerge, changed in motive and character but still recognizable, in The Lord of the Rings as the beautiful and terrible Lady of the Golden Wood, the Elven queen Galadriel. The book is edited and introduced by Verlyn Flieger, and includes a new prefatory note on the text by Christopher Tolkien.