Letters 
TCG Letter #1732
From
C.S. Lewis
To
J.R.R. Tolkien
Date
7 December 1929
Type
Unknown
Transcript
Partial
C.S. Lewis writes to Tolkien. He has sat up all night reading the Lay of Leithian and is delighted with it. He has yet to finish but Hammond/Scull noteChronology, p. 161[1] that he has reached approx. line 2017.
He notes that he would have enjoyed it as much had he found it in a bookstore from an unknown author. He has read as far as "where Beren and his gnomish allies defeat the patrol of orcs above the sources of the Narog and disguise themselves in the reaf."Old English for “garments, weapons, taken from the slain.”[2] Tolkien will mark the poem for revision based on Lewis' comments.
With the letter, Lewis includes no less that fourteen pages of commentary on the poem, some of which can be read in The Lays of Beleriand, pp. 315-29.
He notes that he would have enjoyed it as much had he found it in a bookstore from an unknown author. He has read as far as "where Beren and his gnomish allies defeat the patrol of orcs above the sources of the Narog and disguise themselves in the reaf."Old English for “garments, weapons, taken from the slain.”[2] Tolkien will mark the poem for revision based on Lewis' comments.
With the letter, Lewis includes no less that fourteen pages of commentary on the poem, some of which can be read in The Lays of Beleriand, pp. 315-29.
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