"I have at last got busy about Mummy's grave. The inscription I should like is: EDITH MARY TOLKIEN 1889-1971. Lúthien. Brief and jejune, except for Lúthien, which says for me more than a multitude of words: for she was (and knew she was) my Lúthien. I never called Edith Lúthien – but she was the source of the story that in time became the chief part of the Silmarillion. It was first conceived in a small woodland glade filled with hemlocks at Roos in Yorkshire. In those days her hair was raven, her skin clear, her eyes brighter than you have seen them, and she could sing – and dance. But the story has gone crooked, and I am left, and I cannot plead before the inexorable Mandos."

Written on July 11, 1972, less than a year after the death of his beloved wife Edith. Reflecting on their youth in 1917 when she danced for him in a Yorkshire glade, Tolkien laments that, unlike the mythical Beren, he cannot descend to the Halls of the Dead to plead for her return before Mandos.