The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun

    Yesterday, I bought another J.R.R. Tolkien book, The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun. Previously, I already bought all of the J.R.R. Tolkien book titles in our local specialty bookstore. I had this book reserved for me. This book was available only in their other store branch. I waited for this book for around 2 days. I haven't started reading this book. I still have a lot of Tolkien books in my list to read. If you are interested in this book please read the information I got from Harper Collins UK online.

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. Set In Britain’s land beyond the seas’ during the Age of Chivalry, The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun tells of a childless Breton Lord and Lady (the Aotrou’ and Itroun’ of the title) and the tragedy that befalls them when Aotrou seeks to remedy their situation with the aid of a magic potion obtained from a corrigan, or malevolent fairy. When the potion succeeds and Itroun bears twins, the corrigan returns seeking her fee, and Aotrou is forced to choose between betraying his marriage and losing his life.

Coming from the darker side of J.R.R. Tolkien’s imagination, The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun, together with the two shorter Corrigan’ poems that lead up to it and which are also included, was the outcome of a comparatively short but intense period in Tolkien's life when he was deeply engaged with Celtic, and particularly Breton, myth and legend.

Originally written in 1930 and long out of print, this early but seminal work is an important addition to the non-Middle-earth portion of his canon and should be set alongside Tolkien’s other retellings of myth and legend, The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrn, The Fall of Arthur and The Story of Kullervo. Like these works, it belongs to a small but important corpus of his ventures into real-world’ mythologies, each of which in its own way would be a formative influence on his own legendarium.

I already browsed through this book. The one that I've got is a hardbound. It has a nice sort of leaflet cover, and the spine of the book has a gold embossing title. The famous Tolkien insignia is included of course. The paper quality is really good, and the font (text size) is good, very readable. It is a sort of a poetry book. I think this is not a sort of story style novel, but it is a story told in poetry style. This is something new to me so I decided to purchase it, and this work of Tolkien deviates from his Middle-Earth works. Personally I think, this is a must-have for Tolkien followers.