The One-handed

The mighty Wolf Carcharoth had been set by Morgoth to guard the entrance to his domain of Angband, but when the Quest of the Silmaril brought Beren and Lúthien to the Doors of Angband, they were able to pass. By her arts, Lúthien plunged the Wolf into a deep slumber and the two descended into Angband. They succeeded in freeing one of the Silmarils from Morgoth's Iron Crown and returned from the depths, only to find that Carcharoth had recovered and was awaiting them.

Lúthien had expended her power in achieving the Quest, and was no longer able to quell the beast, and so Beren attempted to do so using the Silmaril itself. He held the blazing Jewel in his right hand, before the face of the Wolf, but instead of being cowed, Carcharoth bit off the hand that held the Silmaril. That Jewel had been hallowed by the Valar, and would burn any evil flesh, and so it began to consume the Wolf from within, causing him to flee in agony away into the southern lands.

Beren and Lúthien were returned to Doriath by the Eagles, and Beren slowly recovered from his grievous wound. From that time on he was known as Beren Erchamion, a surname translated as 'the One-handed'.¹ He went before Lúthien's father Thingol and was able to truly claim that now he held a Silmaril in his hand, and had thus fulfilled the Quest that Thingol had set. From this act, he was thus also known as Beren Camlost, the Empty-handed.

The ravening Wolf Carcharoth was hunted by Thingol and his followers, and the Silmaril was recovered, though Beren was mortally wounded in the Hunting of the Wolf. He was eventually returned to life by Mandos (though he was still known as Beren Erchamion after this, which implies that in returning to life, he did not recover his lost hand). The story of Beren the One-handed and the Great Jewel became part of the heroic traditions of Elves and Men, and was still being told millennia later at the close of the Third Age.