cimorene

People have noted the similarities in the romance plots (among other elements) found in LOTR with those from William Morris's 1889 novels The House of the Wolfings and especially The Roots of the Mountains, which helped spark my curiosity to read them. The mentions in the Wikipedia article about Morris's influence on Tolkien and in Seaman's intro to ROTM are of the Aragorn-Arwen-Eowyn love triangle and the character trajectory of Eowyn, but there wasn't much detail. But I found more than just that!

Mortal-Immortal romance in The House of the Wolfings

I didn't see any mention of HOTW (the first book in the series) in association with Tolkien, only ROTM. However, while there is a love triangle - or actually a love pentacle - of cross-cultural romances in ROTM, there are not any gods or immortals on the page. There is a callback to the idea: when the protagonist meets the mysterious and nomadic People of the Wolf (forest-dwelling throwbacks to the age of heroes who dedicate themselves to protecting the borders of the sheltered little agrarian civilization), he is so awed at first that he imagines they (particularly his future wife and her brother) may be gods or spirits. But in The House of the Wolfings, the love story is between the brave war leader of the Wolfings and an immortal nature spirit - a dís - who wants to preserve his life and asks him to wear an enchanted hauberk or coat of mail. She tells him that the hauberk will keep him alive and that it is not cursed, but this is a lie; she knows he wouldn't wear it if he knew. However, through a chance, he goes into battle one day without it, and then on two occasions with it, and all his comrades are able to observe that when wearing it he is rather dazed and behaves very oddly. This makes him suspicious, and ultimately she repents having lied to him and tells him the true story of the hauberk - it was forged by a dwarf, and a dís asked him for it to save her mortal lover, but the dwarf would only let her have it if she had sex with him. So she agrees, and then drugs him with a paralytic, leaving him able to watch her steal it but not able to move, and as a result he curses it. He says he cannot remove the enchantment that protects the wearer from injury, so he adds a curse that anyone who bears it in battle will cause the defeat of his people. The hero forgives her for this deception and they part in love.

You may remember that I said about 1/3rd of this novel is in rhyming verse. Here is part of what she says:

“Lo, this the tale of the Hauberk, and I knew it for the truth:
And little I thought of the kindreds; of their day I had no ruth;
For I said, They are doomed to departure; in a little while must they wane,
And nought it helpeth or hindreth if I hold my hand or refrain.
Yea, thou wert become the kindred, both thine and mine; and thy birth
To me was the roofing of heaven, and the building up of earth.
I have loved, and I must sorrow; thou hast lived, and thou must die;
Ah, wherefore were there others in the world than thou and I?”

Love Pentacle in The Roots of the Mountains

As far as parallels to the romances in LOTR, ROTM offers: a woman disappointed in love who goes to war (two of them); a noble hero who reflects the past glory of his clan in a cross-cultural romance with a wise and beautiful woman of an even more noble background than his; and one of the disappointed-in-love warrior women being wounded in battle and having a dramatic cross-cultural romance with another brave warrior/political ruler character. (Also - and this isn't part of the romances - a character who like is just kind of. Hawkeye. Her entire thing is just being an amazing, unironically unbelievably the best, acknowledged master archer who is almost supernatural. She is one of the pentacle though.) Before I explain these claims, I must briefly introduce the five main characters.

Protagonist and hero Face-of-god, alderman's son of the House of the Face in the small walled city of Burgdale.
He was a young man of three and twenty summers; he was so clad that he had on him a sheep-brown kirtle and leggings of like stuff bound about with white leather thongs; he bore a short-sword in his girdle and a little axe withal; the sword with fair wrought gilded hilts and a dew-shoe of like fashion to its sheath. He had his quiver at his back and bare in his hand his bow unstrung. He was tall and strong, very fair of fashion both of limbs and face, white-skinned, but for the sun’s tanning, and ruddy-cheeked: his beard was little and fine, his hair yellow and curling, cut somewhat close, but for its length so plenteous, and so thick, that none could fail to note it. He had no hat nor hood upon his head, nought but a fillet of golden beads.

His childhood sweetheart and (at the beginning of the novel) promised bride, the Bride, eldest daughter of the House of the Steer. She is athletic and beautiful (like at least one heroine in every Morris novel, her description is recognizably that of Morris's wife, Jane, whose likeness is preserved in many of the paintings of Dante Gabriel Rosetti).
She was a fair woman and strong: not easily daunted amidst perils she was hardy and handy and light-foot: she could swim as well as any, and could shoot well in the bow, and wield sword and spear: yet was she kind and compassionate, and of great courtesy, and the very dogs and kine trusted in her and loved her. Her hair was dark red of hue, long and fine and plenteous, her eyes great and brown, her brow broad and very fair, her lips fine and red: her cheek not ruddy, yet nowise sallow, but clear and bright: tall she was and of excellent fashion, but well-knit and well-measured rather than slender and wavering as the willow-bough. Her voice was sweet and soft, her words few, but exceeding dear to the listener. In short, she was a woman born to be the ransom of her Folk.

The war-leader of the House of the Wolf, Folk-might, who has loved the Bride ever since he glimpsed her and wants to fight Face-of-God for falling in love with Folk-might's sister instead.
He was a very big-made man, most stalwarth, with dark red hair and a thin pointed beard; his nose was straight and fine, his eyes grey and well-opened, but somewhat fierce withal. Yet was he in nowise evil-looking; he seemed some thirty summers old. He was clad in a short scarlet kirtle, a goodly garment, with a hood of like web pulled off his head on to his shoulders: he bore a great gold ring on his left arm, and a collar of gold came down on to his breast from under his hood.

Folk-might's sister and Face-of-god's new love, the Sun-beam, the young political strategist of the House of the Wolf.
Grey-eyed she was like her brother; but her hair the colour of red wheat: her lips full and red, her chin round, her nose fine and straight. Her hands and all her body fashioned exceeding sweetly and delicately; yet not as if she were an image of which the like might be found if the craftsman were but deft enough to make a perfect thing, but in such a way that there was none like to her for those that had eyes to behold her as she was; and none could ever be made like to her, even by such a master-craftsman as could fashion a body without a blemish.

The Sun-beam and Folk-might's foster-sister Bow-may of the House of the Wolf, unironically the best archer imaginable, possibly a bit supernatural about it, and a blithe, jolly shieldmaiden who knows no fear. She is a little bit hopelessly in love with Face-of-god, but she's resigned to it.
After a while the outer door opened, and there came in a woman of some five-and-twenty winters, trimly and strongly built; short-skirted she was and clad as a hunter, with a bow in her hand and a quiver at her back: she unslung a pouch, which she emptied at Wild-wearer’s feet of a leash of hares and two brace of mountain grouse; of Face-of-god she took but little heed.
[...]
‘[F]or all thou art a chieftain’s son, thou wert but feather-brained to ask me why I shot at thee. I shoot at thee! that were a fine tale to tell her this even! Or dost thou think that I could shoot at a big man on the snow at two hundred paces and miss him three times? Unless I aimed to miss.’

‘Yea, Bow-may,’ said he, ‘art thou so deft a Bow-may? Thou shalt be in my company whenso I fare to battle.’

‘Indeed,’ she said, ‘therein thou sayest but the bare truth: nowhere else shall I be, and thou shalt find my bow no worse than a good shield.’

A woman goes to war after being disappointed in love.

For Eowyn going to war is an act of rebellion which she has to accomplish by dressing as a man and running away. That makes her gesture far more momentous than that of the Bride, who literally does decide to go to war because she is heartbroken,

'But hearken! now are we sundered, and it irketh me beyond measure that folk know it not, and are kind, and rejoice in our love, and deem it a happy thing for the folk; and this burden I may bear no longer. So I shall declare unto men that I will not wed thee; and belike they may wonder why it is, till they see thee wedded to the Woman of the Mountain. Art thou content that so it shall be?’

Said Face-of-god: ‘Nay, thou shalt not take this all upon thyself; I also shall declare unto the Folk that I will wed none but her, the Mountain-Woman.’

She said: ‘This shalt thou not do; I forbid it thee. And I will take it all upon myself. Shall I have it said of me that I am unmeet to wed thee, and that thou hast found me out at last and at latest? I lay this upon thee, that wheresoever I declare this and whatsoever I may say, thou shalt hold thy peace. This at least thou may’st do for me. Wilt thou?’

‘Yea,’ he said, ‘though it shall put me to shame.’

Again she was silent for a little; then she said:

‘O Gold-mane, this would I take upon myself not soothly for any shame of seeming to be thy cast-off; but because it is I who needs must bear all the sorrow of our sundering; and I have the will to bear it greater and heavier, that I may be as the women of old time, and they that have come from the Gods, lest I belittle my life with malice and spite and confusion, and it become poisonous to me. Be at peace! be at peace! And leave all to the wearing of the years; and forget not that which thou hast sworn!’

and shocks her people by doing it, but doesn't break any norms; in fact there are quite a few other women from Burgdale and the shepherds and woodsfolk who go to battle, and an even larger share of the women of the House of the Wolf. Far from running away, the Bride actually stands up at the folkmote and announces her intentions to the people, and thereafter becomes a sort of figurehead and morale-booster, inspiring other young women to fight:

‘There is war in the land, and I have seen it coming, and that things shall change around us. I have looked about me and seen men happy and women content, and children weary for mere mirth and joy. And I have thought, in a day, or two days or three, all this shall be changed, and the women shall be, some anxious and wearied with waiting, some casting all hope away; and the men, some shall come back to the garth no more, and some shall come back maimed and useless, and there shall be loss of friends and fellows, and mirth departed, and dull days and empty hours, and the children wandering about marvelling at the sorrow of the house. All this I saw before me, and grief and pain and wounding and death; and I said: Shall I be any better than the worst of the folk that loveth me? Nay, this shall never be; and since I have learned to be deft with mine hands in all the play of war, and that I am as strong as many a man, and as hardy-hearted as any, I will give myself to the Warrior¹ and the God of the Face²; and the battle-field shall be my home, and the after-grief of the fight my banquet and holiday, that I may bear the burden of my people, in the battle and out of it; and know every sorrow that the Dale hath; and cast aside as a grievous and ugly thing the bed of the warrior that the maiden desires, and the toying of lips and hands and soft words of desire, and all the joy that dwelleth in the Castle of Love and the Garden thereof; while the world outside is sick and sorry, and the fields lie waste and the harvest burneth. Even so have I sworn, even so will I do.’

On his right were the folk of the House of the Steer: the leader of that House was an old white-bearded man, grandfather of the Bride, for her father was dead; and who but the Bride herself stood beside him in her glorious war-gear, looking as if she were new come from the City of the Gods, thought most men; but those who beheld her closely deemed that she looked heavy-eyed and haggard, as if she were aweary. Nevertheless, wheresoever she passed, and whosoever looked on her (and all men looked on her), there arose a murmur of praise and love; and the women, and especially the young ones, said how fair her deed was, and how meet she was for it; and some of them were for doing on war-gear and faring to battle with the carles; and of these some were sober and solemn, as was well seen afterwards, and some spake lightly: some also fell to boasting of how they could run and climb and swim and shoot in the bow, and fell to baring of their arms to show how strong they were: and indeed they were no weaklings, though their arms were fair.

As for the Bride, she went with her kindred in all her war-gear; and the morning sun shone in the gems of her apparel, and her jewelled feet fell like flowers upon the deep grass of the upper Vale, and shone strange and bright amongst the black stones of the pass. She bore a quiver at her back and a shining yew bow in her hand, and went amongst the bowmen, for she was a very deft archer.

But amongst the bowmen forth came the Bride in her glittering war-gear, and stepped lightly to the front of the spearmen. Her own yew bow had been smitten by a shaft and broken in her hand: so she had caught up a short horn bow and a quiver from one of the slain of the Dusky Men; and now she knelt on one knee under the shadow of the spears nigh to her grandsire Hall-ward, and with a pale face and knitted brow notched and loosed, and notched and loosed on the throng of foemen, as if she were some daintily fashioned engine of war.

(Two of them)

Bow-may also goes to war and is disappointed in love, but it doesn't really count because she was going to go to war either way. You can't keep her away from the war. However, she is still lowkey tragic about it:

Bow-may reddened and said: ‘Friend Gold-mane, dost thou perchance deem that there is aught ill in my warring? And the Sun-beam, she naysayeth the bearing of weapons; though I deem that she hath little fear of them when they come her way.’

Said Face-of-god: ‘Nay, I deem no ill of it, but much good.'

Quoth Bow-may: [...] ‘But come now! the hour of deadly battle is at hand, and we may not laugh that away; and therefore I bid thee remember, Gold-mane, how thou didst promise to kiss me once more on the verge of deadly battle.’

Therewith she stood up before him, and he tarried not, but kind and smiling took her face between his two hands and kissed her lips, and she cast her arms about him and kissed him, and then sank down on the grass again, and turned from him, and laid her face amongst the grass and the bracken, and they could see that she was weeping, and her body was shaken with sobs.

A noble hero who reflects the past glory of his people finds himself in a cross-cultural romance with a wise, beautiful woman of an even more noble background than his.

Face-of-god grows from a youth to a man during this novel and is well-liked by the people before he is chosen to be their war-leader at the folkmote, but over the course of the novel others remark on his growth and likeness to a hero of bygone days. The Sun-beam, meanwhile, comes from the House of the Wolf, the clan who led the entire Gothic peoples a few hundred years ago in HOTW, defeating an attempted Roman invasion. While most of the Goths have settled into an agrarian lifestyle or emigrated to the Roman empire where they are well paid as mercenaries, the House of the Wolf remember their traditions and keep them alive, living a nomadic, semi-secretive existence in the mountainous woods on the borders of this valley, protecting the more peaceful, settled germanic people from plundering attacks from over the mountains. (The inspiration for the Dunedain.) The Sun-beam isn't just a princess (and she isn't a princess because their society is egalitarian and their leaders are elected), or a lady in a castle - she is the sister of the war-leader of the House of the Wolf and their political mind. She travels incognito with bands of Wolfings, and also she plans and spearheads an undercover spying mission for some reason. Even her romance with Face-of-god is initially motivated by her planning and strategizing the future of her people (although then she falls in love with him). They have a dramatic meeting where she saves him (from her own brother who is aggressive because he saw The Bride from afar and is in love with her and knows, in theory, that Face-of-god - who hasn't even seen the Sun-beam yet - is going to fall in love with her and break the Bride's heart):

[H]e had gone but twenty paces when he saw a red thing at the edge of the wood, and then a glitter, and a spear came whistling forth, and smote his own spear so hard close to the steel that it flew out of his hand; then came a great shout, and a man clad in a scarlet kirtle ran forth on him. Face-of-god had his axe in his hand in a twinkling, and ran at once to meet his foe; but the man had the hill on his side as he rushed on with a short-sword in his hand. Axe and sword clashed together for a moment of time, and then both the men rolled over on the grass together, and Face-of-god as he fell deemed that he heard the shrill cry of a woman. Now Face-of-god found that he was the nethermost, for if he was strong, yet was his foe stronger; the axe had flown out of his hand also, while the strange man still kept a hold of his short-sword; and presently, though he still struggled all he could, he saw the man draw back his hand to smite with the said sword; and at that nick of time the foeman’s knee was on his breast, his left hand was doubled back behind him, and his right wrist was gripped hard in the stranger’s left hand. Even therewith his ears, sharpened by the coming death, heard the sound of footsteps and fluttering raiment drawing near; something dark came between him and the sky; there was the sound of a great stroke, and the big man loosened his grip and fell off him to one side.

Face-of-god leapt up and ran to his axe and got hold of it; but turning round found himself face to face with a tall woman holding in her hand a stout staff like the limb of a tree. She was calm and smiling, though forsooth it was she who had stricken the stroke and stayed the sword from his throat. His hand and axe dropped down to his side when he saw what it was that faced him, and that the woman was young and fair; so he spake to her and said:

‘What aileth, maiden? is this man thy foe? doth he oppress thee? shall I slay him?’

She laughed and said: ‘Thou art open-handed in thy proffers: he might have asked the like concerning thee but a minute ago.’

‘Yea, yea,’ said Gold-mane, laughing also, ‘but he asked it not of thee.’

‘That is sooth,’ she said, ‘but since thou hast asked me, I will tell thee that if thou slay him it will be my harm as well as his; and in my country a man that taketh a gift is not wont to break the giver’s head with it straightway. The man is my brother, O stranger, and presently, if thou wilt, thou mayst be eating at the same board with him. Or if thou wilt, thou mayst go thy ways unhurt into the wood. But I had liefer of the twain that thou wert in our house to-night; for thou hast a wrong against us.’

A warrior woman disappointed in love is wounded in battle and has a dramatic cross-cultural romance with another brave warrior/political ruler character.

As mentioned, Folk-might actually falls in love at first sight after glimpsing the Bride from afar while on a covert fact-finding mission to Burgdale, but they become engaged after she is wounded in battle. On the eve of battle, when they speak alone, she decides she will kiss him, but refuses to talk about it until after the battle. Then she is wounded, and she is already feverish by the time the Dusky Men have been defeated and Folk-might is at her bedside, enabling her to make a dramatic sickbed vow. (She and Folk-might become the leaders of Silverdale, the home of the Wolfings that they reconquer from the Dusky Men, while Face-of-god and the Sun-beam are the leaders of Burgdale.)

‘This much will I tell thee, O friend; that what I have said to thee this hour, I thought not to have said to any man; or to talk with a man of the grief that weareth me, or to suffer him to see my tears; and marvellous I deem it of thee, for all thy might, that thou hast drawn this speech from out of me, and left me neither angry nor ashamed, in spite of these tears; and thou whom I have known not, though thou knewest me!'

‘My friend, I have been thinking of thee and of me; and now hearken: if thou wilt declare that thou feelest no sweetness embracing thine heart when I say that I desire thee sorely, as now I say it; or when I kiss thine hand, as now I kiss it; or when I pray thee to suffer me to cast mine arms about thee and kiss thy face, as now I pray it: if thou wilt say this, then will I take thee by the hand straightway, and lead thee to the tents of the House of the Steer, and say farewell to thee till the battle is over. Canst thou say this out of the truth of thine heart?’

She said: ‘What then if I cannot say this word? What then?’

But he answered nothing; and she sat still a little while, and then arose and stood before him, looking him in the eyes, and said:

‘I cannot say it.’

‘Thou seest, chieftain and dear friend, that I may not stand by thy victorious side to-day. And now, though I were fain if thou wouldst never leave me, yet needs must thou go about thy work, since thou art become the Alderman of the Folk of Silver-dale. Yea, and even if thou wert not to go from me, yet in a manner should I go from thee. For I am grievously hurt, and I know by myself, and also the leeches have told me, that the fever is a-coming on me; so that presently I shall not know thee, but may deem thee to be a woman, or a hound, or the very Wolf that is the image of the Father of thy kindred; or even, it may be, someone else—that I have played with time agone.’

Her voice faltered and faded out here, and she was silent a while; then she said:

‘So depart, kind friend and dear love, bearing this word with thee, that should I die, I call on Iron-face my kinsman to bear witness that I bid thee carry me to bale in Silver-dale, and lay mine ashes with the ashes of thy Fathers, with whom thine own shall mingle at the last, since I have been of the warriors who have helped to bring thee aback to the land of thy folk.’

‘And if I live, as indeed I hope, and how glad and glad I shall be to live, then shalt thou bring me to thy house and thy bed, that I may not depart from thee while both our lives last.’

Footnotes:
1. Týr (but would be spelled slightly different in Gothic - I found a source of comparative names in various germanic languages including Gothic on one of my 4 am googling-names-from-this-book binges, but now I can't find it again)
2. Likely Dagr, or possibly his father Dellingr (but would be spelled slightly different in Gothic)