THE LAYS OF BELERIAND by J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien (Houghton Mifflin: $16.95).

Christopher Tolkien, that rascal, has been at his poppa’s papers again! And guess what? He found more stories, in this case, two lays (or poems), “The Lay of the Children of Hurin” and “The Lay of Leithian,” written between 1920 and 1931. This is the third volume of the History of Middle-earth, and there’s another volume to come. Sigh. More notes and commentary, corrections and cross-references, index and glossary, “poems early abandoned” and “unwritten cantos.”

And, oh yes, the main poems are nice, too. “The Lay of the Children of Hurin,” dealing with Turin Turambar (of whom much has been written in the last three or four books), is lovely with images only Tolkien could devise, and both works are interesting for their structure and length. “The Lay of Leithian,” is another retelling of the tragic tale of Beren and Luthien, Tolkien’s Romeo and Juliet. It was really moving the first couple of times. And again, the images are lovely, and once you get the rhythm of it, it flows along nicely. It is especially nice when read aloud. But once again, this reverent and scholarly approach overwhelms the the ethereal quality and magic that are Tolkien senior’s hallmark.