Autant citer ici le passage qui nous intéresse en entier :
...Most of the allusions to older legends scattered about the tale, or summarized in Appendix A are to things which really have an existence os some kind in the history of which 'The Lord of the Rings' is part. There's one exception that puzzles me: Beruthiel. I really don't know anything of her -- you remember Aragorn's allusion in Book I (page 325) to the cats of Queen Beruthiel, that could find their way home on a blind night? She just popped up, and obviously called for attention, but I don't really know anything certain about her; though, oddly enough, I have a notion that she was the wife of one of the ship-kings of Pelargir. She loathed the smell of the sea, and fish, and the gulls. Rather like Skadi, the giantess, who came to the gods in Valhalla, demanding a recompense for the accidental death of her father. She wanted a husband. The gods all lined up behind a curtain, and she selected the pair of feet that appealed to her most. She thought she'd got Baldur, the beautiful god, but it turned out to be Njord the sea-god, and after she'd married him, she got absolutely fed up with the seaside life, and the gulls kept her awake, and finally she went back to live in Jotunheim.Well, Beruthiel went back to live in the inland city, and went to the bad (or returned to it -- she was a Black Numenorean in origin, I guess). She was one of these people who loathe cats, but cats will jump on them and follow them about -- you know how sometimes they pursue people who hate them? I have a friend like that. I'm afraid she took to torturing them for amusement, but she kept some and used them: trained them to go on evil errands by night, to spy on her enemies or terrify them.
Outre ceux que nous avions déjà évoqué ici et là, deux éléments ne manqueront pas de nous intriguer: (a) le fait qu'elle n'aimait pas les chats mis que ce sont eux qui s'attachaient à elle, et (b) le rapprochement qui est fait avec la mésaventure de Skadi dans la mythologie norroise. Sur cette dernière, on pourra lire avec profit « Le couple Njöðr-Skaði » de François Guelpa dans la revue Europe,84e année, n°928-929, Août-septembre 2006 -- numéro fort intéressant dont nous avait récemment parlé Vincent.
Didier.