Great listing of events BTW CG! Thanks!! There's a whole lot of magic in this chapter, more than any other, and that's not just because of its length.
Given this abundance of magic, would you have liked to see it more in other chapters, or is this enough? Is this chapter the most magical because it's "the love chapter" and love is magical, or did it just make the plot work? Plot: I raise that point because every time our lovers are in over their heads, it's magic (or a magic dog) that saves them. Was Tolkien the writer creatively backing his characters into a corner each time to highlight their helplessness and hopeless plight, then cheating by bailing them out with magic? (I don't think so, but wanted to ask.) Its enough for me, and I like that it stands alone in this respect. It works here because of the importance of the chapter both personally to JRRT and because this is the chapter from which Hope springs.

Now trust me, I'm on the right side here, but Galadriel tells Sam she doesn't understand the word "magic" in Westron, because it applies to both Elven enchantment and "the deceits of the Enemy." Isn't Luthien repeatedly using her magic for deceit? If good and bad magic are so different, why do Finrod, Luthien, and Sauron all perform similar transformation spells? OK, good to know where you allegiance is there CG before you go all Morgoth's Advocate on us... In any case as Furincurunir stated with Letter #155 the magia and goetia are very much defined by purpose and intent in JRRT's view. So Luthien using the same skills but defensively and not to dominate I think is the difference.

The extent of Magic: How much of Luthien's magic comes from her mother's side? Could Thingol have done any of the things she did? Finrod could sing power songs and transform people into Orcs: how widespread was that ability? I think being half Maiar is totally significant here. Honestly aside from marginalizing Thingol and Cassandra-prophesying I feel that is why a Maiar is brought in as Thingol's bride. The Hope of Middle Earth in two Ages (Earandil and Aragorn) is one from the blood of the Firstborn, Men and Maiar. I think its a lovely conceit on JRRT's part to write Men's story - in the sense of our story - as having this ancient hidden magic in us that enriches our spirits. Part of the optimism in which he saw the inner value of humanity expressed in the legendarium.

In letter #155 (beginning by the Prof charmingly saying "I am afraid I have been far too casual about 'magic' …") , he says magic

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Magic was prohibited in those days, on the assumption that it worked...

[But] not all magic was illegal. It was an open-minded age, and a thing was judged largely on its intended effects. A spell to cast harm on a neighbour was punishable; a spell to take away toothache was not. If it had been, many doctors would have been seriously inconvenienced.

Magic was part of the fabric of life, and a great deal of it was not recognized as magic at all. It shaded imperceptibly into religion on the one hand and science on the other - inevitably, since it had begotten them. It was practiced by a strange assortment of people...Since the small fry of the magical world were limited by their capacities to catering for the baser needs of human nature - a love potion, as curse, a spell to make a woman tell the truth - while those of greater aptitude could afford to use their gifts benignly, the shadowy distinction between permitted and forbidden magic tended regrettably to resolve itself into a class distinction, in which the artisans were nearly always on the wrong side of the law and the great masters were above it. ...

Since white magic was believed to be performed by gods and black or illegal magic by demons, this sort of assertion brought the argument about legality into an area where it could not be settled. For the supernatural agents who performed the magician's will did not normally identify themselves to the beholders. Thus a celebrated exorcist was several times accused of casting out devils by the power of Beelzebub. ...

Thus between legal and illegal, black and white, god and demon, the boundaries were hopelessly confused. Most people did not bother about this confusion: it did not appear to them to be a problem. To the magician, as to the prostitute, the occasional severity of the law was an occupational hazard. To Simon Magus, who saw very clearly that one man's harm is another man's blessing, and who operated in a world of forces where there is no good and evil but only power, the illogicalities of the law were the predictable outcome of a system in which men of little imagination made rules for their betters.

One idea which does not seem to have occurred to the lawmakers of the time was that magic should be anyone's property. It was simply there, as the air was there. The principle that the same act, performed with the same intent, should be licit or illicit depending on the identity of the magician, would have been found incomprehensible. It would, of course, have simplified the situation at a stroke. Perhaps they did not take magic very seriously in those days.