Excerpt from the
“Later QUENTA SILMARILLION”
Here begins the Silmarillion or history of the Silmarils
1 OF THE VALAR
A typescript by J.R.R.Tolkien, c. 1951, edited and published by Christopher
Tolkien in MORGOTH’S RING, Houghton Mifflin, 1993.
§1.
In the beginning Eru, the One, who in Elvish tongue is named Ilúvatar, made the
Ainur of his thought; and they made a great music before him. Of this music the
World was made; for Ilúvatar made visible the song of the Ainur, and they
beheld it as a light in the darkness. And many of the mightiest among them
became enamoured of its beauty and of its history which they saw beginning and
unfolding as in a Vision. Therefore Ilúvatar gave to their vision Being, and
set it amid the Void, and the Secret Fire was sent to burn at the heart of the
World.
§1a.
Then those of the Ainur who would entered into the World at the beginning of
Time, and behold! It was their task to achieve it and by their labour to
fulfill the Vision which they had seen. Long they laboured in the regions of
Ea, which are vast beyond the thought of Elves and Men, until in the time
appointed was made Arda, the Kingdom of Earth. Then they put on the raiment of
Earth, and descended into it and dwelt therein; and they are therein.
§2.
These spirits the Elves name the Valar, which is the Powers, and Men have often
called them gods. Many lesser spirits of their own kind they brought in their
train, both great and small; and some of these Men have confused with the
Elves, but wrongly, for they were made before the World, whereas Elves and Men
awoke first on Earth, after the coming of the Valar. Yet in the making of Elves
and of Men, and in the giving to each of their especial gifts, none of the
Valar had any part. Ilúvatar alone was their author; wherefore they are called
the Children of Ilúvatar.
§3.
The chieftains of the Valar were nine. These were the names of the Nine Gods in
the Elvish tongue as it was spoken in Valinor; though they have other or
altered names in the speech of the Gnomes, and their names among Men are
manifold: Manwë and Melko, Ulmo, Aulë, Mandos, Lórien, Tulkas, Ossë, and Oromë.
§4.
Manwë and Melkor were brethren in the thought of Ilúvatar and mightiest of
those Ainur who came into the World. But Manwë is the lord of the Gods, and
prince of the airs and winds, and ruler of the sky. With him dwells as wife
Varda the maker of the stars, immortal lady of the heights, whose name is holy.
Fionwë and Ilmarë are their son and daughter. Next in might and closest in
friendship to Manwë is Ulmo, lord of waters. He dwells alone in the Outer Seas,
but has the government of all waters, seas and rivers, fountains and springs,
throughout the earth. Subject to him is Ossë, the master of the seas about the
lands of Men; and his wife is Uinen the lady of the sea. Her hair lies spread
through all the waters under skies.
§5.
Aulë has might but little less than Ulmo. He is a smith and a master of crafts;
and his spouse is Yavanna, the giver of fruits and lover of all things that
grow. In majesty she is next to Varda, her sister, among the queens of the
Valar. She is fair and tall; and often the Elves name her Palúrien, the Lady of
the Wide Earth.
§6.
The Fanturi were brethren, and are named Mandos and Lorien. Yet these are not
their right names, and are the names rather of the places of their abiding. For
their right names are seldom spoken save in secret: which are Namo and Irmo.
Quoth Rumil. Nurufantur the elder was also called, the master of the houses of
the dead, and the gatherer of the spirits of the slain. He forgets nothing, and
knows all that shall be, save only what Ilúvatar has hidden; but he speaks only
at the command of Manwë. He is the doomsman of the Valar. Vairë the weaver is
his wife, who weaves all things that have been in time in her storied webs, and
the halls of Mandos that ever widen as the ages pass are clothed therewith.
Olofántur the younger of these brethren was also named, the master of visions
and of dreams. His gardens in the land of the Gods are the fairest of all
places in the world, and filled with many spirits. Estë the pale is his wife,
who walks not by day, but sleeps on an island in the dark lake of Lorien.
Thence her fountains bring refreshment to the folk of Valinor; yet she comes
not to the councils of the Valar, and is not reckoned among their queens.
§7.
Strongest of limb, and greatest in deeds of prowess, is Tulkas, who is surnamed
Poldórëa the Valiant. He is unclothed in his disport, which is much in
wrestling; and he rides no steed, for he can outrun all things that go on feet,
and he is tireless. His hair and beard are golden, and his flesh ruddy; his
weapons are his hands. He recks little of either past or future, and is of
small avail as a counsellor, but a hardy friend. He has great love for Fionwë
son of Manwë. His wife is Nessa, sister of Oromë, who is lissom of limb and
fleet of foot, and dances in Valinor upon lawns of never-fading green.
§8.
Oromë is a mighty lord, and little less than Tulkas in strength, or in wrath,
if he be aroused. He loved the lands of earth, while they were still dark, and
he left them unwillingly and came last to Valinor; and he comes even yet at
times east over the mountains. Of old he was often seen upon the hills and
plains. He is a hunter, and he loves all trees; for which reason he is called
Aldaron, and by the Gnomes Tauros, the lord of forests. He delights in horses
and in hounds, and his horns are loud in the friths and woods that Yavanna
planted in Valinor; but he blows them not upon the Middle-earth since the
fading of the Elves, whom he loved. Vána is his wife, the ever-young, the queen
of flowers, who has the beauty both of heaven and of earth upon her face and in
all her works; she is the younger sister of Varda and Palúrien.
§9.
But mightier than she is Niënna, Manwë’s sister and Melkor’s. She dwells alone.
Pity is in her heart, and mourning and weeping come to her; shadow is her realm
and her throne hidden. For her halls are west of West, nigh to the borders of
the World and the Darkness, and she comes seldom to Valmar, the city of the
gods, where all is glad. She goes rather to the halls of Mandos, which are
nearer and yet more northward; and all those who go to Mandos cry to her. For
she is a healer of hurts, and turns pain to medicine and sorrow to wisdom. The
windows of her house look outward from the Walls of the World.
§10.
Last do all name Melkor. But the Gnomes, who suffered most from his evil deeds,
will not speak his name, and they call him Morgoth, the black god, and Bauglir,
the Constrainer. Great might was given to him by Ilúvatar, and he was coëval
with Manwë, and part he had of all the powers of the other Valar; but he turned
them to evil uses. He coveted the world and all that was in it, and desired the
lordship of Manwë and the realms of all the Gods; and pride and jealousy and
lust grew ever in his heart, till he became unlike his brethren. Wrath consumed
him, and he begot violence and destruction and excess. In ice and fire was his
delight. But darkness he used most in all his evil works, and turned it to fear
and a name of dread among Elves and Men.
§10a.
Thus it may be seen that there are nine Valar, and Seven queens of the Valar of
no less might; for whereas Melkor and Ulmo dwell alone, so also doth Niënna,
while Estë is not numbered among the Rulers. But the Seven Great Ones of the
Realm of Arda are Manwë and Melkor, Varda, Ulmo, Yavanna, Aulë, and Niënna; for
though Manwë is their chief, in majesty they are peers, surpassing beyond
compare all others whether of the Valar and their kin, or of any other order that
Ilúvatar has conceived.
§10b.
With the Valar were other spirits whose being also began before the world:
these are the maiar, of the same order as the Great but of less might and
majesty. Among them Eonwë the herald of Manwe, and Ilmarë handmaid of Varda
were the chief. Many others there are who have no names among Elves or Men, for
they appear seldom in forms visible. But great and fair was Melian of the
people of Yavanna, who tended once the gardens of Estë, ere she came to
Middle-earth. And wise was Olórin, counsellor of Irmo: secret enemy of the
secret evils of Melkor, for his bright visions drove away the imaginations of
darkness.
§11.
Of Melian much is later told; but of Olórin this tale does not speak. In later
days he dearly loved the Children of Eru, and took pity on their sorrows. Those
who hearkened to him arose from despair; and in their hearts the desire to heal
and to renew awoke, and thoughts of fair things that had not yet been but might
yet be made for the enrichment of Arda. Nothing he made himself and nothing he
possessed, but kindled the hearts of others, and in their delight he was glad.
§12.
But not all of the maiar were faithful to the Valar; for some were from the
beginning drawn to the power of Melkor, and others he corrupted later to his
service. Sauron was the name by which the chief of these was afterwards called,
but he was not alone.
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