Morgoth's Ring (69 page)

Varda, therefore, as one of the great Valar of Arda, cannot be said to have 'kindled' the stars, as an original subcreative act -

not at least the stars in general.(4)

The Story, it seems, should follow such a line as this. The entry of the Valar into Ea at the beginning of Time. The choosing of the Kingdom of Arda as their chief abiding place (? by the highest and noblest of the Ainur,(5) to whom Iluvatar had intended to commit the care of the Eruhini). Manwe and his companions elude Melkor and begin the ordering of Arda, but Melkor seeks for them and at last finds Arda,(6) and contests the kingship with Manwe.

This period will, roughly, correspond to supposed primeval epochs before Earth became habitable. A time of fire and cataclysm. Melkor disarrayed the Sun so that at periods it was too hot, and at others too cold. Whether this was due to the state of the Sun, or alterations in the orbit of Earth, need not be made precise: both are possible.

But after a battle Melkor is driven out from Earth itself. (The First Battle?) He finds he can only come there in great secrecy.

At this time he begins first to turn most to cold and darkness.

His first desire (and weapon) had been fire and heat. It was in the wielding of flame that Tulkas (? originally Vala of the Sun) defeated him in the First Battle. Melkor therefore comes mostly at night and especially to the North in winter. (It was after the First Battle that Varda set certain stars as ominous signs for the dwellers in Arda to see.)

The Valar to counteract this make the Moon. Out of earth-stuff or Sun? This is to be a subsidiary light to mitigate night * (as Melkor had made it), and also a 'vessel of watch and ward' to circle the world.(7) But Melkor gathered in the Void spirits of cold &c. and suddenly assailed it, driving out the Vala Tilion.(8) The Moon was thereafter long while steerless and vagrant and called Rana (neuter).(9)

[If Tulkas came from the Sun, then Tulkas was the form this Vala adopted on Earth, being in origin Auron (masculine). But the Sun is feminine; and it is better that the Vala should be Aren, a maiden whom Melkor endeavoured to make his spouse (or ravished);(10) she went up in a flame of wrath and anguish and (* [marginal note] But not to drive it away. It was necessary to have an alternation, 'because in Ea according to the Tale nothing can endure endlessly without weariness and corruption.') her spirit was released from Ea, but Melkor was blackened and burned, and his form was thereafter dark, and he took to darkness. (The Sun itself was Anar neuter or Ur, cf. Rana, Ithil.)]

The Sun remained a Lonely Fire, polluted by Melkor, but after the death of the Two Trees Tilion returned to the Moon, which remained therefore an enemy of Melkor and his servants and creatures of night - and so beloved of Elves later &c.

After the capture of the Moon Melkor begins to be more bold again. He establishes permanent seats in the North deep underground. From thence proceeds the secret corruption which perverts the labours of the Valar (especially of Aule and Yavanna).

The Valar grow weary. At length discovering Melkor and where he dwells they seek to drive him out again, but Utumno proves too strong.

Varda has preserved some of the Primeval Light (her original chief concern in the Great Tale). The Two Trees are made. The Valar make their resting place and dwellings in Valinor in the West.

Now one of the objects of the Trees (as later of the Jewels) was the healing of the hurts of Melkor, but this could easily have a selfish aspect: the staying of history - not going on with the Tale. This effect it had on the Valar. They became more and more enamoured of Valinor, and went there more often and stayed there longer. Middle-earth was left too little tended, and too little protected against Melkor.

Towards the end of the Days of Bliss, the Valar find the tables turned. They are driven out of Middle-earth by Melkor and his evil spirits and monsters; and can only themselves come there secretly and briefly (Orome and Yavanna mainly).

This period must be brief. Both sides know that the coming of the Children of God is imminent. Melkor desires to dominate them at once with fear and darkness and enslave them. He darkens the world [added in margin: for 7 years?] cutting off all vision of the sky so far as he can, and though far south (it is said) this was not effective. From the far North (where [they are] dense) to the middle (Endor)(11) great clouds brood. Moon and stars are invisible. Day is only a dim twilight at full. Only light [is] in Valinor.

Varda arises in her might and Manwe of the Winds and strive with the Cloud of Unseeing. But as fast as it is rent Melkor closes the veil again - at least over Middle-earth. Then came the Great Wind of Manwe, and the veil was rent. The stars shine out clear even in the North (Valakirka) and after the long dark seem terribly bright.

It is in the dark just before that the Elves awake. The first thing they see in the dark is the stars. But Melkor brings up glooms out of the East, and the stars fade away west. Hence they think from the beginning of light and beauty in the West.

The Coming of Orome.

The Third Battle and the captivity of Melkor. The Eldar go to Valinor. The clouds slowly disperse after the capture of Melkor though Utumno still belches. It is darkest eastward, furthest from the breath of Manwe.

The March of the Eldar is through great Rains?

Men awake in an Isle amid the floods and therefore welcome the Sun which seems to come out of the East. Only when the world is drier do they leave the Isle and spread abroad.

It is only Men that met Elves and heard the rumours of the West that go that way. For the Elves said: 'If you delight in the Sun, you will walk in the path it goes.'

The coming of Men will therefore be much further back.(12) This will be better; for a bare 400 years is quite inadequate to produce the variety, and the advancement (e.g. of the Edain) at the time of Felagund.(13)

Men must awake while Melkor is still in Arda? - because of their Fall.(14) Therefore in some period during the Great March.

This text ends here. There follows now the associated narrative, identical in appearance to the foregoing discussion (both elements are written in the same rather unusual script).

After the Valar, who before were the Ainur of the Great Song, entered into Ea, those who were the noblest among them and understood most of the mind of Iluvatar sought amid the immeasurable regions of the Beginning for that place where they should establish the Kingdom of Arda in time to come. And when they had chosen that point and region where it should be, they began the labours that were needed. Others there were, countless to our thought though known each and numbered in the mind of Iluvatar, whose labour lay elsewhere and in other regions and histories of the Great Tale, amid stars remote and worlds beyond the reach of the furthest thought. But of these others we know nothing and cannot know, though the Valar of Arda, maybe, remember them all.

Chief of the Valar of Arda was he whom the Eldar afterwards named Manwe, the Blessed: the Elder King, since he was the first of all kings in [Arda >] Ea. Brother to him was Melkor, the potent, and he had, as has been told, fallen into pride and desire of his own dominion. Therefore the Valar avoided him, and began the building and ordering of Arda without him. For which reason it is said that whereas there is now great evil in Arda and many things therein are at discord, so that the good of one seemeth to be the hurt of another, nonetheless the foundations of this world are good, and it turns by nature to good, healing itself from within by the power that was set there in its making; and evil in Arda would fail and pass away if it were not renewed from without: that is: that comes from wills and being

[sic] that are other than Arda itself.

And as is known well, the prime among these is Melkor.

Measureless as were the regions of Ea, yet in the Beginning, where he could have been Master of all that was done - for there were many of the Ainur of the Song willing to follow him and serve him, if he called - still he was not content. And he sought ever for Arda and Manwe, his brother, begrudging him the kingship, small though it might seem to his desire and his potency; for he knew that to that kingship Iluvatar designed to give the highest royalty in Ea, and under the rule of that throne to bring forth the Children of God. And in his thought which deceived him, for the liar shall lie unto himself, he believed that over the Children he might hold absolute sway and be unto them sole lord and master, as he could not be to spirits of his own kind, however subservient to himself. For they knew that the One Is, and must assent to Melkor's rebellion of their own choice; whereas he purposed to withhold from the Children this knowledge and be for ever a shadow between them and the light.

As a shadow Melkor did not then conceive himself. For in his beginning he loved and desired light, and the form that he took was exceedingly bright; and he said in his heart: 'On such brightness as I am the Children shall hardly endure to look; therefore to know of aught else or beyond or even to strain their small minds to conceive of it would not be for their good.' But the lesser brightness that stands before the greater becomes a darkness. And Melkor was jealous, therefore, of all other brightnesses, and wished to take all light unto himself. Therefore Iluvatar, at the entering in of the Valar into Ea, added a theme to the Great Song which was not in it at the first Singing, and he called one of the Ainur to him. Now this was that Spirit which afterwards became Varda (and taking female form became the spouse of Manwe). To Varda Iluvatar said: 'I will give unto thee a parting gift. Thou shalt take into Ea a light that is holy, coming new from Me, unsullied by the thought and lust of Melkor, and with thee it shall enter into Ea, and be in Ea, but not of Ea.' Wherefore Varda is the most holy and revered of all the Valar, and those that name the light of Varda name the love of Ea that Eru has, and they are afraid, less only to name the One. Nonetheless this gift of Iluvatar to the Valar has its own peril, as have all his free gifts: which is in the end no more than to say that they play a part in the Great Tale so that it may be complete; for without peril they would be without power, and the giving would be void.

When therefore at last Melkor discovered the abiding place of Manwe and his friends he went thither in great haste, as a blazing fire. And finding that already great labours had been achieved without his counsel, he was angered, and desired to undo what was done or to alter it according to his own mind.

But this Manwe would not suffer, and there was war therefore in Arda. But as is elsewhere written Melkor was at that time defeated with the aid of Tulkas (who was not among those who began the building of Ea) and driven out again into the Void that lay about Arda. This is named the First Battle; and though Manwe had the victory, great hurt was done to the work of the Valar; and the worst of the deeds of the wrath of Melkor was seen in the Sun. Now the Sun was designed to be the heart of Arda, and the Valar purposed that it should give light to all that Realm, unceasingly and without wearying or diminution, and that from its light the world should receive health and life and growth. Therefore Varda set there the most ardent and beautiful of all those spirits that had entered with her into Ea, and she was named Ar(i),(15) and Varda gave to her keeping a portion of the gift of Iluvatar so that the Sun should endure and be blessed and give blessing. The Sun, the loremasters tell us, was in that beginning named As (which is as near as it can be interpreted Warmth, to which are joined Light and Solace), and that the spirit therefore was called Azie (or later Arie).

But Melkor, as hath been told, lusted after all light, desiring it jealously for his own. Moreover he soon perceived that in As there was a light that had been concealed from him, and which had a power of which he had not thought. Therefore, afire at once with desire and anger, he went to As [written above: Asa], and he spoke to Arie, saying: 'I have chosen thee, and thou shalt be my spouse, even as Varda is to Manwe, and together we shall wield all splendour and mastery. Then the kingship of Arda shall be mine in deed as in right, and thou shalt be the partner of my glory.'

But Arie rejected Melkor and rebuked him, saying: 'Speak not of right, which thou hast long forgotten. Neither for thee nor by thee alone was Ea made; and thou shalt not be King of Arda.

Beware therefore; for there is in the heart of As a light in which thou hast no part, and a fire which will not serve thee. Put not out thy hand to it. For though thy potency may destroy it, it will burn thee and thy brightness will be made dark.'

Melkor did not heed her warning, but cried in his wrath: 'The gift which is withheld I take!' and he ravished Arie, desiring both to abase her and to take into himself her powers. Then the spirit of Arie went up like a flame of anguish and wrath, and departed for ever from Arda,* and the Sun was bereft of the Light of Varda, and was stained by the assault of Melkor. And being for a long while without rule it flamed with excessive heat or grew too cool, so that grievous hurt was done to Arda and the fashioning of the world was marred and delayed, until with long toil the Valar made a new order.+ But even as Arie foretold, Melkor was burned and his brightness darkened, and he gave no more light, but light pained him exceedingly and he hated it.