THE CREATION
OF ARDA
The Vision and
Creation of Arda
In the beginning, the great spirits called the Ainur were bidden by Eru, the One, to create a Great Music, and out of the music came a vision like a globed light in the Void. Eru Ilúvatar gave this vision life, and it became Eä, the ‘World That Is’. The Ainur looked on it and were amazed and many, for love of this new place, entered it. They became the powers that were named the Valar and the Maiar; Men later thought of them as gods. These were the beings that shaped the World, which was called Arda. Into Arda the Valar and Maiar brought many things of beauty, but also there was strife: one of the mightiest among them rebelled against Ilúvatar and his brethren and there was war.
Arda is formed amid the Timeless Halls
When Arda was first created, the earth was a flat disc enclosed within spheres of air, light and ether. These spheres were sealed within the invisible Walls of the World, and set in the infinite Void. There was one vast supercontinent upon which the Valar, or Powers of Arda, continued the shaping of the world. But one of the Valar revolted and this led to the First War. In the conflict the ideal symmetry of Arda was ruined, and the continent was broken apart.
When all was darkness and a great void, according to the ‘Ainulindalë’, that first book of The Silmarillion, there was an omniscient Being who lived alone in the vast emptiness. He was called Eru, the One, or as the Elves would later name him, Ilúvatar.
This was the Being that Tolkien conceived as the source of all creation. Through the ‘Ainulindalë’, Tolkien tells us how the elemental thoughts of Ilúvatar became the race of gods called the Ainur (the ‘Holy Ones’), and through the power of His spirit – the ‘Flame Imperishable’ – Ilúvatar gave the Ainur eternal life.
For this race of gods, Ilúvatar built a dwelling place in the Void, called the Timeless Halls. Here, the Ainur were taught to sing by Ilúvatar and became a vast heavenly choir. Out of the music of these god-like spirits came a holy vision that was a globed world whirling in the Void.
Tolkien’s world of Arda was literally sung into being, and each of the heavenly hosts had a part in its conception, even that one mighty satanic spirit called Melkor who sang of strife and discord. However, the Music of the Ainur simply created a vision; it took the power of the Flame Imperishable to make Eä, the World That Is. Thus, the vision was given substance and reality. And into that world descended those of the Ainur who had the greatest part in its conception and who wished to take a further part in its shaping.
The Timeless Halls were the dwelling place of the Ainur in the Void
This was how Tolkien chronicled the creation of Arda. It is both strangely ethereal and vastly operatic in its conception. Also, it is a kind of double creation, for when the Ainur arrived on Arda, they found it was up to them to shape it.
Although Tolkien tells us that the majority of the Ainur remained with Ilúvatar in the Timeless Halls, he tells us nothing more of them. His histories deal only with those who entered the spheres of the world. Here these godly, bodiless spirits take on more physical manifestations. They become the elements and the powers of nature, but like the Greek or Norse gods they have physical form, personality, gender and kinship with one another. The Ainur who entered Arda are divided into two orders: the Valar and the Maiar – the gods and the demigods.
The Valar numbered fifteen: Manwë, King of the Winds; Varda, Queen of the Stars; Ulmo, Lord of the Oceans; Nienna, the Weeper; Yavanna, the Fruitful; Aulë, the Smith; Oromë, Lord of Forests; Vána, the Youthful; Mandos, Keeper of the Dead; Vairë, the Weaver; Lórien, Master of Dreams; Estë, the Healer; Tulkas, the Wrestler; Nessa, the Dancer; and Melkor, who was later named Morgoth, the Dark Enemy.
Of the Maiar, there were a multitude, but only a few of these immortals are named in Tolkien’s chronicles. Eönwë, Herald of Manwë; Ilmarë, Maid of Varda; Ossë of the Waves; Uinen of the Calm Seas; Melian, Queen of the Sindar; Arien, the Sun; Tilion, the Moon; Sauron, the Ring Lord; Gothmog, Lord of the Balrogs; Thuringwethil, the Vampire; Ungoliant, the Spider; Draugluin, the Werewolf; Goldberry, the River-daughter; Iarwain Ben-adar (Tom Bombadil); and the five wizards – Olórin (Gandalf); Curunír (Saruman); Aiwendil (Radagast); Alatar; and Pallando.
It is only after the world came into being and the Ainur enter into it that the count of time upon Arda begins. For the greater part of Arda’s history there was no sun or moon by which to measure time, so Tolkien gives us the chronological measure of Valarian Years, and Valarian Ages. Each Valarian Year, Tolkien tells us, is equivalent to ten years as we know them. And as each Valarian Age contains a hundred Valarian Years, each Age is equivalent to one thousand mortal years. Although there are many overlapping systems and variations in events and dates in Tolkien’s writings, there is enough consistency to estimate with some precision that the time elapsing from the Creation of Arda to the end of the Third Age of the Sun (shortly after the War of the Ring) was thirty-seven Valarian Ages, or more exactly 37,063 mortal years.
Within this vast time frame, the first Valarian Ages were spent by the newly arrived powers in the Shaping of Arda. However, even as there was discord in the Music of the Ainur, so when the actual Shaping of Arda began, a host of Maiar spirits, led by that mighty Vala called Melkor, created a great conflict. This was the First War, which led to the natural symmetry and harmony of Arda becoming scarred and torn.
In the ‘Quenta Silmarillion’ we are told that after the First War, the Valar built an idyllic kingdom called Almaren in the Great Lake in the midst of Middle-earth. In the north and the south of Middle-earth they raised two titanic Lamps of Light. However, in the far north, the cruel Vala Melkor raised the Iron Mountains and built his dark kingdom of Utumno. In the ensuing war the Lamps were destroyed, and – in the cataclysm that followed – the Valar fled to the furthest western land of Aman.
The ‘Quenta Silmarillion’ and the later publication of Tolkien’s drafts and chronologies in ‘The Ambarkanta’ and the ‘Annals of Valinor’ tell us of an idyllic time after the time of Creation and the Shaping of Arda. In the Ages of the Lamps, the Valar filled the world with natural wonders of great beauty and harmony, despite the Marring of Arda during the First War. These Ages were so named because the Valar fashioned two colossal lamps with which to light the world.
It was the Vala called Aulë the Smith who forged these golden vessels, while the Star Queen, Varda, and the Wind King, Manwë, filled them and made them radiant with light. It took the combined powers of the other Valar to raise each up on a mighty pillar, taller by far than any mountain. One lamp was placed in the north of Middle-earth and was called Illuin. It stood in the midst of an encircling inland sea called Helcar. The other was in the south and was called Ormal. It stood in the midst of the inland sea called Ringol.
During the Ages of the Lamps, the First Kingdom of the Valar, on the Isle of Almaren, was built in the Great Lake in the midmost point of Arda. Filled with the beautiful mansions and towers of the Valar and Maiar, it was a wonder to see, and the world was filled with joy and light.
This was an idyllic time that was also called the ‘Spring of Arda’. Yavanna the Fruitful brought forth the great forests and the wide meadows, and many gentle and beautiful beasts and creatures of field and stream.
But Almaren was not the only kingdom built in this time. Far to the north, the rebel Maiar spirits once again gathered, and Melkor again entered Arda. In secret, while the Valar rested from their labours, Melkor raised the vast Iron Mountains like a mighty wall across the northlands and built beneath them a dark fortress called Utumno. From that refuge he began to corrupt the work of the Valar, and poisons seeped into the waters and forests. Yavanna’s beautiful creatures were twisted and tortured until they became monstrous and filled with a desire for blood.
At last when he thought he had grown strong enough, Melkor came forth openly with his wicked host and made war on the Valar. Catching them unprepared, he cast down the mighty pillars of the Great Lamps so the mountains were broken, and the consuming flame of the Lamps spread all over the world. In the tumult, the kingdom of Almaren was totally destroyed.
In this terrible conflict, the Spring of Arda was ended, and the world was once again plunged into darkness, except for the destructive fires of the earth, and the tumult of earthquakes and rushing seas. It required all the strength of the Valar hosts to quell these mighty upheavals, lest the world itself be entirely destroyed. Rather than do battle with Melkor in the midst of such tumult and cause further destruction, the Valar abandoned Almaren and Middle-earth altogether. They went into the furthermost west, to the great continent of Aman, which later was called the Undying Lands. So the Ages of the Lamps ended with the Valar making a new kingdom in the West, while all the wrecked lands of Middle-earth were left in thrall to the evil power of Melkor.
