Quenta Silmarillion

The History of the Silmarils

At this point it must be mentioned that the Silmarillion is divided into five 'mini-books'. The first two were the first two chapters that you just read, but the third mini-book, the 'Quenta Silmarillion', is a full 24 chapters long. Brace yourselves.

Chapter 1

Of The Beginning of Days

Back when the Valar were still trying to make Arda habitable, Melkor decided to fight them. It seemed like the odds were against the Valar, but suddenly, one Ainu who had been previously watching the whole thing from out in the void decided to put down the popcorn and lend a fist to their cause. So came Tulkas the Strong, and Melkor fled before his wrath and laughter. When the fight (if it was much of a fight, seeing as Melkor seems to have just run away) was over, Tulkas decided to stick around, so we consider him one of the Valar. Melkor, as expected, hates him.

Eventually, the Valar had finished fixing up the world and decided that it was looking pretty habitable. Yavanna finally got a chance to plant the seeds she'd been making, and Aule created a pair of giant lamps and placed them on pillars in the north and south of Middle-earth. Varda lit the lamps, and the world had light.

Yavanna's seeds began to sprout, animals came into existence, and things were looking fairly nice. The Valar found a nice spot in the center of the continent of Middle-earth and made a home for themselves. As things were looking good, the Valar decided to take a rest. Tulkas and Aule were especially ready for a break, since they'd been working ceaselessly for several millennia.

Melkor, never one to miss an opportunity, decided to take this time to sneak back into the world. He and his servants began making a stronghold, Utumno, in the north where the light of the lamps was dim.

As soon as Utumno was fortified, Melkor snuck out, broke the lamps, and then ran back to his stronghold. The Valar would have chased after him, but the broken lamps were beginning to set things on fire and they didn't want their millennia of work to go up in flames. Even so, they weren't able to save everything. Their home on Middle-earth was destroyed, and many of the Valar's original designs for the world were unable to be recovered.

Now that their home was destroyed, the Valar needed a new place to live. They went to the continent west of Middle-earth, known as Aman, and settled down there. If you're wondering what is west of the uttermost west land of Aman, there's not much aside from an impossibly wide ocean and then the Walls of Night, which probably lead into the void.

In any case, knowing that Melkor was back and would likely wish to destroy their new home, the Valar fortified Aman by making some mountains on its eastern shore. Then they build some new houses for themselves and filled the land with whatever beautiful things they could save from the destruction of their previous home, and Manwe and Varda put their house on the tallest mountain from which they had a view of the whole world.

Once her house was finished, Yavanna was bored and itching to make something. She went outside and created her magnum opus: a pair of really, really awesome trees which shall henceforth be known as the Two Trees. One of the trees was silver and the other was gold, and both of them glowed. First the silver tree would glow for a few hours, and then it would dim and the gold tree would start to glow, and thus Valinor was filled with light. It was also a convenient way to tell the time, which up until this point no one had a good way of doing.

So things were pretty good in Valinor, which had light and fancy trees and lots of nice stuff, but the rest of Middle-earth was stuck under the darkness and tyranny of Melkor. Even so, the Valar didn't completely forget the rest of the world. Manwe would often find himself sitting on his mountain with his wife, looking out over Middle-earth and listening to the tidings brought by the birds. Yavanna would walk through the dark lands, healing what she could, and upon returning home urge the rest of the Valar to wage war against Melkor. Orome would also ride through the forest, slaying the monsters of Melkor, and the sound of his hunting horn made Melkor himself tremble from his stronghold in Utumno. Yet as soon as Orome had passed, the servants of Melkor would regroup and once again fill the lands with darkness.

And that's how the world looked before the Elves and Men existed. And the fact that these new creatures were going to exist someday soon wasn't forgotten by the Valar, even though they weren't doing much to stop Melkor. But as we don't have thousands of years and are impatient, let's head back into the void and listen to Iluvatar give a preview. Hey, it looks like Iluvatar is starting to talk about the Elves.

"I love the earth, which shall be a mansion for both Elves and Men," he said to the Ainur still in the void. "The Elves will be the fairest, and will make the most beautiful things. They will be similar in nature to the Valar, but less powerful." He looked down upon the little world he'd made and went on. "They shall be bound to the world until the end of days, and thus their love of it and sorrow for it will be more poignant. Even when they die, they will be gathered in the halls of Mandos in Valinor, and may in time return."

Through a mouthful of popcorn, one Ainu said, "That sounds really interesting."

"Yes, it is," said Iluvatar. "To Men, however, I shall give a new gift. They will not be bound by fate. They'll won't always use this gift for good, but whatever they do will eventually contribute to the glory of my work (even if they are a bit of a grief sometimes). And with this gift of freedom also comes the fact that Men will only live for a short time. As they are not bound to the world, they will pass on once they have died. Death is my gift to them, and in time even the Valar will envy it."

"Wow," said another Ainu, "dying sounds terrific!"

"It is," agreed Iluvatar. "Melkor will, of course, cast his shadow upon this gift and make it seem frightening and evil, but I assure you that it is not. Men will join in our second Music, and everything will be swell."