Ok this question is not related to Middle Earth or Tolkien World but rather to a sentence I read in Silmalirion and couldn’t understand. I would completely understand if you didn’t answer it but I’m hoping you would…. So here goes… When Tolkien talks about the appearance of the Valar in the Silmalirion he says ‘Moreover their shape comes from their knowledge of the Visible World rather than of the World itself’… What does this mean?

The story of the Valar and the creation of the world is pretty fascinating. The simple version of the story is that the Valar sang and the world was created from their singing. But in actually the Valar sang, Iluvatar showed them a vision of the world based on their song, and then the Valar…

Ungoliant’s Origin

Ah, we’ve stumbled into another one of those things that Tolkien fans debate endlessly: what is Ungoliant, and where did she come from? In The Silmarillion, Tolkien keeps it pretty vague: The Eldar knew not whence she came; but some have said that in ages long before she descended from the darkness that lies about…

Aule and Yavanna

It’s true that many of the other Ainur couples seem to specialize in elements of Arda that are very closely related (Irmo and Este have dreams and sleep, Mandos and Vaire have death and history, even Varda and Manwe have stars/ight and sky/air.) At first glance, it does seem like Aule and Yavanna don’t have…

Weather and the Ainur

The Ainur (Valar, Maiar, etc.) and the weather is an interesting topic. While many of the Valar are basically given mastery of some sort of elemental force (for example, Manwe and the air; Ulmo and the water), they weren’t much taken to combining forces early on. In fact, when it comes to “inventing” weather, the…