[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by davem

This is pure speculation, but I wonder, as it seems the 'Void' was a 'place' where Melkor could wander before the creation of Arda, whether something of that 'emptiness' entered into the Music through him, that it was some part of the theme that he introduced - the place where he sought the Secret Fire but failed to find it. She exists because Melkor sang her into being...

An appealing proposition, davem, and one which I do not believe has been considered before.

But, to return to a question which I asked earlier, is there any reason to suppose that Ungoliant was created before Eä? Could she not have come into existence, as part of Melkor's part in the song, at the same time as Eä was created? The extract from the Silmarillion quoted above talks of her descending from the shadows that lay about Arda, but those shadows would have been within Eä, and would therefore have been created with it. So it does not follow from that extract that she pre-existed Eä.

The following is an extract from Of The Flight of the Noldor, in relation to Nan Dungortheb:

For other foul creatures of spider form had dwelt there since the days of the delving of Angband, and [Ungoliant] mated with them, and devoured them; and even after Ungoliant herself departed, and went whither she would into the forgotten south of the world, her offspring abode there and wove their hideus webs.

Perhaps these other creatures were of the same race as Ungoliant, although lesser than her, and they too had crept in from the shadows that lay about Arda.