What was Shelob, and more importantly, what was Ungoliant?

[mhagain]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

Melkor did not summon those spirits from Outside: they were there in Eë already, and though their corruption was unknown to the Valar, their identities were not.

Actually in the source texts these are two separate groups: group (1) was his spies in Aman who reported what had been done, group (2) was the spirits he then called to himself. The texts certainly don't give any cause to indicate that they were the same spirits in each group, and I'd encourage a re-read. If group (2) were called from elsewhere in Ea (i.e they weren't in Arda) it would be natural for the Valar to not know of them.

Did I give the impression that I was arguing that he summoned those spirits from outside of Ea? That's a mistaken impression: the texts are clear that he called them from within Ea; whether they were created within Ea or had previously arrived from outside is not stated however, and that seems to be the main crux.

It's also important to recognise the distinction between Arda and Ea. Arda is the solar system (with Imbar/Ambar/the Earth as it's central stage), Ea is all of creation. It's possible for something to be within Ea but outside of Arda (like the stars and other galaxies, for example) and Ungoliant is only stated to have been something beyond Arda.

Beyond that I'm inclined to go with whichever explanation requires the least amount of personal extrapolation, and that - to me - seems to be that Ungoliant was one of the spirits that Melkor called from within Ea. After all, if she had been an Ainu, it seems more, not less, likely that the Valar would have been previously aware of her: they were Ainur too, after all. On the other hand if she was a spirit created within Ea but outside of Arda, subsequently corrupted by Melkor, it matches with everything in the texts and creates fewer contradictions and doubts.

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by mhagain

On the other hand if she was a spirit created within Ea but outside of Arda, subsequently corrupted by Melkor, it matches with everything in the texts and creates fewer contradictions and doubts.

I think this is an interesting idea. In Morgoth's Ring, essay II of "Myth's Transformed" mentions that "The Stars, therefore, in general will be other and remoter parts of the Great Tale of Eä, which do not concern the Valar of Arda. Though, even if not explicitly, it will be an underlying assumption that the Kingdom of Arda is of central importance, selected amid all the immeasurable vast of Eä as the scene of the main drama of the conflict" and shortly after Varda is described as "one of the great Valar of Arda."
This seems to corroborate with the idea which I believe Professor Tolkien speculated upon elsewhere (although I cannot find it immediately), that other Ainur may have been at work in other, notionally less important, regions of the cosmos. I think that might add to the notion that Ungoliant could quite literally be an "alien" creature, a being deriving from within Eä but not from the Solar System of Arda.