Silmarillion - Ainulindale

[Laitoste]

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

A very good point. It seems to me that Tolkien continually associates water and music. Aren't the Teleri (the Elves closest to Ulmo and most enamoured of the Sea) said to be great musicians?

Are they? If so, they would fit the image I have of music being associated with the sea...perhaps because of relaxing images and calming music?

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

I also seem to recall some statement (somewhere in HoMe, perhaps) to the effect that an echo of the Music of the Ainur lives still in the seas and the rivers of the world.

Are you talking about this passage?

Originally Posted by Valaquenta

Ulmo speaks to those who dwell in Middle-Earth with voices that are heard only as the music of the water. For all seas, lakes, rivers, fountains, and springs are in his government, so that the Elves say that the spirit of Ulmo runs in all the veins of the world.

I've not read HoME yet...but if this is the passage, you're getting a bit ahead of yourself! But it makes sense. Ulmo is the Valar most connected to Arda, so it follows that he would continue to make music and "create" thoughts in Elves and Men...

[Raynor]

Originally Posted by Laitoste

Are they? If so, they would fit the image I have of music being associated with the sea...perhaps because of relaxing images and calming music?

The Teleri are called the Lindar, the singers; moreover:

Originally Posted by Of Eldamar and the princes of Eldalie, Silmarillion

Thus it came to be that the Teleri, who were from the beginning lovers of water, and the fairest singers of all the Elves, were after enamoured of the seas, and their songs were filled with the sound of waves upon the shore.

Originally Posted by Laitoste

Are you talking about this passage?


I've not read HoME yet...but if this is the passage, you're getting a bit ahead of yourself! But it makes sense. Ulmo is the Valar most connected to Arda, so it follows that he would continue to make music and "create" thoughts in Elves and Men...

I think this is the passasge in question:

Originally Posted by Ainulindale, Silmarillion

And it is said by the Eldar that in water there lives yet the echo of the Music of the Ainur more than in any substance else that is in this Earth; and many of the Children of Iluvatar hearken still unsated to the voices of the Sea, and yet know not for what they listen.

[Aiwendil]

Originally Posted by Ainulindale, Silmarillion
And it is said by the Eldar that in water there lives yet the echo of the Music of the Ainur more than in any substance else that is in this Earth; and many of the Children of Iluvatar hearken still unsated to the voices of the Sea, and yet know not for what they listen.

Well, no wonder I 'seemed to recall reading it somewhere' - I just read it a few days ago in the Ainulindale before starting this discussion! Thanks, Raynor.

[Alchisiel]

For myself I'm not a big fan of the Ainulindale, but I do like how Arda began with one word-"Ea." I always preferred the stories of the Elves and the forefathers of Men.

I always thought that the story of Middle Earth and the beginning of Arda had religious undertones. Even though it has been said that Tolkien didn't intend for it to be.

I always took the heart of the world to mean the center of the universe, the core of all things.

Oringinally Posted by Lalwendë:
The Ainur are embodied in the physical aspects of this world, the elements and the weather;

Not unlike Old Man Winter, and Mother Nature?

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

That passage from Ainulindalë was present in exactly the same form in the 1930s version, and as early as The Book of Lost Tales, Ulmo's music and that of water have a strangely hypnotic and alluring effect. I suspect that Tolkien felt the sea-longing himself at some level, and that this may be the source of this long-lived and oft-recurring theme.

What strikes me about Ainulindalë, other than the sheer gravitas and poetry of it, is how complete a form it had reached at such an early stage. I went looking for the passage alluded to by Aiwendil in the earlier version first of all, then re-read the version published in the 1977 Silmarillion, and there are long sections that simply haven't changed. Tolkien got it right first time, and his later changes are only improvements to what is already a fascinating work of imagination.

As for comparisons, had Formendacil not got there first I would have pointed out that Tolkien's myths attempt to reconcile polytheistic and monotheistic belief systems. I do find it interesting that there is so little of the strange Norse creation myth from Gylfaginning in this tale (save the association of evil with cold). Still, since the Norse world is made from the dismembered remains of a murdered aboriginal giant, who was created by a cow licking a block of ice, perhaps that's not so surprising after all. Has anyone looked into the Kalevala? It seems to me that the power of song might well form a strong component of some of those myths. Then again, Tolkien was a great lover of music and sometimes lamented that he had never learned to play an instrument himself. Interestingly, Mrs. Tolkien was an accomplished pianist: I wonder if that has any significance. Certainly I find the idea very effective that water carries some primeval music involved in the creation of the world; and it contrasts strikingly with the blasphemous piping so beloved of Lovecraft's Other Gods.