Silmarillion - Valaquenta

[Aiwendil]

The Valaquenta (“Account of the Valar”) is the second of the two short works that precede the Silmarillion proper; it almost reads as a dramatis personae for the work ahead – or perhaps for the earlier parts of that work, wherein the Valar are the major characters.

The Valaquenta opens with a short restatement of some of the Ainulindale:

In the beginning Eru, the One, who in the Elvish tongue is named Iluvatar, made the Ainur of his thought; and they made a great Music before him. In this Music the World was begun; for Iluvatar made visible the song of the Ainur, and they beheld it as a light in the darkness. And many among them became enamoured of its beauty, and of its history which they saw beginning and unfolding as in a vision. Therefore Iluvatar gave to their vision Being, and set it amid the Void, and the Secret Fire was sent to burn at the heart of the World; and it was called Ea.

All this (and in fact the next paragraph as well) has already been told in the Ainulindale. Most writers would probably not have bothered with these first two paragraphs, since the readers have presumably just read much the same thing. Why then did Tolkien put them here? One answer is that it lends verisimilitude to the text – if the Ainulindale and the Valaquenta were real texts, written by different (and possibly unknown) authors in the distant past, we would expect them to go over the same territory a little bit. But there is actually another answer as well: the distance between the two works is in fact not feigned; they were written (and re-written) at different times and in different contexts by Tolkien, who may not have ever intended them to stand back to back. In a sense, Tolkien’s writing habits themselves provided a sense of authenticity.

A question occurred to me as I re-read the Valaquenta for this discussion: why is it there at all? Most works of fiction do not devote a chapter at the outset to describing the characters. Why did Tolkien feel the need to stop the story and tell us about the Valar before he went on?

We learn some interesting details concerning some of the Valar here. For instance about Ulmo:

At times he will come unseen to the shores of Middle-earth, or pass far inland up firths of the sea, and there make music upon his great horns, the Ulumuri, that are wrought of white shell; and those to whom the music comes here it ever after in their hearts, and longing for the sea never leaves them again.

I’ve always liked this idea, and I’m quite sure I’ve heard the distant sound of Ulmo’s horns when looking out over the sea. Again, we have the connection Tolkien draws between water and music.

Another detail I find interesting is the story that Osse, like Sauron, betrayed the Valar and joined Melkor for a time, but repented and was pardoned. Of course, Sauron did not repent – though it will be seen (much later) that he almost does at one point.

We also have tantalizing references to Olorin (Gandalf) and to Sauron, providing a subtle connection with LotR.

The Valaquenta was not originally a distinct work from the Quenta Silmarillion. It originated in the 1930 version of the Quenta Silmarillion (at that time called Quenta Noldorinwa) as a brief preamble. Only in the last major revision of the Silmarillion, in the late 1950s, did Tolkien break off the Valaquenta as a separate work. Tolkien’s finished text of the Valaquenta ends with the words:

Here ends The Valaquenta. If it has passed from the high and beautiful to darkness and ruin, that was of old the fate of Arda Marred; and if any change shall come and the Marring be amended, Manwe and Varda may know; but they have not revealed it, and it is not declared in the dooms of Mandos.

These words were removed by Christopher Tolkien in the published version and used instead to serve as the end of the Quenta Silmarillion. Nonetheless, it is intriguing to consider Tolkien’s initial placement of them. Why place these words in the Valaquenta?

Additional readings:
HoMe IV, “The Quenta” opening section (earliest version)
HoMe V, “The Quenta Silmarillion” chapter 1 (late 1930s revision)
HoMe IX, “The Later Quenta Silmarillion” (final version)