← “The Silmarillion”: Chapter by Chapter
Lesson
Lesson 1. Breakdown: what matters and what's interesting
Understand how early Arda was ordered: the Lamps, the Spring, the Valar's coming to Aman, and the Two Trees.
Guide: what this chapter is about
Summary
The chapter tells how the world was ordered after the creation. The Valar enter Arda and labor over it, but Melkor again and again destroys what they have made.
Aulë forges two huge Lamps, Illuin in the north and Ormal in the south; their light floods the earth, and the Spring of Arda begins. The Valar dwell on the isle of Almaren in the middle of the world. But Melkor secretly builds the fortress of Utumno in the north and at the appointed hour throws down the Lamps. In the catastrophe the land is broken, and the Spring dies.
The Valar withdraw to the west, to the land of Aman, and build Valinor there. To bring back light, Yavanna grows the Two Trees, Telperion (silver) and Laurelin (gold). Their light is the world's chief treasure, and time is counted from it. Here, too, the different fates of those still to come, Elves and Men, are first noted.
Lesson notes
Summary
The chapter tells how the world was ordered after the creation. The Valar enter Arda and labor over it, but Melkor again and again destroys what they have made.
Aulë forges two huge Lamps, Illuin in the north and Ormal in the south; their light floods the earth, and the Spring of Arda begins. The Valar dwell on the isle of Almaren in the middle of the world. But Melkor secretly builds the fortress of Utumno in the north and at the appointed hour throws down the Lamps. In the catastrophe the land is broken, and the Spring dies.
The Valar withdraw to the west, to the land of Aman, and build Valinor there. To bring back light, Yavanna grows the Two Trees, Telperion (silver) and Laurelin (gold). Their light is the world's chief treasure, and time is counted from it. Here, too, the different fates of those still to come, Elves and Men, are first noted.
Light that will become fate
— The Lamps: Illuin (“blue”) in the north and Ormal in the south.
— The Two Trees: Telperion, silver and the elder; Laurelin (“song of gold”), golden and the younger. They bloomed in turn, and their light was the purest in the history of the world.
— Aman (“blessed”), the land of the Valar in the Uttermost West; Valinor, their realm within it.
— Utumno, Melkor's first stronghold in the north.
The key idea of the chapter: light in Tolkien's world is not a backdrop but something holy and a measure of all things. The history of light runs downward: the Lamps (broken) → the Two Trees (to be poisoned) → the Silmarils, which will keep their light → the stars and, at last, the Sun and Moon as the last fruits of the Trees. Each destruction of light by Melkor is a step in the tragedy, and each time the light is saved in a smaller but more lasting form.
Why this matters later
— The light of the Two Trees is what Fëanor will soon capture when he makes the Silmarils. The whole central tragedy of “The Silmarillion” grows from here: once the Trees are killed, three jewels will be the only vessels of their light.
— The conflict of the Valar and Melkor is shown as a cycle of “creation and destruction”: whatever is built in the light, Melkor seeks to spoil. This is a concrete embodiment of the “Marring of Arda,” already sown in the Music.
— The Valar's withdrawal to fortified Aman is a debatable choice: by walling themselves off, they partly leave Middle-earth in darkness under Melkor's rule. This motif of the “gods withdrawing” will echo in the fate of the Elves, who will be summoned to the West.