Of the Beginning of Days
As has already been mentioned, the Valar were into making things and Melkor
was into destroying things. This went on for a long time while the world
was being made.
One day they decided they needed light. So Yavanna asked Aulë
to make two big lamps to stick up on pillars to light the world. Really
high pillars. They stuck a lamp called Illuin in the north and
a lamp called Ormal in the south. Both of these names are absolutely
useless and don't need to be remembered for any reason. The only thing
to remember is that there were two lamps, and they lit the entire world constantly
so that it was never night. Now that there was light in the world, plants
started to grow.
The Valar made their home on an island in the middle of the world where
the light from the two lamps mingled. They were very proud of what
they had made, and also quite tired. So they had a rest. Melkor,
however, was still hateful of their incessant cheerfulness. To get
back at the Valar, he gathered a bunch of his evil followers in the north
of the world and made a fortress called Utumno. He didn't tell the
Valar about it, so they didn't know. But his evilness spread around
the world, causing plants to rot and forests to go dark and scary and rivers
to get full of that gross sludgy stuff. General nastiness, really.
When this happened, the Valar guessed that Melkor was up to his old
tricks, and they went off to get him.
But Melkor wasn't going to sit around and wait for them to make the first
move, no sir. He was ready for war right then. So he went and
showed the Valar what he thought of their dumb lamps by knocking them over.
He threw down the pillars and broke the lamps. Where the pillars
and fire from the lamps fell, the land and sea was ruined. Before everything
had been nice and symetrical, but now all the designs were ruined. In
the confusion of darkness, Melkor managed to escape back to Utumno and hide
there.
The island where the Valar lived was destroyed by earthquakes and fire from
the fallen lamps. They decided to move west, to the land of Aman, and
away from Middle-earth where Melkor was. They built tall mountains along
the eastern edge of Aman as a fence to keep Melkor out. The mountains
are called the Pelóri, and the tallest mountain is Taniquetil, where
Manwë and Varda live. Other less important Valar and Maiar supposedly
live in mansions in the city of Valmar, nestled safely behind the mountains
in the realm of Valinor. The Valar made this area beautiful with gardens
and towers and other nice things, and they made new sources of light. On
a green mound (called Corollairë) Yavanna sat and sang and Nienna sat
and wept, until two trees sprouted. One glowed with a silver light and
was called Telperion, and the other glowed golden and was called Laurelin.
Both Trees glowed to give light to Valinor in direct defiance of the
laws of physics.
Now that they had their mansions and gardens and towers and Trees, the Valar
spent most of their time worrying about the goings-on of Valinor, and didn't
care so much about Middle-earth. They would think about it sometimes,
and every once in a while one of them would visit, but mostly they stayed
home and did stuff where there was light.
NEXT- Of Aulë and Yavanna
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