14 Planetarian December 2003

This holiday season we await the much-anticipated final film in Peter Jackson’s ren-dition of J. R. R. Tolkien’s classic fantasy trilo-gy, The Lord of the Rings. It is in The Return ofthe King that all of the great questions ofTolkien’s classic story – the ageless questionsthat underpin all epic myth – will beanswered. Will Good triumph over Evil?Will Frodo successfully complete his hero’squest? Will the bad guy Sauron get his “justdesserts”? Will Aragorn get the girl?

Tolkien fans, whose copies of hisbooks have grown threadbare frompleasurable reading, already know theanswers. But Jackson’s treatment ofthem is awaited with considerableinterest just the same – with an understand-ing among the more accommodating ofTolkien’s readership that the story, as in thefirst two films, is bound to be condensed forthe silver screen. What this means, asidefrom the certainty of purist web sites andchat rooms fretting over the differences, isthat most of Tolkien’s incredibly rich back-story for his fabled Middle-earth will notmake it into the theaters – including the fas-cinating glimpses he offers of the star lore ofthe Elves.

Now matters of star lore arematters of some import, or at leastsome interest, to those who careabout such things – like Elves andplanetarians. So it seems appropri-ate, before the film version of thetrilogy passes into cinematic histo-ry having spawned a whole newkindred of Middle-earth devotees,to compile and review what we

know of how the Elves and the otherdenizens of Tolkien’s universe perceived thatuniverse through the tales they told of it. Fortales they did tell.

As academic an exercise as this may seem,it does have value to the likes of us. If thetales you tell now of the sky are taking on a“same old” quality, if those cosmic egg originstories and sun-catcher myths and bear talesand all of that “arcing to Arcturus” begin to

feel as threadbare as your volumes of Tol-kien, then perhaps an Elvish interpretationcan offer a fresh perspective and a differentspin – not only on the tales we tell, but inreminding ourselves of the purpose andpower of myth in ancient lives and in ourlives today.

So put aside, for the time it takes to read,those familiar star mythologies, and let usdelve for that time into the cosmic lore ofthe Elves as the Dwarves might delve fortheir prized mithril in the mines of Moria.

And let us see where it leads. As Frodoreminded the wizard Gandalf at Moria’sstone door, all you must do is to “speak‘Friend’ and enter ….

Of Creation and Sub-creationWhy is it that The Lord of the Rings, in

Waterstone’s 1999 poll, for example, has beenvoted (by readers if not the critics) the great-est twentieth century novel in English? The

reasons are probably many: it dealswith universal mythic themes that res-onate in the human imagination, it’scompellingly apocalyptic, its prosereads like poetry, and it’s a rippinggood story. Another reason may be

that, for a fantasy work, in many respects itfeels “real.” This is entirely on purpose.

Tolkien was insistent that his work wasneither mere representation nor allegory,but was rather what he termed “sub-cre-ation” – the creation of a secondary worldwith, as Tolkien put it, an “inner consistencyof reality” so skillful that it compels belief (atleast “secondary” belief) on the part of thereader. It is a world “which your mind canenter. Inside it what he (the writer) relates is‘true’: it accords with the laws of that world.”

One of things this meant was thatthe sub-created world had to be com-plete, containing sun, moon, stars,detailed landscapes, and weather aswell as the assorted dragons, trolls,talking animals and magic rings thatmade it fantastical . In Tolkien’smind, this world had to have a histo-ry, a mythology, and a cosmology.And so his does – reinforcing the

Elvish Star Lore

Jim ManningTaylor Planetarium

Museum of the RockiesBozeman, Montana USA

Away high in the east swung Remmirath, the Netted Stars,and slowly above the mists red Borgil rose, glowing like a jewel of fire. Then by some shift of airs all the mist wasdrawn away like a veil, and there leaned up, as he climbedover the rim of the world, the Swordsman of the Sky,Menelvagor with his shining belt. The Elves all burst into song.

J. R. R. TolkienThe Fellowship of the Ring

If the tales you tell now of the sky are tak-ing on a “same old” quality … then perhapsan Elvish interpretation can offer a freshperspective and a different spin – not onlyon the tales we tell, but in reminding our-selves of the purpose and power of mythin ancient lives and in our lives today.

sense of the real that is one of the keys toenjoying his work.

Tolkien, in crafting his mythos, wouldprobably have agreed with Joseph Campbell,one of the world’s foremost examiners ofcomparative mythology, who said that thematerial of myth was “the material of ourlife, the material of our body, the material ofour environment, and a living, vital mythol-ogy deals with these in terms that are appro-priate to the nature of the knowledge of thetime.” And, Tolkien might have added,appropriate to the nature of the place inwhich that material exists. For Tolkien thatplace was Middle-earth, a world that was sup-posed to be our own in an archaic andunrecorded earlier age. And it was necessary,it seems, for this world to have an astronomyif it were to be truly complete and believ-able.

In The Lord of the Rings and its prequel,The Silmarillion, Tolkien’s principle of sub-creation is manifested in two ways, I think,when it comes to matters of the sky. First,the sky behaves accurately (and thus realisti-cally) in his stories. And secondly, there is aknown cosmology and bits of star lore,attributed primarily to the Elves.

We see an example of the first manifesta-tion in the excerpt from The Fellowship of theRing, the first book of his trilogy, that beginsthis tome. Frodo and his hobbit companionshave encountered a group of Elves after hisdeparture from his home in The Shire at thevery start of his long quest. As they all settled

down together for the night, they see in theeast the Pleiades (Remmirath, the “NettedStars”), the star Aldebaran (as Borgil mustsurely be), and then Orion (Menelvagor) ris-ing above the mists “over the rim of theworld.” The time of year is late September,and these stars do indeed rise a little beforemidnight (Standard Time) at that time ofyear – at least in the modern day. (Given thatthe scene is set in a remote age, we must for-give Tolkien the lack of any precessionaleffect.) Another example is Tolkien’s treat-ment of the moon. Always meticulous in hischronology, he has the moon moving andphasing correctly as time passes and eventsof the story occur.

In Tolkien’s sub-created world, the skyworks familiarly and believably, and plays avisible role in the detailed descriptions ofenvironment – which is one of the waysTolkien achieves the story’s sense of realness.

Of the ElvesThe second way in which Tolkien brings

astronomy into Middle-earth is through aninvented cosmology, most apparent in TheSilmarillion, the prequel to the events of thetrilogy. Since all of the myth of Middle-earthis decidedly Elf-centered, it is useful to gainsome further understanding of these charac-ters before we consider their perceptions ofthe universe.

It is first important to understand thatTolkien’s Elves are not the tiny, green-suitedpixies who repair shoes, bake cookies, or

make toys at theNorth Pole as they doin popular culturetoday. Tolkien’s Elveshearken back to theoriginal notion ofthese creatures takenfrom northern Euro-pean mythologies,and perhaps mostspecifically Celticlore – and they aremade of much noblerstuff. (In fact, Tolkienhad choice words forWilliam Shakespeare,at whose feet he laidconsiderable blamefor the diminution offairies and elves, feel-ing as he did thatShakespeare’s playshad turned thesecourtly beings smalland silly. We canonly guess as to whathe would have had tosay about Walt Dis-ney and Tinker Bell.)

The Elves of Middle-earth seem in fact tobe rather similar to the legendary Tuatha DéDanann of Irish lore, the “Fairy Folk” whowere the first inhabitants of Ireland prior tothe arrival of the Sons of Míl, or Milesians,the ancestors of the Irish to come. Like theTuatha Dé Danann, Tolkien’s creations hadof the stature of Men, although more slenderthan Men and fairer to look upon. They wereimmortal, but not eternal in the sense thattheir existence was tied to the Earth, andwhen the Earth ultimately died, so wouldthey. They could, however, be killed byweapons or grief, but stayed within the “cir-cles of the world” until its end. They weregrey-eyed and, contrary to the movies, gen-erally were dark-haired but for a certain kin-dred and the family line of Galadhriel. And Ihave never seen a reference suggesting thatTolkien meant for them to have pointy earsas seems required for all elf depictions today.

Tolkien did, however, mean for his Elvesto be a representation of some of the higheraspects of human nature (as indeed, all hiscreatures were meant to “partially represent”human beings). In Tolkien’s words, “TheElves represent, as it were, the artistic, aes-thetic, and purely scientific aspects of theHumane nature raised to a higher level thanit is actually seen in Men.” They had a“devoted love of the physical world, and adesire to observe and understand it for itsown sake.” And they especially loved thestars. (In fact, Tolkien surmised, within thecontext of his myth, that the presence ofsuch characteristics in human beings todayis a result of inheritance from the Elves. Hedefined this as an elven side or “elven quali-ty” to human nature embodied in our artis-tic and aesthetic tendencies. We might fur-ther surmise, in the same context, that plane-tarians, given our love of stars and lore andmusic and art – and laser pointers – mustsurely contain a twinkle or two of Elf ….)

Tolkien’s Elves, with their artistic bentand their love of the physical world, wereclearly the best instruments through whichto articulate the mythology – astronomicaland otherwise – of Middle-earth. And articu-late is exactly the right word, for no part ofTolkien’s mythology is more importantthan the language he used to tell it, for it is inlanguage that we find the beginnings ofMiddle-earth.

Of the LanguagesJ. R. R. Tolkien had an affinity and fascina-

tion for language from the start. As a child,he made up several languages, and this“secret vice,” as he referred to it, continuedthroughout his life. It served him well in hiseventual vocation as a philologist and pro-fessor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, where hestudied and taught the archaic languages of

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Northern Europe and the literature in whichthey were by now solely expressed: the tell-ing of epic myths and poetry. Tolkien wassteeped in the world of Icelandic sagas, Norsemythology, Celtic legend, the Finnish Kale-vala, Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the GreenKnight of Old English tradition. And theseinformed and influenced (along with otherfactors) Tolkien’s own sagas of Middle-earth.

But for Tolkien, it began with languageitself, which he sometimes described as“word-music.” His fondness for the grammat-ical forms and sounds of Welsh and Finnish,for instance, served as the basis for his twoElvish languages. And once he had Elvish, heneeded Elves to speak it. Once he had speak-ers, he needed tales for them to tell. And outof these tales, Middle-earth grew.

To maintain the linguistic authenticity ofa world populated by Elves, Dwarves, Ents,orcs, trolls, hobbits, several races of Men andall manner of other creatures required a lotof languages. Tolkien actually created struc-tural bits and pieces of fourteen differenttongues to serve his needs; most were real-ized only far enough to provide a few namesand battle cries and such, but his Elvish lan-guages were considerably more developed.The Elves were fond of naming things (somethings more than once) and were liable toslip into poetry or song at any moment. Thisrequired a robust and, as Tolkien put it, a“specially pleasant” language to support thenaming of names and sizable stretches ofverse – as well as to knit his geography andpeoples together with a linguistic consisten-cy of nomenclature. And Elvish worked verywell in every respect.

The first and contextually older of Tol-

kien’s two Elvish languages is Quenya or“High-Elven.” By the time of the ring saga ithad become a sort of Elvish “Latin” usedmainly for ceremony and lore. The otherlanguage was Sindarin or “Grey-Elven,” the“working” Elvish of Middle-earth at the time.Both tongues provided Tolkien with a for-mat for naming, and in another speciallypleasant turn, we find that the nomenclatureof Middle-earth is rife with astronomical ref-erences. Knowledge of just four root wordsand their Quenya (Q) and Sindarin (S) equiva-lents is sufficient to demonstrate this:

star Q: el, elen S: gilsun Q: anar S: anormoon Q: isil S: ithilheaven Q: menel S: menel

Armed with this small bit of information,you can begin to appreciate how thickly-threaded are the astronomical motifs in theappellations of Middle-earth, and can subse-quently enrich your acquaintance with itslands and peoples.

For example, when we wander into thenorthern and eastern districts of Gondor,named Anorien and Ithilien respectively, wecan now recognize them as being the “Landof the Sun” and the “Land of the Moon.” Ifwe tarry at the Gondorian city of Osgiliathstraddling the River Anduin, we might puz-zle out that its name means “Fortress of theStars” (from ost for “fortress” and giliath for“star host”). And if we bear in our lapel one ofthe lovely yellow flowers from Lórien thatare called elanor, we might realize that wewear a “sunstar.” Or that if we arrive on theweekday that the Elves call Menelya, we’ve

arrived on “Heavensday.”People likewise bear celestial names.

Isildur, the hapless prince at the beginning ofThe Fellowship of the Ring movie, who cutsthe One Ring from Sauron’s finger and fool-ishly fails to destroy it, has a name thatmeans “Moon-lover.” (His brother Anarion is“Sun lord.”) And if we rummage through theancient history of Men, we may notice thatone of the kings of Númenor (from whomAragorn is descended) was named Meneldur,which means “devoted to heaven”. (And sohe was, the annals telling us that he erected atower in the rugged north of his kingdom“from which he could observe the motionsof the stars.” He was also called Elentirmo,“Star-watcher” – an epithet that might serveequally well for people like us.)

Perhaps my favorite astronomical name isthat of Elrond, the half-elvish master ofRivendell, where Frodo heals from his wraithwound and the Fellowship of the Ring isformed. His name literally means “StarDome.” A case could be made, I think, thatelrond could also serve as the Elvish word for“planetarium.”

If we require any proof that the Elvesindeed loved the sky and its lore (as did Tol-kien, perhaps, as well), we need look no far-ther than their words. But if we do lookbeyond the words, into the legends ofMiddle-earth, we will find the astronomicalmythology that those words have conjuredup.

Cosmology In Elvish cosmology, or more properly

“cosmogony,” the creation of the universe isa cross between Genesis and a musical BigBang. As recounted in The Silmarillion. Eruthe One (God), also called Ilúvatar (“All-Father”) created the Ainur, or angelic powers,with his thought and directed them in thesinging of three great themes of music whichforeshadowed the creation of the materialuniverse, the formation of the Earth withinit, and the awakening of the “Children ofIlúvatar”: the Firstborn (the Elves) and theFollowers (the human race).

As the blueprint of the universe formed,each of the Ainur adding with its voice thatpart of the fabric Ilúvatar had revealed to it,the greatest of the Ainur named Melkor (theElvish Lucifer), in his pride, began to alter thetheme to his own desires, creating a turbu-lence and discord in the music that signaledthe beginnings of the eternal struggle

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The Elves had many words for “star” and astronomical references are common intheir names. All illustrations courtesy Jim Manning.

A case could be made, Ithink, that elrond couldalso serve as the Elvishword for “planetarium.”

December 2003 Planetarian 17

between good and evil that characterizes thehistory of Middle-earth as well as that of ourown world. At length, Ilúvatar brought themusical themes to a conclusion, andrevealed to the Ainur a vision of what theyhad sung. With a single word (“Eä!” “Letthese things be!”), Ilúvatar brought theuniverse into being based on the musicalblueprint, “globed amid the Void” and“sustained therein” but not a part of it.(Clearly, the Elves believed in a closeduniverse.)

Within Eä, the “World that Is,” was formedArda, the Earth. Some of the Ainur were sotaken with the splendor of the new creation,and so enamored of the vision of the newbeings to come that Ilúvatar alone wouldcreate, that they were allowed to enter Eä toprepare Arda the Earth for the Children ofIlúvatar and to act as its guardians. Thesebecame known as the Valar, the “Powers ofthe World,” somewhat analogous to the godsof Greek and Roman mythology but servingas agents of Ilúvatar. Melkor was one of thosewho went, but he served only himself andskulked about apart from the others,attempting to exert his dominance over thenew creation. (He would ultimately fail inthis personally, but not before doing greatdamage and sowing the seeds that wouldkeep evil present in the world.) Joining theValar were the Maiar, lesser angelic spiritswho served the Valar, and among whomwere numbered Sauron who Melkor corrupt-ed, and Gandalf who was to take wizardlyform to rally the Middle-earthers in the finalWar of the Ring.

The shape of the early universe was also

Greek-like: Arda was flat and round, sur-rounded by an encircling ocean calledEkkaia. The air stretched above Arda, andabove that was Ilmen (the “star region” orPlace of Light), in which the stars, sun and

moon moved. All was bounded by the Wallsof Night (also called the Walls of the World)which formed an impassable sphere encasingEä the World and separating it from theVoid. The only entrance or exit was the Doorof Night, through which Melkor was eventu-ally cast out into the Void, there to simmerpresumably forever (or until the Last Battlealluded to in lore attached to the constella-tion Orion). This door existed in the Utter-most West of the World, where the Valardwelled in the land of Valinor separated by agreat ocean from the western shores ofMiddle-earth.

But the shape of Arda the Earth did not re-main this way, and the Elvish myths includea later transition from a flat world to a roundone – ”an inevitable transition, I suppose,“Tolkien admitted, “to a modern ‘myth-maker’ with a mind subjected to the same‘appearances’ as ancient men, and partly fedon their myths, but taught that the Earthwas round from the earliest years. So deepwas the impression made by ‘astronomy’ onme that I do not think I could deal with orimaginatively conceive a flat world ….”

Consequently, at the end of the SecondAge of Middle-earth as chronicled in TheSilmarillion, deluded by the poisonous coun-sel of Sauron after Melkor had been cast outof the World, the last king of Númenor

sailed on Valinor with arms of war towrest the gift of immortality from theValar. When he landed, the Valar laiddown their guardianship and calledupon Ilúvatar, and the World waschanged. Númenor was destroyed, sink-ing into the depths of the sea like

Atlantis, Valinor was removed and hiddenfrom the “circles of the World,” and Ardawas made round so that a mariner sailingwest seeking the Undying Lands would endup circling back round to home. As it is writ-ten, in simple but thunderous words:

And those that sailed furthest set but a girdle about the Earth and returned wearyat last to the place of their beginning; andthey said: ‘All roads are now bent.’

Yet a “Straight Road” still existed by whichthe favored could sail west and come at lastthe havens of Valinor, if the Valar allowed it;such was the fate of the last of the High Elvesto depart Middle-earth, and of the Ring-bearers at the end of their burdens.

The StarsIn Elvish legend, stars were made not once,

but twice. And Varda, Queen of the Valarwho entered the material universe andspouse of Manwë their chief, had a hand in itboth times.

We may presume, based on references inTolkien’s writing to Varda’s “two star-mak-ings,” that she was the Ainu whose part inthe original Music of the universe was tomake the stars. At that time, the original starsthat graced the sky of Arda were small anddim. The brighter stars were kindled later, inthe second star-making, and Varda’s role inthat is crystal clear.

In the time just before the awakening ofthe Elves in Middle-earth, the Valar’s abodeof Valinor was illuminated by the light cycleof two trees: Telperion which produced a sil-ver radiance, and Laurelin whose light wasgolden. But Middle-earth itself was dark savefor the dim stars shimmering in the constantnight. The Valar decided that somethingmore was needed for the coming of theChildren of Ilúvatar, especially with Melkorlurking in the darkness of the World ready tocorrupt or enslave them if he could. It wasVarda who acted, and the following passagefrom The Silmarillion tells us most of whatwe know of the stars and constellations ofthe Elves:

In Elvish cosmology, or more prop-erly “cosmogony,” the creation ofthe universe is a cross betweenGenesis and a musical Big Bang.

The Music of the Ainur foreshadowed the creation of the universe.

Then she began a great labor, greatest ofall the works of the Valar since their com-ing to Arda. She took the silver dews fromthe vats of Telperion, and therewith shemade new stars and brighter against thecoming of the Firstborn … Carnil and Lui-nil, Nénar and Lumbar, Alcarinquë andElemmírë she wrought in that time, andmany other of the ancient stars, she gath-ered together and set as signs in the heav-ens of Arda: Wilwarin, Telumendil ,Soronwë, and Anarríma; and Menelmacarwith his shining belt, that forebodes theLast Battle that shall be at the end of days.And high in the north as a challenge toMelkor she set the crown of seven mightystars to swing, Valacirca, the Sickle of theValar and the sign of doom.

It is told that even as Varda ended herlabors, and they were long, when firstMenelmacar strode up the sky and theblue fire of Helluin flickered in the mistsabove the borders of the world, in thathour the Children of the Earth awoke, theFirstborn of Ilúvatar. By the starlit mere ofCuiviénen, Water of Awakening, they rosefrom the sleep of Ilúvatar; and while theydwelt yet silent by Cuiviénen their eyesbeheld first of all things the stars of heav-en. Therefore they have ever loved the star-light, and have revered Varda Elentaríabove all the Valar.

When the Elves awakened, the stars werethe first things they saw – and their responsewas quite understandable: they uttered theword “Elé!” which means “Behold!” (If you’veever gone outside on a clear night some-

where to be confronted by a clear, pristinesky just bristling with stars, you can com-pletely relate to this reaction.) This gave riseto the origin of the Quenya word for star (el)and explains the name they gave to them-selves: the Eldar, the “People of the Stars.”

Varda’s action in placing the stars and con-stellations in the sky is somewhat reminis-cent of the Navajo BlackGod who did the same(for different reasons).But of the lovely namesof the stars and constella-tions in the account ofVarda’s star-kindling, theetymology gives us rela-tively few clues as towhich stars and constel-lations they are, and withsome notable exceptions,we are left to speculateabout this. Carnil (“RedPoint”) and Luinil (“BlueStar”) are obviouslybright red and blue starsrespectively, but whichwe can only guess. Nénarmeans “Water on High”and Lumbar, “Shadow-home,” and these couldbe anybody. As couldAlcarinquë (“The Glori-ous”) and Elemmírë (“StarJewel”). The same is trueof some of the constella-tions made by gatheringtogether some of the pre-viously-existing fainterstars: Telumendil (“De-

voted to the Dome of Heaven”) and Anar-ríma, which seems to have something to dowith the sun. Soronwë, however, containsthe root word for eagle (soron), and so RobertFoster suggests that this constellation mayhave been meant to be Aquila. And Wil-warin (“Butterfly”), is general suggested bycommentators to be Cassiopeia. About Men-elmacar (“Swordsman of Heaven”) there is nodoubt: this is Orion using his Quenya name(Menelvagor is the Sindarin version). AndHelluin (“Blue Ice”) is unmistakably Sirius.

Likewise, Valacirca (“The Sickle of theValar”) is clearly the Big Dipper, the stars setby Varda in the north as a challenge toMelkor and as a sign of his inevitable“doom,” or fate. The hobbits called this pat-tern the Wain, and there are some alternatereferences to this pattern in earlier drafts ofwritings by Tolkien, when his mythologywas still evolving. Thus, the Big Dipper wasalso referred to as the Burning Briar in writ-ings from The Shaping of Middle Earth. And ina draft account of some star myths appearingin The Book of Lost Tales Part One, there is ref-erence to the stars of the Big Dipper as beingseven butterflies, or seven sparks from theforge of Aulë, the Smith of the Valar. A moreinvolved version tells a sketchy tale of howMelkor interrupted Aulë’s work with a lieabout his consort Yavanna (grower of theTwo Trees), which so angered Aulë that he

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The first things the Elves saw upon awakening were the stars.

threw down his sickle and broke it. Sevensparks leaped up from the clanging sickleand flew into the heavens. Varda caughtthem and placed them in their present pat-tern in honor of Yavanna, and they now flyin the shape of a sickle around the northpole of the sky.

There are a few other stars and patternsappearing elsewhere in Tolkien’s Elvish lore:the previously introduced Remmirath – the“Netted Stars” (the Pleiades) that the hobbitssaw in the east over The Shire, and the starBorgil that rose after it. Some have suggestedthat this star might have been Betelgeuse,but others say Aldebaran, and I agree withthe latter. Based on the context of the pas-sage in which it appears (recounted at thevery start of this discussion), it was a red starclearly rising ahead of Orion; Aldebaran isthe obvious choice.

Not appearing in Tolkien’s primary works,but showing up several times in the writingsof The Book of Lost Tales Part One, are refer-ences to a bright star named Morwinyon(“The Glint at Dusk”), which Tolkien defi-nitely identified as the star Arcturus – and asthe one that got away, in a manner of speak-ing. Morwinyon is said in these legends tohave been a bright star that Varda dropped“as she fared in great haste back to Valinor”and that it “blazes above the world’s edge inthe west.” And oddly, he left it to sit there, asone of the bright unmoving stars that in hisearly drafts seemed to coexist with moremobile stars, for, as was written in an earlytale, Varda had given to the ambulatory ones“a heart of silver flame set in vessels of crys-tals and pale glass and unimagined sub-stances of faintest colours: and these vesselswere some made like to boats, andbuoyed by their hearts of lightthey fared ever about Ilwë (Ilmen)….” The account goes on to saythat lesser spirits were assignedthe task of sitting in these “starryboats” and guiding them “onmazy courses high above theEarth.” But some, like Arcturusand Sirius, were “like translucentlamps set quivering above theworld, in Ilwë (Ilmen) or on thevery confines of Vilna (the atmo-sphere) and the airs we breathe,and they flickered and waned forthe stirring of the upper winds,yet abode where they hung andmoved not; and of these somewere very great and beautiful andthe Gods and Elves among alltheir riches loved them ….”Tolkien apparently never wenton to resolve this inconsistency,or to explain mythically how it

was that all the stars eventually began tomove across the sky together as they seem todo today.

But a further passage waxes poetic aboutArcturus just the same, and hints at a taleinvolving Orion and Sirius:

Not least did they love Morwinyon of thewest, whose name means the glint at dusk,and of his setting in the heavens much hasbeen told; and of Nielluin too, who is theBee of Azure, Nielluin whom still maymen see in autumn or in winter burningnigh the foot of Telimektar son of Tulkaswhose tale is yet to tell.

In this bit, Nielluin is an earlier name forSirius (meaning “Blue Bee”), while Telimektaris an alternate name for Orion. In The Book ofLost Tales Part Two, Tolkien sketches out thestar tale to which he may have been refer-ring. In this tale, Melko (Melkor) escapesfrom the bonds into which he had beenplaced for his deeds, and the Valar and theElves hunted him. Telimektar of the silversword, who was the son of one of the morerough-and-tumble Valar named Tulkas, andhis companion Ingil, the son of the HighKing of the Elves who lived in Valinor, sur-prised Melko and wounded him. Melko fledand climbed a towering pine tree that reach-ed all the way up to the sky and escaped intothe realm of the stars. The pine tree was cutdown to keep Melko out of the world, andnow he roams the heavens, making troublefor the sun and moon by causing eclipses,and for the stars by occasionally dislodging afew and casting them down – as meteors.(Varda, however, immediately replaces any

stars so lost from the sky.) Telimektar andIngil continue the pursuit, and were placedin the sky to guard the Earth from Melko.Varda gave Telimektar stars to bear aloft sothat the gods may know he watches (andthese, we may presume, outline his form).And Ingil follows at his heels as the starNielluin, or Sirius. The tale says that one dayMelko will find a way back and the LastBattle will begin (which Tolkien himself saidperhaps owes its reference to the NorseRagnarok, “but is not much like it.”). The signof the battle will be when Telimektar drawshis sword and the diamonds on his sword-sheath turn red.

Tolkien’s Elvish star legends offer anotherlovely reference to falling stars:

Yet many a time and oft a tiny star-ship ofVarda that has dipped into the Outer Seas,as often they will, is sucked through thatDoor of Night behind the Sun; and sometrack her galleon through the starless vastback unto the Eastern Wall, and some arelost for ever, and some glimmer beyond theDoor until the Sunship issues forth again.Then do these leap back and rush up intothe sky again, or flee across its spaces; andthis is a very beautiful thing see – theFountains of the Stars.

My interpretation is that this is an Elvishaccount of the reason for meteor showers –”fountains” of waylaid stars fleeing acrossthe sky!

The Sun and Moon The stars, both sets of them, are older than

the sun and moon who arrived relativelylate in the cosmogonical schemeof the Elves – and out of sheernecessity. Varda’s brighter starswere apparently sufficient for thetwilight world of the Elves, whowere summoned by the Valar tojoin them in Valinor in any case.Some went (those who continuedto call themselves the Eldar), andsome stayed in Middle-earth (andcame to be called by variety ofnames depending on when andwhere they left the journey west;the most notable group were theSindar who remained in the westof Middle-earth).

But Melkor was ever about hisintrigues and disruptions, and itwas his actions that brought theMiddle-earth lighting issue to ahead. As told in The Silmarillion, itwas during a festival in Valinor,when the Valar and Elves were offhaving a good time, that Melkorsneaked into their realm with a

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light-devouring monster named Ungoliantin the form of a great spider. While the resi-dents made merry elsewhere, Melkor struckat the roots of the light-giving trees Telper-ion and Laurelin, and Ungoliant suckedthem dry of all their light, and a darknesscame over Valinor.

Melkor and Ungoliant escaped, and thedistressed Valar coaxed only a single silverflower from Telperion and a single goldenfruit from Laurelin before the Two Treesexpired for good. The Valar, who decided itwas time to provide Middle-earth with morelight anyway to expose and confound theconceits of Melkor, then placed the silverflower and golden fruit into specially-craftedvessels to hold and preserve their light, andselected Maiar to guide these vessels throughthe lower stretches of Ilmen, nearer to theEarth than the stars. The vessel holding thesilver flower of Telperion became the moon(“Isil the Sheen”), and a male Maia namedTilion was selected to guide it. The vesselhousing the golden fruit of Laurelin corre-spondingly became the sun (“Anar the Fire-golden”), to be guided across the sky by afemale Maia named Arien. (The genders hereare counter to the mythological norm inwhich the sun is usually male and the moonfemale, but the Elvish arrangement matches

that of the Norse, where the sun was likewisefemale and the moon male.)

Varda then launched the vessels into thesky, the moon rising first in the west fromValinor, and it began to traverse back andforth across the sky between east and west,Varda having directed that the vessels wouldbe “ever aloft” to light the world. At the endof the moon’s seventh traverse, when it wasin the east, the sun was sent rising in thewest, and so for a time the two vessels tra-versed the sky, passing each other in theircourses over the middle of the then-still-flatEarth.

But things didn’t stay this way for long.Tilion, as it turned out, was “wayward anduncertain in his speed, and held not to his

appointed path; and he sought to come nearto Arien, being drawn by her splendor,though the flame of Anar scorched him, andthe island of the Moon was darkened.” (Andso began the phases of the moon.) Besidesthat, several of the Valar complained thatwith the Earth constantly lighted, there wasno sleep or rest. And so Varda changed thetraffic pattern of the sky. She directed that,in order to provide both day and night, thesun would set in west below the waters ofthe great encircling ocean, pass under theEarth. and rise in the east to mount the heav-ens – creating a westward-only movementand a light-dark cycle that became the day-night cycle.

The moon was directed to move similarly,and to wait to rise until the sun had set, butTilion still moved at “an uncertain pace,”still drawn to Arien with her sun, “so thatoften both may be seen above the Earthtogether.” And so the cycle of moon phasescontinues. The text goes on to say that “attimes it will chance that he comes so nighthat his shadow cuts off her brightness, andthere is a darkness amid the day” – as good amythical account of the cause of solareclipses as we are likely to find.

There is no account of how the sun andmoon must have changed their paths whenthe world went round, but we may assumethat they adjusted by circling around theround Earth, ever in the Ilmen (and so “everaloft” in the end as Varda desired in thebeginning), as any good Earth-centered viewof the universe would have them do.

In the Elvish account of the origins of thesun and moon, we can detect a certainCoyote-like flavor in the behavior of Melkor.The Coyote character of Native Americantradition was more about mischief than mal-ice, but both Coyote and Melkor proved tobe agents of change in their environments.Many of the actions (usually foolish) ofCoyote changed the landscape of the world.In this instance, the action of Melkorchanged the entire lighting scheme of theElvish cosmos, and made necessary theadvent of the sun and moon.

Tolkien’s Elves recognized and acknowl-edged this change and its effect on the Earth(just as all myth-telling peoples have recog-nized the time-marking and life-givingpower of the sun). And they did it, as isentirely characteristic, with beautiful turnsof phrase:

From this time forth were reckoned theYears of the Sun. Swifter and briefer arethey than the long Years of the Trees inValinor. In that time the air of Middle-earth became heavy with the breath ofgrowth and mortality, and the changing

and ageing of all things was hastenedexceedingly; life teemed upon the soil andin the waters in the Second Spring of Arda,and the Eldar increased, and beneath thenew Sun Beleriand grew green and fair.

The PlanetsWe have not yet considered Elvish lore

concerning the planets, but since, with oneimportant exception, they seem to haveescaped mention (if not notice), there isn’tmuch to tell. I have seen one source suggestthat Varda’s bright stars kindled before thecoming of the Elves were actually the plan-ets, and this source assigned the star names tothem – Mars as Carnil, Jupiter as Alcarinquë,and so on. But I am not aware of any justifi-cation for this in the “scriptures,” so to speak,and when the source assigned names toUranus and Neptune as well (these were,after all, supposed to be bright), the theoryfell apart for me.

The one planet for which a mythologicalorigin is clearly given in Elvendom is Venus.And its origin is tied up in the long, involved,and tragic tale for which The Silmarillion isnamed.

The tale begins in Valinor with the cre-ation of three impressive artifacts by the gift-ed Elf prince Fëanor: jewels of crystal inwhich he mingled and preserved the light ofthe Two Trees before their unfortunatedemise. They were called the silmarilli(“White Shining Radiance”), and were amongthe finest and most beautiful things everwrought upon Earth. And the trouble beganright there, for the power of their beautymade Fëanor uncommonly possessive for anElf.

When Melkor and Ungoliant sucked thelife out of the Two Trees (resulting in theneed for the sun and moon), they alsostopped on their way out of town to killFëanor’s father and steal the precious silmar-ils, which Melkor also coveted, and which helater placed in his iron crown. Fëanor swore aterrible oath to avenge his losses and recoverthe jewels whatever the cost, and he and the

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The moon was made from the flowerof the silver tree Telperion.

The sun was made from the fruit ofthe golden tree Laurelin.

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larger part of his kindred stormed back toMiddle-earth to make good on his oath, set-ting events and tragedies into motion thathad far-reaching consequences for the histo-ry of Middle-earth and which would rivalthe darkest Greek tragedy or Thomas Hardynovel.

To make a long and very complicatedstory much shorter, suffice it to say that thestolen silmarils, coupled with Fëanor’s andhis family’s tragic flaws, led to an age’s worthof hopeless wars and battles in which theElves were ultimately and completely defeat-ed by the forces of Melkor, and all the Elvenkingdoms of Middle-earth were broughtdown. In the midst of this epic struggle, how-ever, a somewhat ordinary man namedBeren (mirroring the hobbit Ringbearers tocome), with the help of his beloved Elf-maidLúthien, managed to perform a great deed bysneaking into Melkor’s stronghold and –through strength of wits rather than arms –wrested one of the silmarils from Melkor’siron crown. The jewel passed down to Berenand Lúthien’s son Dior, and in turn to Dior’sElvish daughter Elwing, who fell in lovewith another Everyman named Eärendil, themariner.

With the final defeat of the Elf kingdoms,when Melkor stood supreme upon the shoresof Middle-earth and all hope seemed lost,Eärendil and Elwing took her inheritanceand together they undertook a dangerous“hero’s quest” of their own, sailing westwardacross the great ocean seeking the StraightRoad beyond the circles of the world thatwould take them to Valinor to intercede onbehalf of Elves and Men. By the grace of theValar, they were allowed to take that path tothe Undying Lands, and there they pleadedfor the help of the Valar. The Valar heardtheir plea, and as the tales tell, marched withwar upon Melkor and defeated him utterly,binding him and casting him through theDoor of Night into the Void beyond theWalls of the World, where he remains untilthe hinted Last Battle.

As is often the case in epic myth, Eärendiland Elwing succeeded in their quest, but at acost. They reached Valinor at the price ofnever being able to return toMiddle-earth. Instead the pairremained in Valinor, whereEärendil and his ship were lift-ed into the heavens where henow “keeps watch upon theramparts of the sky.” The sil-maril of Elwing is fixed firmlyto his brow, and we see it stilltoday sometimes at morningor evening as the planet Venus,shining in the dusky sky. Or, asthe Elvish tale concludes:

Now fair and marvelous was that vesselmade, and it was filled with a waveringflame, pure and bright; and Eärendil theMariner sat at the helm, glistening withthe dust of elven-gems, and the Silmarilwas bound upon his brow. Far he jour-neyed in that ship, even into the starlessvoids; but most often was he seen at morn-ing or evening, glimmering in sunrise orsunset, as he came back to Valinor fromvoyages beyond the confines of the world.

That Eärendil with his shining silmarilrepresent the planet Venus is certain, forTolkien himself indicated as much. He saidthat Eärendil’s name was derived from theAnglo-Saxon word éarendel, which, based onits etymology, he realized was an astronomi-cal term referring to the “star” that presagesthe dawn – in other words, Venus, the Morn-ing Star shining brightly before the rising ofthe sun. “Or at any rate, that is how I took it,”Tolkien wrote. He worked this symbolisminto the story, though the small changes hemade in Eärendil’s name changed its mean-ing in Elvish to “Lover of the Sea.”

It’s an appealing image regardless: Venus asthe silmaril shining upon the brow of Eären-dil, glimmering in the sunrise or sunset as hereturns from voyages “beyond the confinesof the world.”

Of the Relevance of MythThus is the star lore of the Elves, such as it

comes down to us from J. R. R. Tolkien’s tales. Now this may all be of intellectual interest

as far as it goes, but the nonromantic amongus – or perhaps those not so much blessedwith Tolkien’s “elven quality” – might har-rumph and remind us that his Elvishmythology is all just an elaborate fiction.And the cynic might then remind the non-romantic that the same might be said of allmythology. But such contentions do littlemore than deny the value of each. The pri-mary difference between Tolkien’s mytholo-gy and that of the real world is that Tolkien’swas invented to serve his sub-created world,while the stories and legends of Earth’s realcultures evolved over time out of their beliefsystems about the world. Both sets of ideasserve exactly the same purpose in theirrespective universes; thus, Tolkien’sapproach can legitimately offer insight onthe value of myth in our own world and ourown lives.

In a sense, all myth is metaphor – a gras-pable way to illuminate and internalize therealities of the natural world and humannature and to make us more comfortable indealing with them. It doesn’t have to be truein the real world to nonetheless reveal thetruth of the real world. Consider the words ofC. S. Lewis, a friend and colleague of Tolkien,who, in reviewing The Lord of the Rings,described how Tolkien’s mythology is appli-cable to the primary world:

The value of myth is that it takes thethings we know and restores to them therich significance which has been hiddenby the veil of familiarity. The child enjoyshis meat, otherwise dull to him, by pre-tending it is buffalo, just killed by his ownbow and arrow. And the child is wise. Thereal meat comes back to him more savouryfor having been dipped in a story; youmight say that only then is it real meat ….By putting bread, gold, horse, apple, or thevery roads into a myth, we do not retreatfrom reality: we rediscover it. As long asthe story lingers in our mind, the real

things are more themselves ….By dipping them in myth, wesee them more clearly.

Today we still seek to make themeat of our reality more savorywith the seasonings of imagina-tion. And some among us are facil-itators in the process.

Several years ago, I produced aplanetarium program on the sun,one objective of which was toshow how our view of the sun had

Eärendil the Mariner returns withthe silmaril (Venus) upon his brow.

The primary difference between Tolkien’s myth-ology and that of the real world is that Tolkien’swas invented to serve his sub-created world,while the stories and legends of Earth’s real cul-tures evolved over time out of their belief sys-tems about the world. Both sets of ideas serveexactly the same purpose in their respectiveuniverses; thus, Tolkien’s approach can legiti-mately offer insight on the value of myth in ourown world and our own lives.

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changed over time, culminating in the newfindings of current solar space missions. Ivery purposefully introduced each of the sci-entific sections with a sun myth selectedfrom the world’s cultures which containedsome interesting parallel with the scientificmaterial to follow, both to contrast what we“knew before” with what we had learnedsince – and to prime the imagination of theaudience and perhaps to make them morereceptive to the harder-edged stories of sci-ence.

We conducted audience surveys duringthe run of the program, and among the ques-tions I asked was what the correspondentliked most and least about the show.Interestingly, among those who chose tospecifically mention either the science sec-tions or the myths, equal numbers preferredone over the other. My ultimate goal in theprogram – and the foremost reason forincluding the mythologies – had been toengage as much of the audience as I could inactively thinking about the importance ofthe sun in our daily lives. I had hoped thatthose I couldn’t reach with science, I mightreach with myth. And with a 94% favorablerating from the survey, I considered myapproach to have been vindicated.

Not everybody will be moved by science.But there are few who won’t be moved by agood story. This is something we knowimplicitly as we practice our craft, certainlyfor those of us who realize that science playsmuch the same role today as myth has in thepast: to explain the world and how it works –and our place in it – in ways that we can

understand and accommodate in our dailylives. In our own elrondi – our own planetari-ums – we recognize that the best programsstill are those that tell a story.

Joseph Campbell said: “Getting into har-mony and tune with the universe and stay-ing there is the principle function of mythol-ogy.” Insofar as J. R. R. Tolkien’s graceful starlore of the Elves of Middle-earth helps us tosee anew the fine realities of his world andours, helps us to freshen our own insights onthe value of myth, and inspires us to see theuniverse in new ways – and to help others todo the same – it will have a place in the exer-cise of imagination that seasons our percep-

tions of the world and the larger cosmos. After all, Myth is the word-music of the

universe. Lasto! (Listen!)

BibliographyBlake, Andrew. 2002. J. R. R. Tolkien: A Begin-

ners Guide . Great Britain: Hodden andStoughton.

Carpenter, Humphrey. 1981. The Letters of J. R.R. Tolkien. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Com-pany.

Duriez, Colin. 1992. The J. R. R. Tolkien Hand-book . Grand Rapids, Michigan: BakerBooks.

Foster, Robert. 1978. The Complete Guide toMiddle-earth. New York: Ballantine Books.

Jones, Leslie Ellen. 2002. Myth and Middle-earth. New York: Cold Springs Press.

Noel, Ruth D. The Languages of Tolkien’sMiddle-earth. New York: Houghton MifflinCompany.

Tolkien, J. R. R. 1965. The Fellowship of theRing. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Tolkien, J. R. R. 1965. The Two Towers. Boston:Houghton Mifflin Company.

Tolkien, J. R. R.. 1965 The Return of the King.Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Tolkien, J. R. R. 1977. The Silmarillion. Boston:Houghton Mifflin Company.

Tolkien, J. R. R. 1980. Unfinished Tales. Boston:Houghton Mifflin Company.

Tolkien, J. R. R. 1983. Book of Lost Tales: PartOne. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Tolkien, J. R. R. 1984. Book of Lost Tales: PartTwo. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Tolkien, J. R. R. 1986. The Shaping of Middle-earth. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

C

Insofar as J. R. R. Tol-kien’s graceful star lore ofthe Elves of Middle-earthhelps us to see anew thefine realities of his worldand ours, helps us tofreshen our own insightson the value of myth, andinspires us to see the uni-verse in new ways – andto help others to do thesame – it will have a placein the exercise of imagi-nation that seasons ourperceptions of the worldand the larger cosmos.