Arda Kompendium

Arien

the Maia of the Sun; keeper of the golden light

ainurmaiaariensunlightlaurelin

Name and Office

Arien — the Maia of the Sun, the spirit who bears the golden fruit of Laurelin across the sky. The Valaquenta records: “Arien… was chosen to guide the Sun, and she was a maiden of the Valar… more glorious than any maiden of the earth.” She had loved the golden Tree above all things and tended its fruit; when it was slain, she was given the last fruit of Laurelin to carry as the new Sun.

The Sun

When the Two Trees were destroyed and their last fruit and flower remained, the Valar made of them the Sun and the Moon:

  • The Sun they made from the last fruit of Laurelin, and “Arien was chosen to guide it… a spirit of the hottest and most golden light”. She climbs the airs of heaven by day from the east, and the Sun sails in its vessel upon the paths of the firmament “in the hour of the rising”. She is too fierce for any to approach: “for Arien was a Maia of the sun in all its burning glory, and the touch of its radiance was death to the dark”. Melkor’s servants feared her above the Moon, “for the living fire of the Tree consumed the shades”. The Sun rose for the first time as the exiled Noldor passed through the shadows of the far North at the very beginning of the First Age: the Valar, the tale says, kindled the new lights after the Noldor had left Aman, and the first dawn fell upon the world “ere the host of the Noldor reached the shores of Middle-earth”. The first beams lit the sea-farers’ road — the exact hour of the rising was a point Christopher Tolkien discusses in his commentary.
  • Her course gives the day; the Elves of Middle-earth called her the Golden; the Sun was to be feared by the Orcs (a tradition: orcs shun the Sun, a late idea Tolkien had).

In the Texts

Arien appears in the Quenta chapter “Of the Sun and Moon and the Hiding of Valinor” and is named in the Valaquenta. The Shaping of Middle-earth and Lost Road version give the Sun-ship and its helmsman; the later Morgoth’s Ring notes connect her with the theme that only the pure of heart can bear the Valar’s light.

Verknüpfte Seiten

LaurelinTilionVardaThe SunConcordance — A to ZMaiarThe Rising of the SunThe Moon
Werke: die Quellen sind seitenübergreifend die Bücher von J.R.R. und Christopher Tolkien (Silmarillion, Hobbit, Herr der Ringe, Unfinished Tales, History of Middle-earth, Nature of Middle-earth u. a.) — eigene Zusammenfassung. Siehe die Concordance und den README der Quelle für die Einzelbelege.
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