Cuiviénen
the Water of Awakening; where the Elves first woke
Name and Position
Cuiviénen — “Water of Awakening” — is the great starlit lake in the far east of Middle-earth where the Elves (the Quendi) first awoke. The Quenta places it — the water under the youth of the sky, where the stars of Varda were the only light. It is the Waters of Awakening of the legends: the birthplace of the Firstborn.
The Awakening
- The first hour: In the Years of the Trees, when the world was dark save for the stars, the One awakened the Eldar (the first Elves) by the Water of Awakening. The Valacirca (the Sickle of the Valar) shone above them, and they looked up and feared the dark of the wilderness; but they heard the voice of the water and made it into speech — and from that first speech the name Quendi (“the Speakers”) was taken. The awakening of speech at the water is the true beginning of the history of the Elves.
- The divisions: From Cuiviénen the Elves divided (after the return of the three ambassadors with Oromë, the willing and the unwilling): the Eldar set out on the Great Journey, while the Avari remained by the water and in the further lands. Melkor, learning of the awakening, set his spies and dark agents upon them, and “the shadow of his power” drew near.
Later Fate
After the departure of the Eldar, Cuiviénen itself was left empty under the encroaching shadow; the lore of the Noldor has no record of the fate of the Elves that remained, and “of the Avari nothing is written in the histories of the West”. The Water of Awakening survives only as the symbol of the origin.
Significance
Cuiviénen is the womb of the Elvish race: the starlit shore where the Firstborn began, whose name carries the whole myth of the “awakening” — the fresh, unfallen, purely Elvish world that the ages of war, exile, and the Light would so far overlay.