Maiar
The lesser Ainur, servants of the Valar
The Maiar
Name and Order
The Maiar — “the lesser of the Ainur” — are “the people of the Valar”, the order of spirits who entered the world beside the Valar, less in might but numberless in kind: “they are the servants of the Valar… and are counted among the Ainur, and take shape at their pleasure”. The Valaquenta says plainly: “the Maiar are , and their servants are also of the Maiar”. Unlike the fourteen Great Ones, few Maiar are named; the rest “are like the veils of the air and the mirrors of the sea, and their works are hidden” — Tolkien’s phrase capturing their near-anonymity.
The Named Maiar
In
Manwë's court: Eönwë, herald and champion; Ilmarë, handmaid of Varda.
- In Ulmo's deeps: Ossë, Uinen, and Salmar, who made the Ulumúri.
- In the woods and shadows: Melian, Queen of Doriath — the one Maia who wed a Child of Ilúvatar.
- Among the luminaries: Arien (the Sun) and Tilion (the Moon).
- The wise: Olórin, who was later Gandalf.
- The fallen: Sauron (formerly Mairon, Maia of Aulë) and the Balrogs — the demons of flame who served Melkor.
Nature
As Ainur, the Maiar are spirits without body by nature, able to “put on raiment, even the form of the Children of Ilúvatar, and dwell among them” — this is how Melian met Elwë, and how Sauron walked as a fair king among the smiths of Eregion. Their power is great but bounded; they are subject to the Valar, and to fate and to love. Their fall is possible, as Sauron’s fall shows: a Maia who “became a great power in his own right” can unmake himself with his own pride. Tolkien conceived the Maiar partly on analogy with the angels of Christian theology — lesser but still “holy ones”; and unlike Valar they are not bound to the shape of Arda to the same degree, though their deeds within time still mark them.