Melian
the Maia; Queen of Doriath; mother of Lúthien
Name and Office
Melian — a Maia of the twilight, the only one of the Ainur to wed a Child of Ilúvatar and to bear a child by one. “In her radiance was the… of night before the staining” — she is described as serving in the gardens of Irmo and Estë in Valinor before ever the world grew old; but “her heart was drawn to the twilight and the leaves of Middle-earth”, and she forsook her kindred to wander in the shadow of the world.
The Meeting with Elwë
The greatest of all marriagesof Menegrotht of all marriages between an Ainur and a mortal-born: While the Elves journeyed in the darkness, Thingol (Elwë, prince of the Teleri) wandered into the wood of Nan Elmoth and there met Melian. “They stood silent… and the years of their silence were countless”; their eyes met, and the enchantment of her gaze held him — “he came to her and took her hand, and a spell was laid on him, so that for years he spoke not, and neither knew whether long or short the time” — and when Melian at last took him, he became Elu Thingol, King of Doriath, and she its Queen.
- Her power fenced and protected Doriath: with her might she set about the kingdom the The Girdle of Melian, “a web of enchantment… that no evil thing might pass it”, so that Doriath alone of the realms of Beleriand stood free of Morgoth’s servants throughout the Long Peace.
- Her and Thingol’s child is Lúthien Tinúviel, the fairest of the Children of Eru, whose beauty and song were the seed of the most famous tale of the legendarium — the love of Beren. In all the counsels of the Hidden Kingdom she is the wise regent — “the changes of the world… Melian saw… and grieved”; her counsel to Thingol (against the quest of the Silmaril, against the defence of Doriath against the Noldor) is consistently wise, and her warnings are the grounds of the tale.
The End of her Power
After the destruction of Doriath and the ruin of Menegroth — with Thingol slain by the Dwarves over the Nauglamír and the Silmaril — “Melian… forsook her body and, as her fëa, passed away” — The Quenta says: “Melian died of sorrow, and her spirit went… to Valinor, and there she dwelt” — the Maia, having bound herself to the waking world and to Thingol, was released when he perished; “her power went with her, and Doriath lay naked to its enemies”. It is recorded that she and departed to the West; her loss is the moment the kingdom of Doriath is undone.
The Half-Elven Line
Through Lúthien the blood of the Maiar passes into the chosen lines: Lúthien chose mortality for Beren’s sake; their descendants include Dior, Elwing, Elrond and Elros
— the kindred from whom both the greatest Elves and the great kings of Men descend (and through them Gondolin’s Idril and Eärendil). Melian is thus the bridge between the divine and the mortal in Tolkien’s genealogy.
In the Texts
Her story is told mainly in the Quenta (“Of Thingol and Melian”, “Of the Silmarils” etc.) and the Tale of Tinúviel (Book of Lost Tales). In The Lays of Beleriand she appears in the Lay of Leithian. Christopher Tolkien’s commentaries (in The Book of Lost Tales II, The Lays of Beleriand, The War of the Jewels) trace the growth of her mystery — her “silence” at Nan Elmoth being one of the most haunting scenes of the mythology.