The Two Trees of Valinor
Telperion and Laurelin; the light that lit the ages
Names and Origin
The Two Trees of Valinor — Telperion (the Silver) and Laurelin (the Golden) — were the great trees of light that Yavanna sang into being upon the Green Mound (Ezellohar) when the Valar made Valinor: “the most beautiful things that Yavanna had devised” — the Quenta: she — she planted them, watered them with the tears of — Nienna watered the roots, and Varda flashed her stars — their radiance, mingled, became the Light of Valinor, the light before the sun and moon: “the light of the Trees… the double light, silver and gold”.
- Telperion, the elder, the silver: shone “as of silver, pale and silken”, whose leaves glimmered with dew — the father of the moon’s light.
- Laurelin, the golden: “as of gold, warm and bright, like the rising sun”, whose blossoms trembling light was the fount of the sun’s. Their name of the age: — the count of years (the Years of the Trees) is kept by their waxing and waning — the calendar of the elder world (in the “Count of Time”).
The Light of the Ages
Their light is the composite “Light of Valinor” whose echo the world held: Fëanor imprisoned it in the Silmarils; the sun and moon were made afterward from their last fruit and flower; their light in the eyes of the Elves of Aman became the mark of the Calaquendi. - “The mingling of the lights”
The Death and the Hope
- The slaying: In the scheme of the released Melkor and Ungoliant, the two Trees were pierced and drained: “the light of the Trees died” — “the sap of the trees was drunk” — they were destroyed, “and darkness fell upon Valinor” — the first great darkness of the world; their last fruit and last flower were saved to make the Sun and Moon.
- The hope: The Trees live again only in prophecy: at the Dagor Dagorath, the Silmarils recovered (air, sea, earth) and the light rekindled — the central eschatological image of the mythology.
Significance
The Two Trees are the myth’s prime image of unfallen beauty and light — the world’s “first morning” that the ages lost; their death is the original darkening from which all the tales’ sorrows flow, and their promised rebirth (in the healing of Arda) the mythology’s final hope. Their light, scattered into stars, sun, moon and Silmarils, is the single radiance that threads the whole legend from first to last.