Ulumúri
the great conches of Ulmo; the deep music of the sea
Name and Nature
The Ulumúri — the “great horns” or conches of the deep — are the instruments made by Salmar for Ulmo: the Valaquenta’s famous sentence — “the great horns of the deep sea, whose sound was the voice of Ulmo” — blown beneath the sea and upon the shores, they carried Ulmo’s tidings and his music through all the waters of the world.
The Sound
The music of the Ulumúri is “deep and wonderful”, “the voice of Ulmo”: “heard in the depths of the sea, or upon the shores” — a deep sweet music, the tradition: the “Ulumúri of Ulmo” sounded at the making of the ships and the parting of the way, the longing for the sea (“the sea-longing”) in the hearts of the Eldar. They figure at the edges of the great voyages: — Ulmo’s counsel to the mariners of the coasts, and (at the last) to Tuor.
Significance
The Ulumúri are the myth of the sea’s voice — the deep music that — the aural signature of the Lord of Waters, by which the Vala (who never wholly forsook the world) could be heard in the heart of the waters; the hymn-haunt of the sea longing in the legendarium.