Valacirca
The Sickle of the Valar; the constellation of Varda
Definition
Valacirca — in Quenya “the Sickle of the Valar” — is the great northern constellation that Varda set in the heavens as a warning against Melkor: “, and it was a sign… a threat of doom” The canonical passage, in the chapter Of the Coming of the Elves: “Varda… hung the Valacirca… as a threat against Melkor, and a sign to the Elves”. It corresponds to our own Plough / Big Dipper, and is among the oldest stars of the legendarium.
The Making
Before the awakening of the Elves, in the years of the Two Trees
— the stars were Varda’s oldest works; she had made the “great stars” of the firmament and the “lesser stars”. The Sickle she set “above the North” as the sign of the Valar’s vigilance and doom: its seven bright stars — the tradition: its shape is a sickle or weapon of harvest, the reminder that Morgoth’s sowing of evil shall be reaped at last. The Elves at Cuiviénen first looked up and saw the Sickle of the Valar with fear and wonder; it was “the sign… a threat of doom to the servants of Melkor, and a beacon of hope to the Quendi”.
Significance
The Valacirca is the great “northern crown” of the mythology — the constellation that never sets, an emblem of the eternal vigilance of Varda (Elbereth) even in the depths of the long defeat. In The Lord of the Rings the same constellation is remembered as the Sickle, and the hobbits’ song of the Mariner (referring to Eärendil) echoes it. Within The Silmarillion scope it frames the Elves’ first awakening and their turning toward the light of the West.
In the Texts
The name appears in the Quenta and in the Ambarkanta and later notes; Christopher Tolkien discusses its etymology (vala + circa, “sickle”) in the linguistic appendixes. Outside the Silmarillion proper it persists in the later books (the “Plough”) and in the LotR (the “Sickle”).