Valaquenta
the Account of the Valar and Maiar
Nature
Valaquenta — “the Account of the Valar and Maiar” — is the brief second book of the published Silmarillion: the doxology-catalogue that names and describes the Powers (the Valar), their queens, the Maiar (with the named few), and — at its dark end — Melkor in his pride ruling the ruined power of the world.
Contents
-
The Valar of the West: Manwë, Ulmo, Aulë, Oromë, Mandos, Lórien, Tulkas — with their queens Varda, Yavanna, Vairë, Estë, Nienna, Vána, Nessa — each with their dominion and one-line theology (“the keeper of the fates of Arda”).
-
The Maiar: the many unnamed; and the few named — Eönwë and Ilmarë, Ossë and Uinen, Salmar, Melian, Arien, Tilion, Olórin — and the note of their order and powers.
-
The Enemy: the closing account of “Melkor”, the mightiest of the Ainur, who “became the mightiest of the Powers of Evil” — the Valaquenta’s final image of the fallen god on his ruined throne in the North.
Composition
The Valaquenta derives from the “Annals” — it was assembled (mostly from the 1930s “Lhammas”-related catalogue — the “Ainulindalë + Valaquenta” pair) and edited for the 1977 text by Christopher Tolkien from late drafts; the “account” is actually more of a frame-charter — an Elvish religious testimony — than a narrative, and its austerity (short, liturgical) is deliberate. Variants and the growth of the Maiar-lists are given in The Shaping of Middle-earth, The Lost Road and Morgoth’s Ring.