Valinor
the Land of the Valar; the realm behind the mountains
Names and Geography
Valinor — the land of the Valar within Aman — the raised plain, the fair kingdom “behind the mountains”, between the great wall of the Pelóri and the eastern sea. In the Valaquenta it is the “Blessed Realm”, the region where the Valar’s mansions, gardens, and courts lie — “the most beautiful of all the dwellings of the world”. The chief places of Valinor:
- Valmar, the city of the Valar, “the burg of the gods” with its great ring and grass-burthen;
- Ilmarin upon Taniquetil, the halls of Manwë and Varda; - the gardens of Lórien (of Irmo and Estë), the Halls of Mandos and the house of Nienna in the west; - and, in the centre, the mound of Ezellohar (the Green Mound) where Telperion and Laurelin grew — the fount of the Light of Aman.
The Life of Valinor
In the Years of the Trees the land was lit by the treelight, at once gold and silver, the crisp phrase: - — the Light that Fëanor’s jewels caught, and for which the Noldor sorrowed. Its peoples: the fair Vanyar (with Ingwë), the Noldor (in Tirion), and — with aloofness — the Teleri at the shore; the Valar and Maiar whose feasts and musics the annals remember. It is the school, the sanctuary, and (in the Grey Annals) the court of the myth.
The Removal
At the Drowning (Akallabêth) Valinor, with all Aman, was taken from the spheres — the straight road only the Elves could find. Hence “Valinor” in the later poems is the unreachable brightness, the song of the sea longing.
Significance
Valinor is the earthly heaven of the mythology: the land of the gods where the music went on, the place of the light that Sin and time could not wholly quench — and, as its loss, the pastoral of the Elves’ homesickness and the symbol of the best unattainable. The Silmarilli being lit there, and its light being shed through the ages, is the story’s first and last image.