Timeline Event
Melian returns to Valinor
Event Type: Genealogical
Age: 1st Age
Year: 0502
Description:
[After Thingol was slain :] Upon Doriath a heavy change had fallen. Melian sat long in silence beside Thingol the King, and her thought passed back into the starlit years and to their first meeting among the nightingales of Nan Elmoth in ages past; and she knew that her parting from Thingol was the forerunner of a greater parting, and that the doom of Doriath was drawing nigh. For Melian was of the divine race of the Valar, and she was a Maia of great power and wisdom; but for love of Elwë Singollo she took upon herself the form of the Elder Children of Ilúvatar, and in that union she became bound by the chain and trammels of the flesh of Arda. In that form she bore to him Lúthien Tinúviel; and in that form she gained a power over the substance of Arda, and by the Girdle of Melian was Doriath defended through long ages from the evils without. But now Thingol lay dead, and his spirit had passed to the halls of Mandos; and with his death a change came also upon Melian. Thus it came to pass that her power was withdrawn in that time from the forests of Neldoreth and Region, and Esgalduin the enchanted river spoke with a different voice, and Doriath lay open to its enemies.
Thereafter Melian spoke to none save to Mablung only, bidding him take heed to the Silmaril, and to send word speedily to Beren and Lúthien in Ossiriand; and she vanished out of Middle-earth, and passed to the land of the Valar beyond the western sea, to muse upon her sorrows in the gardens of Lórien, whence she came, and this tale speaks of her no more.
The Silmarillion, Quenta Silmarillion, Ch 22, Of the Ruin of Doriath
[Note on dating: the year is taken from versions B, C and D of The Tale of Years found in The War of the Jewels, HoME Vol 11, Part 3, Ch5, The Tale of Years. Version A of the Tale of Years gives the date as a year earlier. There are also discrepancies between the account given in The Silmarillion, Quenta Silmarillion, Ch 22, Of the Ruin of Doriath and the Tale of Years in The War of the Jewels, HoME Vol 11, Part 3, Ch5, The Tale of Years as a result of editing decisions by Christopher Tolkien when compiling The Silmarillion. (These are discussed in The War of the Jewels, HoME Vol 11, Part 3, Ch5, The Tale of Years.) The sequence of events in the entries in the HASA Reference Library follows The Silmarillion, and Thingol’s death has therefore been dated a year earlier than that found in the Tale of Years.]
Contributors:
Tanaqui 28Nov04
