Valier

The word Valier is a Quenya feminine plural. Its singular is Valië, and it stands beside Valar, the name of the whole order, which means the Powers. The name therefore describes what these beings are and the office they hold in Arda. It is not the name of a tribe or lineage. The Valier have no descent in the mortal sense and were not born into the world. They belong to the Ainur, the spirits whom Ilúvatar brought forth from his thought before anything else was made. At the beginning of Time some of the Ainur chose to enter the world and bind themselves to it, and the greatest of these became the Valar. The distinction between Lords and Queens therefore does not rest on bodily nature. When the Valar took visible form, they shaped it partly after the Children of Ilúvatar whom they had foreseen, and they wore it as clothing is worn. Whether a form appeared male or female followed a difference of temper already present in each spirit.1

The Valaquenta presents the Queens alongside the Lords, as a company equal to them in number. Most of them are joined to a Lord of the Valar in a spousal bond, and a few are also linked by kinship described as sibling ties. Varda is the spouse of Manwë, and Yavanna the spouse of Aulë. Estë is wedded to Irmo, and Vairë to Námo. Vána, the younger sister of Yavanna, is the spouse of Oromë, while Nessa, the sister of Oromë, is wedded to Tulkas. Nienna alone has no spouse. She is instead counted as the sister of the two Fëanturi, Námo and Irmo. Several Queens also carry Quenya titles in addition to their names. Yavanna, for example, is called Kementári, the Queen of the Earth.2

The Elves of Middle-earth gave the Queens names in their own speech, and the clearest example appears in the works published in Tolkien's lifetime. The Sindarin-speaking Elves call on Varda as Elbereth, the Star-Queen, and also give her the title Gilthoniel, the kindler of stars. The hobbits hear these names in the songs of Gildor's company in the Shire and again in the hymn sung in Rivendell. By the Third Age, then, the Queens were known in Middle-earth through titles of this kind rather than through the names used in Valinor.3

The history of the Valier begins with their descent into Eä, where they took part with the Lords in the long labour of shaping Arda against the opposition of Melkor. When the first strife had subsided and the Valar dwelt on the isle of Almaren in the midst of the world, the lights of the two great Lamps nurtured the first growth of the Earth. The seeds Yavanna had sown in that time sprang up, and the period came to be remembered as the Spring of Arda. At the feast held on Almaren to celebrate the work, Tulkas took Nessa as his wife, and the Valar, wearied and content, let their watchfulness lapse. Melkor used that hour to raise his fortress in the north, and his assault soon afterwards threw down the Lamps and brought ruin on Almaren and on much of what had been made.1

After this loss the Valar withdrew westward into Aman and raised Valinor behind the Pelóri, and there the Queens undertook the work for which they were afterwards chiefly honoured. On the green mound of Ezellohar Yavanna sang the Two Trees into being, while Nienna sat by and watered the earth with her tears. The mingling of their silver and golden light became the measure of days and hours in the Blessed Realm. Middle-earth, meanwhile, lay under a darkness broken only by the dim stars, and Yavanna did not forget it. She went there at times to tend the growing things that slept in the shadow, and she was among those who reminded the Valar of the lands they had abandoned.2

As the awakening of the Firstborn drew near, the Queens were concerned in two ways with their coming. Yavanna, troubled when she learned that Aulë had made the Dwarves, pleaded before Manwë for the living things of the Earth, and Manwë disclosed that shepherds of the trees would walk in the forests once the Children had come. When Mandos declared that the Elves would wake in darkness and first look upon the stars, Varda began a great labour. Gathering the silver dew of Telperion, she kindled new and brighter stars and set the Sickle of the Valar in the northern sky as a sign against Melkor. As her work was completed, the Elves woke beside the water of Cuiviénen, and for this reason they revered her above all the Valar thereafter.3

The long peace of Valinor ended when Melkor and Ungoliant slew the Two Trees. Yavanna examined the dead Trees and declared that she could not make them again. She said that only the light of the Trees, now held in the Silmarils, could restore them, and Fëanor refused to surrender the jewels. Afterwards Yavanna and Nienna together spent all their powers of growth and healing on the Trees. Telperion yielded a last silver flower and Laurelin a last golden fruit, and from these the Moon and the Sun were made. Varda appointed the paths of the two new lights across the heavens, and so the Queens gave shape to the days of the world that followed. In the same period Vairë went on weaving into her tapestries in the halls of Mandos all the things that had come to pass in Time.4

The Valier did not pass away with the ages. They remained in Arda, bound to it until its end. After the Downfall of Númenor Aman was taken out of the circles of the world, and it could no longer be reached by mortal ships. Their influence in Middle-earth continued in quieter forms. Olórin had learned pity and patience in the house of Nienna, and through him that teaching was carried into the wars of the Third Age. At the end of that age the invocation of Varda still carried power. In the pass of Cirith Ungol Samwise called on her in his own need, and the light of the star-glass he carried blazed out against the darkness of Shelob's lair.5

The Queens are not a people with customs handed down from generation to generation. What distinguishes them is the domain each has taken as her own, and the Valaquenta describes them largely through their works. Varda dwells with Manwë on the heights of Oiolossë. From there she perceives voices from east to west more keenly than any other of the Valar, while Manwë sees furthest over the world. Melkor feared her above all the others, for she had known and refused him before the world was made. Yavanna holds in her thought all things that grow, from the tallest trees to the smallest mosses. She may appear as a tall woman clad in green, or at times as a tree whose crown reaches toward heaven. Vairë weaves into her storied webs every event in Time, and the halls of Mandos grow wider to hold them as the ages pass.1

The lesser Queens are defined by the same close bond between a person and a sphere of life. Estë, clad in grey, is the healer of hurts and weariness, and rest is her particular gift. She does not walk by day but sleeps on an island in the lake of Lórellin within the gardens of Lórien. All who dwell in Valinor, the Valar among them, go to the fountains of Irmo and Estë to be refreshed. Vána, called the Ever-young, makes flowers spring up and open where she passes or turns her glance, and birds sing at her approach. Nessa is swift and light of foot, and the deer follow her through the woods, though she can outrun them. Her delight is in dancing on the unfading lawns of Valimar.2

Nienna stands apart from the others in her dwelling as well as in her temper. Her halls lie in the far west, on the borders of the world, and their windows look outward beyond its walls. She seldom comes to the city of Valimar where the others gather. She grieves for every wound that Melkor has dealt to Arda. Yet her grief does not end in despair, for those who wait in the halls of Mandos call to her, and she lends the spirit new strength and makes wisdom out of grief. Like all the Valar, the Queens stand outside death and the passing of generations. Their relation to Time is therefore one of keeping and recording, of healing and of mourning, rather than of enduring loss themselves.3

The Valier are not divided into tribes or houses, but the Valaquenta does draw one explicit distinction of rank among them. Of the fourteen Powers, eight are set apart as the Aratar, the High Ones of Arda, and three of the Queens belong to that inner company: Varda, Yavanna and Nienna. The remaining four, Estë, Vairë, Vána and Nessa, are named with equal reverence but stand outside it. The account is careful to say that the division concerns majesty and power, not worth or kinship. The Aratar are simply those whom the other Valar and the Maiar alike hold in greatest awe. Within the reckoning of the Queens, Varda is named first, and she is seldom parted from Manwë in their work.1

A second kind of grouping arises from the Maiar, the lesser spirits who entered the world with the Valar and serve them. The text attaches several of these to particular Queens. Ilmarë is named as the handmaid of Varda, and she is counted with Eönwë, the herald of Manwë, among the chief Maiar of Valinor whose names the histories remember. Melian, who would later become queen in Doriath, is said to have served both Vána and Estë, and before her journey to Middle-earth she dwelt in the gardens of Lórien. These are ties of service and fellowship rather than of blood, since the Maiar are of the same order of being as the Valar, only lesser in degree.2

The Valier are not divided into tribes or houses, but the Valaquenta does draw one explicit distinction of rank among them.

The same pattern appears in the story of the Sun. Arien, the Maia chosen to guide the vessel of the Sun, had once cared for the golden blossoms in Vána's gardens and nourished them with dew gathered from Laurelin. Her selection for the task thus links the household of one of the lesser Queens to the ordering of the heavens that Varda oversaw.3

In The Silmarillion the Queens seldom decide events by force. Open conflict with Melkor falls mostly to the Lords, above all to Tulkas and Oromë. The Queens answer his marring in a different way: they make, preserve, heal, record and mourn. The narrative uses this contrast to set a second kind of power against his will to dominate. Yavanna's growing things, Estë's rest, Vairë's woven record and Nienna's grief are all ways of answering harm without mastering others. When a loss cannot be undone, the story often turns to one of the Queens to show what can still be drawn from it. The Sun and Moon come from the dying Trees, and Nienna's sorrow is turned into wisdom and endurance. Through them the mythology holds that the hurts of Arda are real and lasting but not the last word.1

In The Lord of the Rings the Queens nearly vanish as actors, and only Varda remains within reach of the characters, as Elbereth. She never appears and speaks no word in the book. Her presence consists entirely of being called upon. On Weathertop Frodo cries out her name as he strikes at the chief of the Ringwraiths, and Aragorn later judges that the name did the enemy more harm than the blade. At the Ford of Bruinen Frodo again swears by Elbereth in defying his pursuers. In Lothlórien Galadriel's farewell song, sung in Quenya, laments that Varda's realm lies beyond the reach of those still in Middle-earth.2

Taken together, the two works give the Queens a distinct function in the legendarium. The older tales show them working openly in the youth of the world. The later story shows them withdrawn and far away, remembered in song and reached only by appeal. That distance gives the Third Age much of its tone of loss. Yet the invocations still take effect, so the Queens remain a sign that Middle-earth has not been wholly abandoned by the Powers.3

In the Book of Lost Tales, Tolkien's earliest prose mythology, the female Powers already stand beside the male ones, but their company is arranged differently. Several of the Queens appear under fuller or different titles: Varda is called Tinwetári, Queen of the Stars, and Yavanna bears the name Palúrien. The order of the Valar is also wider in these tales. Ossë is counted among them, and with him his spouse Uinen, who in the later mythology sinks to the rank of a lesser spirit of the sea. The early gods also have children of their own. Fionwë is named as a son of Manwë and Varda, and this idea of offspring among the Powers was later given up. In the later conception the figure survives as Eönwë, the herald of Manwë, who is counted among the Maiar and not among the descendants of the Valar.1

The most marked change concerns Nienna. In the Lost Tales she appears as Fui Nienna and is the spouse of Mandos, and her sorrow is joined to the house of the dead through marriage. In the later texts she becomes the sister of the Fëanturi. Her place at Mandos' side passes to Vairë the Weaver, and Nienna is left as the one Queen without a spouse. The name Vairë itself has an unexpected history. In the frame story of the Lost Tales it belongs to an Elf, the wife of Lindo in the Cottage of Lost Play, and has no connection with the Powers at all. The later Valaquenta texts, in which the list of seven Queens takes its settled form, show Tolkien reworking these relationships across successive revisions.2