Journeys of Vása by Dawn Felagund

Author's Notes

Just what it sounds like: notes and references for the more obscure canon that inspired this piece.

Author's Notes

Since I use a bit of canon more obscure than that found in The Silmarillion, then I will provide the passages that have inspired these vignettes for those who are interested. For "Eclipse," I was largely inspired by the fragments found in Myths Transformed, from the HoMe, volume 10. Near the end of his life, J.R.R. Tolkien became dissatisfied with the idea that the technologically advanced Eldar should succumb to the "primitive" mythology of a flat Earth, while also noting some of the scientific problems with his early versions of the Tale of the Sun and Moon. (For example, during the interim between the fall of the Lamps and the rising of the Sun, nothing would have grown in Middle-earth, yet life still existed and, presumably, the Elves and other kelvar still needed to eat.) As such, he began undertaking an overhaul of his mythology that was never finished and that Christopher Tolkien did not include in the published Silmarillion, although it was certainly his father's final word on the subject.

The idea that Melkor "ravished"--raped and corrupted--Arien, the Maia who drove the Sun, first emerged in Myths Transformed:

But the Sun is feminine; and it is better that the Vala should be Aren, a maiden whom Melkor endeavoured to make his spouse (or ravished); she went up in a flame of wrath and anguish and her spirit was released from Ea, but Melkor was blackened and burned, and his form was thereafter dark, and he took to darkness.

Since none of the ideas of the Sun and Moon mythology seem to have ever achieved final form, I hope I will be pardoned for shamelessly blending the concepts from Myths Transformed with those from The Silmarillion.

In "Innocence Reclaimed," the concept of the Aulendili comes from the essay "The Shibboleth of Fëanor," found in HoMe 12. Aulendil (> Aulendur) is defined here as,

'Servant of Aulë': sc. one who was devoted to that Vala. It was applied especially to those persons, or families, among the Noldor who actually entered Aulë's service, and who in return received instruction from him.

Mahtan is identified here as "an Aulendil." Now would the Aulendili have been responsible for crafting the vessels of the Sun and the Moon? Canonically, this is never stated outright; however, I think it’s a logical connection that can be made.