Silmarillion - Chapter 03 - Of the Coming of the Elves and the Captivity of Melkor

[Aiwendil]

This is a critical chapter if ever there was one. The Elves awake; the Valar go to war and defeat Morgoth; the Elves (well, some of them) begin their Great Journey to Aman. It seems to me that this is the chapter where the mythological narrative begins to give way to the pseudo-historical. We have on the one hand the last great demiurgic work of the Valar – Varda’s kindling of the stars – and on the other the early history of the Elves.

We also see the Valar holding council here, and they come across very much as regents or administrators of Arda. Their debates concerning how best to govern the world (though only briefly glimpsed) strike me as rather like the debates that the deliberative bodies of a modern republic are supposed to have – though of course, Manwe always has the final authority. It is interesting to note that Ulmo would have preferred not to summon the Elves to Aman. I see in this another suggestion of the Nature vs. Artifice dichotomy that crops up again and again in the Silmarillion – Ulmo, the naturalist, prefers to leave the Elves alone. Though he is not mentioned here, I would be surprised if Aule (the quintessential craftsman and Artificer) were not of the opposite opinion. What do you think might have happened if the Valar had followed Ulmo’s advice and left the Elves in Middle-earth?

A much debated point related to this chapter is the origin of Orcs. Here we are told that, at least according to some among the wise, the Orcs were bred from those Elves captured by Melkor. The origin of Orcs was, however, a vexing problem for Tolkien, and this statement was far from his last word on the subject, though it is unclear what his final decision was (if indeed he ever reached one).

The final part of the chapter tells of the great march and the sundering of the Elves. In the mature Legendarium, Tolkien presents us with many different groups of Elves, subtly (and overtly) distinct in many ways – in particular, we have various groups splitting off at various points along the westward road. This is a feature of the story that was developed significantly from the earliest writings, where there is no suggestion of the Avari, the Nandor, or the Laiquendi.

The story of Melkor’s captivity and the westward journey of the Elves takes up two chapters in the old Book of Lost Tales – there, however, the story is quite different; the Elves awake, for example, after Melkor has been chained. In the subsequent ‘Sketch of the Mythology’ the story attained its final form in many essential features. In the late writings, there are some texts of interest relating to this chapter. In ‘Quendi and Eldar’, Tolkien discusses the early history of the Elves at Cuivienen and provides a short ‘fairy tale’ – the Cuivienyarna - concerning their awakening. One noteworthy piece of information found there is that the number of Elves who awoke there was 144. In other late writing, Tolkien projected some revisions to the story of the Battle of the Powers – in this version, Melkor, becoming aware that the Valar would defeat him, submitted to them with the intention of being brought to Valinor and bringing it down ‘from the inside’.

Additional Readings
HoMe I - ‘The Chaining of Melko’ and ‘The Coming of the Elves’ – the earliest version of this chapter
HoMe IV - subsequent versions found in the ‘Sketch’ and the ‘Quenta’
HoMe V - yet another subsequent version found in the ‘Quenta Silmarillion’
HoMe X - post-LotR re-writes of the ‘QS’ and an account in the ‘Annals of Aman’
HoMe X – the ‘Myths Transformed’ section for notes on the origin of Orcs and projected revisions
HoMe XI – the ‘Quendi and Eldar’ section for some discussion of the early Elves, including the ‘Cuivienyarna’.