45-500: In J. R. R. Tolkien 's fictional legendarium , Beleriand ( IPA: [bɛˈlɛ.ri.and] ) was a region in northwestern Middle-earth during the First Age . Events in Beleriand are described chiefly in his work The Silmarillion , which tells the story of the early ages of Middle-earth in a style similar to the epic hero tales of Nordic literature, with a pervasive sense of doom over
90-603: A frame story that changed over the years , first with an Ælfwine-type character who translates the "Golden Book" of the sages Rumil or Pengoloð; later, having the Hobbit Bilbo Baggins collect the stories into the Red Book of Westmarch , translating mythological Elvish documents in Rivendell . The scholar Gergely Nagy observes that Tolkien "thought of his works as texts within the fictional world " (his emphasis), and that
135-711: A compendious narrative, made long afterwards from sources of great diversity (poems, and annals, and oral tales)". Nagy infers from verse-like fragments of text in The Silmarillion that the poetry of Beleriand used alliteration , rhyme , and rhythm including possibly iambics . This applies to the Ainulindalë , Tolkien's account of the godlike Ainur : and they built lands and Melkor destroyed them ; valleys they delved and Melkor raised them up ; mountains they carved and Melkor threw them down ; seas they hollowed and Melkor spilled them ; It applies, too, to
180-557: A publisher would take it, and notes that Tolkien was a perfectionist, and further that he was perhaps afraid of finishing as he wished to go on with his sub-creation , his invention of myth in Middle-earth. Tolkien first began working on the stories that would become The Silmarillion in 1914. His reading, in 1914, of the Old English manuscript Christ I led to Earendel and the first element of his legendarium, "The Voyage of Earendel,
225-563: A scholarly area of study soon after his death. A legendarium is a literary collection of legends . This medieval Latin noun originally referred mainly to texts detailing legends of the lives of saints . A surviving example is the Anjou Legendarium , dating from the 14th century. Quotations in the Oxford English Dictionary for the synonymous noun legendary date from 1513. The Middle English South English Legendary
270-414: A semi-chronological and semi-complete narrative of the mythical world and its origins. The sales were sufficient to enable him to work on and publish many volumes of his father's legendarium stories and drafts; some were presented as completed tales, while others illustrated his father's complex creative process. Tolkien research , a continuing examination of Tolkien's works and supporting mythology, became
315-526: A sequel to The Hobbit . Tolkien began to revise the Silmarillion, but soon turned to the sequel, which became The Lord of the Rings . Writing The Lord of the Rings during the 1940s, Tolkien was attempting to address the dilemma of creating a narrative consistent with a "sequel" of the published The Hobbit and a desire to present a more comprehensive view of its large unpublished background. He renewed work on
360-407: Is an example of this form of the noun. Tolkien described his works as a "legendarium" in four letters from 1951 to 1955, a period in which he was attempting to have his unfinished Silmarillion published alongside the more complete The Lord of the Rings . On the Silmarillion, he wrote in 1951, "This legendarium ends with a vision of the end of the world, its breaking and remaking, and the recovery of
405-629: Is based on my view: that Men are essentially mortal and must not try to become 'immortal' in the flesh", and in 1955, "But the beginning of the legendarium, of which the Trilogy is part (the conclusion), was an attempt to reorganise some of the Kalevala ". "Tolkien's legendarium" is defined narrowly in John D. Rateliff 's The History of The Hobbit as the body of Tolkien's work consisting of: These, with The Lays of Beleriand , written from 1918 onwards, comprise
450-499: The Silmarilli and the 'light before the Sun'"; and in 1954, "Actually in the imagination of this story we are now living on a physically round Earth. But the whole 'legendarium' contains a transition from a flat world ... to a globe ". On both texts, he explained in 1954 that "... my legendarium , especially the 'Downfall of Númenor ' which lies immediately behind The Lord of the Rings ,
495-659: The Belegaer Sea to ask the Valar to stop Morgoth. They send an army to overcome Morgoth in the War of Wrath . This ends the First Age of Middle-earth: Angband is destroyed, and Morgoth is banished to the void. Beleriand's inhabitants flee, and much of Beleriand sinks into the sea. Only a small section of the eastern edge of Beleriand survives, including part of the Ered Luin (Blue Mountain) range and
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#1732858185807540-511: The Evening Star", is from 1914; he revised and rewrote the legendarium stories for most of his adult life. The Hobbit (1937), Tolkien's first published novel, was not originally part of the larger mythology but became linked to it. Both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (1954 and 1955) are set in the Third Age of Middle-earth , while virtually all of his earlier writing had been set in
585-509: The Evening Star". He intended his stories to become a mythology that would explain the origins of English history and culture, and to provide the necessary "historical" background for his invented Elvish languages . Much of this early work was written while Tolkien, then a British officer returned from France during World War I, was in hospital and on sick leave. He completed " The Fall of Gondolin " in late 1916. He called his collection of nascent stories The Book of Lost Tales . This became
630-517: The Finnish epic, the Kalevala ; or of St Jerome , Snorri Sturlusson , Jacob Grimm , or Nikolai Gruntvig, all of whom Tolkien saw as exemplars of a professional and creative philology. This was, Nagy believes, what Tolkien thought essential if he was to present a mythology for England , since such a thing had to have been written by many hands. Further, writes Nagy, Christopher Tolkien "inserted himself in
675-549: The Noldor"), Geleriand, Bladorinand, Belaurien, Arsiriand, Lassiriand, and Ossiriand (later used for the easternmost part of Beleriand). One of Beleriand's early names was Ingolondë, a play on "England", part of Tolkien's long-held but ultimately unsuccessful aim to create what Shippey calls "a mighty patron for his country, a foundation-myth more far-reaching than Hengest and Horsa , one to which he could graft his own stories." Tolkien's aim had been to root his mythology for England in
720-566: The Rings . Instead, the prose of The Silmarillion hints repeatedly at the style of its "lost" poetry. Nagy notes David Bratman 's description of the book as containing prose styles that he classifies as "the Annalistic, [the] Antique, and the Appendical". The implication of the range of styles is that The Silmarillion is meant to represent, in Christopher Tolkien 's words, "a compilation,
765-401: The Rings , did he realise the significance of hobbits in his mythology. In 1937, encouraged by the success of The Hobbit , Tolkien submitted to his publisher George Allen & Unwin an incomplete but more fully developed version of The Silmarillion called Quenta Silmarillion . The reader rejected the work as being obscure and "too Celtic ". The publisher instead asked Tolkien to write
810-405: The Silmarillion after completing The Lord of the Rings , and he greatly desired to publish the two works together. When it became clear that would not be possible, Tolkien turned his full attention to preparing The Lord of the Rings for publication. John D. Rateliff has analysed the complex relationship between The Hobbit and The Silmarillion , providing evidence that they were related from
855-463: The background to his The Lord of the Rings , and which his son Christopher summarized in his compilation of The Silmarillion and documented in his 12-volume series The History of Middle-earth . The legendarium's origins reach back to 1914, when Tolkien began writing poems and story sketches, drawing maps , and inventing languages and names as a private project to create a mythology for England . The earliest story, "The Voyage of Earendel,
900-405: The character's actions. Beleriand also appears in the works The Book of Lost Tales , The Children of Húrin , and in the epic poems of The Lays of Beleriand . Tolkien tried many names for the region in his early writings, among them Broceliand , the name of an enchanted forest in medieval romance, and Ingolondë, a play on "England" when he hoped to create a mythology for England rooted in
945-500: The core episodes and themes of The Silmarillion which were not abandoned in his father's constant redrafting of the work. The scholars Verlyn Flieger and Carl F. Hostetter edited a scholarly collection " Tolkien's Legendarium: Essays on The History of Middle-earth ". Flieger writes that "...the greatest [event] is the creation of the Silmarils, the Gems of light that give their names to
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#1732858185807990-480: The different "phases" of Tolkien's Elven legendary writings, posthumously edited and published in The Silmarillion and in their original forms in Christopher Tolkien's series The History of Middle-earth . Other Tolkien scholars have used the term legendarium in a variety of contexts. Christopher Tolkien's introduction to The History of Middle-earth series talks about the "primary 'legendarium'", for
1035-576: The east. Morgoth gathers an army of Orcs , Balrogs and other monsters in his fortress of Angband beneath the Thangorodrim mountains in the north of Beleriand, and attacks the Elves repeatedly. Despite the threat, Thingol refuses to fight alongside the Noldor. One by one, the realm of Doriath as well as the Noldor kingdoms Nargothrond and Gondolin fall to assaults, assisted by betrayals and disputes among Elves, Men, and Dwarves . Finally, Earendil crosses
1080-626: The editor, Christopher Tolkien." Dickerson and Evans use the phrase "legendarium" to encompass the entirety of Tolkien's Middle-earth writings "for convenience". This would encompass texts such as the incomplete drafts of stories published before The History of Middle-earth in the 1980 Unfinished Tales . Shaun Gunner of The Tolkien Society has called the 2021 collection of Tolkien's previously unpublished legendarium writings The Nature of Middle-earth , edited by Carl F. Hostetter, "an unofficial 13th volume of The History of Middle-earth series". Unlike " fictional universes " constructed for
1125-630: The epic poems of The Lays of Beleriand . The land is occupied by Teleri Elves of King Thingol from the east, who founded the city of Menegroth in the forest realm of Doriath. Other Elves, the Vanyar and Noldor , cross the Belegaer sea to Valinor . Some of the Noldor return to Beleriand to retrieve the Silmarils from the evil Vala Morgoth , but they are resented by the Teleri. Later, Men arrive from
1170-542: The first two ages of the world. The Lord of the Rings occasionally alludes to figures and events from the legendarium to create an impression of depth , but such ancient tales are depicted as being remembered by few until the story makes them relevant. After The Lord of the Rings , Tolkien returned to his older stories to bring them to publishable form, but never completed the task. Tolkien's son Christopher chose portions of his late father's vast collection of unpublished material and shaped them into The Silmarillion (1977),
1215-550: The functional place of Bilbo" as editor and collator, in his view "reinforcing the mythopoeic effect" that his father had wanted to achieve, making the published book do what Bilbo's book was meant to do, and so unintentionally realising his father's intention. England in Middle-earth Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include
1260-445: The idea of multiple 'voices' who collected the stories over the millennia. When Tolkien published The Hobbit in 1937 (which was itself not originally intended for publication, but as a story told privately to his children), the narrative of the published text was loosely influenced by the legendarium as a context, but was not designed to be part of it. Carpenter comments that not until Tolkien began to write its sequel, The Lord of
1305-757: The land of Lindon , which became part of the far northwestern shore of Middle-earth. Beleriand is a region in the far northwest of Middle-earth , bordering the great sea, Belegaer . It is bounded to the north by the Ered Engrin, the Iron Mountains, and to the east by the Ered Luin, the Blue Mountains. Beleriand had many different names in Tolkien's early writings, including Broceliand , the name of an enchanted forest in medieval romance, Golodhinand, Noldórinan ("valley of
1350-626: The name for the first two volumes of The History of Middle-earth , which include these early texts. Tolkien never completed The Book of Lost Tales ; he left it to compose the poems " The Lay of Leithian " (in 1925) and " The Lay of the Children of Húrin " (possibly as early as 1918). The first complete version of The Silmarillion was the "Sketch of the Mythology" written in 1926 (later published in Volume IV of The History of Middle-earth ). The "Sketch"
1395-559: The narrative framing device of an Anglo-Saxon mariner named Ælfwine or Eriol or Ottor Wǽfre who finds the island of Tol Eressëa , where the Elves live, and the Elves tell him their history. He collects, translates from Old English , and writes the mythology that appears in The History of Middle-earth . Ælfwine means "Elf-friend" in Old English; men whose names have the same meaning, such as Alboin, Alwin, and Elendil , were to appear in
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1440-527: The narrative of Elves and Men in the Beleriand landscape, in the Quenta Silmarillion : But there was a d eep w ay under the mountains d elved in the d arkness of the w orld by the w aters that flowed out to join the s treams of S irion. In a few places, it is possible to relate the adapted verse in the prose to actual verse in Tolkien's legendarium . This can be done, for instance, in parts of
1485-500: The nature of evil in Arda , the origin of Orcs , the customs of the Elves , the nature and means of Elvish rebirth, the "flat" world, and the story of the Sun and Moon. In any event, with one or two exceptions, he made little change to the narratives during the remaining years of his life. The scholar Verlyn Flieger writes that Tolkien thought of his legendarium as a presented collection, with
1530-558: The overlapping of different and sometimes contradictory accounts was central to his desired effect. Nagy notes that Tolkien went so far as to create facsimile pages from the Dwarves' Book of Mazarbul that is found by the Fellowship in Moria . Further, Tolkien was a philologist ; Nagy comments that Tolkien may have been intentionally imitating the philological style of Elias Lönnrot , compiler of
1575-445: The purpose of writing and publishing popular fiction, Tolkien's legendarium for a long period was a private project, concerned with questions of philology , cosmology , theology and mythology. His biographer Humphrey Carpenter writes that although by 1923 Tolkien had almost completed The Book of Lost Tales , "it was almost as if he did not want to finish it", beginning instead to rewrite it; he suggests that Tolkien may have doubted if
1620-644: The reader is free to assume that the Satanic Morgoth has carried out the Biblical serpent 's temptation of Adam and Eve , and that "the incoming Edain and Easterlings are all descendants of Adam flying from Eden and subject to the curse of Babel ." The Tolkien scholar Gergely Nagy , writing in 2004, notes that The Silmarillion does not contain explicitly embedded samples of Beleriand's poetry in its prose, as Tolkien had done with his many poems in The Lord of
1665-521: The region. The scholar Gergely Nagy has found possible signs of the structure and style of Beleriand's poetry in the prose of The Silmarillion . Events in Beleriand are described chiefly in the second half of the Quenta Silmarillion , which tells the story of the early ages of Middle-earth in a style similar to the epic hero tales of Norse mythology . Beleriand also appears in the works The Book of Lost Tales , The Children of Húrin , and in
1710-442: The scraps of names and myths that had survived, and to situate it in a land in the northwest of the continent, by the sea. Shippey writes that the Quenta Silmarillion has a tightly-woven plot, each part leading ultimately to tragedy. There are three Hidden Elvish Kingdoms in Beleriand, founded by relatives, and they are each betrayed and destroyed. The Kingdoms are each penetrated by a mortal Man, again all related to each other; and
1755-537: The sense of doom, which Shippey glosses as "future disaster", hangs heavy over all of the characters in the tale. Shippey writes that the human race seen in Beleriand in the First Age did not "originate 'on stage' in Beleriand, but drifts into it, already sundered in speech, from the East [the main part of Middle-earth]. There something terrible has happened to them of which they will not speak: 'A darkness lies behind us... and we have turned our backs upon it'". He comments that
1800-473: The start of The Hobbit ' s composition. With the success of The Lord of the Rings , Tolkien in the late 1950s returned to the Silmarillion, planning to revise the material of his legendarium into a form "fit for publication", a task which kept him occupied until his death in 1973, without attaining a completed state. The legendarium has indeed been called "a jumble of overlapping and often competing stories, annals, and lexicons." Much of his later writing
1845-476: The story of Túrin . Here, he realizes he has just killed his friend Beleg : Then Túrin st ood st one st ill and s ilent, st aring on that dr eadful d eath, knowing what he had d one. st one-faced he st ood st anding frozen on that dr eadful d eath his d eed knowing Tolkien%27s legendarium Tolkien's legendarium is the body of J. R. R. Tolkien 's mythopoeic writing, unpublished in his lifetime, that forms
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1890-496: The two unfinished time travel novels, The Lost Road in 1936 and The Notion Club Papers in 1945, as the protagonists reappeared in each of several different times. There is no such framework in the published version of The Silmarillion , but the Narn i Hîn Húrin is introduced with the note "Here begins that tale which Ǽlfwine made from the Húrinien ." Tolkien never fully dropped
1935-538: The whole legendarium", equating the legendarium with the Silmarillion (which with italics denotes the 1977 book published under that name, and without italics means the larger body of un-edited drafts used to create that work). In the J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia , David Bratman writes that " The History of Middle-earth is a longitudinal study of the development and elaboration of Tolkien's legendarium through his transcribed manuscripts, with textual commentary by
1980-545: Was a 28-page synopsis written to explain the background of the story of Túrin to R. W. Reynolds, a friend to whom Tolkien had sent several of the stories. From the "Sketch" Tolkien developed a fuller narrative version of The Silmarillion called Quenta Noldorinwa (also included in Volume IV). The Quenta Noldorinwa was the last version of The Silmarillion that Tolkien completed. The stories in The Book of Lost Tales employ
2025-442: Was however concerned more with the theological and philosophical underpinnings of the work, rather than with the narratives themselves. By this time, he had doubts about fundamental aspects of the work that went back to the earliest versions of the stories, and it seems that he felt the need to resolve these problems before he could produce the "final" version of The Silmarillion . During this time he wrote extensively on such topics as
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