MOON (MIDDLE-EARTH)

In the legendarium of J. R. R. Tolkien, the moon of Middle-earth was created by the Vala Aulë. According to the ''Silmarillion'', a vessel was made, by him and his people, to hold the radiance of the last flower of Telperion, the elder of the Two Trees of Valinor. The Maia Tilion was chosen to guide the vessel of the Moon.
:"Isil was first wrought and made ready, and first rose into the realm of the stars, and was the elder of the new lights, as was Telperion of the Trees."
Names of the Moon amongst the Elves included ''Isil'' or ''The Sheen'', a name given to it by the Vanyar; ''Ithil'', the common name for the Moon in Sindarin, as seen in ''Minas Ithil'' (later Minas Morgul) and the Gondorian province of Ithilien; and ''Rána'', or ''The Wayward'', a name given to the Moon by the Noldor.
A poetic name for the Moon was ''The Silver Flower'', and Gollum referred to it as ''The White Face''.
The Moon was valued as higher than the Sun by the Elves, both because it came from the Elder Tree, and because it rose first: it was made in memory of the Elves. The Sun on the other hand was made in memory of Men.
In the early versions of ''The Silmarillion'' as described in ''The Book of Lost Tales 1'', a part of the History of Middle-earth series, the Moon was described in great detail as an immense island of crystal. It was also said there that the youth Tilion was secretly in love with Arien, the maiden who guided the Sun, and that because he steered the Moon too close to the Sun the Moon was burned, causing the darker spots on the Moon (the Lunar maria).
According to the ''Book of Lost Tales'' (HoME 1, p.215), Aulë devised ''vírin'', a crystalline material from which he made a cup wherein the flower was set. The markings on the moon are caused as Lórien tried to pluck the "Rose of Silpion". The withered bough breaks, and the flower falls to the ground, and "a petal was crushed and tarnished" (HoME 1, p.214). In a later version, the fruit of Laurelin also fell to the ground, when Aulë stumbled and its weight was too great for Tulkas to bear alone (HoME 1, pp. 207, 226; HoME 4, p.57)
In writings which are older than the material from which the published ''Silmarillion'' was drawn, the Moon was described at one point as being created by Morgoth as a mockery of Arda the world, but this notion was abandoned.
In the later Round World version of the legendarium, the Sun and the Moon were not the fruit of the Two Trees, but actually preceded the creation of the Trees. Instead, the Trees preserved the light of the Sun before it was tainted by Melkor when he ravished Arien.
The Man in the Moon is even described in those writings, as being an old Elf who secretly hid on the island of the Moon, and built a minaret there. This is alluded to further in Tolkien's ''Roverandom'', in which the Man in the Moon also lives in a minaret.

Contents

Sources

References

Sources

★ "Of the Sun and Moon", ''Silmarillion''.

★ "The Tale of the Sun and Moon", HoME 1.

References

★ Alexandra Bolintineanu, "Astronomy and Cosmology, Middle-earth" in ''J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia'' (2006).