J. R. R. Tolkien, a devout Roman Catholic, embodied Christianity in his legendarium, including The Lord of the Rings. Light is a major Christian symbol, denoting God and creation in the Old Testament, and the action of Christ in the New Testament.

In The Silmarillion, light is similarly important. It appears early on in the Years of the Lamps, with two enormous lamps atop mountain-sized pillars to light the world of Arda. When these are destroyed by the Dark Lord Melkor, they are replaced by the Two Trees of Valinor, which provide light for the new home of the Valar. When these too are destroyed, the Valar use their last fruit and their last flower to create the Sun and the Moon. A little of the light of the Two Trees is captured in the Silmarils, the crafted jewels that give the book its name. They are coveted by the Dark Lord, provoking war and the destruction of much of the world of Elves, Men, and Dwarves. A survivor, Eärendil, sails across the Great Sea to ask the Valar to intervene; they expel the Dark Lord, and Eärendil and his ship Vingilot sail the heavens as the Morning Star.

Context

J. R. R. Tolkien was a devout Roman Catholic. He described The Lord of the Rings as rich in Christian symbolism.^{[T 1]}

In the Old Testament, light is the first thing to be created: the Book of Genesis states "Let there be light" and "God saw the light, and it was good" (1:3–4). Light thus symbolises creation.^[1] Light is a symbol of God; in the New Testament, it is stated that "God is light" (1 John 1:5). Further, Christ described himself as "the light of the world" (John 8:12),^[2] and the book repeatedly equates "the light" with him.^[3] Finally, John 1 states that "In [God] was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not" (John 1:4–5). John Behr takes this to be a hymn expressing how the events of the New Testament occur in line with Christ's will.^[4]

The Silmarillion

The Silmarillion describes how light is divinely created and then successively fragmented through the actions of created beings.^[5]

Years of the Lamps

When they came to Arda, the Valar lit the world with two great lamps, Illuin the sky-blue and Ormal the high-gold, each set atop a pillar-like mountain. They lived at the centre of Arda, lit by the light of both lamps. This period, the Spring of Arda, was interrupted when the Dark Lord Melkor returned and destroyed the two Lamps. Arda was darkened, and reshaped with new lands and seas.^{[T 2]}

Two Trees of Valinor

The Valar moved to the new continent of Aman and built the Kingdom of Valinor. Yavanna made the Two Trees, named Telperion (giving silver light) and Laurelin (golden light). The Trees illuminated Valinor, leaving Middle-earth in darkness.^{[T 2]} Later, Varda kindled stars above Middle-earth, and the Elves awakened there.^{[T 3]} Melkor, assisted by the giant spider Ungoliant, destroyed the Two Trees. The world was again dark.^{[T 4]} The Valar took the last living fruit of Laurelin and the last living flower of Telperion and used them to create the Moon and Sun.^{[T 5]}

Silmarils and Eärendil's Star

The Silmarils that give The Silmarillion its name were three gems crafted by the skilful Elf Fëanor, capturing a little of the light of the Two Trees. They were uniquely beautiful, and were stolen by Melkor, provoking war.^{[T 6]} In the prolonged fighting, the Kingdoms of Elves, Men, and Dwarves were defeated and destroyed one by one.^{[T 7] [T 8][T 9]}Gondolin.^{[T 10]} Among the remnant of these peoples, the half-Elven Eärendil possessed the last Silmaril, which had been taken from Melkor, known as Morgoth. More fighting ensued.^{[T 9][T 11]} Eärendil sailed across the Great Sea to beg the Valar for aid against Morgoth. They sent a great army; Morgoth was defeated and expelled into the Void; Arda was again reshaped. Eärendil and his ship Vingilot were placed in the heavens, with the Silmaril glimmering in the sky as the Morning Star.^{[T 11]}

The Lord of the Rings

Lothlórien: land of light

On their quest to destroy the One Ring, the members of the Fellowship stay awhile in Lothlórien. An Elf explains to the Fellowship that the lady of Lothlórien, Galadriel, has the power of light, which dwells in the land. She constantly strives with the Dark Lord Sauron, the power of darkness, who is unable to see into her realm.^{[T 12]}

Phial of Galadriel

The Phial of Galadriel is a small crystal vial filled with water from Galadriel's fountain. It contains a little of the light of Eärendil's star, as it shone over Lothlórien.^{[T 13]} Galadriel offers the Phial to Frodo when the Fellowship of the Ring leaves Lothlórien, wishing him: "May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out." Frodo then wears it around his neck.^{[T 13]} Frodo and Sam use the Phial of Galadriel several times during their journey to Mordor. On the steps of Cirith Ungol, when Frodo is chased by a Nazgûl, and is about to give in to the temptation to put on the One Ring and be seen, he holds the Phial instead, which restores his senses.^{[T 14]} Later, the light it emits helps the hobbits fight Shelob in her lair.^{[T 15]} Sam uses the Phial to defeat the Watchers of the tower of Cirith Ungol.^{[T 16]} However, its power is no match for Sauron's; when the hobbits try to use it again as they approach Mount Doom, its light fades.^{[T 17]}

Theme

Splintered light

The theme of light runs throughout The Lord of the Rings, but is especially clear in The Silmarillion. The scholar of mythology and medieval literature Verlyn Flieger explains that Tolkien equates light with God and the ability to create. She cites from Tolkien's poem Mythopoeia ("Creation of Myth"):^{[6][T 18]}

man, sub-creator, the refracted light
through whom is splintered from a single White
to many hues, and endlessly combined
in living shapes that move from mind to mind.
Though all the crannies of the world we filled
with elves and goblins, though we dared to build
gods and their houses out of dark and light,
and sow the seed of dragons, 'twas our right
(used or misused). The right has not decayed.
We make still by the law in which we're made.^{[T 18]}

Flieger writes that by this, Tolkien meant that an author's ability to create fantasy fiction, or in his terms "subcreation", was derived from and could be seen as a small splinter of the Divine Light, the "single White" of the poem. Further, the whole of The Silmarillion can be seen as a working-out of this theme of Man splintering the original white light of creation "to many hues, and endlessly combined in living shapes" in the forms of the sundering of the Elves into light and dark elves, men good and bad, and dragons and other monsters. This creative light, she states, was for Tolkien equated with the Christian Logos, the Divine Word.^[6]

Splintering of the Created Light, with repeated re-creations^[5]

Age	Blue/Silver light	Golden light	Jewels
Years of the Lamps	Illuin, sky-blue lamp of Middle-earth, atop tall pillar, Helcar	Ormal, high-gold lamp of Middle-earth, atop tall pillar, Ringil
ending when Melkor destroys both Lamps
Years of the Trees	Telperion, silver tree, lighting Valinor	Laurelin, golden tree, lighting Valinor	Fëanor crafts 3 Silmarils with light of the Two Trees.
ending when Melkor strikes the Two Trees, and Ungoliant kills them
First Age	Last flower becomes the Moon, carried in male spirit Tilion's ship.	Last fruit becomes the Sun, carried in female spirit Arien's ship.
	Yavanna makes Galathilion, a tree like Telperion, except that it does not shine, for the Elves' city of Tirion in Valinor.		There is war over the Silmarils.
	Galathilion has many seedlings, including Celeborn on Tol Eressëa		One Silmaril is buried in the Earth, one is lost in the Sea, one sails in the Sky as Eärendil's Star.
Second Age	Celeborn has seedling Nimloth, the White Tree of Númenor.
	Númenor is drowned. Isildur brings one fruit of Nimloth to Middle-earth.
Third Age	A White Tree grows in Minas Tirith while a King rules Gondor.		Galadriel collects light of Eärendil's Star reflected in her fountain mirror.
	The tree stands dead while Stewards rule.		A little of that light is captured in the Phial of Galadriel.
	The new King Aragorn brings a White Sapling into the city.		Hobbits Frodo Baggins and Sam Gamgee use the Phial to defeat the giant spider Shelob.

The light begins in The Silmarillion as a unity, and in accordance with the splintering of creation is divided into more and more fragments as the myth progresses. Middle-earth is peopled by the angelic Valar and lit by two great lamps; when these are destroyed by the fallen Vala Melkor, the world is fragmented, and the Valar retreat to Valinor, which is lit by The Two Trees. When these too are destroyed, their last fragment of light is made into the Silmarils, and a sapling too is rescued, leading to the White Tree of Numenor, the living symbol of the Kingdom of Gondor. Wars are fought over the Silmarils, and they are lost to the Earth, the Sea, and the Sky, the last of these, carried by Eärendil the Mariner, becoming the Morning Star. Some of the star's light is captured in Galadriel's Mirror, the magic fountain that allows her to see past, present, and future; and some of that light is, finally, trapped in the Phial of Galadriel, her parting gift to Frodo, the counterbalance to Sauron's evil and powerful Ring that he also carries. At each stage, the fragmentation increases and the power decreases. Thus the theme of light as Divine power, fragmented and refracted through the works of created beings, is central to the whole mythology.^[5]

Patrick Curry writes that the Two Trees of Valinor "embodied the first light of the universe", noting that they gave birth to the Sun and the Moon, and that their light survives, too, in Venus, the star of Eärendil.^[7]

Elvish light

The Tolkien scholar Paul H. Kocher writes that Galadriel perceives the Dark Lord Sauron with Lothlórien's light, "but cannot be pierced by it in return".^[8] The good intelligence has the "imaginative sympathy" to penetrate the evil intelligence, but not vice versa.^[8] The Christian author Elizabeth Danna writes that the Elf Haldir's explanation of this [from a flet or tree-platform high above Cerin Amroth], "In this high place you may see the two powers that are opposed to one another, and ever they strive now in thought; but whereas the light perceives the very heart of the darkness, its own secret has not yet been discovered"^{[T 12]} echoes a biblical description: "The light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not."^[9][10] The scholar of humanities Susan Robbins notes that Tolkien, a devout Roman Catholic, associated light as the Bible does with "holiness, goodness, knowledge, wisdom, grace, hope, and God's revelation", and that Galadriel was one of the bearers of that light.^[11]

References

Primary

Secondary

Sources

• Carpenter, Humphrey, ed. (2023) [1981]. The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien Revised and Expanded Edition. New York: Harper Collins. ISBN 978-0-35-865298-4.
• Curry, Patrick (1998) [1997]. Defending Middle-Earth: Tolkien: Myth and Modernity. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-261-10371-9.
• Flieger, Verlyn (1983). Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien's World. Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing. ISBN 978-0-802-81955-0.
• Kocher, Paul (1974) [1972]. Master of Middle-earth: The Achievement of J.R.R. Tolkien. Penguin Books. ISBN 0140038779.
• Tolkien, J. R. R. (1954a). The Fellowship of the Ring. The Lord of the Rings. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. OCLC 9552942.
• Tolkien, J. R. R. (1954). The Two Towers. The Lord of the Rings. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. OCLC 1042159111.
• Tolkien, J. R. R. (1955). The Return of the King. The Lord of the Rings. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. OCLC 519647821.
• Tolkien, J. R. R. (1977). Christopher Tolkien (ed.). The Silmarillion. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 978-0-395-25730-2.
• Tolkien, J. R. R. (2001). Tree and Leaf. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-007-10504-5.