[ Daily Tolkien ] A Tolkien Virgin: Of Thingol and Melian

Tolkien Online ^ | September 20, 1999 | Mark-Edmond

[JameRetief]

A Tolkien Virgin: Of Thingol and Melian
by Mark-Edmond

The Journey Continues

Here we have Tolkien's first take on love in the Silmarillion. Thingol is drawn by the beauty of her singing, but it isn't love till he sees her. Love at first sight. She's indescribably beautiful, sings wonderfully, and has the light of Aman in her face, but what does she see in him? Tolkien doesn't really say. She's a type of goddess, a Maia, existing before Ea, while he's an elf, born in Middle Earth. It seemed strange to me that she would "stoop" to the level of a Quendi. But then mythology is full of tales of gods and godesses falling in love with earthlings. Even in the Torah, Genesis 6 to be more precise, it says, "the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose." They had children by them and they were the "heroes of old." In Tolkien's version it's somewhat reversed and apparently an isolated instance.

Thingol and Melian's is a fairy-tale love. Neither of them speak and neither had previous knowledge of the other, so it is either utterly without regard to virtue or somehow they are able to know each other and communicate without words. Wouldn't it be nice if love worked like that for us? We wouldn't have to bother with dating or pointless conversations. We could just know. Well, I suppose love can be like that...or so I'm told. Both people just know the other is right for them. And I guess that's Thingol and Melian for you.

Their love, or the love spell between them, has its nasty side effects, too. It causes Thingol to forsake his people and his role as leader--not just for a short time, but for years. Just as in our lives, the love between two people relatively new to one another can result in the forsaking of friendships that have lasted decades. So perhaps their love story isn't so different than the love we can know in our own lives.

Author: Mark-Edmond
Published on: September 20, 1999.

The next Tolkien Virgin article covers the next part of The Silmarillion: Of Eldamar and the Princes of the Eldalie

[JameRetief]

The Daily Tolkien articles by various authors	The Tolkien Virgin articles by Mark Edmond
ARTICLES 1-10	1) Pre-amble and The Ainulindalë
ARTICLES 11-20	2) Ainulindalë/Valaquenta
ARTICLES 21-30	3) Of Aule and Yavanna
31) Model Languages: On Tolkien	4) Of The Coming of Elves and the Captivity of Melkor
	5) Of Thingol and Melian

[JameRetief]

Your Tolkien Virgin Ping!

Read along with a Tolkien Virgin as he discovers and comments on the history of Middle Earth as he reads it for the first time.  These articles start with The Silmarillion, journeys through The Hobbit, and finishes with the epic Lord Of The Rings.  At the pace of 2 articles per week (Mondays and Fridays) the articles will wrap up about the same time that the final movie of the Lord Of The Rings story is released. 

If anyone would like for me to ping them directly when I post the Tolkien Virgin articles or my Daily Tolkien articles let me know. I hope that you enjoy them!

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