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The Silmarillion (Quenya: [silmaˈrilːiɔn]) is a book consisting of a collection of myths [a] [T 1] and stories in varying styles by the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien.It was edited, partly written, and published posthumously by his son Christopher Tolkien in 1977, assisted by Guy Gavriel Kay, who became a fantasy author.
J. R. R. Tolkien included multiple family trees in both The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion; they are variously for Elves, Dwarves, Hobbits, and Men. The family trees gave Tolkien, a philologist, a way of exploring and developing the etymologies and relationships of the names of his characters. They imply, too, the fascination of his ...
Thor, for example, physically the strongest of the gods, can be seen both in Oromë, who fights the monsters of Melkor, and in Tulkas, the strongest of the Valar. Manwë, the head of the Valar, has some similarities to Odin , the "Allfather", [ 4 ] while the wizard Gandalf , one of the Maiar, resembles Odin the wanderer.
T 2] He notes that Tolkien likened his Valar to "the gods of 'traditional' 'higher' mythology" – meaning, as Richard Purtill explained, the Roman or Greek pantheons, or to an extent also the Æsir of Norse mythology – though with definite differences. In particular, in his early work The Cottage of Lost Play he equated the classical gods to ...
Throughout The Silmarillion, the Eagles are associated with Manwë, the ruler of the sky and Lord of the Valar.It is stated that "spirits in the shape of hawks and eagles" brought news from Middle-earth to his halls upon Taniquetil, the highest mountain in Valinor, [T 4] and in the Valaquenta of "all swift birds, strong of wing".
He quotes Tolkien's words in The Silmarillion that "about their fate all the tales of the Elder days are woven". [8] They have that central place because they are the source of the light for the world of Arda while they live, and they are the ancestors of the various trees that symbolise the Kingdoms of Númenor and later of Gondor.
The first complete version of The Silmarillion was the "Sketch of the Mythology" written in 1926 [T 15] (later published in Volume IV of The History of Middle-earth). The "Sketch" 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.
Both have frame stories, situated long after the events they narrate; both have "gods" (Tolkien's Valar) in the action; and both involve an escape. [ 5 ] [ 6 ] [ 7 ] David Greenman compares the actions of Tolkien's quest-heroes to those of Aeneas and Odysseus .