Lord of the Rings: The Animated Musical | Races: Maiar, Environment & Craft

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A black, white, and dark blue striped header image with the text Lord of the Rings: The Animated Musical | Races: Maiar, Environment & Craft

This week, I introduce the rest of the Maiar, each of whom represents part of the environment or a craft. This was no different than deities in real-world religions and mythologies, where ancient people believed that the sun, moon, and sea were sentient, while agriculture was controlled by a god, and smithing was taught to humans by a higher power. Many polytheist cultures have multiple gods with overlapping areas of rule. I have chosen to focus on those who appear to be the most popular and most powerful based on scholarly research. Many academic articles are written by researchers from outside the culture that they describe and accordingly may contain errors, which are passed along to me. Additionally, cultures with large populations and cultures from the West are overrepresented, meaning that I can easily find high quality research on these gods but not gods from smaller and non-Western religions. I have done my best to include a variety of religions in this essay but do concentrate on cultures previously discussed on this blog.

Group portrait with three male Maiar representing rough seas, the moon, and smithing in the back and three female Maiar representing calm seas, the sun, and agriculture in front

Solar & Lunar Deities

The Sumerian god Shamash — also called Utu and Babbar — was the sun god who appeared as an old man and meted divine justice. His father Nanna or Sin was the moon god, an unusual relationship among sun-moon deity pairings. Worship of Sin and Shamash dated back to at least 3500 BC and lasted until around 200 AD. Completing the family was wife and mother Ningal or Nikkal of fertility, twin sister Inanna or Ishtar of love, sister Ereshkigal of the dead, and brother Ishkur or Adad of storms. Shamash appeared in The Epic of Gilgamesh as one giving favors and beauty to Gilgamesh, while the king prayed to Sin to protect him while he slept.

Ancient Egyptian religion had four variations on the sun god: the original sun god Ra, who rode his boat through the sky every day, and his later variants of Ra-Horakhty the morning sun, Amun-Ra the noon sun, and Atum-Ra the evening sun. For a brief time in the 14th century BC, during the 18th Dynasty of the New Kingdom, the pharaoh Akhenaten changed the state religion from polytheism to monotheism and considered the god Aten to be the one god. His son, the famous Tutankhamun, reversed this decision upon his father’s death. Egypt also had multiple options for the moon, with youthful Khonsu son of Amon-Ra appearing in texts around 2350 BC, the Sixth Dynastic period in the Old Kingdom, and the baboon or ibis god Thoth, who appeared even earlier during the Pre-Dynastic period as far back as the 6000 BC. More recently, Thoth served as the mascot for the Crash Course video series on mythology, which is a great resource for anyone middle school age and up.

In Greco-Roman mythology, Helios or Sol rode a chariot across the sky, with his path cleared by his sister Eos or Aurora the rosy-fingered dawn and followed by his other sister Selene or Luna the moon. The inclusion of Eos turned a fairly typical sun-moon pairing, in this case a masculine sun and a feminine moon, into a sun-moon-dawn trio. These siblings were not without chaos, as reported in my favorite picture book, D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths, last mentioned in “II The Kings of the Mark”. Helios once allowed his mortal son Phaethon to drive the sun chariot, and Zeus struck him down for reckless driving. (D’Aulaires, 82-84). Eos married a handsome mortal and granted him immortality but forgot to give him eternal youth, and he shrank so severely that he turned into a grasshopper (D’Aulaires, 80-81). Meanwhile, Selene had a crush on the mortal shepherd Endymion and had Zeus put him into a deep sleep so he could be her youthful, nonconsensual husband for eternity (D’Aulaires, 86).

Similarly, in Norse mythology the sun or Sól and the moon or Máni were siblings. However, these myths had a feminine sun and a masculine moon. The myths also included the sun and moon being pulled through the sky on a ship: skipsól or ship-sun and hlýrtungl or prow-moon. In nearby Finland, Päivätär was the sun and Kuutar was the moon with both being female. Medical professional John Martin Crawford bizarrely translated The Kaleva in 1888 using he/him pronouns for the sun, even though Päivätär literally means “sun mother”. Possibly his Victorian era mind could not comprehend having not just one but two powerful women guarding the earth, or he misconstrued the text because his degree was in medicine, not Finnish studies or linguistics.

The Hindu and Buddhist god Surya represents the sun, while the dawn Aruna drives his chariot. His earliest literary appearance came in Hymn XXXV of Rig Veda, a sacred text in Hinduism, “Where now is Sarya, where is one to tell us to what celestial sphere his ray hath wandered?”. The Sanskrit language used epithets much like Ancient Greek, as Sarya was called “maker of light”, “with the radiant hair”, “God among the Gods”, “Lord of great might”, and many other praises.

Chandra is the moon and so popular in Hinduism that many modern people bear his name, and yet he is also called Soma, so scholars enjoy a good argument over when this second name appeared. Throughout Rig Veda, he is commonly called Soma and given the same celebrity treatment as Surya. Additionally, a holy beverage also called Soma could be made by gathering the leaves of the Soma plant under the light of Soma. The original plant was likely in the Ephedra genus, described by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) as an evergreen with “a long history of medicinal use in China and India” and banned in the United States for causing a long list of medical problems.

Over in the Americas, Maya have a vast pantheon of gods that vary throughout Mexico and Central America. The sun god Kinich Ahau is represented by different aspects or personality traits. These include Ah-Kin the disease controller, Ah-Xoc-Xin of music and poetry, Ahau-Kin Lord of the Underworld, supreme god Hunab-Ku, and the physical sun or Hero Twin Hunahpu. After the introduction of Christianity, Kinich Ahau became conflated with the Christian God to become Hunab Ku. The moon goddess Chen or Chin is sometimes depicted with male aspects, including the Hero Twin Xbalanque, and sometimes with female aspects, like the rainbow goddess Ixchel who became conflated with the Virgin Mary. While Kinich Ahau and Chen initially seem to be a similar sun-moon pairing to those found in European mythologies, the use of aspects and acceptance of multiple stories for the creation of the sun and moon makes the concept vastly different.

For Aztecs or Mexica, Huitzilopochtli was the sun god and Coyolxauhqui was the original moon goddess, while their mother was the earth goddess Coatlicue. Coyolxauhqui and Coatlicue do not end well, as Huitzilopochtli was born fully grown from the body of Coatlicue and hacked his older sister Coyolxauhqui into bits. Due to this bloody origin story, the worship of Huitzilopochtli demanded regular human sacrifices, as Aztec believed the sun’s energy came from human blood and hearts. The spirits of the victims, whether they died on a battlefield or were sacrificed in a temple, initially united with the sun and later became hummingbirds.

One would think this would be all to the business of Aztec gods, but it is not. A simultaneously existing belief was that the sun in the sky was not the original sun but the fifth of five suns. To create a sun, a god or goddess would jump into a sacred fire as a sacrifice. A new population of humans would be created, found unworthy, and transformed into a different animal. The fifth sun was sickly Nanahuatzin, while the moon was his wealthy rival Tecuciztecatl.

The reason for these two religions was a sudden shift in government structure. Tlacaelel I was the creator of the Aztec Triple Alliance or Mexica Empire, which received a thorough explanation in my review of A Portrait of Tenochtitlan by Thomas Kole. As the brother and advisor to Moctezuma I, Tlacaelel held great sway in the government. He loved the god Huitzilopochtli and rewrote Aztec religion to turn them into a chosen people serving a bloodthirsty deity. While Aztec religion was long based on self-sacrifice, especially self-immolation, the level of human sacrifice witnessed by the Spanish conquistadors as they colonized the area had existed only for a few decades.

In the Legendarium, the Two Trees of Valinor, silver Telperion and gold Laurelin originally gave light to the world. In “The Tale of the Sun and Moon” from The Book of Lost Tales, which took place after the trees were destroyed, Arien was the second most powerful of the Maia and the only one unbothered by the heat and light produced by the last fruit of golden Laurelin, so she guided it through the sky. Tilion wanted to stay near Arien but was not as powerful as her, so he took the last flower of silver Telperion and followed her, sometimes getting burned by the powerful sun.

Woman with a fiery dress and a flaming pineapple hovering near her chest standing in front of the sun Man with light grey robes showing the cycle of the moon levitates a flower between his hands and stands in front of the moon Arien stands on the left looking straight ahead while Tilion stands on the right looking at Arien. The right side of his body is scorched and sunburned. In the background, the moon covers the sun to make an eclipse.

Sea and Water Deities

The discussion of sea and water deities covers some of the same ground as “Perspectives on the Sea”, where I focused on water-based creation myths and flood myths. In Ancient Mesopotamia, Apsu the god of fresh water and Tiamat the goddess of salt water were the parents to all the other gods. Tiamat appeared in Enuma Elish, the Babylonian creation myth likely based on an older Sumerian myth where the goddess was known as Nammu. However, while Nammu was motherly, Tiamat was aggressive and represented chaos.

Ancient Egyptians worshipped Wadj-wer or Uat-ur, personification of the Mediterranean Sea, but were not interested in traveling across the water. In The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor from around 2000 BC, a servant was trapped on a magical island called Punt, which was ruled by a giant, benevolent serpent. The servant was unhappy despite being surrounded by good things until he went back to Egypt to live with his master, like a boring version of Sam Gamgee. Nearby on the Mediterranean, Greco-Roman mythology famously had Poseidon, also called Neptune, as the god of the sea, while Oceanus was the personification of the ocean-river circling the world, as ancient maps were inaccurate. Oceanus was mentioned in The Iliad by Homer as the source of all life, and the other gods respected him.

In Norse or Germanic mythology, Ægir personified the sea. He was not a god but a jötunn or þyrs in Old Norse, sometimes translated as “giant” or “demon”, as mentioned in Beowulf and the Critics by J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Michael D.C. Drout. (As a brief aside, Drout suggested in the “Preface” that Tolkien enthusiasts might enroll in his Anglo-Saxon class at Wheaton; I instead took his 2018 Senior Seminar, which covered similar material using Arthurian legends as the basis, and I added in a good deal of Nibelungenlied to my final essay.) Ægir was also called Gymir, so the sound of waves crashing against the beach was referred to as “Gymir’s Song”, which I think is cute. Kings were buried in barrows near the sea so their spirits could hear the pleasant sound.

Yoruba living in Western Africa, including the modern countries of Nigeria and Benin, worship the orisha spirit Olokun, who is similar to a god. He is the ruler of the sea and the oldest son of the creator Osanobua. When Osanobua teased him by sending him to fetch water in a woven basket filled with holes, Olokun first made a chalk drawing in the front yard and asked his father to save the drawings if rain came. Olokun then caused a rainstorm, ruining the chalk drawings, so Osanobua could not uphold his end of the bargain, and Olokun would not have to hold water in a holey (and holy!) basket.

In coastal China, Mazu is the goddess of the sea. She is believed to be based on a woman who lived on Meizhou Island and worked as a lifeguard during the 10th century AD. When she died during a rescue, local farmers and fishers deified her. This worship practice has been recognized by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity since 2009.

Polynesia is made of over a thousand islands across the Pacific Ocean, and their religions are accordingly filled with water deities. The most powerful Hawai’ian water deity is Nāmaka or Na-maka-o-ka-ha’i, older sister of Pele the volcano deity who created Hawai’i. The sisters fought constantly, and Nāmaka once destroyed Pele’s body only to see her sister’s spirit escape. To this day, Pele sends lava into the ocean, while Nāmaka sends floods onto the volcanic islands. Meanwhile, Māori recognize Tangaroa as the god of the sea. He was the son of Papatūānuku or Mother Earth and Ranginui or Father Sky, a theme consistent with many other polytheist religions. Māori historically relied on fishing for much of their food, but they always gave back the first fish to Tangaroa to show their gratitude.

In the Legendarium, Ossë and Uinen were a husband-and-wife team who controlled the Sea and first appeared in “Valaquenta” from The Silmarillion. Ossë created a violent sea, once turning to evil and serving the dark lord Melkor but becoming good again at the request of his wife, who was ranked third in power among Maiar. Uinen kept the sea calm and was a friend to sailors, like Númenóreans and Sea-Elves. In “The Tale of the Sun and Moon”, Uinen helped out her “cousin” Tilion by weaving a sail for his moon-ship.

A woman with blue skin and seaweed hair holds out her left arm where a seagull has landed A man with blue skin and green seaweed hair and beard has an aggressive expression and raises his hand to commend the waters The Sea Maia stand with an arm around each other and making eye contact

Agricultural Deities

Most polytheist religions included a god of agriculture who sometimes overlapped with the god of harvest. Mesopotamia had Ninurta, who also was a god of war and hunting. While his first appearance was in Sumer during the Bronze Age, Babylonians began worshipping him around 1500 BC, and Assyrians and Neo-Assyrians adopted him as Assur around 800 BC. Some scholars believe he is represented in the Bible as the “mighty warrior” Nimrod son of Cush (Genesis 10:8-12), but Nimrod was more often associated with Gish or Gilgamesh.

Likely beginning around the Predynastic Period, Ancient Egyptians worshipped Osiris as god of dead and agriculture. He was the oldest child of Geb the Father Earth and Nut the Mother Sky, acting as king of the people until his jealous brother locked him in a coffin and tossed him in the Nile. Having Osiris die was not enough for Set; once their sister-wives Isis and Nephthys tracked down the body, Set cut it into pieces. Sibling rivalry turned to gruesome murder is certainly a theme today.

The Greco-Roman goddess of agriculture, Demeter or Ceres, was the sister of Zeus/Jupiter, Poseidon/Neptune, Hades/Pluto, Hera/Juno, and Hestia/Vesta. She was famously the mother of Kore or Persephone/Proserpine, goddess of the seasons, while some variants of the myth included two sons: Iacchus son of Zeus who led the worship of his mother and sister, and Plutus son of the mortal Iasion. The cult of Demeter, which began in the 15th century BC during the Mycenaean period and developed into the Eleusinian Mysteries in Athens by 600 BC, was among the old worship practices in Greece.

Up north in Scandinavia, Norse and Germanic mythology had Freyr as agricultural god. His sister Freya, with her sleigh pulled by cats, is more popular among modern readers, but he was a favorite of Snorri Sturluson who wrote Prose Edda. Snorri described the siblings as “fair of face and mighty”, and Freyr road a boar named Gullinborsti or Gold-Mane.

Nearby in Estonia, Seto people continue to worship the agricultural god Peko whose primary role is to protect the growth of grain with special interest to barley. The religion survived Christianization led by the Orthodox Church and anti-religious legislation created by the Soviet Union. Today, worshipers maintain statues of Peko on their sacred hill Jumalamägi, meaning God’s Hill. According to the official tourism website, the latest sculptures were built in 2007 by local sculptor R. Veebe.

A little digging and help from Google Translate revealed this artist was Renaldo Veeber, who graduated from Eesti Riikliku Kunstiinstituudi [Estonian State Art Institute] (now called Eesti Kunstiakadeemia or Estonian Academy of Arts) in 1964 and became a member of Eesti Kunstnike Liidu [Estonian Artists’ Union] in 1967. He became director Setomaa Muuseumid in Saatse and in 1992 created dozens of Peko statues. He loved the Kalevipoeg, the epic of Estonia that was compiled by Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald in the mid to late 19th century. Veeber died in 2010 at age 73. The reason I gave Veeber a paragraph is because I could not find any English language sources on him, and I thought this culturally significant artist deserved international recognition, which is a perk of writing in English.

Back to the world of agricultural gods, Yoruba worshipped the orisha Oko, whose name can also mean “husband”. While statues of Oko are male, women conduct his ceremonies, and those in his cult call themselves Iyawo Orisha Oko, or Wife of the God-Husband. This concept is similar to Catholic practices in which nuns call themselves the brides of Christ. Due to the African diaspora, Oko is worshipped in Cuba as a wise man and a defender against witchcraft.

In Hinduism, Balarama is the older half-brother of the principal god Krishna, and his worship may have begun around the 2nd century BC. Balarama is considered a minor deity, and in addition to his association with agriculture, he is also in charge of wrestling and fighting with clubs, along with taking on the form of a serpent. Additionally, he sometimes appeared with a lion or a crocodile, much like Freyr and his boar. Iconography of the god also appeared at sites associated with Jainism and Buddhism.

Over in the Americas, Maya worshipped Hun Hunahpu or the Maize God. The story of how the corn god came to be is complex and covers many aspects of Maya culture, but I will do my best to summarize. The Hunahpu brothers were playing a ball game on the roof of Xibalba, the Maya underworld, and the gods became so annoyed that they trapped the men in the Xibalba. The twin sons of one of the brothers tricked the gods into releasing their father, who grew up from the ground as maize. The plant maize, which is called corn in the United States, was first domesticated around 4000 BC in modern Mexico, while statues of the Maize God have appeared around 850 to 700 BC.

The Aztec agricultural god, Xipe Totec meaning “Flayed One”, was also a god of smiths and death. His name came from the depiction of his limbs, which have the skin peeled off them to reveal bloody muscle underneath. Like many Aztec gods, his worship involved blood sacrifice, as warriors fought to the death in festivals similar to gladiators in Roman culture. The concept of Xipe Totex was likely borrowed from older civilizations like Olmecs and Yopes which date back to 1200 BC, and then shared with cultures under Aztec rule, like Zapotecs and Miztecs.

In Polynesia, Māori traditionally saw Rongo as the god of cultivated food. He was the brother of Tangaroa, and the son of Papatūānuku the Mother Earth and Ranginui the Father Sky. When the people harvested kumara or sweet potatoes, they gave the first back to Rongo. This practice likely started around the 13th century AD when the Polynesian ancestors of Māori arrived in what is now New Zealand. After the violence that engulfed the Aztec Empire, I appreciate the comparatively quiet ritual happening on the opposite side of the world.

Melian was the only environmental Maiar to be named in The Lord of the Rings. She had similarities to agricultural goddesses, especially in Western tradition. Her songs were echoed by birds and flowers grew wherever she lived. She taught both Elves and Dwarves what she knew about their world. She was the most powerful of the Maiar, compared even to the Valar, who were considered “greater” and typically given more power. She gave up her position in Valinor to marry outside her race, as she fell in love with Elwé, who was also called Thingol or King Greymantle, leader of the Sindar Elves. Their daughter Luthien was known throughout Arda as a great hero, and her descendants included Half-Elves and Númenóreans. Many details on the marriage of Thingol and Melian appeared in The Silmarillion in “Chapter 4: Of Thingol and Melian” and will be discussed in future posts.

Dark-haired, grey-eyed woman levitating a white flower with her right hand and standing in front of an enormous flower

Smith Deities

The Western concept of smithing existed only in cultures that entered a Bronze Age, or having the technology to combine copper and tin, in the three-age system consisting of the Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age. 19th century archaeologist Christian Jürgensen Thomsen created the system to sort his artifacts chronologically, which he did for his exhibits at the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen. Unfortunately, other European academics decided this system for gallery arrangements fit nicely into their eugenics research based on the shapes of people’s skulls. Since people from Europe and the Middle East, along with parts of Africa, Asia, and South America, had developed specific types of smithing, these societies were deemed superior by the researchers.

In Ancient Egypt, Ptah was the creator and therefore god of smiths. Ptah was probably first worshipped during the Predynastic Period as far back as 6000 BC, with his first appearance in the current archaeological record dating back to the First Dynastic Period. He was sometimes combined with Osiris to become a god of the dead, but not of agriculture in this form. Ptah was later associated with the Greco-Roman god Hephaestus or Vulcan, although he lost the aspect of creator in this form.

In contrast, Hephaestus was the unwanted son of Zeus and Hera, who tossed him off the side of Mount Olympus because he was an ugly baby (D’Aulaires, 28). They did get him back, but his poor legs were irreparably broken. Not one to be deterred by disability, Hephaestus built talking robots of gold and silver to help him walk. As an added bonus, they spoke multiple languages. Hephaestus was generally nicer than most of the other Olympic gods, although his obsession with his younger half-sister Athena was in line with typical inappropriate god behavior.

In Germanic and Norse mythology, Völundr the Smith — also known as Wayland or by several other variants — was not a true god but a magic person or a “lord of elves” according to a translation by W.H. Auden and P.B. Taylor. As an admittedly not so brief aside, this is the third appearance of Auden, who famously reviewed The Lord of the Rings when it was first published as appearing in “Introduction by Peter S. Beagle” and was part of the Documentary Film Movement during World War II as appearing in “Introduction to the History of Documentaries”.

Paul Beekman Taylor appears to have been a student of Auden and seems to be alive, turning ninety-four years old at the end of this year. As a child, he lived under the mystic George Gurdjieff, and his many books are a split between translations of Norse and Old English literature and the bizarre philosophy of Gurdjieff. As with Renaldo Veeber, this story has little to do with world religion, but it is interesting to see that a type of person attracted to ancient legends might also be drawn to or vulnerable to those claiming possession of modern magic.

Back to mythology, the poem “Völundarkviða” in Poetic Edda followed the life of Wayland from his marriage to a swan maiden from Mirkwood, his capture and mutilation by Nidud King of the Njars, and his revenge as he murders the lord’s sons to turn their body parts into jewelry and then impregnates the lord’s daughter so his descendants will be heirs to the kingdom. Mythology does not tend to be very happy.

In West Africa, Yoruba and Edo were known as ironworkers with a deity to match. Ogun the orisha of iron, hunting, and war was the third son of the creator Osanobua and younger brother of Olokon, orisha of the sea. The most successful of the orisha in terms of followers, he is worshipped throughout the African Diaspora. In the Haitian religion Vodou, he is called Ogou and manifests in different forms to represent iron smithing along with medicine and scientific discovery. Sometimes he is merged with James son of Zebedee, called St. James the Great in Catholic tradition, who was one of the Twelve Apostles (Mark 1:19-20).

As mentioned previously in the section on agricultural deities, Aztec recognized Xipe Totec as their smithing god. Their copper smelting process was so advanced at the time of Spanish conquistadors that Spaniards used indigenous technology to make new weapons. This raises the question, why “progress” to a Bronze Age when your copper works fine? In fact, the use of copper is considered so important to modern archaeologists that the concept of a Copper Age was added between the Stone Age and Bronze Age. The Copper Age began in Eurasia as early as 4500 BC, while it occurred independently in South America beginning around 1000 AD.

Smith deities were frequently associated with death and violence, and the Legendarium proved no different. The smith Maia most famous in The Lord of the Rings was Sauron, creator of the One Ring. He had originally been called Mairon, while his many other names and titles included Gorthaur the Cruel, Annatar, the Necromancer, the Eye, the Shadow, the Dark Lord, the Black Hand, and the Lord of the Rings. He liked to have things orderly, scheduled, and “accurate… set out fair and square with no contradictions” (The Fellowship of the Ring, 9), the same as Hobbits. I have never seen this comparison made before, but it was worth pointing out, especially since I also like schedules. In The Silmarillion and Morgoth’s Ring, he worked under Aulë, who was not known for these skills, which makes Sauron’s descent towards but not quite reaching “nihilistic madness” and siding with an evil yet organized employer somewhat relatable. To make matters worse, Sauron turned out to be “wiser than Melkor/Morgoth” and quickly figured out that he had left a disorganized but loving boss for a not as bright one who spread himself too thin and canonically did not know what flowers were. Instead of asking forgiveness from Aulë, who certainly would have granted it, Sauron decided he could become the evilest entity instead.

My final note on Sauron was that the slit pupil eyes given to all Maiar in my illustrations was from Frodo’s description in “The Mirror of Galadriel”: “The Eye was rimmed with fire, but was itself glazed, yellow as a cat’s, watchful and intent, and the black slit of its pupil opened on a pit, a window into nothing.” (Fellowship, 409). This description was a holdover from a character who had a similar role to Sauron in his relationship to Melkor, a giant talking cat named Tevildo. Called Melko in this variant, which appears in The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two, the original dark lord gave a golden collar and a host of cat servants to his favorite feline. Tevildo’s downfall was a giant talking dog name Huan, who will be back in a future post.

While Tevildo did not make it to the final versions of the Legendarium, Maiar continued to exhibit catlike traits. Gandalf was known for his long eyebrows, much like cat whiskers, and his beard bristling when he was frightened. While I have not seen this comparison made in other scholarly work or artistic interpretations, I would include these quirks in the hypothetical animated musical.

Golden-haired, golden-eyed person wearing a brown leather apron over an orange robe, holding a hammer in his right hand and a bar of metal in his left.

Read past installments of Lord of the Rings: The Animated Musical