Under the Power of Melian there was Life and Joy

On my About page, I describe my wife as the most Melian-esque woman I know. When she read that, my wife asked what exactly that meant. She looked up Melian, but wasn’t entirely sure what I was getting at, which or her characteristics I was suggesting flourished in her.

I told her that the first draft said she was Ungoliant-esque, that she sucked the light and joy out of my life. But that I thought this was too forward for a public-facing blog and so decided to soften my tone. That sort of banter is part of what makes this marriage work!

At any rate, I wanted to explore Melian a bit today and explain what exactly I mean by that description. This is a bit of a public love-letter.

Melian is one of the Maiar, an angelic being if you will. In the earliest days, she dwelt in Lorien, the most beautiful place in Valinor (and the garden after which Lothlorien of Galadriel was later named). She served Vana and Este, two of the Valar closely associated with fauna and flora—Este was the wife of Irmo, the creator of the Gardens of Lorien. She is thus one of the Maiar most concerned with the preservation and flourishing of life, a role she fills once she is incarnate in Middle-earth.

Melian is the first of the Maiar to “incarnate,” taking physical form and marrying the Elf-king Thingol. (The other Maiar to incarnate, of course, are the five Wizards, something I explored a bit previously.) Together with her husband, Melian ruled the ancient kingdom of Doriath from the Halls of Menegroth, over which she spread a “girdle” of protection. She was mother to Luthien, remembered by the Elves as the most beautiful of all creatures in Arda.

She functions throughout The Silmarillion in three very specific ways, all of which are wrapped up in my calling my wife “Melian-esque”:

• She is wise and far-seeing
• She tempers Thingol’s wrath
• She casts a Girdle of Protection over her husband’s kingdom

Let me pick these apart one by one.

Much like all the Valar, Melian is not bound to time and space in quite the same way that the Children of Iluvatar are. This provides her a pair of powerful abilities that she exercises throughout The Silmarillion to the advantage of her husband, his friends, and sometimes even her husband’s perceived foes. Her eyes pierce great distances and she has a kind of foresight that is not exactly prophetic but is born of the deep wisdom and understanding of how the world works.

She taught the Grey-elves of Beleriand, her husband’s people, those elves who did not go all the way to Valinor, and they became “the fairest and the most wise and skilful of all the Elves in Middle-earth” (Ch.10). Indeed, those Elves who return from Valinor with Feanor are often foolish, shortsighted, and wicked. It is rather those Elves raised on the wisdom of Melian who become the greatest in Middle-earth.

Following Thingol’s stipulation that if Beren wishes to marry Luthien, he must claim a Silmaril jewel from Morgoth’s Crown—a death sentence by proxy—Melian quietly chides her husband, saying, “O King, you have devised cunning counsel. But if my eyes have not lost their sight, it is ill for you, whether Beren fail in his errand or achieve it. For you have doomed either your daughter, or yourself” (Ch.19). She now declares that he has tied his kingdom’s fate to the Silmarils, where previously Doriath had been kept free of the influence of Feanor’s folk.

Equally as important as her wisdom, intertwined with it really, is Melian’s influence over her husband Thingol. She is never seen to go behind his back or force him to anything. She humbly allows him to be the king even though she is by far the greater being. She tempers Thingol’s wrath against Beren and Turin.

Often Melian just sits silently, and she can seem to be timid while her husband rages, but I do not think that it is timidity that keeps her quiet. She is the calming force in Menegroth, the one with the far-seeing eyes, and she knows that Thingol’s anger often comes from the short-sightedness of his nature as creature of Middle-earth. The Elves may see farther and live longer than Men, but they do not see nearly so far as the Valar. Her silence is often the balance in Thingol’s hall, the rock that allows him to calm down. And when she is actually forced to speak to calm him, Thingol usually listens. When he does not listen to her, as when the sons of Feanor come to demand his Silmaril, Thingol’s anger leads to a bad end.

Melian’s third function is also the most mystical: “And Melian put forth her power and fenced all that dominion round about with an unseen wall of shadow and bewilderment: the Girdle of Melian, that none thereafter could pass against her will or the will of King Thingol” (Ch. 10).

This Girdle is not a physical border, but it does act like a maze that disorients and turns around any enemy of her people, sending them away in the wrong direction. But the maze does not affect those who are friends or—as in the case of Beren—those whose doom is mightier yet than her power. This girdle, so long as it lasts, keeps evil away from Doriath, or at least that evil which purposefully seeks to enter. There is evil that is brought nonetheless within the girdle, such as the deeds of Turin, but these are wicked acts committed in a fog of passion rather than premeditated evil.

This is only an overview of Melian, of course, but it provides enough to explain my claim that my wife is the most Melian-esque woman I know:

• She is a font of wisdom, often seeing more clearly than I how events and decisions will really play out. Like Thingol, I do not always listen to her counsel, and like Thingol, things usually work out badly when I do not.
• My wife tempers my wrath and anger, both by being a calming influence saying little, and by pointing out to me that my anger is creating situations that I cannot control and that will haunt me if followed through.
• Lastly, my wife casts a Girdle of Protection over our home, shielding me from much that might harm me if allowed in.

So there you are, my Dear, you can now stop bugging me to explain what I meant by “Melian-esque”!