Breaking history into phases
I think we can break the history of Cuiviénen into three phases:
- Awakening
- Skirts of the Shadow (to use Finwë's term); after being found by Melkor
- Finding by Oromë.
Putting some rough notes here until I get a chance to update.
Skirts of the Shadow
What then happened to the houseless fëa? The answer to this question the Elves did not know by nature. In their beginning (so they report) they believed, or guessed, that they ‘entered into Nothing’, and ended like other living things that they knew, even as a tree that was felled and burned. Others guessed more darkly that they passed into ‘the Realm of Night’ and into the power of the ‘Lord of Night’. These opinions were plainly derived from the Shadow under which they awoke; and it was to deliver them from this shadow upon their minds, more even than from the dangers of Arda marred, that the Valar desired to bring them to the light of Aman.
Oberiko (talk) 16:42, 6 June 2025 (UTC)
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien (ed.), Morgoth's Ring, "Part Three. The Later Quenta Silmarillion: (II) The Second Phase: Laws and Customs among the Eldar, Of Death and the Severance of fëa and hrondo [>hröa]"