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Location
Weatherford, Oklahoma
Document Type
Paper
Event Website
https://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-54.htm
Start Date
25-7-2026 3:30 PM
End Date
25-7-2026 4:20 PM
Description
Rather than overt religious symbolism or over-reliance on the trappings of Catholicism, like Marian or Eucharistic imagery, that also appear in his works, Tolkien infused Middle-earth with his own sacramental imagination, possibly through both conscious and sub-conscious creative choices. This sacramental imagination helps explain how obvious pagan influences and seemingly contradictory readings of Tolkien’s works can coexist with his assertion that the work is fundamentally Catholic. One area in which this sacramental imagining can be followed, as a route through his drafts, is in his development of the Valar as non-corporeal beings alongside his alteration of their marriage relationships from procreative, heteronormative unions to something more akin to “an association,” as Tolkien’s note to a 1958 draft calls them. In the example of the Valar, the sacramental imagination produces relationships that are both marriage and not-marriage.
That the Valar, with the notable exceptions of Ulmo and Nienna, enter Arda in spousal pairs indicates the centrality of marriage to Tolkien’s worldbuilding. As presented in The Silmarillion, their unions seem to represent marriage as a relationship and shared mission, with some attention to marital harmony or discord. However, for Tolkien, not all heteronormative pairings are equal. An easily overlooked nuance—that the Valar unions are not marriage—emerges through the drafts and indicates Tolkien’s engagement with the theological notion that as a sacrament, marriage relies on the physical body to convey the eternal spiritual reality of grace. In short, without a body, there is no sacrament. However, for Tolkien the problem is not limited to worldbuilding or theology. With two Valar couples, Tulkas and Nessa and Yavanna and Aulë, he engages with unions that are not-marriage, with sex as a distraction from shared purpose, and with a relationship in which separate ambition substitutes for shared procreation.
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Included in
No Body, No Sacrament: Tolkien’s Route from Children of the Valar to Marriage as an ‘Association’ in The History of Middle-earth Drafts
Weatherford, Oklahoma
Rather than overt religious symbolism or over-reliance on the trappings of Catholicism, like Marian or Eucharistic imagery, that also appear in his works, Tolkien infused Middle-earth with his own sacramental imagination, possibly through both conscious and sub-conscious creative choices. This sacramental imagination helps explain how obvious pagan influences and seemingly contradictory readings of Tolkien’s works can coexist with his assertion that the work is fundamentally Catholic. One area in which this sacramental imagining can be followed, as a route through his drafts, is in his development of the Valar as non-corporeal beings alongside his alteration of their marriage relationships from procreative, heteronormative unions to something more akin to “an association,” as Tolkien’s note to a 1958 draft calls them. In the example of the Valar, the sacramental imagination produces relationships that are both marriage and not-marriage.
That the Valar, with the notable exceptions of Ulmo and Nienna, enter Arda in spousal pairs indicates the centrality of marriage to Tolkien’s worldbuilding. As presented in The Silmarillion, their unions seem to represent marriage as a relationship and shared mission, with some attention to marital harmony or discord. However, for Tolkien, not all heteronormative pairings are equal. An easily overlooked nuance—that the Valar unions are not marriage—emerges through the drafts and indicates Tolkien’s engagement with the theological notion that as a sacrament, marriage relies on the physical body to convey the eternal spiritual reality of grace. In short, without a body, there is no sacrament. However, for Tolkien the problem is not limited to worldbuilding or theology. With two Valar couples, Tulkas and Nessa and Yavanna and Aulë, he engages with unions that are not-marriage, with sex as a distraction from shared purpose, and with a relationship in which separate ambition substitutes for shared procreation.
https://dc.swosu.edu/mythcon/mc54/schedule/17
