Aman

Geography

The continent of Aman had great oceans on both sides, Ekkaia to the west and Belegaer to the east. When the Valar chose this land for their dwelling they needed a defence against Melkor and thus upon Aman's eastern coast they raised the Pelóri, the highest mountains on earth, of which Taniquetil was the tallest of all. Upon this peak were the thrones of Manwë and Varda.

Behind the mountain wall was established the domain of Valinor which became more beautiful than Middle-earth in the Spring of Arda.

Through the Pelóri was opened a pass, the Calacirya, which brought light to the narrow coastland of Eldamar and the island of Tol Eressëa. Also beyond the mountain wall were two more regions of Aman: Araman to the northeast and Avathar to the southeast. On the shores of Araman there was a land of mist called Oiomúrë, which Fingolfin passed through during the flight of the Noldor, and Ungoliant had managed to escape notice in Avathar.

In the north Aman was separated from Middle-earth by the narrow straits of the Helcaraxë. These ice-filled straits served as a path for Melkor and later the host of Fingolfin to return to Middle-earth.

The Valar later set the Enchanted Isles in the ocean to prevent travelers by sea from reaching Aman.

Flora and fauna

The olvar (plants) and kelvar (animals) in Aman were sometimes different from those of Middle-earth, though they were in essence "ordinary beasts and plants with usual conditions of mortality".

The Quenya name Aman is glossed as "Blessed Land", or "blessed, free from evil" or "The Unmarred State".

The etymology of the name Aman changed over time in Tolkien's writings. In early linguistic writings, Aman was intended to be a "native Quenya form", derived from the root MAN ("good"). However, in later writings (such as Quendi and Eldar), the name is said to derive from a Valarin word.

Other names

Its Sindarin name was Avon ("Unmarred State").

Aman was also called the Ancient West, Blessed Realm and the Undying Lands or just Valinor. In Adûnaic it was called Amatthāni. In The Hobbit Tolkien also calls this continent "Faerie in the West".

Robert Foster said in his foreword to The Complete Guide to Middle-earth that he did not provide death dates for protagonists who sailed in the West "for they still live". Steuard Jensen, while noting that Tolkien "seems to have been initially unsure" if the "mortals who sailed to the West would remain mortal", comments that there are strong arguments in favour of the opposite view, citing from two letters by Tolkien:

Other important arguments against the immortality of the mortals who sailed to Aman can be found in another letter and in a passage from The Akallabêth:

The Undying Lands were likely thus called like that because immortals dwelt in them, not because they granted immortality.

In his later life, Tolkien pondered the fate of Aman after Eru's intervention. Since Aman was indeed a physical or "real" place, any true removal of it would have had to be physical as well. Therefore, unlike in previous versions of the legendarium where Aman was ambiguously rendered inaccessible to mortals but still a part of Arda, Tolkien decided that Aman would have been greatly changed by Eru during his catastrophic intervention. The landmass once known as Aman would eventually become the American continents: "Aman and Eressëa would be the memory of the Valar and Elves of the former land". He also changed his mind regarding what exactly the term "Aman" would refer to.

This would seem to suggest that said beings would enter into some form of incorporeal existence and no longer be physically present. This contradicts Tolkien's own earlier writings, such as Frodo going to Tol Eressëa in the flesh, or several of his letters, wherein Tolkien confirms that mortals would indeed die in Aman, which they could not do if they went to some form of non-corporeal existence.

The concept of the "Paradise in the West", a happy, deathless land outside time, is an old idea. In classical times some earthly afterlife was imagined with Elysium at the "world's end", and some Greek heroes who dwell serenely in "the isles of the blessed". Other later concepts came mainly from the northern Europe, although those Paradises were not associated with afterlife; they could occasionally be encountered by travelling mortals, like Faerie, when the gods allowed it. Ireland had rich Celtic traditions of such travels, not only in the underground Otherworld, but also over the sea. During the Christian eras the imrama literature of fantastic ocean voyages, often by monks, flourished. One of them was the travel of Saint Brendan, about which Tolkien composed a poem, with elements of his Legendarium: Númenor, Tol Eressea, and the Straight Road.

In The Lost Road Tolkien made specific mention of those utopian myths. In the episode set in Anglo-Saxon times, Éadwine has heard strange tales from Ireland and wants to sail West like Brendan and Maelduin, hoping to find Paradise. The story of King Sheave also shows that there is such a place reachable by ship. Other notes planned a story of Tir-nan-Og that wasn't written.

According to Norma Roche, the concept of a western Paradise was recurring in Tolkien's legendarium and a vital part of it, including the regret for its loss. The pattern of Eriol and later Ælfwine belong to this example, as mortals who somehow reached the Blessed Realm, forming the frame story for the Legendarium.

1. Esta ficha se ha importado inicialmente de TolkienGateway.net el día 20/05/2026.