J.R.R. Tolkien is best-known as the author of The Lord of the Rings (helped, of course, by the fact that the film adaptation is regarded as one of the best film series of all time). However, what he actually spent most of his life writing was the core of what would be published (posthumously) as The Silmarillion.
The story of how Tolkien’s narrative and world grew and changed is a sprawling, epic tale in itself and while it’s a fascinating story that’s definitely worth reading, it’s a bit beyond the scope of this exercise.
In brief, whereas The Lord of the Rings narrates events in the Third Age, The Silmarillion deals with the events basically up to the Third Age, in an almost Biblical manner beginning with literally the creation of Tolkien’s Universe.
The namesake tale and the bulk of the work is the Quenta Silmarillion, narrating the theft of the three perfect jewels known as the Silmarils by the first Dark Lord Morgoth (a much more immediate Satan-analogue in a number of ways than Sauron) and the quest of their creator Fëanor, his sons, and most of the Noldor Elves to reclaim them.
In light of Fëanor swearing a simultaneously irrevocable and unattainable Oath in the name of Eru (Tolkien’s capital-G God), various tragedies befall the Noldor along the way.
Tolkien’s other major First Age characters: Beren and Lúthien, Túrin, and Eärendil are all either directly or tangentially connected to this quest.
It’s a bit more complicated than that, but, again, a full explanation is beyond the scope of the exercise. Though, given that the song I’m writing about today is called Noldor, you’re probably getting a sense of where this is going.
First, however, I want to bring up German (they’ve been around since 1984, so it’s been long enough they were technically formed in West Germany) Power Metal pioneers Blind Guardian (whom we’ve met before) and their 1998 concept album Nightfall in Middle-Earth.
[Quick editorial note, in Tolkien’s own writings, it’s “Middle-earth”, in the actual name of the album it’s “Middle-Earth”; worth pointing out, perhaps, but nobody but very pedantic and uptight high-level Tolkien scholars are going to care about how you capitalise it.]
Now, Blind Guardian are another great example of the fact that a lot of Metal musicians are either secretly or openly gigantic nerds. The vast majority of Blind Guardian songs are based on books, novels, or mythology and they did the theme song of a Fantasy video game back in 2008 — incidentally, the song itself is awesome.
Nightfall in Middle-Earth is another pretty clear example of that, being a self-serious, operatic retelling of the Quenta Silmarillion, starting at the end and ending somewhere in the middle. The songs on the album are interspersed with shorter pieces of either sung or spoken narration to fill the gaps.
While some of the songs are phenomenal and the album is Blind Guardian lead singer’s Hansi Kürsch masterclass in vocal range, some of the songs and lyrics veer into melodramatic, though overall, the album is brilliant.
One of my favourite songs on the album is Noldor (Where Dead Winter Reigns), narrating how the bulk of the Noldor following Fëanor and his sons into Middle-earth by crossing the Helcaraxë — known as the Grinding Ice, the ice at the extreme north of the world that connected Aman (where Valinor is; where the Elves are sailing West to during Lord of the Rings) to Middle-earth. This was an arduous journey that left a not-insignificant number of Noldor dead and apparently took nearly 30 years.
Now, to be fair, Morgoth had destroyed the world’s only source of light…
Also worth noting is that this is potentially significantly longer than it appears, because Valian years, the years used to measure time before the creation of the Sun and Moon were each either 10 years long or 144 years long, depending on where Tolkien was in his world-building. I’m still unclear on if “30 years” is Valian years converted into our years (and therefore about 3 Valian years), or if it’s 30 Valian years and therefore a, um, lot of our years. Though a quick survey of discussions on the internet seems to indicate the former.
Particularly important to both this part of Tolkien’s narrative and Blind Guardian’s song is the Doom of Mandos, laid upon the Noldor as a combination prophecy, punishment, threat, and offer to return to Aman for pardon.
It’s about as cheery as it sounds:
Tears unnumbered ye shall shed; and the Valar will fence Valinor against you … On the House of Fëanor the wrath of the Valar lieth from the West unto the uttermost East … Ye have spilled the blood of your kindred unrighteously and have stained the land of Aman. For blood ye shall render blood, and … slain ye may be, and slain ye shall be: by weapon and by torment and by grief … And those that endure in Middle-earth and come not to Mandos shall grow weary of the world as with a great burden, and shall wane, and become as shadows of regret before the younger race that cometh after. The Valar have spoken.
From The Silmarillion, “Of the Flight of the Noldor”, quoted via Tolkien Gateway.
The short version is that Fëanor murdered other Elves to steal their boats and sail to Middle-earth, and the Doom of Mandos (and basically everything that happens in the Quenta Silmarillion from that point) is their punishment.
Basically, Blind Guardian’s take is that it sucks to be forced to cross an ice desert for 30 years and really just to be one of the Noldor in general:
“We were lost
On grinding ice
In fear and hunger
Dead winter reigned
In Araman.”Lyrics via Genius.
It’s a bit less full-on Power Metal, and a lot more melancholy, than a lot of the other songs on Nightfall in Middle-Earth, which I think is why it’s one of my favourites. It stands out as more unique from the other songs on the album:
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