Dark Vales and Deep Ones

[princeofcairo]

I think I've stumbled onto something again.

While looking into the nature of Niðavellir, as one does, I noticed that for one of the Nine Worlds, it's very little attested in the Eddas. (Indeed, Wikipedia doesn't even list it as one of the A-list Nine, implying that it's a mere synonym for Svartalfheim. If you're curious, I personally conflate

Comments

[gene_ha]

Heck, that's some impressive Tolkien! What is the "call of the sea"? One could have great fun crossing Lothlorien with Dunwich. The rumors that Gimli heard are true, the sights he saw but glamour.

[princeofcairo]

If Wikipedia is correct in describing the proto-Krakens hafgufa and lyngbakr as "spider-creatures" (I didn't see anything like that in the saga, but then my Icelandic is not what it should be), then that also casts an interesting light on the giant spiders in Mirkwood. Could they be the true form of the Sindar?

[erikred]

Could they be the true form of the Sindar?

An interesting possibility: Wikipedia tells us that 'Ungoliant [parent to Shelob, and from "before the world"] means "dark spider" in the fictional Sindarin language,' which would seem to argue against your proposition. However, in the very next sentence, we learn that 'It is a loan word from Quenya: Ungwë liantë' [gloom spider]. If the Sindar in their true form were indeed "dark/gloom spiders," they might use such a loan-word in place of their own native, unpronounceable-on-this-plane word for themselves in describing an elder being like Ungoliant.

After all, it rather gives the game away if you call it "Uncle."

[lhn]

FWIW, the original kingdom of the Sindar in Beleriand (which was surrounded by a veil of maddening illusion created by its older-than-the-world queen) likewise had a vale of spiders on its northern border, which had supposedly been inhabited by Ungoliant at one point.