The beginning of Middle earth

The universe in which Tolkien’s stories are set is Ea. Within this universe is the world called Arda. On this world are two continents, Amen and Middle earth. They are separated by the great sea, Belegaer. It is on the continent of middle earth that the stories take place.

At the beginning of time the God Ilúvatar created spirits called the Ainur. He taught them to play music and when they were ready Ilúvatar commanded them to play based on his own design. One of the Ainur called Melkor disrupted the melody and added his own design. In response Ilúvatar changed the melody so that it was beyond the comprehension of the Ainur. This song created the fate of middle earth. When they were told about this the Ainur wished to see these events in person so Ea was created. When they entered the found it empty as it was the start of time and nothing had been created yet. The Ainur set about molding the universe and filling it with things unreachable to man. Eventually they set about creating Arda and readying it for the coming of man. The Valar, who were the fifteen most powerful of the Ainur, created two lamps to light the world. Melkor, who was the most powerful of the Valar, destroyed the lamps forcing the Valar to retreat to Amen in the far west. There they planted two trees which gave light to the continent. Many ages later the Valar managed to capture and imprison Melkor but when he was released he poisoned the two trees. The Valar rescued the last two fruit and used them to create the sun and moon which were separated from Arda. Later Ilúvatar created the men and the elves to populate the world of Arda. Although unable to create anything original, Melkor was able to created crude copies of Ilúvatar’s creations. In this way he created creatures such as orcs and trolls. Much later, during the second age of men, the King of Númenor attacked Amen to gain the immortality of the Valar so the Valar destroyed the island of Númenor and removed Amen from middle earth.