Where Did the Undying Lands Go?

Q: Where Did the Undying Lands Go?

ANSWER: In the story of the Downfall of Numenor, the flat world is split by Ilúvatar; Numenor itself is thrown down into the sea but the continent of Aman is withdrawn from “the circles of the world” and what remains is reshaped into “the world made round” — what we know of as Earth today.

Some readers ask what became of Aman (the Undying Lands). Did it become its own world like Middle-earth, or was it removed from Space and Time?

J.R.R. Tolkien addressed this question obliquely in Letters No. 151 (dated 18 September, 1954) and No. 325 (dated 17 July, 1971). In Letter No. 151 he wrote:Middle-earth is just archaic English for οκονμένη, the inhabited world of men. It lay then as it does. In fact just as it does, round and inescapable. That is partly the point. The new situation, established at the beginning of the Third Age, leads on eventually and inevitably to ordinary History, and we here see the process culminating. If you or I or any of the mortal men (or hobbits) of Frodo’s day had set out over sea, west, we should, as now, eventually have come back (as now) to our starting point. Gone was the ‘mythological’ time when Valinor (or Valimar), the Land of the Valar (gods if you will) existed physically in the Uttermost West, or the Eldaic (Elvish) immortal Isle of Eressëa; or the Great Isle of Westernesse (Númenor-Atlantis). After the Downfall of Númenor, and its destruction, all this was removed from the ‘physical’ world, and not reachable by material means. Only the Eldar (or High-Elves) could still sail thither, forsaking time and mortality, but never returning.

In Letter No. 325 he wrote:

The ‘immortals’ who were permitted to leave Middle-earth and seek Aman — the undying lands of Valinor and Eressëa, an island assigned to the Eldar — set sail in ships specially made and hallowed for this voyage, and steered due West towards the ancient site of these lands. They only set out after sundown; but if any keen-eyed observer from that shore had watched one of these ships he might have seen that it never became hull-down but dwindled only by distance until it vanished in the twilight: it followed the straight road to the true West and not the bent road of the earth’s surface. As it vanished it left the physical world. There was no return. The Elves who took this road and those few ‘mortals’ who by special grace went with them, had abandoned the ‘History of the world’ and could play no further part in it.

The angelic immortals (incarnate only at their own will), the Valar or regents under God, and others of the same order but less power and majesty (such as Olórin = Gandalf) needed no transport, unless they for a time remained incarnate, and they could, if allowed or commanded, return.

As for Frodo or other mortals, they could only dwell in Aman for a limited time — whether brief or long. The Valar had neither the power nor the right to confer ‘immortality’ upon them. Their sojourn was a ‘purgatory’, but one of peace and healing and they would eventually pass away (die at their own desire and of free will) to destinations of which the Elves knew nothing.

This general idea lies behind the events of The Lord of the Rings and the Silmarillion, but it is not put forward as geologically or astronomically ‘true’; except that some special physical catastrophe is supposed to lie behind the legends and marked the first stage in the succession of Men to dominion of the world. But the legends are mainly of ‘Mannish’ origin blended with those of the Sindar (Gray-elves) and others who had never left Middle-earth.

The catastrophe is described in “Akallabeth”, which Christopher Tolkien included in The Silmarillion (respecting his father’s wishes/intentions). There it is written:

Then Manwë upon the Mountain called upon Ilúvatar, and for that time the Valar laid down their government of Arda. But Ilúvatar showed forth his power, and he changed the fashion of the world; and a great chasm opened in the sea between Númenor and the Deathless Lands, and the waters flowed down into it, and the noise and smoke of the cataracts went up to heaven, and the world was shaken. And all the fleets of the Númenóreans were drawn down into the abyss, and they were drowned and swallowed up for ever. But Ar-Pharazôn the King and the mortal warriors that had set foot upon the land of Aman were buried under falling hills: there it is said that they lie imprisoned in the Caves of the Forgotten, until the Last Battle and the Day of Doom.

But the land of Aman and Eressëa of the Eldar were taken away and removed beyond the reach of Men for ever. And Andor, the Land of Gift, Númenor of the Kings, Elenna of the Star of Eärendil, was utterly destroyed. For it was nigh to the east of the great rift, and its foundations were overturned, and it fell and went down into darkness, and is no more. And there is not now upon Earth any place abiding where the memory of a time without evil is preserved. For Ilúvatar cast back the Great Seas west of Middle-earth, and the Empty Lands east of it, and new lands and new seas were made; and the world was diminished, for Valinor and Eressëa were taken from it into the realm of hidden things.

That Tolkien says Aman “left the physical world” and “Valinor and Eressëa were taken from it into the realm of hidden things” are indisputable. The reader is thus led to understand that the Undying Lands somehow pass out of “time” and “history” and the “physical” world; and yet they must remain physical in some sense for living beings are able to dwell there and continue to interact with their environment.

And yet “time” is a part of Eä, defined as Time and Space — comprising the entire physical universe in which our world is located. That physical universe includes many stars and (presumably) all the things, including other worlds, that surround them. So did the Undying Lands leave Eä completely or were they simply removed to another corner of the universe?

My thoughts on the matter have jumped back and forth through the years. However, I think that Tolkien was consistent in his remarks across nearly two decades and that his consistency presumes that the Undying Lands were somehow removed from Eä itself, but somehow still connected to it. Although mortals such as Frodo could not normally travel there, and “immortals” like the Elves could only travel TO it, the Valar (and their companions, the Maiar) retained the ability to commute back and forth between the removed Undying Lands and Eä.

Hence, it may be best to envision the new location of the Undying Lands as a sort of companion universe, a Lesser Eä, where physicality was separate from the physicality of Eä but still substantial. Tolkien simply makes no comment about whether this other place is as expansive as Eä, or if the world of the Undying Lands is also made round.

If you are writing fan fiction or a role-playing adventure that is set in the post-Downfall Undying Lands you are free to extrapolate in any way you desire. For my part, I would imagine that the Undying Lands now exist on a rounded world of their own, with new lands, and that there are stars and other worlds. But the Elves may simply be content to remain in the Undying Lands because of the relative closeness of the Valar and Maiar.

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