Oxonmoot 2024

Shocking things happen to the Valar on feast days. During the Spring of Arda Manwë “ordered a great feast” and Melkor seized the opportunity to return from the outer darkness and destroy the lamps. It is another feast day when Melkor and Ungoliant sneak in and kill the trees. And the Valar are feasting again when Eärendil arrives. At one level this is simply a plot device to show why the Valar’s guard is down. But at a deeper level feasting represents a blurring of the boundary between enchantment and mundanity—it is when feasting that the Valar are most human—and so helps us understand the meaning of enchantment for Tolkien. I will support this idea by reference to the Wood Elves feasting, the feasts that begin "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings," and the feast that begins "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight."