Ulmo

Nature

Ulmo is the Lord of all waters in Arda, from the Outer Sea that encircles the World to the springs that rise beneath the mountains. Next to Manwë he is the mightiest of the Valar, and the two were close friends before the World was made, but Ulmo differs from every other Vala in his way of life. He has no dwelling in Valinor and no spouse. He lives alone in the deep waters, seldom comes to the councils of the Valar except at great need, and when he takes a form he rises from the Sea as a towering figure in a helm and a mail-coat that changes colour like the water, with a voice as deep as the ocean. The Elves feared and loved him at once. The Teleri who lingered by the shores of Middle-earth, and later the mariners of Númenor, were closest to him among the Children.

His servants include Ossë, the master of the coastal waters and storms, and Uinen, the lady of the calm seas, and Salmar, who made his great horns, the Ulumúri, whose music no one who has heard it can forget. Ulmo does not love to walk on land, but he does not need to: every stream and river is his messenger, and through water he hears the griefs of Middle-earth.

In the Music and the shaping

In the Ainulindalë Ulmo learned more from Eru Ilúvatar about music than any of the other Ainur, and he understood early that Melkor's cold and heat, which he had thought would spoil water, had only made snow and cloud and rain, each more beautiful than the last. This lesson, that the discord of the Enemy is turned by Eru to unexpected good, shaped Ulmo's whole outlook; he is the Vala least willing to despair of Middle-earth. In the shaping of Arda he laid out the seas and the courses of rivers, and it was he who carried the Eldar across the Sea on the island that later became Tol Eressëa, drawing it with his own power.

The dissenter

Ulmo opposed the summons of the Elves to Valinor. He believed that the Children should remain in Middle-earth, heal its hurts with their skills, and grow in the lands that had been made for them, and he was the first to say what the histories later show, that hiding the Eldar in Aman would leave Middle-earth to the darkness. Overruled, he still did the ferrying, but with reluctance; and when the Teleri lingered on the shores of Beleriand, Ulmo was glad, and he ordered Ossë to anchor Tol Eressëa in the Bay of Eldamar rather than bring it to the shore, so that the Teleri would remain within sight of the Sea. Later, when the Valar decided to hide Valinor after the flight of the Noldor, Ulmo alone continued to send his thought and his aid to the exiles.

Guardian of Beleriand

Throughout the First Age Ulmo was the only Vala who acted directly in Beleriand, and his interventions decided the fate of the hidden kingdoms. He appeared to Turgon at the mouths of Sirion and led him to the hidden valley of Tumladen, where Gondolin was built, and he counselled Turgon to leave arms and armour at Vinyamar for a messenger who would come in a later day. He likewise showed Finrod the caves of the Narog, where Nargothrond was delved. He set his power in the waters of Sirion so that the enemy could not easily cross them, and he sent warnings up the river to both kingdoms when their doom approached; Nargothrond ignored the warning, built its bridge and fell.

His greatest single act was the sending of Tuor. He caused Tuor to come to Vinyamar and find the arms Turgon had left, and then rose from the Sea in his own person in the storm and spoke to him, the last time a Vala appeared to a Man in Middle-earth. He commanded Tuor to go to Gondolin and warn Turgon to abandon the city, and he sent Voronwë to guide him. Turgon refused the warning, but from Tuor's marriage to Idril came Eärendil, whom Ulmo had foreseen. When Eärendil sailed to Valinor and the Valar debated whether to punish him for entering Aman, Ulmo spoke on his behalf and argued that both kindreds had a claim through him, and it was that plea that led to the War of Wrath.

Later ages

After the First Age Ulmo appears less directly. The mariners of Númenor held him and his servants in honour; Ossë and Uinen were their friends, and the Faithful of Andúnië kept the old reverence even under Sauron's influence. When Númenor was drowned, the sea was Ulmo's element, but the deed was Eru's. In the Third Age Ulmo's presence survives chiefly in the persistent Elvish belief that water is the least corrupted of the elements, and in Elrond's power over the Bruinen, which rose against the Nazgûl at the Ford. The horns of Ulmo were the source of the Sea-longing that took Legolas when he heard the gulls at Pelargir.

Legacy

Ulmo remains in the deeps of the World, keeping his own counsel. He stands in the histories as the Vala who never gave up on Middle-earth, whose warnings were sound and usually disregarded, and whose foresight, working through Tuor and Eärendil, brought about the overthrow of Morgoth. Among the Valar he is the model of love that does not withdraw, and the Elves of Middle-earth, who felt themselves abandoned by the West, always remembered that one of the Powers had not left them.

Ulmo dwells in the deeps of the Sea, as he always has, and will until the end of Arda.