Editing Two Trees of Valinor (section)

=== The Elder Days ===

[[Matthew Dickerson]] writes in the ''[[J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia]]'' that the Two Trees are "the most important mythic symbols in all of the legendarium".<ref name="Dickerson 2013"/> He quotes Tolkien's words in ''[[The Silmarillion]]'' that "about their fate all the tales of the Elder days are woven".<ref name="Dickerson 2013"/><!--also https://www.jstor.org/stable/24351037--> They have that central place because they are the source of the light for the world of Arda while they live, and they are the ancestors of the various trees that symbolise the Kingdoms of Númenor and later of Gondor. Further, they contain the "thought of things that grow in the earth", placed in them by the Vala Yavanna when she sang them into being.<ref name="Dickerson 2013">{{cite encyclopedia |last=Dickerson |first=Matthew |author-link=Matthew Dickerson |editor-last=Drout |editor-first=Michael D. C. |editor-link=Michael D. C. Drout |title=Trees |encyclopedia=[[J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia]] |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B0loOBA3ejIC&pg=PA678 |year=2013 |orig-year=2007 |publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]] |isbn=978-0-415-96942-0 |pages=678–679}}</ref> Angelica Varandas likewise comments that the Two Trees are "the most significant symbols of peace, prosperity and order" in the legendarium, and calls them ''[[axis mundi]]'' trees, like those in the [[Garden of Eden]] or the Norse world-tree, [[Yggdrasil]].<ref name="Varandas 2015">{{cite book |last=Varandas |first=Angelica |chapter=The Tree and the Myth of Creation in J.R.R. Tolkien |editor-last=Fernandes |editor-first=Ana |title=The Power of Form |publisher=[[Cambridge Scholars Publishing]] |date=2015 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eaDzBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA197 |isbn=978-1-4438-7594-3 |pages=197–212}}</ref>