[davem]

Originally Posted by Child

But then why did Tolkien place Aman there? Just a practical thing, a convenient space to fill on the map across the ocean, or something more? Is there anything about "east" and "west" in the land of faerie, or the old Northern legends?

There is the land of Hy Brasil in Celtic myth: http://www.fionabroome.com/history/hybrasil.htm & http://www.islomania.com/brazil/

Of course, the east is the place of the arising of the light, but the west is the place of its death & subsequent passage into the Underworld.

I suspect what we're dealing with is Tolkien's original intent to create a myth for England. In North western mythology 'paradise' has always been in the West, because its the place the sun goes to 'die'. The east is the direction of the birth of the Light - well, of its re-birth, its 'resurrection'. As Child says East is the direction light comes from, but West is the place it goes to, its destination, its home.

I can think of no other reason for Tolkien to choose the West originally, when he could have placed his Earthly Paradise anywhere. He was attempting to recreate what had been all but lost. Some traditions did survive, & one was that Paradise was to be found in the far West, the Land of the Setting Sun. Certainly we find at the beginning of Beowulf the funeral of Scyld - sent off across the sea (into the West, obviously) - who had appeared out of the West as a child :

Still hale on the day ordained for his journey,
Scyld went to dwell with the World's Warder.
His liegemen bore his bier to the beach:
so he had willed while wielding his words
as lord of the land, beloved by all.
With frost on its fittings, a lordly longboat
rode in the harbor, ring-bowed and ready.
They placed their prince, the gold-giver,
the famous man at the foot of the mast,
in the hollow hull heaped with treasures
from far-off lands. I have not heard another
ship ever sailed more splendidly stocked
with war-weapons, arms and armor.
About his breast the booty was strewn,
keepsakes soon to be claimed by the sea.
So he'd been sent as a child chosen
to drift on the deep. The Danes now returned
treasures no less than those they had taken,
and last they hoisted high overhead
a golden banner as they gave the great one
back to the Baltic with heavy hearts
and mournful minds. Though clever in council
or strong under sky, men cannot say
or know for certain who landed that shipload.

In other words, Tolkien seems to have chosen the West for the location of paradise because that's where Tradition placed it....