Maiar=Eldila?

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Iarwain, I too have noticed the similarity between Tolkien’s Ainur and Lewis’ eldila, especially the Valar and the Oyarses. I remembered posting on that topic when I read your contribution and was puzzled that I couldn’t find it here, until I remembered that it was one of my rare posts on a German forum! I dug it up and translated it for repeating here.

The angels (called eldila) are described as follows:

...bodies different from those of planetary animals and… superior in intelligence.

…we have really no knowledge of the shape or size of an eldil, or even of its relations to space (our space) in general.

Like you, I can’t help trying to fix their relation to the things that appear in terrestrial tradition – gods, angels, fairies. But we haven’t the data. When I attempted to give Oyarsa some idea of our own Christian angelology, he certainly seemed to regard our ‘angels’ as different in some way from himself. But whether he meant that they were a different species, or only that they were some special military caste, I don’t know.

(‘Dr. Ransom’, Postscript, Out of the Silent Planet)

Oyarsa is the name of those angels who rule/administer a planet each; there are also eldila of lower orders. The eldila exist on a different plane or level of existence than humans do, are at home in space and almost invisible for humans. The Oyarsa of the earth is a fallen angel, which means that this planet is isolated, silent to the others.

As I see it, both Tolkien and Lewis combined elements of Biblical angelology and mythological gods. The latter is especially evident in the personal appearance of Oyarses as Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter etc.