Vairë

The Weaver

Vairë is one of the seven Queens of the Valar and the spouse of Mandos, the Doomsman. Her single office, as the Valaquenta describes it, is to weave. Everything that has happened in Time since the beginning of the World she works into her webs, and these tapestries are hung on the walls of the Halls of Mandos, which grow wider as the ages pass to make room for them. Where her husband holds the knowledge of what has been and what will be, Vairë records it, and the two together are the memory and judgement of Arda.

In the histories

Vairë takes no active part in any recorded event, and she is never described as speaking. Her importance is in what her halls contain. The spirits of slain Elves wait there among her weavings, and the histories imply that they see in them the story of their own lives and of the World, so that the Halls of Mandos are a place of reflection as well as waiting. When Lúthien sang before Mandos, and when Fëanor was confined until the end of the World, they did so in the house that Vairë had furnished with the record of everything.

Legacy

Vairë remains in the Halls of Mandos with her husband. She stands in the legendarium as the personification of history itself, and the image of her tapestries, always lengthening, is one of the quiet reminders that nothing in Arda is lost or forgotten by the Powers.

Vairë remains in the Halls of Mandos, weaving the history of the World until its end.