Calacirya

The Pass of Light

The Pelóri had been raised as an unbroken wall, but when the Eldar came to Aman the Valar opened one cleft in it, near the mountain of Taniquetil, and through this cleft the light of the Two Trees on Ezellohar poured eastward to the coast. The pass was called Calacirya, the Cleft of Light, and the land it lit was Eldamar. In its mouth the Valar raised the green hill of Túna, and on Túna the Vanyar and Noldor built Tirion. Through the pass the light fell in silver and gold on the waters of the bay and on the shining beaches, and it was because that light reached the shore that the Teleri were content to dwell at Alqualondë rather than within Valinor.

The Calacirya was the road between the Elves and the Valar. Along it the Noldor went to the halls of Aulë and the Vanyar to the feet of Manwë, and the Valar came down it to the coast. In the songs of the Elves in Middle-earth the region about it was remembered as the Calacirian, the very image of Elvenhome, and Galadriel in Lórien could still recall the light of the Trees shining through it on the sea.

After the Flight

When the Noldor left Aman and the Doom was spoken, the Valar hid Valinor. The Pelóri were raised sheer, but the Calacirya was not closed, for the faithful Eldar of Tirion and Alqualondë still dwelt in it and beside it. Instead it was fortified and filled with watchers, so that nothing could enter unmarked. Only Eärendil, who came with the Silmaril, ever walked up the pass unbidden, and after his ship was hallowed it was carried through the Calacirya into the west to be launched upon the sky.

The Calacirya ran east to west through the Pelóri between Valmar on the inner side and the Bay of Eldamar on the outer, with Taniquetil on its southern flank. Tirion on Túna stood in its eastern mouth, Alqualondë lay a little to the north along the coast, and Tol Eressëa was anchored in the bay before it.