One of the Two Trees of Valinor that stood on the mound of Ezellohar outside the gates of Valmar. The younger of the Two Trees, Laurelin's flowers hung in clusters from her branches like those of a laburnum tree, but shining with powerful golden light and dripping a shimmering dew. Laurelin the Golden Tree gave light to Valinor through the long Years of the Trees, but was ultimately destroyed by Melkor and Ungoliant at the time known as the Darkening of Valinor.
Before that disaster, Yavanna had created an image of the White Tree Telperion for the Elves, and a line of descendants of that tree continued even down to the time of the War of the Ring. The Golden Tree had no such descendants, but a replica of it stood for a time in the courts of Gondolin: this was Glingal, made by King Turgon himself. The greatest legacy of Laurelin, though, was her last golden fruit. Blessed by the Valar, this was sent aloft under the guidance of the Maia Arien to shine in the sky, and so the Sun was created.
Notes
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The dating of the Years of the Trees is barely addressed in The Silmarillion, but even from that source it is clear that they spanned thousands of years, and lay in the distant past of Middle-earth. We have rather more precise dating in The Annals of Aman in volume X of The History of Middle-earth, which suggests that the Two Trees shone for 1,495 Valian Years. Valian Years were considerably longer than solar years, and converting this into modern terms would give the period of 14,322 years in total. However, this calculation is complicated by the fact that various conversion schemes exist, so this rather precise figure may not be quite as reliable as it seems, but it does help to show just how long the Years of the Trees lasted.
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See also...
Aman, Arien, Belthil, Fifth Gate, Flower of Silver, Glingal, Golden Gate, Laburnums, Land of the Valley of Singing Gold, Laurelin, Malinalda, Opening Hour, Seven Gates of Gondolin, Sixth Gate, The Golden, [See the full list...]The Sun, The White, Two Trees of the Valar, Two Trees of Valinor, Valley of Gold, Vása, Years of the Sun
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- Updated 9 May 2024
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