Have you been to Valinor lately? - Page 2
© Michael Martinez
Middle-earth is thus a matter of grave concern to Valinor. Valinor is the "home" of the Valar but the Valar, and their servants the Maiar, must still watch and perhaps occasionally take action (at Iluvatar's direction) in Middle-earth. The mythology thus includes a purpose for Valinor beyond its own existence and the fate of the Elves. Middle-earth has a purpose beyond its own existence, but that purpose is of a different nature: it is the home of Men (and of those Elves who have elected to remain in Middle-earth).
But if Valinor is concerned with Middle-earth it is not permitted to interact directly with Middle-earth. The Valar represent primordial powers, the very essence of Nature's strength. When they undertake action mountains move, seas heave, and lands are crushed and broken, or rise up. It's a very delicate task to work with Middle-earth's history and not disrupt it, derailing Iluvatar's plans. So as Time progresses the Valar become more a part of distant memory and eventually mythology and less a part of the affairs of Middle-earth.
We can glimpse the mythical Valinor in stories like Smith of Wootton Major, where Smith wanders into Faery:
In Faery at first he walked for the most part quietly among the lesser folk and the gentler creatures in the woods and meads of fair valleys, and by the bright waters in which at night strange stars shone and at dawn the gleaming peaks of far mountains were mirrored.The stars of Faery are not the stars of Earth, Middle-earth. Faery has been far removed from that part of the universe we have come to know. Smith discovers that Faery itself is just a small part of a larger world:
When he first began to walk far without a guide he thought he would discover the further bounds of the land; but great mountains rose before him, and going by long ways round about them he came at last to a desolate shore. He stood beside the Sea of Windless Storm where the blue waves like snowclad hills roll silently out of Unlight to the long strand, bearing the white ships that return from Battles on the Dark Marches of which men know nothing. He saw a great ship cast high upon the land, and the waters fell back in foam without a sound. The elven mariners were tall and terrible; their swords shone and their spears glinted and a piercing light was in their eyes. Suddenly they lifted up their voices in a song of triumph and his heart was shaken with fear, and he fell upon his face, and they passed over him and went away into the echoing hills.
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