@esotolkienweek day three | skies, demand | velindo
Wéland (Smith): Eriol asks innocently is not Aulë him that we call Wéland and they (Rúmil?) laughing says no and tells of Velindo or Gwilion the fay — one of Aulë’s folk who was sent by Aulë into the world to fetch at his need some of the gold heavy red gold of the dwarves.
There his pride swelled by reason of the amazement of men and dwarves at his skill; and he never returned to Aulë but set up on his own — and was once famous far and wide but with the fading of the fairies his power has waned.
He was not wicked but very vain — Eriol touches on the Bodvildr legend [in which Wéland escapes the captivity of the cruel king Niðhad and elopes with his daughter by flying away on invented wings] and Rúmil says that if it is true it shows the vanity of Wéland (Niðhad must be a dwarf king).
Notes: This character, while deeply obscure, is also deeply charming to me! In notes unearthed only in Parma Eldalambaron, Tolkien gives two Arda versions of the Old English smith-legend Wéland (written probably around the time of The Book of Lost Tales): one where Wéland is a proto-Fëanor figure (with the original myth’s hard edges rounded off), and another where he is a servant of Aulë who goes rogue. Since Fëanor, of course, has an integral role in the later legendarium, I choose to adapt Velindo into my wider Silmverse instead. I envision him as something of a sixth wizard, the Red Wizard, who flies around on invented wings and has a dwarven wife he stole away from a wicked king! As his escapades were not sanctioned by Aulë, he doesn’t have to follow the rules of the Istari, and is probably happy in his own corner of Middle-earth, living alongside his master’s children among one of the more obscure dwarven clans.
