No better place to start a blog about the awesome heroes of Middle earth than with the first hero to descend from the far heaven. Tulkas was a MAN among gods. Simply meaning he was the most testosterone filled, muscle rippling, war loving, pound your face in the dirt of all the Valar (the gods of Middle Earth). He is "the greatest of strength and of deeds of prowess." His weapon, his fists. He is the mold for any hero of immense strength.

"There are none of Valar or Uvanimor (who are monsters, giants, and ogres) that do not fear the sinews of his arm and the buffet of his iron-clad fist, when he has cause for wrath."

The Valar, who came down from the far heaven and began creating Arda (or Middle Earth for our purposes), had created a beautiful world for the elves and men to inhabit. However, there was one Vala who had other plans. Melkor is the epitome of evil. He embodies all hate, all wickedness, all sin. Melkor began waging war on the other Valar and proceeded to destroy Middle Earth. This was infuriating the Valar because they'd been working pretty stinking hard on making it really nice for the elves and men. Needless to say they were upset and started fighting him. Unfortunately, for them, they weren't having too much success because Melkor was sly, cunning, and extremely powerful by himself and they (the Valar) couldn't keep him under wraps.

Enter Tulkas. Tulkas is a fun loving guy. Literally, he loves laughing and laughs pretty much all the time. Anyway, he has been hanging out in far heaven just having a good ole' time. He wasn't involved in the original creation of Middle Earth, he wasn't really born to do that, but while he's hanging out in "far heaven" he hears rumor that there was a battle going on down below. Fighting, now that is what Tulkas was born to do:

"But in the midst of the war a spirit of great strength and hardihood came to the aid of the Valar, hearing in the far heaven that there was battle in the Little Kingdom; and Arda was filled with the sound of his laughter. So came Tulkas the Strong, whose anger passes like a mighty wind, scattering cloud and darkness before it; and Melkor fled before his wrath and his laughter, and forsook Arda, and there was peace for a long age."

The mere presence of Tulkas in Arda/Middle Earth causes Melkor to flee. Melkor doesn't just run away, he runs and hides in the only place he can't be found. The void. Tulkas having done his job laughs some more and probably would've left right then and there except for the fact the he's the strongest of all the Vala and they need help rebuilding what Melkor tore down. So Tulkas is enlisted into the repair Arda project and he does a marvelous job. During his fixing of Arda, he meets another Vala who really catches his eye and when he's finally done fixing Arda he marries her. After fixing the world and getting married Tulkas takes some well deserved rest. 

Well sneaky little Melkor has been watching, from the void, this whole time and as soon as he sees Tulkas take a nap he hops back into Arda and hides away in a corner. In this corner he starts building a huge fortress called Utumno, in which he creates many vile things. None of the other Valar are paying attention apparently because all of this goes unnoticed. Tulkas goes to sleep for a couple hours and the most evil thing in the world is already back! Come on guys!



The elves finally come and the Valar are so happy but Melkor starts capturing them and mutilating them. Hence the vile race of orc is born. When the Valar finally catch on they're all way bummed because they love the elves and now the elves are being turned evil. Tulkas who has woken up, is probably like, "what the crap have you guys been doing!?" He caused Melkor to flee just by being present, fixed all Melkor's mistakes and now it's all undone. In reality he was probably pretty freaking pleased because this gave him an excuse to actually fight this time. The Valar army leaves to go fight Melkor. While everyone else is fighting the wimpy orcs Tulkas goes straight to Melkor throws him on his face, binds him with chains, and then leads him back to Aman which is where the Valar prison is. Just like that! Wam! Bam! And done; laughing the whole time, which is one reason why Melkor, and many others, are/is so unnerved by Tulkas. 

We find out later that the Valar for some reason let Melkor go free, which of course turns into disaster and they look to Tulkas for help. Unfortunately Melkor had a lot of time to plan his escape this time and he knew exactly how to avoid Tulkas. Tulkas would've eventually caught him, I believe, but the other Valar said let him go, because the elves were becoming arrogant, proud, and stupid (among other things) and the Valar were just wanting some peace and quiet. This is ok, because Melkor is the great antagonist of the elves and the reason why such awesome heroes rise to the surface later, whom we will talk about! Next time!