Lórien is the name of a place more often than of a person. The Vala called Irmo, master of visions and dreams, is known by the name of his gardens in Valinor, Lórien, which were the fairest of all places in the world and full of many spirits. He and his elder brother Námo, who is called Mandos, are the Fëanturi, the masters of spirits, and Nienna, who mourns for the hurts of the world, is their sister.1
His spouse is Estë the Gentle, the healer of hurts and of weariness, who sleeps by day on an island in the tree-shadowed lake of Lórellin. All who dwell in Valinor draw refreshment from the fountains of Irmo and Estë, and often the Valar come themselves to Lórien to find repose and easing of the burden of Arda.1
Among the Maiar who dwelt there was Olórin, the wisest of them, who in the Third Age walked in Middle-earth as Gandalf. Melian, too, before she came to Middle-earth and became Thingol's queen, tended the trees in the gardens of Irmo.2,3
When Míriel, the mother of Fëanor, grew weary in spirit after his birth, she went to rest in the gardens of Lórien, and there her body lay unwithering while her spirit departed to the halls of Mandos.4
Sources
Citations name the chapter rather than the page, so they work in any edition. The colour of each note shows what kind of source it is.
- Published story The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings as Tolkien published them.
- Edited posthumously The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales and Tolkien's late writings on the Elder Days, assembled by Christopher Tolkien from his father's papers.
- Edited posthumously The Silmarillion, “Valaquenta”, “Of the Valar”
- Edited posthumously The Silmarillion, “Valaquenta”, “Of the Maiar”
- Published story The Two Towers, Book IV, ch. 5, “The Window on the West”
- Edited posthumously The Silmarillion, Quenta Silmarillion, ch. 6, “Of Fëanor and the Unchaining of Melkor”