Helluin

Soon before the Firstborn Children of Ilúvatar, the Elves, were set to awake in Middle-earth, the Vala Varda prepared the way for them. Using the silver dews of the shining Tree Telperion, she filled the sky with shimmering lights. These new bright stars shone down on Middle-earth, which until that time, being beyond the Light of the Trees, lay under darkness. Brightest among these new stars was one that shone with a silver-blue light, named Helluin in Elvish, which signifies 'ice-blue'. This was the star that is known today as Sirius, and is still the brightest of all the stars in the sky.

The first rising of Helluin was tied to the appearance of the first Elves. It was said that, as the blue-white star rose into the sky for the first time, the Elves awoke in Middle-earth by the waters of Cuiviénen. The newly-made stars, including brilliant Helluin, were the first things that the Elves saw, and so they revered starlight and its maker Varda (or Elbereth, as the Sindar came to call her).

Long years later, when the Eldar had departed from Cuiviénen and journeyed to far Valinor, the famed craftsman Fëanor began to create shining jewels. Long before he made the Silmarils for which he was famed, the shimmering white and blue light of the first crystals he made was compared directly with the light of Helluin, though even those first jewels of Fëanor shone brighter than the blue-white star of Varda.