Everything about Elf Middle-earth totally explained
In
J. R. R. Tolkien's
legendarium, an
Elf is an individual member of one of the races that inhabit the lands of
Arda. They appear in
The Hobbit and in
The Lord of the Rings, but their complex history is described in full only in
The Silmarillion, edited and published after Tolkien's death. More details about them are given in the author's other writings edited and published since then, such as
Unfinished Tales and
The History of Middle-earth.
The History of Middle-earth also reveals their textual and conceptual history, as Tolkien had been writing about Elves long before
The Hobbit was published.
Development
Early writings
Traditional
Victorian dancing fairies and elves appear in much of Tolkien's early poetry, and have influence upon his later works in part due to the influence of a production of J.M. Barrie's
Peter Pan in
Birmingham in 1910 and his familiarity with the work of
Catholic mystic poet,
Francis Thompson
These greater Elves are influenced by
those in Northern European mythologies,especially the god-like and human-sized
Ljósálfar of the Norse, and are derived from medieval works such as
Sir Orfeo, the Welsh
Mabinogion,
Arthurian romances and the legends of the
Tuatha Dé Danann. John Garth has also references the Tuatha Dé Danann in suggesting Tolkien was essentially rewriting Irish fairy traditions.
Celtic Mytholgy had a great influence on Tolkien's writings on Elves and some of the stories Tolkien wrote as their 'legends' are directly influenced it. is similar to the name found in Norse mythology as "
Ingwi-Freyr" (and Ingui-Frea in
Anglo-Saxon paganism), a god who is given
Álfheim (the elf-world) to rule as a gift. Terry Gunnell also claims that the relationship between beautiful ships and the Elves is reminiscent of
Njörðr and
Skíðblaðni, Freyr's ship.
The larger Elves are also inspired by Tolkien's
Catholic theology — as representing the state of Men in Eden who have not yet "
fallen" — similar to humans but fairer and wiser, with greater spiritual powers, keener senses, and a closer empathy with nature. Tolkien wrote of them:
.
In the same letter, Tolkien goes on to say that the elves had very little in common with
European Elves or
Fairies, and that they really represent men with greater artistic ability, beauty and a longer life span. Tolkien also says that an Elven bloodline was the only real claim to 'nobility' that the Men of Middle-earth can have.
History
Awakening
The Elves awoke during the
Years of the Trees in the
First Age on the shores of Lake
Cuiviénen under the starlit sky, as
Middle-earth lay in darkness by then. There they were discovered by the
Vala Oromë, who brought the tidings of their awakening to
Valinor.
The Silmarillion states that
Melkor, the Dark Lord, had already captured some wandering Elves, and twisted and mutilated them until they became the
Orcs. However, Tolkien ultimately became uncomfortable with this Elvish origin, and devised different theories about the
origin of Orcs.
Sundering
The Valar decided to summon the Elves to Valinor rather than leaving them dwelling in place where they were first awakened, near the Cuiviénen lake in the eastern extremity of Middle-earth. They sent Oromë, who took
Ingwë,
Finwë and
Elwë as ambassadors to Valinor.
Returning to Middle-earth, Ingwë, Finwë and Elwë convinced a great host to take the journey to Valinor. Not all Elves accepted the summons though, and those who didn't became known as the
Avari,
The Unwilling.
The others were called
Eldar,
the People of the Stars by Oromë, and they took Ingwë, Finwë and Elwë as their leaders, and became respectively the
Vanyar,
Noldor and
Teleri. On their journey, some of the Teleri feared the
Misty Mountains and dared not cross them. They turned back and stayed in the vales of the
Anduin, and became the
Nandor; these were led by Lenwë.
Oromë led the others over the Misty Mountains and
Ered Lindon into
Beleriand. There Elwë became lost, and the Teleri stayed behind looking for him. The Vanyar and the Noldor moved onto a floating island that was moved by
Ulmo to Valinor.
After years, Ulmo returned to Beleriand to seek out the remaining Teleri. As Elwë hadn't yet been found, a great part of the Teleri took his brother
Olwë as their leader and were ferried to Valinor. Some Teleri stayed behind though, still looking for Elwë, and others stayed on the shores, being called by
Ossë. They took
Círdan as their leader and became the
Falathrim. All Teleri who stayed in Beleriand later became known as the
Sindar.
Exile
In Valinor, Fëanor, son of Finwë, and the greatest of the Noldor, created the
Silmarils in which he stored a part of the light of the
Two Trees that were lighting Valinor. After three ages in the Halls of Mandos, Melkor was released. He spread his evil, and eventually killed Finwë and stole the Silmarils. Fëanor then named him
Morgoth (
Q.
The Black Enemy). Fëanor and his seven
sons then
swore to take the Silmarils back, and led a large army of the Noldor to Beleriand.
Wars of Beleriand
In Beleriand, Elwë was eventually found, and married
Melian the
Maia. He became the overlord of Beleriand, naming himself Thingol (
S.
Grey-cloak). After the
First Battle of Beleriand, during the first rising of the Moon, the Noldor arrived in Beleriand. They laid a
siege around
Angband (Morgoth's fortress), but were eventually defeated.
Then
Eärendil the Mariner, a
half-elf from the
House of Finwë, sailed to Valinor to ask the Valar for help. Then the Ban of the Noldor was lifted, and the Valar started the
War of Wrath, in which Morgoth was finally overcome.
Second and Third Age
After the War of Wrath, the Valar tried to summon the Elves back to Valinor. Many complied, but some stayed. During the
Second Age they founded the Realms of
Lindon,
Eregion and
Mirkwood.
Sauron, Morgoth’s former servant, made war upon them, but with the aid of the
Númenóreans they defeated him.
During the Second and
Third Age they held some protected realms with the aid of the
Rings of Power, but after the
War of the Ring they waned further, and most Elves left Middle-earth for Valinor. Tolkien's published writings give somewhat contradictory hints as to what happened to the Elves of Middle-earth after the
One Ring was destroyed at the end of the
Third Age.
After the destruction of the One Ring, the power of the
Three Rings of the Elves would also end and the Age of Men would begin. Elves that remained in Middle-earth were doomed to a slow decline until, in the words of
Galadriel, they faded and became a "rustic folk of dell and cave," and were greatly diminished from their ancient power and nobility. While the power of the remaining
Noldor would be immediately lessened, the "fading" of all Elvenkind was a phenomenon that would play out over hundreds and even thousands of years; until, in fact, our own times, when occasional glimpses of rustic Elves would fuel our folktales and fantasies.
There are many references in
The Lord of the Rings to the continued existence of Elves in Middle-earth during the early years of the
Fourth Age.
Elladan and
Elrohir, the sons of Elrond, don't accompany their father when the White Ship bearing the
Ring-bearer and the chief Noldorin leaders sails from the
Grey Havens to
Valinor; they're said to have remained in Lindon for a time. Celeborn is said (in Appendix A) to have added most of southern Mirkwood to the realm of
Lórien at the end of the Third Age, but elsewhere Tolkien wrote that Celeborn dwelt for a while in Lindon before at last leaving Middle-earth for Valinor.
Tolkien also wrote that Elves moved to Ithilien during King
Elessar's reign, and assisted in the rebuilding of Gondor. They primarily resided in southern Ithilien, along the shores of the Anduin. It is also implied that Elves continued to dwell at the Grey Havens, at least for a certain period. Tolkien states that
Círdan didn't sail with
Elrond, Galadriel, and the others at the end of
The Lord of the Rings, and
Sam Gamgee sailed from the Havens decades afterwards, so it would seem that at least some Elves remained in
Mithlond at that time. Círdan would supposedly leave on the last ship ever to leave the havens.
Legolas also sailed to Valinor after Elessar's death, and although the reference to this in
The Lord of the Rings states that it was Legolas himself that built the ship, it seems unlikely that any Wood-Elf from Mirkwood could have done so without the assistance of Círdan's folk, whom Tolkien elsewhere said were the only Elves remaining at the end of the Third Age with the skill to build the great ships that sailed from Middle-earth to the Blessed Realm.
In "The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen" that's found in Appendix A, Tolkien depicts a Middle-earth where most Elves have already left. The majority of those who remained lived in Mirkwood, while a much smaller population was in Lindon. Aragorn speaks of the empty garden of Elrond in Rivendell. Most strikingly, after Elessar's voluntary death,
Arwen flees to a Lórien that's depicted as wholly abandoned, and gives up her own spirit in its sad and silent confines.
Life cycle
As told in
The History of Middle-earth and in Tolkien's
Letters, Elves had a different life cycle from Men. Most of the following information strictly refers only to the Eldar, as found in his essay
Laws and Customs among the Eldar, found in
Morgoth's Ring.
Early life
Elves are born about one year from their
conception. The day of their conception is celebrated, not the actual
birthday itself. Their minds develop more quickly than their bodies; by their first year, they can speak, walk and even dance, and their quicker onset of mental maturity makes young Elves seem, to Men, older than they really are. Physical
puberty comes in around their fiftieth to one hundredth year (by age fifty they reach their adult height), and by their first hundred years of life outside the womb all Elves are fully grown. Elven bodies eventually stop ageing physically, while human bodies do not.
Sexuality, marriage, and parenthood
Elves marry freely and for love early in life.
Monogamy is practiced and
adultery is unthinkable; they only marry once (Finwë, first High King of the Noldor, was an exception, as he remarried after his first wife died). This would seemingly contradict the information above.
Elves sometimes appear to age under great stress. Círdan appeared to be aged himself, since he's described as looking old, save for the stars in his eyes; this may be due to all the sorrows he'd seen and lived through since the First Age. Also, the people of
Gwindor of
Nargothrond had trouble recognizing him after his time as a prisoner of Morgoth.
Death
Elves are naturally immortal, and remain unwearied with age. In addition to their immortality, Elves can recover from wounds which would normally kill a mortal Man. However, Elves can be slain, or die of grief and weariness.
Spirits of dead Elves go to the Halls of
Mandos in Valinor. After a certain period of time and rest that serves as "cleansing", their spirits are clothed in bodies identical to their old ones. However, they almost never go back to Middle-earth and remain in Valinor instead. An exception was
Glorfindel in
The Lord of the Rings; as shown in later books, Tolkien decided he was a "reborn" hero from
The Silmarillion rather than an individual with the same name. A rare and more unusual example of an Elf coming back from the Halls of Mandos is found in the tale of Beren and Lúthien, as
Lúthien was the other Elf to be sent back to Middle-earth — as a mortal, however. Tolkien's Elvish words for "spirit" and "body" were
fëa (plural
fëar) and
hröa (plural
hröar) respectively.
Eventually, their immortal spirits will overwhelm and consume their bodies, rendering them "bodiless", whether they opt to go to Valinor or remain in Middle-earth. At the end of the world, all Elves will have become invisible to mortal eyes, except to those to whom they wish to manifest themselves. However it's disputable whether the Prophecy is canon, and the published
Silmarillion states that only Men shall participate in the Second Music, and that the ultimate fate of the Elves is unknown. However, they don't believe that Eru will abandon them.
Names and naming conventions
In
The Lord of the Rings Tolkien pretends to be merely the translator of Bilbo and Frodo's memoirs, collectively known as the "
Red Book of Westmarch". He says that those names and terms in the work (as well in the earlier
The Hobbit) that appear in
English are meant to be his purported translations from the
Common Speech.
Tolkien repeatedly expressed his misgivings concerning the name "
elf" and its "associations of a kind that I should particularly desire not to be present [...] for example those of
Drayton or of
A Midsummer Night's Dream", for the purpose of
translations stating his preference that "the oldest available form of the name to be used, and leave it to acquire its own associations for readers of my tale". He wanted to avoid the
Victorian notions of "
fairies" or mischievous imps associated with the word and was aiming at the more elevated notions of beings "supposed to possess formidable magical powers in early
Teutonic mythology" (
OED viz. the
Old English ælf, from
Proto-Germanic *albo-z).
The Elves are also called the "Firstborn" (
Q.
Minnónar) or the "Elder Kindred" (as opposed to
Men, the Secondborn) as they were "
awakened" before Men by
Eru Ilúvatar (
God). The Elves named themselves
Quendi ("the Speakers"), in honour of the fact that, when they were created, they were the only living beings able to speak. The
Dúnedain called them
Nimîr ("the Beautiful"), while their usual name in
Sindarin was
Eledhrim.
In other writings, part of
The History of Middle-earth, Tolkien details Elvish naming conventions. The Quenya word for "name" was
essë. An Elf of Valinor was typically given one name (
ataressë) at birth by the father. It usually reflected either the name of the father or mother, indicating the person's descent, to which later some distinguishing prefix could be added. As the Elf grew older, they received a second name (
amilessë), given by the mother. This name was extremely important and reflected personality, skills, or fate, sometimes being 'prophetic'.
The
epessë or the "after-name" is the third type. It was given later in life, not necessarily by kin, as a title of admiration and honour. In some circumstances, yet another name was chosen by the Elf themselves, called
kilmessë meaning "self-name".
The "true names" remained the first two, though an Elf could be referred to by any of these. Mother-names were usually not used by those who didn't know the Elf well. In later history and song any of the four could become the one generally used and recognized.
After their Exile to Middle-earth and adoption of
Sindarin as the daily speech, most of the Noldor also chose for themselves a name that fitted the style of that language, translating or altering one of their
Quenya names.
A
patronymic surname is also used — the father's name with the suffix "-ion" added. Thus,
Gildor Inglorion is "
Gildor, son of Inglor".
Several examples include:
- Galadriel is the Sindarin translation of Alatáriel, the Telerin Quenya epessë originally given to her by Celeborn, which means "Maiden Crowned by a Radiant Garland". Her father-name is Artanis (noble woman) and her mother-name is Nerwen (man-maiden).
Maedhros, the oldest son of Fëanor, was called Russandol (copper-top) by his brothers: He had earned this epessë because of his ruddy hair. His father-name had been Nelyafinwë (Finwë the third: Fëanor's own father-name had been (Curu) Finwë), and his mother-name Maitimo (well-shaped one). Maedhros is a rendering into Sindarin of parts of his mother-name and epessë.
Finrod is usually referred to as Felagund (hewer of caves), a name the Dwarves had given to him (originally Felakgundu) because of his dwellings at Nargothrond. Finrod adopted the name, and made it a title of honour.
Círdan (Shipwright) is the epessë of a Telerin Elf who remained in Beleriand, and later Lindon, until the end of the Third Age. His original name was only rarely remembered in traditions as Nōwē, and he was referred to always as Círdan, a title which had been given to him as Lord of the Falas.
Elvish languages
Tolkien created many languages for Elves. His interest was primarily philological, and he said his stories grew out of his languages. Indeed, the languages were the first thing Tolkien ever created for his mythos, starting with what he originally called "Qenya", the first primitive form of Elvish. This was later called Quenya (High-elven) and, along with Sindarin (Grey-elven), is one of the two most complete of Tolkien's languages. In addition to these two he also created several other (partially derived) languages.
Elves are also credited with creating the Tengwar (by Fëanor) and Cirth (Daeron) runic scripts.
Adaptations
Image:Rankin-bass-hobbit-elves.jpg| Elves as portrayed in the 1977 Rankin-Bass version of The Hobbit
The 1979 Rankin Bass animated version of The Hobbit, with character designs by Lester Abrams, features Elves as green-skinned warriors with slightly Austrian-German accents.
In Middle-earth Role Playing (Iron Crown Enterprises, 1986), three tribes of elves are presented as player character race options, the Silvan, Sinda and Noldo — each receiving statistic bonuses (ranging from 5 to 15) to all attributes apart from Strength, with the Noldo receiving the highest accumulative bonuses of any racial type in the game. All three tribes are statistically immune to disease (+100% chance of resistance), and must be given 'Presence' as the highest randomly generated statistic. Elven characters also receive significant skill bonuses with missile weapons (such as a bow and arrow) and stealth skills (such as hiding).
All three elven tribes (Silvan, Noldor, Sindar) depicted in Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game (Decipher, Inc., 2001) have varying (one or two points) statistic bonuses to Bearing, Perception and Nimbleness, with the Noldor also receiving a bonus to Wits and the Sindar to Vitality, giving both of these the highest accumulative bonuses available to Player Characters. The system of skills, feats and flaws further outlines racial and cultural characteristics, bonuses being given to the Noldor in Lore and "Resisting the Shadow", to the Silvan elves for various wood-craft skills, and the Sindar to musical performance. All elves have the ability to enchant objects, and receive bonuses in any test regarding magic.
In the The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game (Games Workshop, 2001), Elves have similar statistics to similarly armed Men, except for much higher scores for their Fighting and Courage attributes. On average, Elven wargear (armour and weapons) give twice the advantage of weapons made by Men.
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