Answers to Frequently Asked Questions about Tolkien Elves
middle-earth.xenite.org
middle-earth.xenite.org
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melnibon%C3%A9
>Its people, the Melnibonéans, are not wholly human and are commonly depicted as elven. They are skilled with magic and beautiful, though psychologically similar to cats, with a callous nature. They lack a moral sense. Their actions are determined by tradition and by the search for pleasure and new sensations.
https://appendixnbookclub.com/2019/12/02/an-interview-with-m...
http://38.media.tumblr.com/cc5a526de1722f7fa5afcde8c432d12a/...
In the recent past, it was a generic term for any spirit. Under a Christian view of the world, elves were pagan spirits and therefore evil. You can check out the lyrics to the song "seven hundred elves", involving a farmer defending himself from forest spirits by hanging crosses around his house.
https://mainlynorfolk.info/steeleye.span/songs/sevenhundrede...
(Note that apparently this song uses "elves" to translate a Danish reference to "trolls".)
But this usage is known not to be the original view of elves. When the word originated, it didn't refer to something bad, as we can tell by the fact that so many Germanic names include an "elf" element: Alfric ("king of the elves"), Alvin ("friend of the elves"), Alfred ("advised by the elves"), etc.
Old elf mythology appears to have thought of them as human-like spirits, who might be conventionally or sexually dangerous, but who weren't evil.
Concerning the steeleye span song, I'd like to point out that, the elves' perspective is that their home was under attack by the farmer
> Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder. Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels. Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies. Elves are glamorous. They project glamour. Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment. Elves are terrific. They beget terror. The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning. No one ever said elves are nice. Elves are bad.
I believe Tolkien elves also "grow weary of the world", hinting at some mental health problems.
This... isn't conclusively ruled out by modern archaeology, as far as I know, and it would allow you to talk about "half-elves" while maintaining the notion that they're still separate species.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inheritors_(Golding_novel)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malazan_Book_of_the_Fallen
My very lay understanding is that in the cross-over period where early Sapiens lived with other hominids you could draw some parallels to Neanderthals as dwarves (or sometimes perhaps trolls) to Sapiens viewpoints at the time and in that case Denisovans might be elves.
If you want to throw in bad pop-genetics, there'd be more "half-dwarves" among European descendants and more "half-elves" among Asian descendants, from that viewpoint.
Tolkiens orcs were originally elves, though they were twisted with methods of torture by Morgoth (Saurons master) into becoming as they are.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamarckism [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Island_of_Doctor_Moreau
I concur with OP's comments that the Second Apocalypse is much darker than LOTR. The Sranc embody this difference. Partly due to how much more graphic detail an author can get away with these days, Sranc are much more brutal, bestial and disgusting than Orcs.
imo the series (at least the first half) is eventually going to be seen as a defining piece of modern fiction.
[1] which ironically are based on the common perception of Tolkien elves.
I’d have been really annoyed if someone had told me that information before I read it (fantastic series of books by the way)
Beyond that, they're kinda responsible for a suspiciously large number of bad things that happened in Warcraft history. There are so many examples I will definitely overlook several obvious ones here. Off the top of my head:
* the sundering (thanks, Azshara) * yogg'saron entering the emerald dream (thanks, Fandral) * Illidan, nuff said * The Sunwell - I'm gonna go out on a limb here and call it a net bad thing. It contributed a lot to Arthas's descent into madness/ascent to power and unleashing Kel'Thuzad into the world again was pretty not good.
We do know that whatever Maiar are, they can have children with elves, from Melian and Thingol. Deducing that maia = elf from that is quite a leap in logic.
EDIT: Author was referring to Gandalf being mistaken for an elf, as per this excerpt of the unfinished tales:
"Mostly he journeyed tirelessly on foot, leaning on a staff, and so he was called among Men of the North Gandalf 'the Elf of the Wand'. For they deemed him (though in error) to be of Elven-kind, since he would at times work wonders among them."
Surely his name having "modifier+elf" in it shows that he's recognised as distinctly not an elf, nor recognisable as one, but is considered to have elf-like characteristics. I don't think it tells you anything about whether it's strange for an elf to have a beard.
So just because he's called "modifier+elf" doesn't mean they didn't think he's a proper elf.
It’s like they have a blind spot and just can’t see it
Obviously they wouldn't think that Gandalf was an elf if they thought elves never had beards, so yeah, they probably thought elves had beards. And they were probably correct about that, considering we know of a real elf who had a beard.
But if elves can have beards, that doesn't mean everybody with a beard is an elf. That just makes no sense.
That's not what was said, though. The point is that having a beard is not a show-stopper when suspecting that someone is an elf. People could have suspected that Gandalf was an elf for any number of unmentioned reasons having nothing to do with his beard, it's just that his beard did not get in the way of that, so beards are clearly not considered outside of the elvish phenotype.
From my perspective, it is pretty well established that Gandalf is Olorin, a Maia distinct from Manwe. The non-interference of the Valar in the Third Age is also well known so it is doubtful Manwe himself would appear physically in Middle-Earth.
Also, all Maiar (or rather, Ainur) are the same age or, more accurately, ageless, since they existed before the world.
"Take this ring, Master," he said, "for your labours will be heavy; but it will support you in the weariness that you have taken upon yourself. For this is the Ring of Fire, and with it you may rekindle hearts in a world that grows chill. But as for me, my heart is with the Sea, and I will dwell by the grey shores until the last ship sails. I will await you."
Hugo Dyson, member of Tolkien's reading group.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/j-r-r-t...
About a billion Tolkien fans.
And yet here we are, doing it every day even though our 80 year natural lifespan looks like immortality to all but a few other animal species.
You catch my drift...
We currently have several septuagenarians duking it out to be our next elected executive leader. Imagine the political discord that would exist between generations if all the leaders were over seven hundred years old. We'd be warring constantly over the inequality.
If one stays inside, eventually the 20th-generation scion of a human family that they have been collecting rents from all that time comes in to kill them, and free his children from the yoke of their undying ownership. Inspired, of course, by an alliance with their grandchild, who wants to inherit something of their own before they turn 500.
It's not that they are cavalier with their lives, as fighting to wrest resources away from their elders, when Death refuses to help. The young have no place to call their own in which to stay. The old cannot fortify against every threat, and must project the impression that they take enough risks to die from their own activities, otherwise be murdered for calcifying local developments.
Alternately, an immortal society could have a festival every century in which all property passes to one's living heirs, and the eldest living ancestor, who would otherwise receive no inheritance, is paid some cash by all their living descendants. I recall a story in which people above a certain age were banned from all governing roles, and could only fill advisory positions. Futurama had the retirement planet, where the eldest (a.k.a. Prof. Farnsworth) were imprisoned to keep them out of the way. Even the various cultural mythologies had new gods arising to slay and replace the old gods. It's very well explored--immortals get murdered. Even the Monkey King, who was six-ways immortal, faced execution, and when the gods discovered they couldn't kill him by any of the known methods of killing immortals, they instead put a mountain on top of him to keep him from moving.
The comic depicted young people cowering inside because they had so much to lose, and all the old people were out doing adventure sports and crime since they had so little left to lose. One old man gets sentenced to life in prison and he barks “Ha! What a bargain!”
So, some of their "cavalier-ness" might come from that fact. They might know that it is impossible for them to contravene fate, and so if they are fated to die, then die they will. And if they are not fated to die, then die they will not.
He specifically used elf/elves in order to differentiate his creatures from the shakespeare-esque tiny fairies, which were much closer to what Disney did in Peter Pan than to his vision. The correct English spelling at the time was elf/elfs, and he had to fight the proof readers and editors who constantly tried to correct his spelling.
Interestingly though, dwarf/dwarves, while also wrong (the plural would have been dwarfs), was actually an accident, since his dwarves are not too different from previous folklore. Which explains why the German translation uses the standard "Zwerg" for them.
Alder King does fit with the traditional idea of elves/faeries as non human spirits or supernatural beings associated with nature, who sometimes spirit away mortals to live in the fairy realm.
According to Wikipedia, the idea for the poem is believed to trace back to a Danish story about an Elf King. And Elf King in Danish sounds a bit like Alder King in German.
His analysis of the line, "it was LIKE a great shadow, in the middle of which was a dark form, of man-shape maybe yet greater" is deeply flawed. He argues that since a simile was used to describe the Balrog's darkness (and it has darkness), then the simile used to describe its wings means it has wings. Tolkien says "like a shadow" because it's dark like a shadow but it's not a shadow because shadows don't have physicality like the Balrog's darkness. We're clearly talking about a supernatural phenomenon that the english language can only describe via simile. Tolkien's abandonment of simile in later passages is to simplify the language. Repeating the exact same simile over and over drags the writing down.
Here's what we do know about balrogs, their essential characteristics are darkness, fire, speed, strength and magic. Flying is not an essential characteristic. It's never mentioned directly, and description of their rapid movement tends to be very metaphorical. We also know that if they do fly, they don't fly like dragons or eagles because they played no part in the conflict between the dragon and eagles. Balrogs were tossed aside with all of Morgoth's unflying creations. Only flying dragons specifically posed any threat to the Valar, and that was because of their flight.
(And all these years later, it's nice to see that Michael is being reasonably explicit about that issue in his own writing on the topic. It's interesting to compare this 2010 archive link to the current version on his site: after he says "Yes, the Balrog had wings", he's now added a clarification that "The wings were simply shapes made of darkness." Though in the link later in this thread, he evidently can't resist one final jab at anyone who disagrees with him: "I like the book the way it is without all the rewriting and propaganda". And he describes other people trying to discuss the topic as "long-winded nonsense essays". Honestly, I haven't missed those bits of interacting with him.)
That said, he also had a strong tendency to reach some conclusion on a controversial topic and then defend it to the death, even when most of us felt that the ultimate answer seemed unknowable or even fairly firmly different than what he claimed. His arguments were based on immense textual knowledge, followed up with emphatic assertions of truth if you dared disagree, and intense flames if you gave him the slightest excuse to get personal. He said, at times, that the rest of the newsgroup had a grudge against him and that people arguing against him were rejecting Tolkien's words or not arguing in good faith. For quite a while I remained on cordial terms with him and with everyone else, but at some point he decided that doing that constituted me enabling what he viewed as their toxic behavior, and we haven't interacted as friends since. All that is to say: the guy knows his stuff, and unless you're a top-tier expert he'll argue circles around you, but I still don't trust his conclusions on controversial topics.
If anyone wants a more balanced look at the Elf-ears question (from the same era when Michael wrote this FAQ, I think, or at least compatible with it), I've got an essay by Conrad Dunkerson on my site: http://tolkien.slimy.com/essays/Ears.html
I read nearly everything published by JRR or Christopher, including notes and letters, and never is any north american influence mentioned. There are Norse/Germanic/Finnish, Icelandic, Celtic, Byzantine (for Gondor) influences and Atlantis for Numenor, that's pretty much it.
It is also worth noting that Aragorn is not, in fact, the last of his race, as there are still other rangers. He is merely the last one of royal line.
Another obvious similarity is the theme of the passing of an age - the natives have lived in their own old fashioned ways for centuries, but now they're receding, and their way of life is fading away in the face of increasing colonialism.
Finally, the storyline of the three companions Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli tracking their friends the captured hobbits across the wilderness, hopelessly outnumbered is pretty much lifted from TLOTM, although Toklien's version is far more epic.
I'm surprised that you would never have heard of this. I read that book only recently, but I always believed it was an influence on Tolkien. I remember reading that he used to dress up as a Native American to entertain children. Here's an interesting quote[1]:
"I had very little desire to look for buried treasure or fight pirates, and Treasure Island left me cool. Red Indians were better: there were bows and arrows (I had and have a wholly unsatisfied desire to shoot well with a bow), and strange languages, and glimpses of an archaic mode of life, and above all, forests in such stories."
TLOTH is pretty much set entirely in a forest, populated by almost mystical race of forest-people and their enigmatic white friend.
If he read books from that era (like Treasure Island) and had an interest in "Red Indians" then he must have read TLOTM.
I hope I've made a good case for this, but if not then I think reading the book will make the link much clearer.
[1] http://www.openculture.com/2012/01/jrr_tolkien_in_his_own_wo...
Since multiple movies were made in the 60s, I suppose that it was not always so.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:J._R._R._Tolkien%27s_infl...
>>alas, his name was never directly mentioned by J.R.R.Tolkien, then it must be considered a feasible, even probable, speculation
went too far. Personally I think that given the similarities in themes and characters etc., it should be enough to prove that he read it. Which I admit I can't do (though I'm totally convinced of it myself).
Really it doesn't make sense to connect these different things directly, because they point towards higher archetypes that we have embedded in our collective consciousness.
He simply changed his names for them, as he also did with the 3 main race names.
His dark counterpart before becoming Gandalf the White would be a balrog, which is why Gandalf takes on the balrog in Moria and not Legolas. ;)