Though Men were set to supplant them in Middle-earth, the Elves were powerful and numerous enough to join with Men one last time to defeat Sauron. [8] According to Marjorie Burns, Tolkien eventually but hesitantly chose the term elf over fairy. Most of the Ñoldor lived in Lindon with Gil-galad, the High King of the Ñoldor. They were wrong. Journeying further, they came across a band of Elves watching the stars, which Tata claims as his. After being banned by the Valar for the rebellion and the violent deeds of the House of Fëanor, the Ñoldor returned to Middle-earth as exiles to battle Morgoth, and to establish and rule realms of their own.[4]. High Elves continued to live in Lindon but most sailed into the West after their king's death. [T 14] They laid a siege around Morgoth's fortress of Angband, but were eventually defeated. Arwen flees to an abandoned Lothlórien, where she dies. As with fairies, elves were said to secretly steal healthy human babies and replace them with their own kind. These acts of cruelty and violence against their Elven kin caused great loss of life and resulted in the deaths of all of them except Maglor, who now wanders the coasts of Middle-earth singing about the suffering of the Ñoldor. Puberty and full height are attained at around their fiftieth to one hundredth year, when they stop aging physically. Some of the stories Tolkien wrote as elven history have been seen to be directly influenced by Celtic mythology.

Goblins | [17], 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. [T 25][T 26] Eventually, their immortal spirits overwhelm and consume their bodies, rendering them "bodiless", whether they opt to go to Valinor or not. The fading played out over thousands of years, until in the modern world, occasional glimpses of rustic Elves would fuel folktales and fantasies. Like fairies, elves were said to be diminutive shape-shifters. I hear the tiny horns These changelings appeared at first glance to be human babies, but if they became seriously sick or temperamental, parents would sometimes suspect that their own child had been abducted by elves. His interest was primarily philological, and he said his stories grew out of his languages. With Annatar's help, Celebrimbor forged the Rings of Power, but Three Rings alone were made in secret by Celebrimbor and were not directly touched by Sauron's power. At first, only the Ñoldor had dealings with Men, as the other elves feared them, but over the generations, men served the Ñoldor and gained their respect.

This was later spelled Quenya (High-elven) and, along with Sindarin (Grey-elven), is one of the two most complete of Tolkien's constructed languages. He hated and feared Melkor, but unwittingly provided his lies with their most prominent voice. Vampires | [8], The Vanyar and the Ñoldor, who were most eager to reach Valinor pressed on with the greatest speed and were the first to reach the coasts and to be taken to Valinor on an island that the Vala Ulmo guided across the Belegaer. © In either form, elves are strongly associated with magic and nature. Elves With this, the lies of Melkor were at last laid bare, and he fled before the Valar could recapture him. After Elessar's death, Legolas built a ship and sailed to Valinor and, eventually, all the elves in Ithilien followed him. They could be killed only in violence or by extreme despair. Elves have a taboo against incest, but marriage among second cousins is seen as acceptable. For eight years, Sauron laid waste to Middle-earth in his war against the Elves, destroying Eregion and killing Celebrimbor. Wargs | Instead, they celebrate the day the child's parents begat them. They have bright colour, but are like a broken stained glass window reassembled without design. [1] Numerous types of elves appear in Germanic mythology; the West Germanic concept appears to have come to differ from the Scandinavian notion in the early Middle Ages, and the Anglo-Saxon concept diverged even further, possibly under Celtic influence. By the end of the Third Age the Dominion of Men was at hand, and the elves who remained in Middle-earth dwindled and became a secret people. And so it was that, on one of his many journeys in the wilds of Middle-earth, Oromë came upon the Elves. United States Code Title 18. Tolkien might only have had broken fragments to work on, but, Shippey writes, the more one explores how Tolkien used the ancient texts, the more one sees "how easy it was for him to feel that a consistency and a sense lay beneath the chaotic ruin of the old poetry of the North".

Over time and across different cultures, a certain type of elf emerged, one with a somewhat different nature and form than the mischievous and diminutive sprites of yore. They came across six, nine, and twelve pairs of elves, and each "patriarch" claimed the pairs as his folk in order.

In "The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen" in Appendix A, most Elves have already left, barring some in Mirkwood and a few in Lindon; the garden of Elrond in Rivendell is empty. Vanyar, Noldor, Teleri, Sindar, Nandor, Silvan, Falmari, Avari Elves are light of foot, can travel long distances without leaving tracks, and often can walk lightly across snow where the boots of Men would sink. [17], The Sundering of Elves and names given to their divisions, When the elves were first summoned to Aman by the Valar, they became divided into two groups - the Eldar (Quenya Tengwar: full spelling `VmE6 or vowel-abbreviated spelling `Vm6; IPA: [ˈeldar]; singular Elda; `VmE; adjectival Eldarin; `VmE7T5 or `Vm7T5; [ˈeldarin]), who accepted the summons of the Valar and undertook the Great Journey, and the Avari, who refused the summons and became the lesser elves. [T 21] Elves have few children,[a] and there are long intervals between each child. [7] By 1915, when Tolkien was writing his first elven poems, the words elf, fairy and gnome had many divergent and contradictory associations. They are soon preoccupied with other pleasures; their libido wanes and they focus their interests elsewhere, like the arts. Shippey comments that Tolkien took many suggestions from this passage, including the horns and the hunt of the Elves in Mirkwood; the proud but honourable Elf-king; and the placing of his elves in wild nature.

Elves were not subject to age, and were immune to illness. [T 4] The Teleri who stayed in Beleriand later became known as the Sindar. The construction was set to bring the road right through Álfhóll, which would have essentially destroyed the elves' home. The Faithful from the Downfall of Númenór founded the great mannish kingdoms of Arnor and Gondor. However, Melkor, the Dark Lord, became aware of them and their location before the Valar, and during this time he sent evil spirits to spy on them and do them harm. Since Two-Elfs.com is a minor we are adding this section to our Website. Probably the most famous of these magical creatures are the elves that work for Santa Claus at the North Pole. I do know Celtic things (many in their original languages Irish and Welsh), and feel for them a certain distaste: largely for their fundamental unreason. They appear in The Hobbit and in The Lord of the Rings, but their history is described more fully in The Silmarillion. Indeed, the languages were the first thing Tolkien ever created for his mythos, starting with what he originally called "Elfin" or "Qenya" [sic]. All of the elves agreed, save for the Avari, who chose to remain in Middle-earth. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, are slender, human-sized, and beautiful, with fine — almost angelic — features. After a long, grievous war, the Valar were triumphant, and Melkor was imprisoned. [4], By the late 19th century, the term 'fairy' had been taken up as a utopian theme, and was used to critique social and religious values, a tradition which Tolkien and T. H. White continued.

Not long after, the Valar decided that, for the good of the Elves, that Melkor needed to be overthrown. 'Elves and Fairies,' an illustration for 'The Tempest,' by Edmund Dulac (1882-1953).