In J. R. R. Tolkien 's writings, Elves are the first fictional race to appear in Middle-earth . Unlike Men and Dwarves , Elves do not die of disease or old age. Should they die in battle or of grief, their souls go to the Halls of Mandos in Aman . After a long life in Middle-earth, Elves yearn for the Earthly Paradise of Valinor , and can sail there from the Grey Havens. They feature in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings . Their history is described in detail in The Silmarillion .
155-532: In J. R. R. Tolkien 's legendarium , the history of Arda , also called the history of Middle-earth , began when the Ainur entered Arda , following the creation events in the Ainulindalë and long ages of labour throughout Eä , the fictional universe . Time from that point was measured using Valian Years , though the subsequent history of Arda was divided into three time periods using different years, known as
310-622: A frame story that changed over the years , first with an Ælfwine-type character who translates the "Golden Book" of the sages Rumil or Pengoloð; later, having the Hobbit Bilbo Baggins collect the stories into the Red Book of Westmarch , translating mythological Elvish documents in Rivendell . The scholar Gergely Nagy observes that Tolkien "thought of his works as texts within the fictional world " (his emphasis), and that
465-518: A beast they took nor slew, and where they went he never knew". 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. Tolkien might only have had broken fragments to work on, but, Shippey writes, the more one explores how Tolkien used the ancient texts,
620-601: A commentary on the texts themselves or their actual influence on his writing, and cites evidence to this effect in her essay "'Mad' Elves and 'elusive beauty': some Celtic strands of Tolkien's mythology". Fimi proposes that some of the stories Tolkien wrote as elven history are directly influenced by Celtic mythology. For example, "Flight of The Noldoli " she argues, is based on the Tuatha Dé Danann and Lebor Gabála Érenn , and their migratory nature comes from early Irish/Celtic history. John Garth states that with
775-565: A continuing examination of Tolkien's works and supporting mythology, became a scholarly area of study soon after his death. A legendarium is a literary collection of legends . This medieval Latin noun originally referred mainly to texts detailing legends of the lives of saints . A surviving example is the Anjou Legendarium , dating from the 14th century. Quotations in the Oxford English Dictionary for
930-549: A great and mighty people, and that as Men took over the world, these Elves had "diminished" themselves. This theme is shared especially by the god-like and human-sized Ljósálfar of Norse mythology , and medieval works such as Sir Orfeo , the Welsh Mabinogion , Arthurian romances and the legends of the Tuatha Dé Danann . The name Inwe or Ingwë (in the first draft Ing ), given by Tolkien to
1085-417: A green axe-wielding giant, an aluisch mon ("elvish man", translated by Shippey as "uncanny creature"). Christian sources from Iceland knew and disapproved of the tradition of offering sacrifices to the elves, álfa-blót . Elves were directly dangerous, too: the medical condition " elf-shot ", described in the spell Gif hors ofscoten sie , "if a horse is elf-shot", meaning some kind of internal injury,
1240-723: A high mountain, separated from mortals; Ulmo , Lord of the Waters, owes much to Poseidon , and Manwë , the Lord of the Air and King of the Valar, to Zeus . Tolkien compared Beren and Lúthien with Orpheus and Eurydice , but with the gender roles reversed. He mentioned Oedipus , too, in connection with Túrin in the Children of Húrin . Flieger has compared Fëanor with Prometheus : they are associated with fire, and are punished for rebelling against
1395-545: A philanthropist to brighten servicemen's quarters, and Faery was used in other contexts as an image of " Old England " to inspire patriotism. By 1915, when Tolkien was writing his first elven poems, the words elf , fairy and gnome had many divergent and contradictory associations. Tolkien had been gently warned against the term 'fairy', which John Garth supposes may have been due to its growing association with homosexuality , but Tolkien continued to use it. According to Marjorie Burns , Tolkien eventually but hesitantly chose
1550-525: A private project to create a mythology for England . The earliest story, "The Voyage of Earendel, the Evening Star", is from 1914; he revised and rewrote the legendarium stories for most of his adult life. The Hobbit (1937), Tolkien's first published novel, was not originally part of the larger mythology but became linked to it. Both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (1954 and 1955) are set in
1705-477: 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 which Tolkien had acquired in 1914. O! I hear the tiny horns Of enchanted leprechauns And the padded feet of many gnomes a-coming! In his The Book of Lost Tales , Tolkien develops a theme that the diminutive fairy-like race of Elves had once been
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#17327720292201860-569: A publisher would take it, and notes that Tolkien was a perfectionist, and further that he was perhaps afraid of finishing as he wished to go on with his sub-creation , his invention of myth in Middle-earth. Tolkien first began working on the stories that would become The Silmarillion in 1914. His reading, in 1914, of the Old English manuscript Christ I led to Earendel and the first element of his legendarium, "The Voyage of Earendel,
2015-402: A repetition of the history of Númenor . In a 1972 letter concerning this draft, Tolkien mentioned that Eldarion's reign would have lasted for about 100 years after the death of Aragorn. His realm was to be "great and long-enduring", but the lifespan of the royal house was not to be restored; it would continue to wane until it was like that of ordinary Men. Later Ages continue up to modern times,
2170-484: A sequel to The Hobbit . Tolkien began to revise the Silmarillion, but soon turned to the sequel, which became The Lord of the Rings . Writing The Lord of the Rings during the 1940s, Tolkien was attempting to address the dilemma of creating a narrative consistent with a "sequel" of the published The Hobbit and a desire to present a more comprehensive view of its large unpublished background. He renewed work on
2325-573: A time, they became jealous of the Elves for their immortality. Sauron , Morgoth's chief servant, was still active. As Annatar, in disguise he taught the Elves of Eregion the craft of creating Rings of Power . Seven Rings were made for the Dwarves, while Nine were made for Men who later became known as the Ringwraiths. He built a stronghold called Barad-dûr and secretly forged the One Ring in
2480-710: A vision of the end of the world [after all the ages have elapsed], its breaking and remaking, and the recovery of the Silmarilli and the 'light before the Sun' – after a final battle [Dagor Dagorath] which owes, I suppose, more to the Norse vision of Ragnarök than to anything else, though it is not much like it." The concept of Dagor Dagorath appears in many of Tolkien's manuscripts that were published by his son Christopher in The History of Middle-earth series, but not in
2635-457: A vision of the end of the world, its breaking and remaking, and the recovery of the Silmarilli and the 'light before the Sun'"; and in 1954, "Actually in the imagination of this story we are now living on a physically round Earth. But the whole 'legendarium' contains a transition from a flat world ... to a globe ". On both texts, he explained in 1954 that "... my legendarium , especially
2790-520: A weird way, quite unlike the elves in any other adaptation, not even resembling the film's depiction of Elrond. Gilkeson describes them as "like Troll dolls that have been left out in the rain too long, and a little like Yzma from The Emperor's New Groove . They have gray skin, pug faces, and blond hair. It’s frankly bizarre". In Peter Jackson 's Lord of the Rings film series (2001–2003), Elves are shown as physically superior to Men in eyesight, balance, and aim, but their superiority in other ways
2945-567: Is "never really made clear". Fimi compared Jackson's handling of Elves with Tolkien's. Tolkien's Elves are rooted as firmly as possible in Anglo-Saxon , Middle English , and Norse tradition, but influenced also by Celtic fairies in the Tuatha Dé Danann . Jackson's Elves are however "Celtic" in the romanticised sense of the Celtic Revival . She compares Jackson's representation of Gildor Inglorion's party of Elves riding through
3100-436: Is a process of decline and fall from a once-perfect state. She identifies a theory of decline that influenced Tolkien, namely Owen Barfield 's theory of language in his 1928 book Poetic Diction . The central idea was that there was once a unified set of meanings in an ancient language, and that modern languages are derived from this by fragmentation of meaning. Tolkien took this to imply the separation of peoples, in particular
3255-478: Is dangerous to mortals because time there is distorted , as in Tolkien's Lothlórien . Shippey comments that it is a strength of Tolkien's "re-creations", his imagined worlds, that they incorporate all the available evidence to create a many-layered impression of depth , making use of "both good and bad sides of popular story; the sense of inquiry, prejudice, hearsay and conflicting opinion". Shippey suggests that
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#17327720292203410-460: Is the body of J. R. R. Tolkien 's mythopoeic writing, unpublished in his lifetime, that forms the background to his The Lord of the Rings , and which his son Christopher summarized in his compilation of The Silmarillion and documented in his 12-volume series The History of Middle-earth . The legendarium's origins reach back to 1914, when Tolkien began writing poems and story sketches, drawing maps , and inventing languages and names as
3565-471: Is today ... he shows the initial steps in a long process of retreat or disappearance by which all other intelligent species, which will leave man effectually alone on earth... Ents may still be there in our forests, but what forests have we left? The process of extermination is already well under way in the Third Age, and ... Tolkien bitterly deplores its climax today." The Tolkien scholar Stuart D. Lee and
3720-411: Is unthinkable. Betrothal, with the exchange of rings, lasts at least a year, and is revocable by the return of the rings, but is rarely broken. Marriage is by words exchanged by the bride and groom (including the speaking of the name of Eru Ilúvatar) and consummation; it is celebrated with a feast. Wedding rings are worn on the index fingers. The bride's mother gives the groom a jewel to wear. Elves view
3875-568: The South English Legendary from c. 1250, describes elves much as Tolkien does: Some of Tolkien's Elves are in the "undying lands" of Valinor , home of the godlike Valar , while others are in Middle-earth. The Elf-queen Galadriel indeed has been expelled from Valinor, much like the fallen Melkor , though she is clearly good, and much like an angel. Similarly, some of the Legendary ' s Eluene are on Earth, others in
4030-419: The daoine-sithe , and the tylwyth-teg ." Tolkien, a philologist , knew of the many seemingly contradictory traditions about elves. The Old English Beowulf -poet spoke of the strange eotenas ond ylfe ond orcn éas , " ettens [giants] and elves and demon-corpses", a grouping which Shippey calls "a very stern view of all non-human and un-Christian species". The Middle English Sir Gawain meets
4185-647: The Common Speech . According to Shippey, the theme of diminishment from semi-divine Elf to diminutive Fairy resurfaces in The Lord of the Rings in the dialogue of Galadriel. "Yet if you succeed, then our power is diminished, and Lothlórien will fade, and the tides of Time will sweep it away. We must depart into the West, or dwindle to a rustic folk of dell and cave, slowly to forget and to be forgotten." Writing in 1954, part way through proofreading The Lord of
4340-553: The Earth , "globed within the void": the world together with the three airs is set apart from Avakúma , the "void" without. The first 15 of the Ainur that descended to Arda, and the most powerful ones, were called Valar; the lesser Ainur were called Maiar. When the Valar entered Arda , it was still lifeless and had no distinct geographical features. The initial shape of Arda, chosen by
4495-615: The Hobbits of the Shire prospered, getting their first Took Thain , and colonizing Buckland . The Dwarves of Durin's folk under Thorin I abandoned Erebor , and left for the Grey Mountains , where most of their kin now gathered. Meanwhile, Sauron created a strong alliance between the tribes of Easterlings , so that when he returned he had many Men in his service. The main events of The Hobbit occur in T.A. 2941. By
4650-517: The Solosimpi and Tinúviel . Alongside the idea of the greater Elves, Tolkien toyed with the idea of children visiting Valinor, the island-homeland of the Elves in their sleep. Elves would also visit children at night and comfort them if they had been chided or were upset. This was abandoned in Tolkien's later writing. Douglas Anderson shows that in The Hobbit , Tolkien again includes both
4805-697: The Stewards of Gondor . Aragorn marries the daughter of Elrond, Arwen , thus for the last time adding Elvish blood to the royal line. As the age ends, Gandalf, Frodo Baggins and many of the remaining Elves of Middle-earth sail from the Grey Havens to Aman . With the end of the Third Age began the Dominion of Men. Elves were no longer involved in Human affairs, and most Elves left for Valinor; those that remain behind "fade" and diminish. A similar fate meets
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4960-532: The Third Age of Middle-earth , while virtually all of his earlier writing had been set in the first two ages of the world. The Lord of the Rings occasionally alludes to figures and events from the legendarium to create an impression of depth , but such ancient tales are depicted as being remembered by few until the story makes them relevant. After The Lord of the Rings , Tolkien returned to his older stories to bring them to publishable form, but never completed
5115-735: The Vanyar , the Noldor , and the Teleri . They made their home in Eldamar . After Melkor appeared to repent and was released after his servitude of three Ages, he stirred up rivalry between the Noldorin King Finwë 's two sons Fëanor and Fingolfin . With the help of the giant spider Ungoliant , he killed Finwë and stole the Silmarils , three gems crafted by Fëanor that contained light of
5270-583: The " Earthly Paradise ". So, did they have souls, Shippey asks? Since they could not leave the world, the answer was no; but given that they didn't disappear completely on death, the answer had to have been yes. In Shippey's view, the Silmarillion resolved the Middle English puzzle, letting Elves go not to Heaven but to the halfway house of the Halls of Mandos on Valinor. By the late 19th century,
5425-451: The "fusion or kindling-point" of Tolkien's thinking about elves came from the Middle English lay Sir Orfeo , which transposes the classical myth of Orpheus and Eurydice into a wild and wooded Elfland, and makes the quest successful. In Tolkien's translation the elves appear and disappear: "the king of Faerie with his rout / came hunting in the woods about / with blowing far and crying dim, and barking hounds that were with him; yet never
5580-542: The "primary 'legendarium'", for the core episodes and themes of The Silmarillion which were not abandoned in his father's constant redrafting of the work. The scholars Verlyn Flieger and Carl F. Hostetter edited a scholarly collection " Tolkien's Legendarium: Essays on The History of Middle-earth ". Flieger writes that "...the greatest [event] is the creation of the Silmarils, the Gems of light that give their names to
5735-606: The 'Downfall of Númenor ' which lies immediately behind The Lord of the Rings , is based on my view: that Men are essentially mortal and must not try to become 'immortal' in the flesh", and in 1955, "But the beginning of the legendarium, of which the Trilogy is part (the conclusion), was an attempt to reorganise some of the Kalevala ". "Tolkien's legendarium" is defined narrowly in John D. Rateliff 's The History of The Hobbit as
5890-598: The Age as the rise of Sauron came to dominate Middle-earth . By the end of the Third Age, only fragments of the once-grand Elven civilization survived in Middle-earth. The Wizards arrived around a thousand years after the start of this period to aid the Free Peoples, most importantly Gandalf and Saruman . The One Ring was found by Sméagol but, under the power of the Ring and ignorant of its true nature, he retreated with
6045-679: The Anglo-Saxons might call a very fair woman ælfscýne , "elf-beautiful". Some aspects can readily be reconciled, Shippey writes, since "Beauty is itself dangerous". But there is more: Tolkien brought in the Old English usage of descriptions like wuduælfen "wood-elf, dryad ", wæterælfen "water-elf", and sǣælfen "sea-elf, naiad ", giving his elves strong links with wild nature. Yet another strand of legend holds that Elfland , as in Elvehøj ("Elf Hill") and other traditional stories,
6200-779: 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 (who spoke Vanyarin Quenya, Noldorin Quenya, and Telerin, respectively). On their journey, some of the Teleri feared the Misty Mountains and dared not cross them. They turned back and stayed in
6355-640: The Dagor Aglareb ("Glorious Battle"), the armies of the Noldor led by Fingolfin and Maedhros attacked from the east and west, destroying the invading Orcs and laid siege to Morgoth's stronghold Angband. The Noldor for a time maintained the Siege of Angband, resulting in the Long Peace. This Peace lasted hundreds of years, during which time Men arrived over the Blue Mountains . Morgoth broke
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6510-715: The Dwarves: although Erebor becomes an ally of the Reunited Kingdom, there are indications that Khazad-dûm is refounded together with a colony established by Gimli in the White Mountains . Together, they disappear from human history. Eldarion, son of Aragorn II Elessar and Arwen Evenstar, became King of the Reunited Kingdom in F.A. 120. Aragorn gave him the tokens of his rule, and then surrendered his life willingly, as his ancestors had done thousands of years before. Arwen left him to rule alone, passing away to
6665-600: The Elves to Valinor rather than leaving them 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 many of the Elves to take the Great Journey (also called the Great March) to Valinor. Those who did not accept the summons became known as
6820-460: The Elves who never went to see the light of the Two Trees of Valinor . Tolkien developed his conception of elves over the years, from his earliest writings through to The Hobbit , The Silmarillion , and The Lord of the Rings . 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
6975-526: The Elves, including Sindarin and Quenya . Tolkien-style Elves have become a staple of fantasy literature . They have appeared, too, in film and role-playing game adaptations of Tolkien's works. The framework for J. R. R. Tolkien 's conception of his Elves, and many points of detail in his portrayal of them, is thought by Haukur Þorgeirsson to have come from the survey of folklore and early modern scholarship about elves ( álfar ) in Icelandic tradition in
7130-509: The Evening Star". He intended his stories to become a mythology that would explain the origins of English history and culture, and to provide the necessary "historical" background for his invented Elvish languages . Much of this early work was written while Tolkien, then a British officer returned from France during World War I, was in hospital and on sick leave. He completed " The Fall of Gondolin " in late 1916. He called his collection of nascent stories The Book of Lost Tales . This became
7285-580: The Faithful sailed to Middle-earth, where they founded the realms in exile of Gondor and Arnor. Sauron arose again and challenged them. The Elves allied with Men to form the Last Alliance of Elves and Men. For seven years, the Alliance laid siege to Barad-dûr , until at last Sauron himself entered the field. He slew Elendil , High King of Gondor and Arnor, and Gil-galad , the last High King of
7440-510: The Faithful, sailed westward to warn the Valar. His son Elendil and grandsons Isildur and Anárion prepared to flee eastwards, taking with them a seedling of the White Tree of Númenor before Sauron destroyed it, and the palantíri , gifts of the elves. When the King's forces set foot on Aman, the Valar laid down their guardianship of the world and called on Ilúvatar to intervene. The world
7595-527: The Finnish epic, the Kalevala ; or of St Jerome , Snorri Sturlusson , Jacob Grimm , or Nikolai Gruntvig, all of whom Tolkien saw as exemplars of a professional and creative philology. This was, Nagy believes, what Tolkien thought essential if he was to present a mythology for England , since such a thing had to have been written by many hands. Further, writes Nagy, Christopher Tolkien "inserted himself in
7750-674: The Great Jewels followed, and lasted until the end of the First Age. Meanwhile, the Valar took the last living fruit of Laurelin and the last living flower of Telperion and used them to create the Moon and Sun, which remained a part of Arda, but were separate from Ambar (the world). The first rising of the sun over Ambar heralded the end of the Years of the Trees, and the start of the Years of
7905-441: The Grey Havens, where Círdan the Shipwright dwells with his folk. Eventually, any Elves that remain in Middle-earth undergo a process of "fading", in which their immortal spirits overwhelm and "consume" their bodies. This renders their bodily forms invisible to mortal eyes, except to those to whom they wish to manifest themselves. The 1977 Rankin-Bass version of The Hobbit depicts the wood-elves in what Austin Gilkeson calls
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#17327720292208060-401: The Iron Mountains in the far north. The period ended when Melkor assaulted and destroyed the Lamps of the Valar. Arda was again darkened, and the fall of the great Lamps spoiled the symmetry of Arda's surface. New continents were created: Aman in the West, Middle-earth proper in the middle, the uninhabited lands (later called the Land of the Sun ) in the East. At the site of the northern lamp
8215-409: The Isle of Balar. Eärendil possessed the Silmaril which his wife Elwing's grandparents, Beren and Lúthien , had taken from Morgoth. But Fëanor's sons still maintained that all the Silmarils belonged to them, and so there were two more Kinslayings. Eärendil and Elwing crossed the Great Sea to beg the Valar for aid against Morgoth. They responded, sending forth a great host. In the War of Wrath, Melkor
8370-436: The King's courtyard, the reign of Númenor would endure. The Elves were granted pardon for the sins of Fëanor, and were allowed to return home to the Undying Lands . The Númenóreans became great seafarers, and were learned, wise, and had a lifespan beyond other men. At first, they honored the Ban of the Valar, never sailing into the Undying Lands. They went east to Middle-earth and taught the men living there valuable skills. After
8525-431: The Kings of Gondor ends, with the House of the Stewards ruling in their stead. Meanwhile, the heirs of Isildur from the fallen kingdom of Arnor wander Middle-earth, aided only by Elrond in Rivendell ; but the line of rightful heirs remains unbroken throughout the age. This age was characterized by the waning of the Elves . In the beginning of the Third Age, many Elves left for Valinor because they were disturbed by
8680-418: The Noldor in Middle-earth. However, Isildur took up the hilt of Narsil , his father's shattered sword, and cut the One Ring from Sauron's hand. Sauron was defeated, but not utterly destroyed. Afterward, Isildur ignored the counsel of Elrond , and rather than destroy the One Ring in the fires of Mount Doom, he kept it as weregild for his dead father. But the Ring betrayed him and slipped from his finger as he
8835-412: The Númenóreans, were killed. During the Second and Third Ages , they held some protected realms with the aid of the Three Rings of Power : Lothlorien, ruled by Galadriel and Celeborn; Rivendell , ruled by Elrond and home to the Elf-lord Glorfindel; and the Grey Havens, ruled by Círdan the shipwright. Círdan and his Elves built the ships on which Elves departed for Valinor. After the destruction of
8990-461: The One Ring , the power of the Three Rings of the Elves ended and the Fourth Age , the Age of Men, began. Most Elves left for Valinor; those 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". The fading played out over thousands of years, until in the modern world, occasional glimpses of rustic Elves would fuel folktales and fantasies. Elladan and Elrohir,
9145-428: The Plague caused many deaths, including King Telemnar, his children, and the White Tree ; the population of the capital city Osgiliath was decimated, and government of the kingdom was transferred to Minas Tirith . In Eriador, the nascent Hobbit -realm of the Shire suffered "great loss" in what they called the Dark Plague. The so-called Watchful Peace began in T.A. 2063, when Gandalf went to Dol Guldur and
9300-401: The Powers), defeated Melkor and brought him captive to Valinor. This began the period of the Peace of Arda. After the War of the Powers, Oromë of the Valar summoned the Elves to Aman. Many of the Elves went with Oromë on the Great Journey westwards towards Aman. Along the journey several groups of Elves tarried, notably the Nandor and the Sindar . The three clans that arrived at Aman were
9455-457: The Ring to a secret life under the Misty Mountains . Middle-earth's devastating Great Plague originated in its vast eastern region, Rhûn, where it caused considerable suffering. By the winter of late T.A. 1635 the Plague spread from Rhûn into Wilderland , on the east of Middle-earth's western lands; in Wilderland it killed more than half the population. In the following year the Great Plague spread into Gondor and then Eriador . In Gondor
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#17327720292209610-402: The Rings . Virtually the entire history of the Third Age takes place in Middle-earth . The Third Age saw the rise in power of the realms of Arnor and Gondor , and their fall. Arnor was divided into three petty Kingdoms, which fell one by one in the wars with Sauron's vassal kingdom of Angmar, whilst Gondor fell victim to Kin-strife, plague, Wainriders , and Corsairs . In this time, the line of
9765-454: The Rings , Tolkien claimed that the Elvish language Sindarin had a character very like British-Welsh "because it seems to fit the rather 'Celtic' type of legends and stories told of its speakers". In the same letter, Tolkien goes on to say that the elves had very little in common with elves or fairies of Europe, and that they really represent men with greater artistic ability, beauty and a longer life span. In his writings, an Elven bloodline
9920-401: The Rings , did he realise the significance of hobbits in his mythology. In 1937, encouraged by the success of The Hobbit , Tolkien submitted to his publisher George Allen & Unwin an incomplete but more fully developed version of The Silmarillion called Quenta Silmarillion . The reader rejected the work as being obscure and "too Celtic ". The publisher instead asked Tolkien to write
10075-410: The Rings between Sauron and the Elves. It ended with Sauron's defeat by the Last Alliance of Elves and Men. At the start of the Second Age, the Men who had remained faithful were given the island of Númenor, in the middle of the Great Sea, and there they established a powerful kingdom. The White Tree of Númenor was planted in the King's city of Armenelos ; and it was said that while that tree stood in
10230-748: The Shire "moving slowly and gracefully towards the West, accompanied by ethereal music" with John Duncan 's 1911 painting The Riders of the Sidhe . She notes that Jackson's conceptual designer, the illustrator Alan Lee , had made use of the painting in the 1978 book Faeries . Tolkien-style Elves have influenced the depiction of elves in the fantasy genre from the 1960s and afterwards. Elves speaking an elvish language similar to those in Tolkien's novels became staple non-human characters in high fantasy works and in fantasy role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons . They are often portrayed as being mentally sharp and lovers of nature, art, and song, as well as wiser and more beautiful than humans. They usually fit
10385-405: The Silmarillion after completing The Lord of the Rings , and he greatly desired to publish the two works together. When it became clear that would not be possible, Tolkien turned his full attention to preparing The Lord of the Rings for publication. John D. Rateliff has analysed the complex relationship between The Hobbit and The Silmarillion , providing evidence that they were related from
10540-457: The Silmarils back, and led a large army of the Noldor to Beleriand. In Beleriand, Elwë was eventually found, and married Melian the Maia . He became the overlord of Beleriand, naming himself Thingol (Sindarin: 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 Morgoth's fortress of Angband , but were eventually defeated. The Elves never regained
10695-488: The Sun, which last to the present day. The Years of the Sun were the last of the three great time-periods of Arda. They began with the first sunrise in conjunction with the return of the Noldor to Middle-earth , and last until the present day. The Years of the Sun began towards the end of the First Age of the Children of Ilúvatar and continued through the Second , Third , and part of the Fourth in Tolkien's stories. Tolkien estimated that modern times would correspond to
10850-417: 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 . The Teleri who stayed in Beleriand later became known as the Sindar. Matthew Dickerson notes the "very complicated changes, with shifting meanings assigned to
11005-440: The Three (Sauron eventually obtained the Seven and the Nine. While he was unable to suborn the Dwarf ringbearers, he had more success with the Men who bore the Nine; they became the Nazgûl , the Ringwraiths). Sauron then made war on the elves and nearly destroyed them utterly during the Dark Years, but when it seemed defeat was imminent, the Númenóreans joined the battle and completely crushed the forces of Sauron. Sauron never forgot
11160-420: The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey 's suggestion that the "real root" of The Silmarillion lay in the linguistic relationship, complete with sound-changes and differences of semantics, between these two languages of the divided elves. Shippey writes, too, that the elves are separated not by colour, despite names like light and dark, but by history, including their migrations. In Valinor, Fëanor, son of Finwë, and
11315-728: The Trees were divided into two epochs. The first ten ages, the Days of Bliss, saw peace and prosperity in Valinor. The Eagles , the Ents , and the Dwarves were conceived by Manwë , Yavanna , and Aulë respectively, but placed into slumber until the awakening of the Elves . The next ten ages, called the Noontide of the Blessed Realm, saw Varda kindling the stars above Middle-earth. This
11470-500: The Two Trees, from his vault, and destroyed the Trees of the Valar. The world was again dark, save for the faint starlight. Bitter at the Valar's inactivity, Fëanor and his house left to pursue Melkor, cursing him with the name "Morgoth". While his brother Finarfin chose to stay in Valinor, a larger host led by Fingolfin followed Fëanor. They reached Alqualondë , the port-city of the Teleri, who forbade them from taking their ships for
11625-660: 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 (all that was left of Beleriand after the cataclysm), Eregion , and Rhovanion (Mirkwood). Sauron , Morgoth's former servant, made war upon them, but with the aid of the Númenóreans they defeated him, though both the king of the Noldorin Elves, Gil-galad, and Elendil, king of
11780-431: The Valar, was much more symmetrical, including the central continent of Middle-earth . Middle-earth was also originally much larger , and was lit by the misty light that veiled the barren ground. The Valar concentrated this light in two large lamps, called Illuin and Ormal. The Vala Aulë forged two great pillar-like mountains, Helcar in the north and Ringil in the south. Illuin was set upon Helcar and Ormal upon Ringil. In
11935-579: 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. J. R. R. Tolkien made it clear in a letter that his Elves differed from those "of the better known lore" of Scandinavian mythology . The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey notes that one Middle English source which he presumes Tolkien must have read,
12090-594: The Years of the Lamps, the Years of the Trees, and the Years of the Sun. A separate, overlapping chronology divides the history into 'Ages of the Children of Ilúvatar'. The first such Age began with the Awakening of the Elves during the Years of the Trees and continued for the first six centuries of the Years of the Sun. All the subsequent Ages took place during the Years of the Sun. Most Middle-earth stories take place in
12245-406: The Years of the Trees when the Elves awoke at Cuiviénen, and hence the events mentioned above under Years of the Trees overlap with the beginning of the First Age. Having crossed into Middle-earth, Fëanor was soon lost in an attack on Morgoth's Balrogs – but his sons survived and founded realms, as did the followers of his half-brother Fingolfin , who reached Beleriand after Fëanor's death. In
12400-581: The arts. Elves, particularly the Noldor, spend their time on smithwork, sculpture, music and other arts, and on preparing food. Males and females are equal, but females often specialize in the arts of healing while the males go to war. This is because they believe that taking life interferes with the ability to preserve life. However, females can defend themselves at need as well as males, and many males such as Elrond are skilled healers. Elves are skilful horse-riders, riding without saddle or bridle, though Tolkien
12555-527: The bay of Cuiviénen during the Years of the Trees . This event marked the beginning of the First Age . They awoke under the starlit sky, as the Sun and Moon had yet to be created. The first Elves to awaken were three pairs: Imin ("First") and his wife Iminyë, Tata ("Second") and Tatië, and Enel ("Third") and Enelyë. They walked through the forests, finding other pairs of Elves, who became their folk. They lived by
12710-464: The biblical theme of the conflict between the creator Eru Ilúvatar and the fallen Vala Melkor/Morgoth , mirroring that between God and Satan . Similarly, she notes, the struggles of Elves and Men corrupted by Morgoth and his spiritual descendant Sauron echo those of Adam and Eve tempted by Satan in the Garden of Eden , and the fall of man . Flieger has observed that the splintering of the created light
12865-642: The body of Tolkien's work consisting of: These, with The Lays of Beleriand , written from 1918 onwards, comprise the different "phases" of Tolkien's Elven legendary writings, posthumously edited and published in The Silmarillion and in their original forms in Christopher Tolkien's series The History of Middle-earth . Other Tolkien scholars have used the term legendarium in a variety of contexts. Christopher Tolkien's introduction to The History of Middle-earth series talks about
13020-681: The complicated and repeated sundering of the Elves . Scholars including Flieger have noted that if Tolkien intended to create a mythology for England , in the history of Arda as told in The Silmarillion he had made it very dark. John Garth has identified his experiences in the First World War as formative; he began his Middle-earth writings at that time. Flieger suggests that Middle-earth arose not only from Tolkien's own wartime experience, but out of that of his dead schoolfriends Geoffrey Bache Smith and Rob Gilson. Janet Brennan Croft writes that Tolkien's first prose work after returning from
13175-784: The contemporary mode of seeking remote globes in 'space'... Many reviewers seem to assume that Middle-earth is another planet! In the same letter, he places the beginning of the Fourth Age some 6,000 years in the past: I imagine the gap [since the War of the Ring and the end of the Third Age] to be about 6000 years; that is we are now at the end of the Fifth Age if the Ages were of about the same length as Second Age and Third Age. But they have, I think, quickened; and I imagine we are actually at
13330-470: The continent of Aman. There they built their Second Kingdom, Valinor . Yavanna made the Two Trees , named Telperion (the silver tree) and Laurelin (the golden tree) in the land of Valinor. The Trees illuminated Valinor, leaving Middle-earth in darkness. The Years of the Trees were contemporary with Middle-earth's Sleep of Yavanna (recalled by Treebeard as the Great Darkness). The Years of
13485-508: The continents into the Earth as it now is. All the same, the old tales survive here and there, resulting in mentions of Dwarves and Elves in real Medieval literature. Thus, Tolkien's imagined mythology "is an attempt to reconstruct our pre-history." Lee and Solopova comment that "Only by understanding this can we fully realize the true scale of his project and comprehend how enormous his achievement was." Legendarium Tolkien's legendarium
13640-512: The core of human life; Schürer argues that this was unacceptable to Tolkien as a Christian. Among the many influences that scholars have proposed as possibly important on the history of Arda is Greek mythology . The disappearance of the island of Númenor recalls Atlantis . The Valar borrow many attributes from the Olympian gods . Like the Olympians, the Valar live in the world, but on
13795-626: The editor, Christopher Tolkien." Dickerson and Evans use the phrase "legendarium" to encompass the entirety of Tolkien's Middle-earth writings "for convenience". This would encompass texts such as the incomplete drafts of stories published before The History of Middle-earth in the 1980 Unfinished Tales . Shaun Gunner of The Tolkien Society has called the 2021 collection of Tolkien's previously unpublished legendarium writings The Nature of Middle-earth , edited by Carl F. Hostetter, "an unofficial 13th volume of The History of Middle-earth series". Unlike " fictional universes " constructed for
13950-527: The eldest of the elves and his clan, is similar to the name of the god Ingwi-Freyr in Norse mythology, a god who is gifted the elf-world Álfheimr . Terry Gunnell finds the relationship between beautiful ships and the Elves reminiscent of the god Njörðr and the god Freyr's ship Skíðblaðnir . He also retains the usage of the French derived term "fairy" for the same creatures. The larger Elves are inspired by Tolkien's personal Catholic theology , representing
14105-629: The end of the Sixth Age, or in the Seventh. The Tolkien scholar Richard C. West writes that one of the "very final passages" of the internal chronology of Lord of the Rings , The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen , ends not just with Arwen 's death, but the statement that her grave will remain on the hill of Cerin Amroth in what was Lothlorien "until the world is changed, and all the days of her life are utterly forgotten by men that come after ... and with
14260-413: The evil dwelling there (later known to be Sauron) fled to the far east. It lasted until T.A. 2460, when Sauron returned with new strength. During this period Gondor strengthened its borders, keeping a watchful eye on the east, as Minas Morgul was still a threat on their flank and Mordor was still occupied with Orcs . There were minor skirmishes with Umbar . In the north, Arnor was long gone, but
14415-532: The face of Númenor's might – and brought him to Númenor as a hostage, although this was Sauron's goal. At this time still beautiful in appearance, Sauron gained Ar-Pharazôn's trust and became high priest in the cult of Melkor. At this time, the Faithful (who still worshipped the one god, Eru Ilúvatar ), were persecuted openly by those called the King's Men, and were sacrificed in the name of Melkor. Eventually, Sauron convinced Ar-Pharazôn to invade Aman, promising him that he would thus obtain immortality. Amandil, chief of
14570-518: The fires of Mount Doom to control the other rings and their bearers. Celebrimbor , a grandson of Fëanor, forged three mighty rings on his own: Vilya, possessed first by the Elven king Gil-galad, then by Elrond; Nenya, wielded by Galadriel; and Narya, given by Celebrimbor to Círdan, who gave it to Gandalf. As soon as Sauron put on the One Ring, the Elves realized that they had been betrayed and removed
14725-430: The first three Ages of the Children of Ilúvatar. Major themes of the history are the divine creation of the world , followed by the splintering of the created light as different wills come into conflict. Scholars have noted the biblical echoes of God, Satan , and the fall of man here, rooted in Tolkien's own Christian faith. Arda is, as critics have noted, "our own green and solid Earth at some quite remote epoch in
14880-557: The functional place of Bilbo" as editor and collator, in his view "reinforcing the mythopoeic effect" that his father had wanted to achieve, making the published book do what Bilbo's book was meant to do, and so unintentionally realising his father's intention. Cuivi%C3%A9nen Tolkien derived Elves from mentions in the ancient poetry and languages of Northern Europe, especially Old English . These suggested to him that Elves were large, dangerous, beautiful, lived in wild natural places, and practised archery. He invented languages for
15035-455: The gods' decrees. Arda is summed up by the Tolkien scholar Paul H. Kocher as "our own green and solid Earth at some quite remote epoch in the past." Kocher notes Tolkien's statement in the Prologue, equating Middle-earth with the actual Earth, separated by a long period of time: Those days, the Third Age of Middle-earth, are now long past, and the shape of all lands has been changed; but
15190-680: The golden house of Finarfin." The Vanyar were called "The Fair" for their golden hair. Maeglin is said to have been "tall and black-haired" and "his skin was white." Túrin, a Man, was called Elf-man due to his appearance and speech, and described as "dark-haired and pale-skinned, with grey eyes." Elves, at least the Eldar, have a pregnancy that lasts about a year. By the age of 1, Elves can speak, walk and dance. Puberty and full height are attained at around their fiftieth to one hundredth year, when they stop aging physically. Elves marry freely, monogamously, only once, and for love early in life; adultery
15345-523: The greatest of the Elves, 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, feigning reform. He however spread his evil and started to poison the minds of the Elves against the Valar. Eventually he killed Finwë and stole the Silmarils. Fëanor then named him Morgoth (Sindarin: The Black Enemy ). Fëanor and his seven sons then swore to take
15500-414: The harmony of the music, until Ilúvatar began first a second theme, and then a third theme, which the Ainur could not comprehend since they were not the source of it. The essence of their song symbolized the history of the whole universe and the Children of Ilúvatar that were to dwell in it – Men and Elves . Then Ilúvatar created Eä , which means "to be," the universe itself, and formed within it Arda,
15655-445: The idea of multiple 'voices' who collected the stories over the millennia. When Tolkien published The Hobbit in 1937 (which was itself not originally intended for publication, but as a story told privately to his children), the narrative of the published text was loosely influenced by the legendarium as a context, but was not designed to be part of it. Carpenter comments that not until Tolkien began to write its sequel, The Lord of
15810-496: The introduction to Íslenzkar þjóðsögur og æfintýri ('Icelandic legends and fairy tales'). It covered stories from the 17th century onwards, noting that elves are the firstborn race; that they could marry humans; and that they lack an immortal soul. The modern English word Elf derives from the Old English word ælf (with cognates in all other Germanic languages ). Numerous types of elves appear in Germanic mythology ;
15965-481: The journey to Middle-earth. The first Kinslaying thus ensued, and the Noldor that partook were exiled indefinitely. Fëanor and his children in return swore an oath to retake the Silmarils, that the Valar turned to a curse over the house of Fëanor. Fëanor's host sailed on the boats, leaving Fingolfin's host behind – who crossed over to Middle-earth on the Helcaraxë (Grinding Ice) in the far north, losing many. The War of
16120-537: The medievalist Elizabeth Solopova make "an attempt at a summary", which runs as follows. The Silmarillion describes events "presented as factual" but taking place before Earth's actual recorded history. What happened is processed through the generations as folk-myths and legends, especially among the (Old) English. Before the Fall of Númenor , the world was flat. In the Fall, it became round; further geological events reshaped
16275-691: The middle, where the light of the lamps mingled, the Valar dwelt at the island of Almaren upon the Great Lake. This period, known as the Spring of Arda, was a time when the Valar had ordered the World as they wished and rested upon Almaren, and Melkor lurked beyond the Walls of Night. During this time animals first appeared, and forests started to grow. The Spring of Arda was interrupted when Melkor returned to Arda, creating his fortress of Utumno (Udûn) beneath
16430-408: The modern world can emerge from the wreckage, with nothing but " a word or two , a few vague legends and confused traditions..." to show for it. West praises and quotes Kocher on Tolkien's imagined prehistory and the implied process of fading to lead from fantasy to the modern world: At the end of his epic Tolkien inserts ... some forebodings of [Middle-earth's] future which will make Earth what it
16585-608: 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". Tolkien's Sundering of the Elves allowed him to explain the existence of Norse mythology 's Light Elves, who live in Alfheim ("Elfhome") and correspond to his Calaquendi, and Dark Elves, who live underground in Svartalfheim ("Black Elfhome") and whom he "rehabilitates" as his Moriquendi,
16740-429: The more serious 'medieval' type of elves, such as Elrond and the wood-elf king, Thranduil , and frivolous elves, such as the elvish guards at Rivendell . In 1937, having had his manuscript for The Silmarillion rejected by a publisher who disparaged all the "eye-splitting Celtic names" that Tolkien had given his Elves, Tolkien denied the names had a Celtic origin: Needless to say they are not Celtic! Neither are
16895-678: The most complete of Tolkien's constructed languages. Elves are also credited with creating the Tengwar (by Fëanor) and Cirth (Daeron) scripts. Elves are immortal, and remain unwearied with age . They can recover from wounds which would be fatal to a Man, but can be killed in battle. 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. If they do not die in battle or accident, Elves eventually grow weary of Middle-earth and desire to go to Valinor; they often sail from
17050-585: The name for the first two volumes of The History of Middle-earth , which include these early texts. Tolkien never completed The Book of Lost Tales ; he left it to compose the poems " The Lay of Leithian " (in 1925) and " The Lay of the Children of Húrin " (possibly as early as 1918). The first complete version of The Silmarillion was the "Sketch of the Mythology" written in 1926 (later published in Volume IV of The History of Middle-earth ). The "Sketch"
17205-453: The narrative framing device of an Anglo-Saxon mariner named Ælfwine or Eriol or Ottor Wǽfre who finds the island of Tol Eressëa , where the Elves live, and the Elves tell him their history. He collects, translates from Old English , and writes the mythology that appears in The History of Middle-earth . Ælfwine means "Elf-friend" in Old English; men whose names have the same meaning, such as Alboin, Alwin, and Elendil , were to appear in
17360-508: The nature of evil in Arda , the origin of Orcs , the customs of the Elves , the nature and means of Elvish rebirth, the "flat" world, and the story of the Sun and Moon. In any event, with one or two exceptions, he made little change to the narratives during the remaining years of his life. The scholar Verlyn Flieger writes that Tolkien thought of his legendarium as a presented collection, with
17515-539: The now-empty land of Lórien where she died. Upon the death of Aragorn, Legolas departed Middle-earth for Valinor, taking Gimli with him and ending the Fellowship of the Ring in Middle-earth. Tolkien once considered writing a sequel to The Lord of the Rings , called The New Shadow , which would have taken place in Eldarion's reign, and in which Eldarion deals with his people turning to evil practices – in effect,
17670-518: The overlapping of different and sometimes contradictory accounts was central to his desired effect. Nagy notes that Tolkien went so far as to create facsimile pages from the Dwarves' Book of Mazarbul that is found by the Fellowship in Moria . Further, Tolkien was a philologist ; Nagy comments that Tolkien may have been intentionally imitating the philological style of Elias Lönnrot , compiler of
17825-429: The passing of [Arwen] Evenstar no more is said in this book of the days of old." West observes that this points up a "highly unusual" aspect of Tolkien's legendarium among modern fantasy: it is set "in the real world but in an imagined prehistory." As a result, West explains, Tolkien can build what he likes in that distant past, elves and wizards and hobbits and all the rest, provided that he tears it all down again, so that
17980-404: The past." As such, it has not only an immediate story but a history, and the whole thing is an "imagined prehistory" of the Earth as it is now. The supreme deity of Tolkien's universe is Eru Ilúvatar . Ilúvatar created spirits named the Ainur from his thoughts, and some were considered brothers or sisters. Ilúvatar made divine music with them. Melkor , then the most powerful of the Ainur, broke
18135-537: The period is problematic, having only one finished tale, the Atlantis -style Akallabêth . He proposes that Tolkien wanted to link the First Age (most of the content of the 1977 The Silmarillion ) with the Third Age (of The Lord of the Rings ) by joining them together with a central period. In his view, this could not work for Tolkien, because the Second Age centred on "the failure, decline, and corruption" at
18290-584: The published Silmarillion , where the eventual fate of Arda is left open-ended in the closing lines of the Quenta Silmarillion . Scholars, noting that Tolkien was a devout Catholic , have stated that the Ainulindalë creation myth echoes the Christian account of creation . Brian Rosebury calls its prose "appropriately 'scriptural'". Verlyn Flieger cites Tolkien's poem Mythopoeia ("Creation of Myth"), where he speaks of "man, sub-creator,
18445-445: The purpose of writing and publishing popular fiction, Tolkien's legendarium for a long period was a private project, concerned with questions of philology , cosmology , theology and mythology. His biographer Humphrey Carpenter writes that although by 1923 Tolkien had almost completed The Book of Lost Tales , "it was almost as if he did not want to finish it", beginning instead to rewrite it; he suggests that Tolkien may have doubted if
18600-514: The recent war. However, Elven kingdoms still survived in Lindon, Lothlórien , and Mirkwood . Rivendell also became a prominent haven for the Elves and other races. Throughout the Age, they chose not to mingle much in the matters of other lands, and only came to the aid of other races in time of war. The Elves devoted themselves to artistic pleasures, and tended to the lands which they occupied. The gradual decline of Elven populations occurred throughout
18755-621: The refracted light / through whom is splintered from a single White / to many hues, and endlessly combined / in living shapes". She analyses in detail the successive splintering of the original created light, via the Two Lamps, the Two Trees, and the Silmarils, as the wills of different beings conflict. She states that for Tolkien, this creative light was equated with the Christian Logos , the Divine Word. Jane Chance remarks on
18910-757: The regions in which Hobbits then lived were doubtless the same as those in which they still linger: the North-West of the Old World , east of the Sea . Of their original home the Hobbits in Bilbo’s time preserved no knowledge. In a letter written in 1958, Tolkien states that while the time is invented, the place, planet Earth, is not (italics in original): I have, I suppose, constructed an imaginary time , but kept my feet on my own mother-earth for place . I prefer that to
19065-420: The remade Arda being equated with Earth. With the loss of all its peoples except Man, and the reshaping of the continents, all that is left of Middle-earth is a dim memory in folklore , legend , and old words . Tolkien estimated that the Fourth Age began approximately 6,000 years ago, and that we would now be in the 6th or 7th Age. In a letter, Tolkien wrote that "This legendarium [ The Silmarillion ] ends with
19220-550: The rivers, and invented poetry and music in Middle-earth . Journeying further, they came across tall and dark-haired elves, the fathers of most of the Noldor. They invented many new words. Continuing their journey, they found elves singing without language, the ancestors of most of the Teleri. The elves were discovered by the Vala Oromë , who brought the news of their awakening to Valinor. The Valar decided to summon
19375-526: The ruin brought on his armies by the Númenóreans, and made it his goal to destroy them. Towards the end of the age, the Númenóreans became increasingly haughty. Now they sought to dominate other men and to establish kingdoms. Centuries after Tar-Minastir's engagement, when Sauron had largely recovered, Ar-Pharazôn, the last and most powerful of the Kings of Númenor , humbled Sauron – his armies deserting in
19530-468: The same names" as Tolkien worked on his conception of the elves and their divisions and migrations. He states that the sundering of the elves allowed Tolkien, a professional philologist , to develop two languages, distinct but related, Quenya for the Eldar and Sindarin for the Sindar, citing Tolkien's own statement that the stories were made to create a world for the languages, not the reverse. Dickerson cites
19685-403: The sexual act as special and intimate, for it leads to the birth of children. Elves who are married cannot be forced by other Elves to have sex; before that they will lose the will to endure and go to Mandos . Elves have few children, and there are long intervals between each child. They are soon preoccupied with other pleasures; their libido wanes and they focus their interests elsewhere, like
19840-762: The shores of the Anduin. After Elessar's death, Legolas built a ship and sailed to Valinor and, eventually, all the elves in Ithilien followed him. 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. Arwen flees to an abandoned Lothlórien, where she dies. Tolkien describes elves as "tall, fair of skin and grey-eyed, though their locks were dark, save in
19995-664: The siege in the Dagor Bragollach ("Battle of Sudden Flame"). The Elves, Men, and Dwarves were all disastrously defeated in the Nírnaeth Arnoediad ("Battle of Unnumbered Tears"), and one by one, the kingdoms fell, even the hidden ones of Doriath and Gondolin . At the end of the age, all that remained of free Elves and Men in Beleriand was a settlement at the mouth of the River Sirion and another on
20150-580: The sixth or seventh age. The First Age of the Children of Ilúvatar ( Eruhíni ) began during the Years of the Trees when the Elves awoke in Cuiviénen in the middle-east of Middle-earth . This marked the start of the years when the Children of Ilúvatar were active in Middle-earth. The First Age of the Children of Ilúvatar, also referred to as the Elder Days in The Lord of the Rings , began during
20305-623: The sons of Elrond, did not accompany their father when the White Ship bearing the Ring-bearer and the chief Noldorin leaders sailed from the Grey Havens to Valinor; they remained in Lindon. Celeborn and other elves of the Grey Havens remained for a while before leaving for Valinor. Legolas founded an elf colony in Ithilien during King Elessar 's reign; the elves there helped to rebuild Gondor , living mainly in southern Ithilien, along
20460-473: The start of The Hobbit ' s composition. With the success of The Lord of the Rings , Tolkien in the late 1950s returned to the Silmarillion, planning to revise the material of his legendarium into a form "fit for publication", a task which kept him occupied until his death in 1973, without attaining a completed state. The legendarium has indeed been called "a jumble of overlapping and often competing stories, annals, and lexicons." Much of his later writing
20615-627: The state of Men in Eden who have not yet fallen , like humans but fairer and wiser, with greater spiritual powers, keener senses, and a closer empathy with nature. Tolkien wrote of them: "They are made by man in his own image and likeness; but freed from those limitations which he feels most to press upon him. They are immortal, and their will is directly effective for the achievement of imagination and desire." In The Book of Lost Tales , Tolkien includes both more serious "medieval" elves such as Fëanor and Turgon alongside frivolous, Jacobean elves such as
20770-421: The synonymous noun legendary date from 1513. The Middle English South English Legendary is an example of this form of the noun. Tolkien described his works as a "legendarium" in four letters from 1951 to 1955, a period in which he was attempting to have his unfinished Silmarillion published alongside the more complete The Lord of the Rings . On the Silmarillion, he wrote in 1951, "This legendarium ends with
20925-422: The tales. 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 have bright colour, but are like a broken stained glass window reassembled without design. They are in fact "mad" as your reader says – but I don't believe I am. Dimitra Fimi proposes that these comments are a product of his Anglophilia rather than
21080-497: The task. Tolkien's son Christopher chose portions of his late father's vast collection of unpublished material and shaped them into The Silmarillion (1977), a semi-chronological and semi-complete narrative of the mythical world and its origins. The sales were sufficient to enable him to work on and publish many volumes of his father's legendarium stories and drafts; some were presented as completed tales, while others illustrated his father's complex creative process. Tolkien research ,
21235-406: The term elf over fairy . In his 1939 essay On Fairy-Stories , Tolkien wrote that "English words such as elf have long been influenced by French (from which fay and faërie , fairy are derived); but in later times, through their use in translation, fairy and elf have acquired much of the atmosphere of German, Scandinavian, and Celtic tales, and many characteristics of the huldu-fólk ,
21390-539: 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. One of the last of the Victorian Fairy-paintings , The Piper of Dreams by Estella Canziani , sold 250,000 copies and was well known within the trenches of World War I where Tolkien saw active service. Illustrated posters of Robert Louis Stevenson 's poem Land of Nod had been sent out by
21545-464: The time of The Lord of the Rings , Sauron had recovered, and was seeking the One Ring. The events of the ensuing War of the Ring leading to the end of the Third Age is the subject of The Lord of the Rings , and summarized in Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age . After the defeat of Sauron, Aragorn takes his place as King of the Reunited Kingdom of Arnor and Gondor , restoring the line of Kings from
21700-505: The two unfinished time travel novels, The Lost Road in 1936 and The Notion Club Papers in 1945, as the protagonists reappeared in each of several different times. There is no such framework in the published version of The Silmarillion , but the Narn i Hîn Húrin is introduced with the note "Here begins that tale which Ǽlfwine made from the Húrinien ." Tolkien never fully dropped
21855-671: The underground enslavement of the Noldoli to Melkor, Tolkien was essentially rewriting Irish myth regarding the Tuatha Dé Danann into a Christian eschatology . 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 that appear in English are meant to be his purported translations from
22010-408: The upper hand, finally losing the hidden kingdoms Nargothrond , Doriath , and Gondolin near the culmination of the war. When the Elves had been forced to the furthest southern reaches of Beleriand, Eärendil the Mariner , a half-elf from the House of Finwë , sailed to Valinor to ask the Valar for help. The Valar started the War of Wrath , finally defeating Morgoth. After the War of Wrath,
22165-436: The vales of the Anduin , and, led by Lenwë, became the Nandor, who spoke Nandorin. 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, Tol Eressëa, that was moved by Ulmo to Valinor. After years, Ulmo returned to Beleriand to seek out the remaining Teleri. Without Elwë, many of
22320-412: The war was The Fall of Gondolin , and that it is "full of extended and terrifying scenes of battle"; she notes that the streetfighting is described over 16 pages. The Tolkien scholar Norbert Schürer notes the 2022 book The Fall of Númenor and the Amazon television series The Rings of Power , both about the Second Age, and asks what the period signifies for the legendarium as a whole. In his view,
22475-484: The whole legendarium", equating the legendarium with the Silmarillion (which with italics denotes the 1977 book published under that name, and without italics means the larger body of un-edited drafts used to create that work). In the J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia , David Bratman writes that " The History of Middle-earth is a longitudinal study of the development and elaboration of Tolkien's legendarium through his transcribed manuscripts, with textual commentary by
22630-444: Was a 28-page synopsis written to explain the background of the story of Túrin to R. W. Reynolds, a friend to whom Tolkien had sent several of the stories. From the "Sketch" Tolkien developed a fuller narrative version of The Silmarillion called Quenta Noldorinwa (also included in Volume IV). The Quenta Noldorinwa was the last version of The Silmarillion that Tolkien completed. The stories in The Book of Lost Tales employ
22785-424: Was associated both with neolithic flint arrowheads and the temptations of the devil. Tolkien takes "elf-shot" as a hint to make his elves skilful in archery. Another danger was wæterælfádl , " water-elf disease ", perhaps meaning dropsy , while a third condition was ælfsogoða , "elf-pain", glossed by Shippey as "lunacy". All the same, an Icelandic woman could be frið sem álfkona , "fair as an elf-woman", while
22940-414: Was changed into a sphere and the continent of Aman was removed, although the Old Straight Road , a sailing route from Middle-earth to Aman, accessible to the Elves but not to mortals, persisted. Númenor was utterly destroyed, as was the fair body of Sauron; however, his spirit returned to Mordor , where he again took up the One Ring, and gathered his strength once more. Elendil, his sons and the remainder of
23095-407: Was escaping from an Orc ambush at the Gladden Fields . Isildur was killed by an orc arrow, and the Ring was lost in the Anduin River . The Third Age lasted for 3021 years, beginning with the defeat of Sauron at the hands of the Last Alliance of Elves and Men following the downfall of Númenor , and ending with the War of the Ring and final defeat of Sauron, the events narrated in The Lord of
23250-442: Was however concerned more with the theological and philosophical underpinnings of the work, rather than with the narratives themselves. By this time, he had doubts about fundamental aspects of the work that went back to the earliest versions of the stories, and it seems that he felt the need to resolve these problems before he could produce the "final" version of The Silmarillion . During this time he wrote extensively on such topics as
23405-401: Was inconsistent on this point. Tolkien created many languages for his 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 "Elfin" or "Qenya" [sic]. This was later spelled Quenya (High-elven); it and Sindarin (Grey-elven) are
23560-407: Was later the inland Sea of Helcar, of which Cuiviénen was a bay. At the site of the southern lamp was later the Sea of Ringil . After the destruction of the Two Lamps the Years of the Lamps ended and the Years of the Trees began. A Valian Year was considerably longer than a solar year. After the destruction of the Two Lamps and the kingdom of Almaren , the Valar abandoned Middle-earth , moving to
23715-410: Was the first time after the Spring of Arda that Middle-earth was illuminated. The first Elves awoke in Cuiviénen in the middle of Middle-earth, marking the start of the First Age of the Children of Ilúvatar , and were soon approached by the Enemy Melkor who hoped to enslave them. Learning of this, the Valar and the Maiar came into Middle-earth and, in the War of the Powers (also called the Battle of
23870-416: Was the only real claim to 'nobility' that the Men of Middle-earth could have. Tolkien wrote that the elves are primarily to blame for many of the ills of Middle-earth in The Lord of the Rings , having independently created the Three Rings to stop their domains in mortal-lands from ' fading ' and attempting to prevent inevitable change and new growth. The first Elves were awakened by Eru Ilúvatar near
24025-405: Was utterly defeated. He was expelled into the Void and most of his works were destroyed, bringing the First Age to an end. This came at a terrible cost, however, as most of Beleriand itself was sunk. The Second Age is characterized by the establishment and flourishing of Númenor , the rise of Sauron in Middle-earth, the creation of the Rings of Power and the Ringwraiths , and the early wars of
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