Q: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions about Tolkien Elves
Properly answering the following questions really doesn’t call for long blog posts. So I thought I would publish a simple FAQ-like document.
Q: Are Tolkien’s Elves Immortal?
ANSWER: Yes and no. Most attempts to answer this question give you either the “yes” or the “no” version of the full answer.
Yes, Tolkien’s elves are immortal because their spirits or souls (what many fans call fëar because J.R.R. Tolkien used that term in his private notes) continue to exist within the confines of the universe for all time. They never leave.
No, Tolkien’s elves are NOT immortal because their bodies can be killed and if that doesn’t happen they eventually fade, a process which Tolkien didn’t fully explain. We are sure that a fully faded elf is just a “houseless spirit”, a ghost. I don’t know if anyone has ever speculated on what a partially faded elf would be. Tolkien didn’t say.
I suspect he might have settled on a state of flickering between full corporeality and a sort of transparentness, leading gradually to more transparentness followed by full invisibility. As we know from everything about the Nazgûl, they could interact with the physical world if they were cloaked. We don’t know if there was any magic in the cloaks but apparently they needed magic to “knit [their] unseen sinews” to their wills.
Q: Are Tolkien’s Elves Vegetarian?
ANSWER: Only the Green-elves of Ossiriand swore off eating any meat. The Noldor and the Silvan Elves of northern Mirkwood are explicitly stated in the stories to have enjoyed hunting animals.
Hence the vast majority of Elves appear to be meat-eaters and for some strange reason many fans came to the wrong conclusion about them.
Q: How Tall Are Tolkien Elves?
ANSWER: Like Men they start out as babies and grow to varying heights. They tend to be somewhat taller than Men on average.
In one passage Tolkien says Aragorn was about the same height as Galadriel (six feet and six inches tall). She was a very ancient Noldorin woman so take that for what it’s worth.
Elendil the Tall was much taller than Aragorn, and he carried the sword Narsil, which had been made by Telchar the Dwarf in the First Age – apparently for an elf-lord. Narsil would have been too long for Aragorn to wield easily (unless he had great strength, which he might have). When Elrond’s smiths reforged Narsil into Anduril they would have made a sword of proper size and shape for him.
Q: What Were Tolkien Elves Based On?
ANSWER: There are many theories about what Tolkien’s elves were based on. I don’t think he had a single source in mind. They probably reflect a blend of:
- Anglo-Saxon and Celtic myths
- Catholic traditions
- Philologists and polymaths
There are so many theories about inspirations for Tolkien elfdom I can’t cover them all properly. Someone just published a new bit of research arguing that there was a strong Anglo-Saxon source for Tolkien’s Elves.
We know from “The Shibboleth of Fëanor” that he modeled the rift among the Noldor on real-world linguistic community rifts. There aren’t many Elves in Norse or Germanic myth who draw up sides on the basis of how to pronounce a certain word or consonant.
The concept of shibboleth is Biblical, in that the Bible says the Israelites identified Ephraimites by the way they pronounced the Hebrew word shibbólet. This wasn’t done because people objected to the way the Ephramites spoke. It happened because the Ephraimites attacked the Gileadites, and the Gileadites seized a river the Ephraimites had to cross.
Well, how do you tell friend from foe?
Ask him to pronounce a word you know he won’t say properly if his native dialect is different from yours.
The Fëanorian story says that Fëanor and his followers chose to use a different (more conservative) pronunciation than other Noldor, who allowed their language to evolve.
Q: Did J.R.R. Tolkien Invent Elves?
ANSWER: This question seems to imply “tall, beautiful elvish people”.
No, Tolkien did not invent that archetype. It existed in ancient European folklore long before he was born. Scholars disagree on which traditions most influenced Tolkien. I’ve even seen arguments positing that he drew upon eastern European folklore.
Tolkien popularized the tall, intelligent, beautiful elf archetype – and that subsequently became a stereotype among fantasy authors and game designers. To offset that stereotype they introduced dark elves, which are totally unlike Tolkien’s dark elves.
Q: Can Elves Have Babies?
ANSWER: Yes. They never stopped having them.
The elf population of Middle-earth declined because of all their wars. Many of the Elves who survived the wars simply fled over Sea.
The last great elf migration occurs in the years after Bilbo’s Party. The narrative says that many elves pass through the Shire on their ways to the Grey Havens, never to be seen again.
When Elrond says at his council that he doesn’t have an army with which to oppose Sauron, it’s because a large part of his remaining people had departed.
Q: Can Elves Marry Humans?
ANSWER: Yes. There were more than three such marriages and Tolkien never said or implied there were any laws against such marriage. It’s just that they didn’t happen very often. And he only wrote about such marriages if he could compose a story about them.
One of his posthumously published stories, the “Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth”, reveals that one of Finrod’s brothers fell in love with Andreth (an Edainic woman).
Q: Do Tolkien Elves Have Pale Skin?
ANSWER: Some of them have pale skin. We know of at least two Noldor who had ruddy skin, and in one passage it is suggested (perhaps as an insult) that Eöl had a darker complexion than other elves (perhaps because of his constant smithing).
Q: Do Tolkien Elves Have Pointy Ears?
No more so than Men, despite all the convoluted (and often misleading) arguments you’ll see among fans. See below for a link to the full discussion (so this really wasn’t a short answer).
The short answer is this: There is no story BY J.R.R. Tolkien in which he describes any Elf as having “pointed ears”, and the letter he wrote to Houghton Mifflin (prior to publication of ANY of his stories) comparing Bilbo’s ears to “elf ears” doesn’t in any way apply to the ears of HIS elves (of which the people at Houghton Mifflin had no descriptions mentioning pointy ears).
Finally, the note in “Etymologies” about Elvish ears being more leaf-shaped than human [???] was an abandoned note that never had any impact on the stories he wrote or revised after he scribbled that note. Nor did Tolkien ever mention pointy elf ears in any of his correspondence with readers about The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.
So, again, NO, Tolkien elves do not have pointy ears no matter how much people stamp their feet and cherry-pick their citations.
Q: Do Tolkien Elves Have Beards?
ANSWER: Yes, the male elves grow beards late in life. This was always evident in The Lord of the Rings from two characters:
Cirdan is depicted as having a long grey beard. Despite his late introduction in the story, many readers insisted his beard must have been a mistake. Tolkien had plenty of time to think about that beard.
Gandalf (a Maia, not an Elf) has a beard. His “northern” name is translated as elf of the wand (staff). This is a real Norse name (for a dwarf). The fact that northern men called him “the Elf of the Wand” (a translation Tolkien himself provided in the appendices) should have made clear that Gandalf was believed to be an elf by most people in the north. And contrary to what some people say, Elves were quite common in the area of Middle-earth when Gandalf earned that name (in the middle of the Third Age). They didn’t become scarce until the end of the Third Age.
Unfortunately people latched on to a partially explained note about “the beardlessness of elves” as proof that Cirdan’s beard and Gandalf’s name didn’t mean anything.
This article is featured in the Middle-earth Blog Hot Zone.See Also
How Many Elf-Man Marriages Were There In Middle-earth?
Do Tolkien Elves Have Pointy Ears?
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Have you read our other Tolkien and Middle-earth Questions and Answers articles?
I seem to recall something about beardlessness among Men being a sign of their being of partial Elvish descent but I don’t recall anything about Elves being beardless.
Tim, it’s basically the same text, partially cited in Unfinished Tales and provided more fully in one of the texts published in Vinyar Tengwar issue 41 (year 2000). See the article I linked to above, “Why Does Cirdan Have a Beard?” for full details.
I’ll agree that Tolkien’s elves didn’t have pointed ears, because he said so. Case closed.
However, there is a justification for them, biologically, even if they start out the same as mortal ears.
Two body parts that never stop growing are the nose and the ears, although growth slows dramatically at maturity. If the Elves’ continued growing for their lifespan, they would be huge. Thus, they must stop completely at some time. It wouldn’t be hard to have the ears develop a pointed shape as they ended their growing period. This would probably be at a few hundred years old, which is why mortals keep their round ears until death.
In the pointy ear article I link to above you can see pictures of real human ears that are quite pointed and “elf-like”.
We don’t know how much attention Tolkien really paid to the idea. He mentioned it in one faint entry in “Etymologies” but never returned to it – certainly not in any stories. As with so many other ideas he experimented with, he abandoned the concept.
I suspect he did so because he wanted to differentiate his elves from the cute little fairy folk he had once written about.
The “elves are vegetarians” thing has always floored me as a stereotype given that the other big elf stereotype is that they’re all great archers. I mean, c’mon. Here’s where I look at the camera like I’m on The Office.
Gandalf is NOT an elf, dude. He’s a Maia, which is an entirely different thing; he’s on a whole other level. Remember he fought a balrog, for crying out loud; no elf could do that.
Wizards / istari in Tolkein are of a race called maia. The Encyclopedia of Arda covers this.
http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/g/gandalf.html
Yes, Gandalf is a Maia but the name given to him by northern Men means “elf of the wand”, implying they believed he was an elf.
….but that belief was incorrect, clearly, and so his beard doesn’t tell us anything about the ability of Elves to grow beards.
Even though they didn’t know that he was a Maia, the name itself implies that they felt elves could grow beards. Cirdan’s beard must have been around for a while because it was so long. By inference, there must have been other bearded elves in Middle-earth (even if not many).
It’s just one of several clues Tolkien provides his readers. The idea that elves were beardless is a fan myth that arose from Christopher Tolkien’s incomplete explanation of the “note” he cited.
Another fan argument against beards assumes that Numenorean kings didn’t have beards. But the statue head that Frodo and Sam saw as they approached Mordor (by the crossroad in Ithilien) had a beard – so clearly Numenorean kings of Elrosian descent in Gondor could grow beards.
Beards/beardlessness is one of those details that authors tend to leave to the reader’s imagination. Cultures have differing attitudes about beards, and those attitudes generally shift over time. Why commit to a particular, shifting cultural stereotype if it’s not necessary for the overall story arc?
Still, we know dwarves have a thing for beards. Perhaps they’re too busy mining to worry much about personal appearance?
Ents? Just ask Treebeard.
Hobbits? As was said of the residents of the Eastfarthing, “But they were well known to be Stoors in a large part of their blood, as indeed was shown by the down that many grew on their chins. No Harfoot or Fallohide had any trace of a beard.”
Bombadil has a long, brown beard.
Few words are said of any Man’s, Elf’s, or Orc’s facial hair. We know that Butterbur is bald, but we don’t know if he compensates for that lack elsewhere. Perhaps ancient law had something to say about beards on foodservice workers, but no mention of that, either.
Strider has “…a shaggy head of dark hair flecked with gray, and in a pale stern face a pair of keen gray eyes.” No explicit mention of facial hair is made for he, Boromir, Faramir, or Denethor. Their faces are described as “carven,” or “stern and commanding,” but no mention of whether “dark, deep eyes” were framed by whiskers. We do know that Théoden’s beard “…was laid like snow upon his knees” when he was introduced to us in his frailty. Did he ride that way to Helm’s Deep and the Pelennor Fields, or did he pause for a trim at the Edoras Spa?
Elves? Here’s what’s said of Círdan, “Very tall he was, and his beard was long…” To me, “his beard” implies that beards were common, but we each see what we want to see.
That line comes at nearly the end of LoTR, so it’s too late to shake a mental image we’ve developed over many chapters. But what if Gildor Inglorion had been described as bearded as he and Frodo conferred above Woodhall? Our entire concept of Elves might have evolved differently.
As to the Istari? As Maiar, they walked Middle-earth in mortal guise, but whatever their chosen appearance I think it was intended to convey high status. The Istari wouldn’t want to seem inferior to either Elf or Man. They were tall (a traditional mark of authority) with long gray or white beards (a mark of wisdom/age). I’d think Saruman would have preferred to appear more like an Elf-Lord than a Dúnadan, so if Elf-Lords were beardless, then Saruman would be, too. Yet, “His hair and beard were white, but strands of black still showed about his lips and ears.”
Overall, the thread throughout this is that, with the exception of the Stoors’ “down,” every beard worthy of mention is long. I think Tolkien was more interested in connoting age and wisdom than making an overall comment on the ability to grow facial hair.
Yes, in some quarters Mithrandir is “elf of the wand,” (I don’t recall Gandalf doing wand-work, unless one considers a staff to be a wand), but “Elf” could refer entirely to his longevity and powers, rather than appearance. Still, his beard did not disqualify him from Elvishness in the eyes of Men.
Ironically, although I have a beard, I’ve tended to think of the vast majority of Tolkien’s Men and Elves as clean-shaven. This is despite the impracticality of maintaining that look while on a long trek through Eriador, Rohan, or Gondor. Cold water, a nicked hunting knife, and no mirror? No thanks! I have access to far better tools, and still avoid the act.
It all comes down to cultural norms. Even if we might think of the Rangers as bearded outdoorsmen with travel-stained cloaks, Elves have an ethereal, teflon-coated image – designer wardrobe to take out the trash; not a hair out of place. Boyish good looks, even when their eyes have the wisdom of the ages.
This is not precisely on the topic since it involves hobbits and the Valar, but the Harfoots (Harfeet?) and Fallohides are mentioned as being beardless in the LOTR. Also Tulkas is described as having a golden beard in the Silmarillion. In the LOTR Legolas bows to Prince Imrahil as one who is of elven descent. I had remembered there was a mention of Imrahil or his people being beardless, but I did not find any such reference.
On a second point, the “immortality” of the Elves: Elves do age, of course, but is it possible that their aging and appearance is somewhat under their own control? Once grown, they don’t seem to have a clear biological clock. Galadriel, who was born in Valinor long before the First Age began, is of great beauty (not necessarily young but certainly not old in appearance.) Celeborn has long silver hair, but there is no sign of age on him (LOTR). He is a kinsman of Thingol but is unclear if he is older than Galadriel. Elrond, who was born late in First Age, is described as being ageless, neither young nor old, but strong in appearance. Círdan was born in Middle-Earth before the Elves journeyed to Valinor, so he is somewhat older. He appears old and has a long beard.
“For the Elves die not till the world dies, unless they are slain or waste in grief (and to both these seeming deaths they are subject); neither does age subdue their strength, unless one grow weary of ten thousand centuries; and dying they are gathered to the halls of Mandos in Valinor, whence they may in time return.” So it would seem Elves have true immortality, not just a very long lifespan, unless they are killed or choose to die (as Finwë’s first wife Miriel.)
“I had remembered there was a mention of Imrahil or his people being beardless, but I did not find any such reference.”
The reference exists but is found in Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-earth. As I mentioned in the article, Christopher Tolkien only partially cited it. We get more information about Imrahil’s family and elf life-cycles in other sources, including a Vinyar Tengwar article (a newsletter for linguists interested in Tolkien’s previously unpublished notes and essays) and The Peoples of Middle-earth. When I wrote this article I thought it would be enough to link to older articles that explain these things in greater detail. It appears I should have been more thorough in my citations.
“Elves do age, of course, but is it possible that their aging and appearance is somewhat under their own control?”
According to the Vinyar Tengwar article I mentioned, male elves have three life cycles. Childhood is presumably the first. The second cycle is a period of long-lasting youth-like vigor. And the third cycle corresponds to advanced age (presumably followed by fading). They normally grew beards in the third cycle of life. Fëanor’s father-in-law, Mahtan, grew a beard during the second cycle of life in Valinor.
And because they are doomed to fade their bodies are not immortal. This was something Tolkien wrote about in several places. Their eventual fading was the reason why they desired to make Rings of Power in the first place. They were trying to stave off natural death as they knew it.
I always found it a bit questionable for the very tall elves and men (like Elendil and Maedhros) to exist and I wondered if Tolkien (or Pengolodh) may have exaggerated a little. People like Elendil were over 7 feet tall, that would have made it extremely hard to find a wife. Galadriel was tall for a woman 6’4″, that means the majority of other women (elvish or mannish) would have been shorter.
As for Eöl, I always assumed he was called “dark elf” because he had never seen the light of the two trees. But I might be wrong.