Q: All Wood-elves Live in Trees?
ANSWER: Many readers ask if J.R.R. Tolkien described the homes of the Wood-elves. A lot of people assume that the Wood-elves refrained from cutting wood or hunting animals. Hence, where did they live and what did they eat are common questions. Unfortunately, these questions arise from a misidentification of the Green-elves of Ossiriand with the Wood-elves of Lothlorien and Mirkwood.
Tolkien did not write much about the Green-elves, but most of what readers know of them has been published in The Silmarillion, such as:
In Ossiriand dwelt the Green-elves, in the protection of their rivers; for after Sirion Ulmo loved Gelion above all the waters of the western world. The woodcraft of the Elves of Ossiriand was such that a stranger might pass through their land from end to end and see none of them. They were clad in green in spring and summer, and the sound of their singing could be heard even across the waters of Gelion; wherefore the Noldor named that country Lindon, the land of music, and the mountains beyond they named Ered Lindon, for they first saw them from Ossiriand.
One of the few other references to the customs of the Green-elves is found in the chapter “Of the Coming of Men Into the West”:
In a valley among the foothills of the mountains, below the springs of Thalos, he saw lights in the evening, and far off he heard the sound of song. At this he wondered much, for the Green-elves of that land lit no fires, nor did they sing by night.
And a little further on:
Now the Green-elves of Ossiriand were troubled by the coming of Men, and when they heard that a lord of the Eldar from over the Sea was among them they sent messengers to Felagund. ’Lord, they said, if you have power over these newcomers, bid them return by the ways that they came, or else to go forward. For we desire no strangers in this land to break the peace in which we live. And these folk are hewers of trees and hunters of beasts; therefore we are their unfriends, and if they will not depart we shall afflict them in all ways that we can.
These passages do not explain what the Green-elves ate, or how they made their homes, or how they even made their weapons. They apparently do not hunt or cut wood, although they welcomed the Noldorin princes who hunted and chopped down trees. Nonetheless, it is largely on the basis of this passage that many people feel that “wood-elves” in Tolkien do not hunt or cut down trees.
And yet, we know from The Hobbit that Thranduil’s people went out to hunt often. Also, they lit fires for their feasts (unlike the Green-elves). And Bilbo raided a village of the “raft-elves” in the forest for food while the Dwarves were left miserable and suffering in their barrels. It should be clear from The Hobbit, at least, that the Elves of northern Mirkwood were very unlike their distant (and ancient) cousins the Green-elves of Ossiriand. Thranduil and many of his retainers or companions lived in a great underground fortress, which was inspired by the great underground Beleriandic fortress cities of Menegroth and Nargothrond.
But even in The Lord of the Rings it is clear that the Elves of Lorien have practices different from those of the Green-elves. The first of the Galadhrim the reader encounters are Haldir and his brothers, Rumil and Orophin. They are march-wardens and they have a pair of flets (wooden platforms built high in the trees) from which they observe all that happens on the borders of their forest. When they bring the Fellowship up to their flets for the night the elves provide skins and blankets to keep the weary travelers warm. They also have lanterns similar to those used by Gildor and his Noldorin companions.
When the Fellowship is taken to Caras Galadhon they enter the city by its main gate:
Suddenly they came out into the open again and found themselves under a pale evening sky pricked by a few early stars. There was a wide treeless space before them, running in a great circle and bending away on either hand. Beyond it was a deep fosse lost in soft shadow, but the grass upon its brink was green, as if it glowed still in memory of the sun that had gone. Upon the further side there rose to a great height a green wall encircling a green hill thronged with mallorn-trees taller than any they had yet seen in all the land. Their height could not be guessed, but they stood up in the twilight like living towers. In their many-tiered branches and amid their ever-moving leaves countless lights were gleaming, green and gold and silver. Haldir turned towards the Company.
`Welcome to Caras Galadhon! ‘ he said. ‘Here is the city of the Galadhrim where dwell the Lord Celeborn and Galadriel the Lady of Lórien. But we cannot enter here, for the gates do not look northward. We must go round to the southern side, and the way is not short, for the city is great.’
There was a road paved with white stone running on the outer brink of the fosse. Along this they went westward, with the city ever climbing up like a green cloud upon their left; and as the night deepened more lights sprang forth, until all the hill seemed afire with stars. They came at last to a white bridge, and crossing found the great gates of the city: they faced south-west, set between the ends of the encircling wall that here overlapped, and they were tall and strong, and hung with many lamps.
At this point the reader has been shown that a very large population of Elves live together in a city built from trees, but the city is approached by a “white bridge” and a stone-paved road. Although the green wall’s material is not described, the gates are attached to it. We are not informed of what the gates are made but Haldir knocks on them to seek admittance. The Fellowship’s journey through the city is described as briefly as their walk around its western perimeter:
They went along many paths and climbed many stairs, until they came to the high places and saw before them amid a wide lawn a fountain shimmering. It was lit by silver lamps that swung from the boughs of trees, and it fell into a basin of silver, from which a white stream spilled. Upon the south side of the lawn there stood the mightiest of all the trees; its great smooth bole gleamed like grey silk, and up it towered, until its first branches, far above, opened their huge limbs under shadowy clouds of leaves. Beside it a broad white ladder stood, and at its foot three Elves were seated. They sprang up as the travellers approached, and Frodo saw that they were tall and clad in grey mail, and from their shoulders hung long white cloaks.
Only Celeborn and Galadriel’s home is fully described:
As he climbed slowly up Frodo passed many flets: some on one side, some on another, and some set about the bole of the tree, so that the ladder passed through them. At a great height above the ground he came to a wide talan, like the deck of a great ship. On it was built a house, so large that almost it would have served for a hall of Men upon the earth. He entered behind Haldir, and found that he was in a chamber of oval shape, in the midst of which grew the trunk of the great mallorn, now tapering towards its crown, and yet making still a pillar of wide girth.
The chamber was filled with a soft light; its walls were green and silver and its roof of gold. Many Elves were seated there. On two chairs beneath the bole of the tree and canopied by a living bough there sat, side by side, Celeborn and Galadriel. They stood up to greet their guests, after the manner of Elves, even those who were accounted mighty kings. Very tall they were, and the Lady no less tall than the Lord; and they were grave and beautiful. They were clad wholly in white; and the hair of the Lady was of deep gold, and the hair of the Lord Celeborn was of silver long and bright; but no sign of age was upon them, unless it were in the depths of their eyes; for these were keen as lances in the starlight, and yet profound, the wells of deep memory.
After meeting Celeborn and Galadriel, the Fellowship return to the ground, where:
That night the Company slept upon the ground, much to the satisfaction of the hobbits. The Elves spread for them a pavilion among the trees near the fountain, and in it they laid soft couches; then speaking words of peace with fair elvish voices they left them. For a little while the travellers talked of their night before in the tree-tops, and of their day’s journey, and of the Lord and Lady; for they had not yet the heart to look further back.
Clearly the Elves of Lothlorien are no mean barbaric people. They live in trees, yes, but they build many things of wood (including the boats that are later given to the Fellowship) and they also weave and use metals. The Wood-elves of Lothlorien and Mirkwood are thus very different from the Green-elves of Ossiriand.
Each culture undoubtedly constructed homes from the materials they had close by. Tolkien seems to have been very keen on illustrating the variety of homes that the Elves were capable of building. Cirdan’s folk, for example, originally built cities of wood on the coast of Beleriand until the Noldor helped them rebuild their cities in stone. According to both The Lord of the Rings and Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-earth the Elves of Lothlorien had always or at least for a very long time dwelt in trees, and hence they were called by other Elves the Galadhrim, or tree-folk.
However, their custom of living in trees should not be confused with an aversion to cutting wood or hunting animals. Not all Elven communities were alike. This is clearly one of the great features of Tolkien’s fiction: that he could envision so much diversity among the various members of Middle-earth’s races, and even acknowledge that diversity through the subtle cues of the names those peoples gave each other.
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