Did Elladan and Elrohir Ever Go to the Havens?

Q: Did Elladan and Elrohir Ever Go to the Havens?

ANSWER: The short answer is that we don’t know what became of Elladan and Elrohir. They are last mentioned being in Arwen’s wedding party and presumably returned to Rivendell with their father.

Tolkien wrote in 1954, in Letter No. 153, that “The end of [Elrond’s] sons, Elladan and Elrohir, is not told: they delay their choice, and remain for a while.”

In the “Note on the Shire Records” included at the end of the Prologue in The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien wrote:

At Great Smials the books were of less interest to Shire-folk, though more important for larger history. None of them was written by Peregrin, but he and his successors collected many manuscripts written by scribes of Gondor: mainly copies or summaries of histories or legends relating to Elendil and his heirs. Only here in the Shire were to be found extensive materials for the history of Númenor and the arising of Sauron. It was probably at Great Smials that The Tale of Years was put together, with the assistance of material collected by Meriadoc. Though the dates given are often conjectural, especially for the Second Age, they deserve attention. It is probable that Meriadoc obtained assistance and information from Rivendell, which he visited more than once. There, though Elrond had departed, his sons long remained, together with some of the High-elven folk. It is said that Celeborn went to dwell there after the departure of Galadriel; but there is no record of the day when at last he sought the Grey Havens, and with him went the last living memory of the Elder Days in Middle-earth.

So we know that Merry had access to Elladan and Elrohir after Frodo’s departure and that they or their folk probably assisted Merry in his research for the “Tale of Years” included in the Red Book of Westmarch.

We don’t know when Celeborn settled in Rivendell or how long he dwelt there. Nor do we know how long the sons of Elrond would have lived had they chosen to remain in Middle-earth like Arwen. She died a few months after Aragorn, willingly giving up her life peacefully, as Aragorn had given up his. In a note published in Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-earth Tolkien says that the natural life-span of half-elven people might be about 500 years. But only Elros of all the half-elven mortals is said to have lived that long. Earendil and Elwing were given the choice to be of elven-kind, and her brothers Elured and Elurin died as children (still mortal). The children of Mithrellas and Imrazor the Numenorean also died as mortals and they don’t appear to have lived 500 years.

So it may be that because of their deeds Elladan and Elrohir would have been permitted to stay in Middle-earth no longer than Celeborn, if they wanted to sail over Sea and remain among the Eldar. Or it could be that they lived maybe another 120-200 years before also giving up their lives willingly.

People who want to extrapolate what happened to them have two things to consider:

First, Elladan and Elrohir remained in Rivendell when Elrond left. Tolkien does not say who became the next Lord of Rivendell but it is reasonable to guess that the elder of the twins succeeded their father (or that they shared its rule). However, that does not prove that they must have chosen to remain with the Eldar because Legolas led a colony of Silvan Elves to Gondor and lived under Aragorn’s rule for about 100 years. Earendil’s community of Elves and Men at Arvernien in the First Age also demonstrates that Elves sometimes accepted the rule of mortals (although Earendil’s heritage may not have been clear to them at the time).

Second, there is the matter of their names, which Tolkien explained in Letter No. 211, which he wrote in October 1958:

Elrohir, Elladan: these names, given to his sons by Elrond, refer to the fact that they were ‘halfelven’ (III 314): they had mortal as well as Elvish ancestors on both sides; Tuor on their father’s side, Beren on their mother’s. Both signify elf+man. Elrohir might be translated ‘Elf-knight’; rohir being a later form (III 391) of rochir ‘horse-lord’ from roch ‘horse’ + hir ‘master’: Prim. Elvish rokkō and khēr or kherū: High-elven rocco, hēr (hěru). Elladan might be translated ‘Elf-Númenórean’. Adan (pl. Edain) was the Sindarin form of the name given to the ‘fathers of men’, the members of the Three Houses of Elf-friends, whose survivors afterwards became the Númenóreans, or Dúnedain.

I think it would be hard to justify such a connection but you could argue that their names may have foreshadowed their eventual choices: that Elrohir would choose to remain with the Eldar and that Elladan would choose to become mortal, thus reflecting the choice of their own father and uncle.

But is that necessary? It’s entirely up to you how you want to extrapolate their eventual choices. There is no definitive, authoritative, final statement from Tolkien. To me the passage from Letter No. 211 is very ambiguous, not intended to foreshadow anything. Tolkien’s various discussions of Elvish naming practices post-date the 1958 letter but we cannot be sure he didn’t have that custom in mind even then. After all, he includes prophetic names for Aragorn in the main text of The Lord of the Rings and there are some cases of foretellings-via-naming in early Silmarillion stories.

I don’t believe there is any evidence to support a contention that Tolkien intended the names of Elladan and Elrohir to be distinctive enough to hint at their eventual choices.

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