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Elves By the Numbers - Page 7

© Michael Martinez

One way to estimate the Elven populations would be to assume that the Elves married and bore their first children about the time that their parents were having a second (or third, or fourth) child. Hence, by staggering the count of Elves per generation, one comes up with a smaller number which still amounts to thousands. For example, there were 72 couples among the First Elves. Each couple would produce one child. We'll assume an even distribution of males and females. Hence, fifty years later, the 72 parental couples and their 72 children (comprising 36 second-generation couples) would produce 108 new children (72 second-generation children and 36 third-generation children). Fifty years later, the 72 first-generation couples would have their third children, the 36 elder second-generation couples would produce their second children, the 36 younger second-generation couples would produce their first children, and the 18 third-generation children would produce their first children. Confusing? Let it suffice to say that this system would produce about 18,314 Elves by the time of the Great Journey. Now we've got a relatively small Elven population that can still be divided up into "hosts" which are reasonably large. "Quendi and Eldar" provides a proportional breakdown of the Eldar and Avari. All the Minyar became Vanyar. That is, of every 144 Elves, 14 were Minyar (Vanyar), 56 were Tatyar, and 74 were Nelyar. Of the Tatyar, precisely half became Noldor. Of the Nelyar, 46 became Teleri (and the Teleri were divided into 20 Amanyar Teleri and 26 Sindar and Nandor). Hence, there would have been at most about 1780 Vanyar, about 3560 Noldor, and about 5850 Teleri. The Teleri were originally divided into two hosts led by Elwe and Olwe, but Tolkien doesn't give their proportions. Lenwe, who led the Nandor south, took his people from Olwe's host. Although I cannot be certain of any number, in The Wild, Wild Wood-elf West I suggested that perhaps Elwe and Olwe led 20/144 and 26/144 of the Elves, and that approximately half of Olwe's people followed Lenwe. Somewhere in the back of my mind I keep thinking that perhaps Lenwe only led 8/144 of the Elves, but dang me if I can find a reference for that. So, I'll continue to use the "Wild, Wild Wood-Elf West" as a reference since it makes little difference for this discussion. Lenwe may have led off about 1650 of his people, and from them would eventually come the Green-elves of Ossiriand, the Nandor of Eriador, and the Silvan Elves (who merged with at least one group of Avari, possibly all of the Nelyarin Avari).

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