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Elves By the Numbers - Page 8

© Michael Martinez

Olwe eventually led 3300 Teleri over Sea. The Teleri who remained in Beleriand became divided into three groups: Cirdan's folk (the Falathrim, the most numerous), the Mithrim, and the Iathrim (Thingol's people of Doriath). At this point, working out how many of the Teleri there were in Beleriand becomes hopeless, but there is still some hope for evaluating the populations of Aman. The Noldor were the largest group of Eldar in Aman, but they didn't remain so. Their battle with the Teleri of Alqualonde reduced both groups' populations, but many Noldor subsequently perished in the storm raised by Uinen, and many more died while trying to cross the Helcaraxe, so at best we can only hope to arrive at some guestimate of the largest possible population of Noldor in Aman which might not require the wholesale slaughter of Orome's hunting stock just to feed the masses. The Noldor arrived in Aman in Year of the Trees 1133 and they lived there in relative peace until Year of the Trees 1495. That is 362 Years of the Trees or approximately 3468 Years of the Sun. Although one could contrive many different formulae for slowing or breaking up the multiplication of the Elves, the fact is that they had a lot of time in Aman. About the only reasonable way to slow their progression is to look ahead to an essay in "Myths Transformed" (written many years later than these other texts) where Tolkien says that time in Aman seemed to pass about like time in Middle-earth. This is the essay where he equates a Valian Year (Year of the Trees) with 144 Solar Years. Ignoring the discrepancy between conversion rates, if we merely consider that the Eldar might have taken a really long time to reach maturity in Aman, we can argue that we only have to work with 362 years of Elf-breeding time. Why? Because 3500 years of Elf babies produces populations of unbelievable magnitudes. The Noldor would have been able to swarm over Angband and bury it without any problem. But 362 Years of the Trees, that gives us another 8 rounds of expansion. In total, we end up with 19 generations of Noldor, Vanyar, and Amanyar Teleri (but not 19 generations of Elves). The Noldor, at the time of their rebellion, could have numbered around 130,000. Ten per cent of them (13,000) refused to go into exile. Another unspecified number under Finarfin turned back. Just for the sake of being presumptious, let's say that approximately 1/2 of the rebellious Noldor followed Fingolfin and that 1/4 followed Feanor and the remaining 1/4 followed Finarfin.

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