The Wild, Wild, Wood-elf West
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- jsuchard
- Kas1
- Michael_Martinez
- sepdet
- erunyauve
- sepdet
- BandwagonNewbie
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» jsuchard - Language Coincidences
Michael Martinez mentions a few interesting coincidences between real languages and Tolkien's invented languages (or were they intentional?). Another such coincidence I have just recently noticed is Eleanor, the name of Samwise and Rose Gamgee's eldest daughter. Of course, Eleanor is a common enough name in English speaking countries, if not used as often as in the past. And it just so happens that the flowers she was named after are "sun stars", where anor=sun and el=star. Pretty cool.-- posted by jsuchard
» Michael_Martinez - Re: Wood Elves
In response to message posted by Kas1:He doesn't have to fit into any of the royal houses' genealogies. There are other princely/noble families mentioned in the First Age stories than just those of the kings.
-- posted by Michael_Martinez
» sepdet - Wow, good stuff (as usual)
I seem always to be following in your footsteps, and really need to read everything you've done before I bother with any more research! Not that it's surprising so much study of the elves' obscure histories has already been done. One thing that didn't quite jive with what I'd thought: that the Wood-elves should be the most numerous. I think yes and no. How quickly do elves rebuild their numbers after great loss? Thranduil led only a third of the Wood-elves back to Mirkwood at the end of the Second Age; they were completely creamed. So was Amdir's army. (I tend to think that the creepy elf Frodo sees in the Dead Marshes in the movie must be poor Amdir, whose army got driven into the marsh). Now, I suppose that "third" would've been adult males— or would it? Tolkien makes some unconscious attempts to shake gender-stereotypes, saying somewhere or other that elf-women were as formidable and strong as elf-men and could fight. But I see no evidence of him actually acting on this. So it's debatable whether Mirkwood lost a third of its TOTAL population, or just the blokes, but at any rate I have a feeling it took a long time to get over that war.Green-elves and Wood-elves need to be Quakers. They just don't do well in war!
Oh, one other thing: what's the reference for Oropher first settling in Amon Lanc? I thought I'd scoured the Galadriel and Celeborn chapter 50 times over, since I've been trying to piece together the history of Mirkwood and Lórien, and that looks like a new jigsaw puzzle piece I need to examine.
-- posted by sepdet
» erunyauve - Re: Wow, good stuff (as usual)
In response to message posted by sepdet:The reference to Oropher settling at Amon Lanc is actually in the next chapter of UT: 'Disaster of the Gladden Fields'. There's a fairly long note about Oropher in Note #14 at the end of the chapter. It also refers to Oropher's 'numerous people' - of course, this would be before the war. However, I tend to think that one reason the Wood Elves might have rebuilt their population fairly quickly is that they lost fewer people to the West - in POME, p 73, Tolkien notes that the Wood Elves 'being content with Middle-earth remained there, and remain even now'.
-- posted by erunyauve
» sepdet - Re: Re: Wow, good stuff (as usual)
In response to message posted by erunyauve:Oooh, le hannon. Yet another snippet to add to my growing Mirkwood File!
It's hard to believe, but after reading Tolkien for 25 years and Sil for 10, I only learned about Unfinished Tales and HOME last November. I'm still finding my way about this brave new world. ;)
-- posted by sepdet
» BandwagonNewbie - Re: Wow, good stuff (as usual)
In response to message posted by sepdet:I'm wondering about the identity of that elf in the Dead Marshes myself.
-- posted by BandwagonNewbie
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