Elf Children
 

Ever since seeing Bilbo tell his story to the little hobbits at his birthday party, I've been wondering about elves and how they grow. Do they have little elves running around in Lothlorien, shooting arrows at each other? ^.^ Does Tolkien mention anything about this?

I think Elves resemble Men in every way of their appearance, except they have slighter frames.

I doubt they go about shooting each other though. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

There's a quote somewhere (it may be Silm, but I have neither the time nor the patience at the moment to ferret it out) that explains all about Elven children. They look like Atani children and until the age of three the two are indistiguishable from each other, but after that age, Atani children grow up much faster physically, while Elven children remain looking like children longer.

I'm sure that they DO have elven kids running around in Lorien, but I think they might be using those rubber-tipped kind [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] . Anyways, you already KNOW that Elves age WAYYYY slower than any other race (EXCLUDING Ents) so if you see a little 6-year-old lookalike running around, I'm sure he/she's old enough already to not want to *ahem* WASTE TIME [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img] with playing knights and orcs all day!

Ah, thank you!

You Don't see Elven Children in LotR because Elves are the eldar race and are leaving Middle Earth.

They mature by age 50 and marry usually no younger than 100. They mature differently than Human children; slower physically, faster mentally.

They concieve and give Birth the same way Humans do, though, Elven Pregnancy is 12 months rahter than 9. Elves usually concieve on their wedding night and give birth on their 1st anniversary. They usually have only one or two children because they must give up a piece of their own Fea (spirit) to pro-create.

Here is a link to another such discussion. Elven Children Birdland had an interesting thought on this thread you may want to read.

And here's another about Elven life cycles. The Science of Middle Earth AndElven Pregnancy

Hope this answers your questions.

[ November 11, 2002: Message edited by: Raefindel ]

Hey Raefindel? You sat that Elves concieve on their wedding night and give birth their first anniversary. That may be true sometimes, but Elrond and Celebrian were married for about 30 years before Elladan and Elrohir were born.

Yes, these are generalities, not hard and fast rules. Elrond also waited 100 years after the twins births to have Arwen.

111 to be exact.