Vanyar, Noldor, Teleri...and a chocolate easter bunny
 

Okay, I am a little confused here...I am getting around two billion (slight exaggeration) different discriptions of what these races look like. Now, please tell me if I am wrong in what I have gathered so far:

Noldor: Dark hair, dark eyes.
Teleri: Golden Hair, light eyes (Green or Blue)
Vanyar: Silvery Hair, greyish eyes.

I am writing a story and I have gotten many people telling me different things....I thought that Noldor had golden hair (hence Galadriel's coloring...or was it from her mother who was Telerian?? Or her father who was Noldorian) Or Thranduil who was Sindarin, yet he had golden hair...

This is so confusing...yet I have many people telling me all those things and I am tempted to toss the story out the window!

~~Daegwenn

I don't know the proper answer to your question, but what I do know is that tossing out a promising story due to confusion over hair color is not the best of moves. Unless you're writing about an Elven hair salon.

If I were you, I'd bite the head off of that chocolate Easter bunny and forget about separating Elven types by hair and eye color. All the types have all different eye & hair color combinations, or at least that is what I thought. Yes, the types have dominant hair & eye color, but there are variances! Dang mutations!
Keep it simple, silly! [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

That probably didn't make any sense, did it?
What I am trying to say is that I wouldn't worry about trying to sort out the Elves by hair & eye color as beloning to a certain branch. You'll end up confusing yourself & your reader.

Well Lush,
If I had it my way, I would not worry about it...but I am fussy and a perfectionist when it comes to stories...and when my fans have a problem with one of my stories, I try and work out that problem.

As for the Chocolate Easter bunny...heh heh heh...how do you think I come up with my story plots? ^_^ Sometimes, you can even tell what type of chocolate I'm eating!

~~Daegwenn

It is the other way round with Teleri and Vanyar. Besides, grey or blue eyes of Noldor are not really dark, and silver hair among Teleri and Sindar wasn't the rule; darker hair was. A branch of the Noldor had golden hair from Finwe's (High King of the Noldor) second wife, a Vanya Elf.

This is not to be mistaken for the nomenclature of the early and long since abandoned Lost Tales, were the blonde Teleri were the first host.

[ March 05, 2002: Message edited by: Sharku ]

And Sharku wins a chocolate bunny for the correct answer!....prize must be claimed in the United States, prizes taxable in California, New York and New Jersey, no warranties on the bunny's condition, offer void where excluded by law...

Yeah, that confused me too. I'd like to see if anyone else knows FOR SURE! And what about that chocolate bunny?

All of the Vanyar had hair "as gold as Yavanna's wheat" and sapphire-blue eyes. Now those Vanyar that had mixed Noldorin or Telerin ancestry may have had different coloring, it is hard to tell. That is for geneticists to decide. The Vanyar were the Vanyar because they were the people of Ingwë, not because they were blond and blue eyed, so their coloring doesn't really matter in the classification.

The Noldor, or the so-called "pure" Noldor, almost all had dark (black or very dark brown) hair (with Mahtan and Nerdanel being the exceptions) and grey eyes. As in the case of the Vanyar, mixed ancestry changed many traits, so Noldor could have had blond hair and green eyes, and still be considered Noldor. The Noldor were considered the people who followed the House of Finwë, or at least had some Noldorin blood.

The Teleri usually had greyish/silver hair, and I'm assuming that they had grey/blue eyes, although they could have had green, eye-color isn't lengthily described anywhere. They were the people of Olwë, and I'm also assuming that in this case, anyone with Telerin blood was considered a Teler.

An Elf's coloring had nothing to do with his classification as a Vanya, Noldo, Teler, Sinda, or Silvan Elf. It was just a matter of the ancestry of that Elf.