[William Cloud Hicklin]

In this context it's worth bringing up the meaning of Vanyar, a name which replaced Lindar in the revisions to QS ca 1951 (and somewhat before Maeglin was first written*).

According to 'Quendi and Eldar' (XI.382) Vanyar "Fair Ones" expressly meant "fair" as in "light-complected, blonde," and was given by the Noldo specifically because of the preponderance of golden or yellow hair amongst the First Kindred (who continued to refer to themselves as Minyar).

Now Q&E was written about 1959-60 and so post-dates the texts in question. It's worth noting that around this time, on the 1958 LQ2 typescript, Tolkien went back and changed "High Elves" (ref the Vanyar) to "Fair Elves" throughout.

The App F passage at issue, describing the Noldor (later Eldar), first appeared in the draft Foreword which was done not later than mid-1950, and in any event certainly predated the post-LR work on the First Age material- it doesn't in its original form include any "House of Finrod" exception. So there isn't any particular reason to think that when first written (applied then to the Noldor) there had yet arisen the idea of a particular golden-haired ethnicity among the Elves, even though individual blonde Elves had.

So when did the idea of (1) blonde Vanyar and (2) a blonde Vanyarin-derived branch of the House of Finwe, come to be?

(1) The D-text of Ainulindale and the Quenta Silmarillion revision both have Lindar, later emended to Vanyar. The Annals of Aman has Vanyar as written, so this change can be pretty well pinned down to 1951, or later than the draft Foreword. This date sequencing is reinforced by the fact that Ainu D already uses Teleri, whereas the draft Foreword still uses Lembi.

There's no evidence to set against the assumption that Vanyar had the same meaning from the time of its introduction as it had in Q&E. But we can't be sure of it, either, although the fact that T saw fit to change an old name is suggestive.** But obviously this isn't definitive; it is interesting though to observe that an addition to the A-text of QS includes, referencing the Noldor, "Dark was their hue and grey were their eyes," which at least implies that at this time T thought that this was a distinctive Gnomish coloration and, presumably, other Kindreds were not necessarily dark-haired. However, one would think T would also have added a note on the golden hair of the Lindar had the concept then existed- but, again, arguing from the absence of evidence is a shaky business. They were, however, still Lindar "Singers" not Vanyar "Fair Ones."

I think therefore it's clear that dark-haired Noldor arose before golden-haired Vanyar.



BUT- it's unquestionably the case that the original 1951 text of Maeglin refers to golden-haired Vanyar. Still, note what it actually says: Idril's hair "was golden as the Vanyar, her mother's kindred." In other words, we are not here dealing with the Indis-Finarfin line, but rather Turgon's marriage to a Vanya, Alaire -> Anaire -> Elenwe, who according to the original text would not leave Valinor, (much) later changed to a death in the Grinding Ice.

This episode is interesting- QS as rewritten makes no mention of Turgon's wife, nor does the original text of AAm.*** It seems as far as I can tell that the idea that Turgon married a Vanya, who bequeathed her fair hair to her daughter, arose ab initio with the expanded Maeglin story. But it also seems that we can with some assurance conclude that the Vanyar were blonde from at least the same time-frame as that in which their new name was coined, and I would submit therefore that the new name had the meaning "Fair (blonde) Ones" from the start.

But that doesn't get us to the House of Finarfin....


(2) In the QS and AAm texts of this period, there is no suggestion that Finwe had two wives or that his sons were other than full brothers; and certainly no mention of Finarfin's line being blonde. But, continuing a tradition, Celegorn "the fair" is contrasted with Cranthir "the dark"; and for the first time in the Sil matter Galadriel appears, her hair "lit with gold as though it had caught in a mesh the radiance of Laurelin." In other words, although T was at about the same time introducing the idea of the Noldor as *generally* dark-haired, individual blonde Noldor were certainly still included. But were they individual exceptions to a rule, or was there a new House of Finrod or Vanyarin Descent sub-rule at this time?

I can't come up with any text which introduces the death of Miriel and Finwe's remarriage to Indis of the Vanyar before the "second post-LR phase" of work on the matter of the Elder Days- work of uncertain date, but which was almost certainly done after the publication of the LR and not later than 1958. Yet already by the text F3 of the later Appendix F - which unquestionably *predated* the Grey Annals (and thus also Maeglin) - the "golden house of Finrod" has entered.

An interesting view of that House at the same time appears in text T4 of the Tale of Years, which was made at about the same time as the early F-texts: Galadriel here makes her earliest appearance in relation to the wider mythology, and is said to be the "sister of Gil-galad," soon after amended to "sister of Felagund Gil-galad's sire." The idea that Gil-galad was Felagund's son was abandoned by the time of the Grey Annals, again demonstrating how early this text and the contemporaneous Golden House notion appear to be. But nothing in the TY suggests hair-color for anyone.

In fact, and this is worth looking at, it was with the revised QS of 1951 that two new twists occur with regard to the Teleri: A) Elwe becomes Thingol and the former Elwe is renamed Olwe, and the two of them are said respectively to have had silver-grey and white hair; and B) Finrod (-> Finarphin) marries Olwe's daughter. A is noteworthy because IIRC this is the first time in the legends of the First Age that *any* elven hair-color had been mentioned other than "yellow-haired Glorfindel" and Luthien's raven locks.**** B is perhaps of significance because, in emphasizing the Finrodians' kinship and good relations with Thingol, it seems to be the first time that Tolkien appears to attach importance to the in-laws: marital ties (indeed wives) don't seem to have had any role in the pre-LR versions of the mythos.

Where does all this lead us? Well, my roughly-formed hypothesis- and it is only that - is that here is another case where Tolkien's efforts to answer a relatively small question grew organically into having much wider significance.

The question was "Why does Galadriel have golden hair?"

It seems that at this time, circa 1950 with the LR written, it was easy enough for Tolkien to slot in his new royal Noldorin characters, Galadriel and Gil-galad, with his favorite branch of the house of Finwe, that of the noble Felagund. But it seems also that at this same time, for reasons never really explained, Tolkien decided that the Noldor on the whole had dark hair and grey eyes.

Is it possible that in his first cut at the problem, when revising QS, he reckoned that a dark-haired Finrod marrying a silver-haired Earwen would have had golden-haired children, the original notion behind the first appearance of the Golden House of Finrod?????

Whether or not that notion crossed his mind, it does seem to be the case that roughly a year after the Noldor were ruled dark, the former Lindar were renamed Vanyar and got fair hair to match. And almost as an aside Tolkien introduced what seems to be a new but trivial element: he decided Idril should be blonde, and was so through a Vanyarin mother. Why? It isn't important politically, since said mother was back in Valinor. It isn't really important at all. My only wild-hare guess is that for whatever reason T felt it was a visual indication of Nordic Tuor being a better match for her than dark, dark Maeglin, but that's rawest speculation. More important is simply the fact that he did it, and I think from it came the idea that his Golden House of Finrod could also arise from a Vanyarin marriage.

But for that to happen, Finwe's first wife had to be got out of the way. Notes of uncertain date suggest he toyed with the idea of Feanor having been born in Cuivienen, firstborn of all the Children of Iluvatar, and his mother (named Indis!) later lost on the Great March; but instead he took the path he did, which created a huge and I think much enriching upheaval of the story, not only in the House of Finwe's Peyton Place dynamics, but even in his conceptions of fea and hroa, death and immortality.







* in the ca 1950-52 'phase' the order of composition was Ainulindale - Quenta Silmarillion - (some overlap) - Annals of Aman - Grey Annals- "long Tuor" - Maeglin. Alterations to the Grey Annals to incorporate the Maeglin material were made using leaves from a November 1951 calendar.

** I've asked Carl Hostetter whether there's a note on the meaning of Vanyar which is any earlier than Q&E.

*** The 1959 genealogies as written had her as a Vanya who remained behind, altered later to "lost in the ice."

**** Unless we count "Celegorn the fair and Cranthir the dark")


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Of course, in Quendi and Eldar he had the space to state the obvious, which was that these genetic hair markers were only predominant, not universal; in similar wise we speak of Swedes being blonde and Italians dark, but are perfectly well aware that there are dark Swedes and blonde Italians.