Quote:
Originally Posted by Inziladun
Círdan's beard seems to be a special case among the Elves. The possible reasons for its existence notwithstanding, perhaps it was a relatively recent adornment for him (ie, post Second Age or so). First Age Círdan could have been beardless.
|
The earliest confirmed beard is Mahtan's, who had one before the death of the Trees. If you take Tolkien's weirder writings into account, this grew early in his second stage of life (out of three), and was highly unusual; Cirdan's was an old-age third-stage beard. Tolkien Gateway speculates that the first stage was childhood and adolescence, ending at age 100; that means beards
could have been seen on Elves hundreds of (what would later be) Years of the Sun before they left Cuivienen. But I'd hate to lay money on it.
Delving deep into speculation: Tinfang Gelion (AKA Tinfang Warble) appears in the Lay of Leithian, pegged as one of the three greatest musicians of the elves (my pet theory is that he was actually the composer of the Lay, and name-dropped himself into it). His name means 'Spark-beard', and the 'Gelion' suffix suggests he was a native of the lands beyond Gelion - in other words, one of the Nandor of Ossiriand. If his beard was an actual beard, he was either a very elderly musician (and the poem does say 'who STILL the moon/enchants on summer nights of June'), or he was another early-beard-grower.
One final stab in the dark: 'tin-' means 'small star/spark'. It's not a word you'd use to describe a colour, so I wonder whether 'Tinfang' means something like 'star-spangled beard' - in other words, a salt-and-pepper colouring. Given that we've never heard of elves with multicoloured hair (thank the stars!), that would suggest that Tinfang was old, and that his beard appeared even as his hair was turning silver-grey.
hS