legolas's hair

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Re: Appendix F- yes, but.

As I'm sure you know, that description was written of the Noldor, but somehow, apparently through inadvertence in the rush to get RK to the publishers, it was transmuted into a reference to the Eldar as a whole; a general ascription which we know to be inaccurate, given the Vanyar and the royal House (at least) of the Teleri.

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I agree with regard to Lorien and Avari; IIRC Tolkien somewhere wrote that by the end of the Third Age there were no Avari to be found in the West (if they ever got so far, being by definition those who refused to leave Cuivienen). The Silvans if I'm not mistaken were on the whole Nandor, Eldar who baled out before reaching Beleriand, some of whom later continued on and became the Green-Elves; these "Vale Elves" of course were augmented by Sindar escaping the ruin of Beleriand.

(The "Danian" tongues were posited as close relatives of Doriathrin, although T also wrote that even the Silvan language had given way to Sindarin by the time of the War of the Ring, and that Frodo's inability to understand the Elves of Lorien was more due to 'accent').