How tall am I?

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by Farael

That is indeed interesting... yet I believe it's in my Hobbit book that it says that elves were usually four to five feet tall. It might have been a mistake on the translation, or perhaps the usual elves were much shorter than the great ones like Galadriel.

Also, I'd like to note that it is not that men no longer reach heights of 8 feet.... as a matter of fact, they never did! Men are growing taller every generation (at least on the developed countries) children being usually a couple inches taller than their parents!

I think that may be a translation error... I think that those heights are given when comparing Hobbits to Dwarves.

As for Elf men in general ... well the matter is complicated by the description of Celeborn and Galadriel as being the same height ie 6"4 (inicdentally Cate Blanchett is my height (5"10 and they made her wear 13 inch platform soles for some scenes which would have made her nearly 7ft and so more or less twice hobbit size even if not twice hobbit actor size.....).

Now this would be ok if Celeborn was not also known as "the Tall" (mind you I have always suspected that the Celeborn the Wise was an ironic soubriquet so this may be the same although his name indicates height "silver tall" rather than silver tree if I remember correctly). However a man can still be noticeably tall and the same height as the tallest woman. I think I remember reading that the Teleri were in general of lesser stature than the noldor but of course their leade was tallest of all. Perhaps great height was a feature of the ruling house?

[Frodo Baggins]

Even at the un-elvish stature of 5' 10" Cate Blanchett is tall for a woman, the average height being about 5' 4" or 5' 5" (I'm 5'6" most girls I know are as tall as or shorter than me.)

If Elwe Thingol was the tallest of the children of Eru ever to live, over topping even the Elindils and the Turgons I'd say 8 foot or a bit over is a pretty good guess.

If a Ranga is one stride and a stride is 3 feet 2 inches that is a very long stride. Whomever strode like that must have been quite tall.

Celeborn could have been called tall at 6'4" without being exceedingly so. It could be that average male elves in the third age were hovering at 6 feet or just over. Especially if those such as the Teleri were of lesser stature than say the Noldor (Though Thingol was a Teleri/Sindar) I wonder how tall the mighty Vanyar would be? It could also be that colossal ones like Turgon and Elwe were rare. Man high for Numenoreans is about 6'4" and somewhere I read that they are about the same height as elves (How tall are Numenorean women?)

These days it's not that rare for a man to be 6 feet tall, average man height today is between 5' 10" and 5' 11", which is pretty good considering 500 years ago average height for men was about 5'4"

Actually that gives me and idea. 500 years ago men averaged 5' 4" but there were rarites like Henry VIII who was a whopping 6'3"! (Tall by present standars, gigantic in the 1500s) So most elf men could be around 6' to 6'4" but then been exceeded by rarities such as Elwe and Turgon. So we could say that average elf and Numenor men are 6'4" and ladies a bit shorter say maybe 5'7" to 6 feet.

I'm not sure about the statures of people such as the Rohirrim and the Breelanders, or easterlings. I'll leave them to the more scholarly.