Ever Wonder...

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by mark12_30

I was caught by that too-- what I didn't realize (until after I had written about it) but there were only three NOLDORIN unions of elves and men. Tolkien doesnt count the silvan unions.

Eh? Since when was Lúthien a Noldo?

However, the actual line (LotR Appendix A) is "There were three unions of the Eldar and the Edain". Not all Elves are Eldar. Tolkien later (see History of Galadriel and Celeborn) cast the Silvan Elves as descendants of the Nandor, thus Eldar– but this wasn't so at time he wrote the Appendices to Lord of the Rings. In "Of the Elves" (Appendix F), it's stated that "The Elves far back in the Elder Days became divided into two main branches: The West-elves (the Eldar) and the Eastelves. Of the latter kind were most of the elven folk of Mirkwood and Lórien..."

Apart from that, the marriage of Mithrellas and Imrazôr is presented as more of a tale than an historical fact: "The legend of the prince's line", "the tradition of his house" etc. (History of G & C again). So maybe it's supposed to be off-the-record because nobody's sure if it really happened.

[Mnemosyne]

Originally Posted by Nerwen

Apart from that, the marriage of Mithrellas and Imrazôr is presented as more of a tale than an historical fact: "The legend of the prince's line", "the tradition of his house" etc. (History of G & C again). So maybe it's supposed to be off-the-record because nobody's sure if it really happened.

How would you explain Imrahil's beardlessness, then?

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by Mnemosyne

How would you explain Imrahil's beardlessness, then?

I'm not saying the Dol Amroth-ites aren't meant to have some Elvish blood, but just that it appears no-one's sure exactly how they acquired it. So it doesn't have an"official" standing, if you see what I mean.

The main thing, though, I think, is that at the time Tolkien wrote the Appendices, he didn't consider Silvan Elves to be Eldar anyway.

[Galin]

Interestingly, for the first edition Tolkien wrote that there were three unions of the High Elves and Men, and only much later in the 1960s revised this to Eldar and Edain. By the time of this revision, Tolkien had come to think of the Silvan Elves of Mirkwood and Lorien as Eldar, but...

Nerwen wrote: In "Of the Elves" (Appendix F), it's stated that "The Elves far back in the Elder Days became divided into two main branches: The West-elves (the Eldar) and the Eastelves. Of the latter kind were most of the elven folk of Mirkwood and Lórien..."

Music to my ears Nerwen! Plus Appendix F (on translation) notes that the term Eldar referred to the Elves who had passed Oversea save the Sindar only: which I take as meaning only the Sindar -- of those elves who did not pass Oversea -- were considered Eldar.

It makes sense compared to the other citation from Appendix F, as the Sindar went just about as West as one could go without passing Oversea -- thus the West-Elves are the Eldar, and the East-elves are not (though not necessarily Avari). Tolkien never revised these author-published descriptions.


And so the legend of Mithrellas ('Grey-leaf'?), if true, did not include a High Elf in 1955, nor an Elda in the revised editions.