Where do elves get metal?

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by skip spence

Wasn't it also implied or stated that Maeglin's and his father Eöl's keen interest in mining and smithcraft was rather looked down on by the other nobles? That it was below their station to go under ground and dig for ore and that they became bent by their labour? It does seem a rather un-Elvish thing to do.

Well Eöl was certainly "stooped by his smithwork" but he was disdained by Curufin as a "Dark Elf" rather than for other apparent reasons, at least as far as I can see.

Also, I don't think other Elf nobles would have looked down on smithcraft; at least the Noldor would not have done, as Fëanor was the greatest craftsman of their people and also King for a time and held in high esteem.

Furthermore, many Elves didn't just go underground but lived underground as a matter of course, if usually for defensive purposes, and that included Noldor like Finrod in Nargothrond as well as "Dark" Elves like Thingol and Thranduil.

The Silmarillion does state, however, that Eöl often took Maeglin to the mansions of the Dwarves in Ered Luin where he learned "the craft of finding the ores of metals in the mountains," so perhaps such skills were not necessarily common among Elves; but they had to have been common enough that the craftsmen of Turgon could delve their own mines in the Encircling Mountains, unless those mines were not delved until after Maeglin came to Gondolin.

It just seems very unlikely to me that Elves never acquired metal for themselves on their own. Not all Elves were noblemen of high station and many must surely have done fairly "ordinary" work, albeit probably in a superior, Elvish way.