legolas's hair

hi...I was wondering if anyone knows whether Legolas has brown hair or blonde? I think for some reason that he has brown and that Peter Jackson and most concept artists have made a huge mistake. So, yeah, if anyone knows for (like you have a book passage to quote), reply please.

[The Barrow-Wight]

This topic and similiar ones have been discussed many times and have been indexed in our Haudh-en-Ndengin forum. Check out the Huadh-en-Ndengin Index entry for Legolas - Appearance -or- Elves Hair Color

There you will find links to all previous discussions similar to this topic.

Since those topics are all quite old, feel free to continue the discussion here after you've read them thoroughly.

[Bandobras Took]

His hair is most likly blond. most elves had blond hair

[Failivrin]

No; most Elves have dark hair. Only the Vanyar and the Golden House of Finrod have blonde hair (due to his mother, Indis being of the Vanyar).

However, Legolas does have blond hair.

i read the stuff in the Huadh-en-Ndengin Index and i;m pretty sure his hair is blonde now. i guess i missed the thing about Thranduil's hair being golden everytime i read The Hobbit.
thanks....

[Silmiel of Imladris]

In my opinion most Sindar (Which Legolas was half at least) have blond hair. Anyone know what the Silvian Elves looked like for Legolas lived with them?

[Lost One]

I don't think most Sindar are necessarily fair-haired. However, Thranduil and Logolas are conected in some way to the leading family of the Sindar/Teleri who do appear to be fair - silver-haired, if anything (Thingol, Earwen, Celeborn).

[Cibbwin]

There is only one mention of Legolas hair in the books, I don't remember where, but it mentions him having dark hair.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Cibbwin, could you find that reference and quote it? That would be an interesting contribution to the discussion!

[Kaiserin]

This thread feels so familiar... [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]
Only the Vanyar ("fair elves") had blonde hair. Galadriel (Noldor) was light-haired because she was partly Vanyar.
Teleri were dark-haired, except the kin of Elwe, who had Silver hair. The Sindar aer Teleri; Thranduil and Legolas are Teleri. It doesn't necessarily follow that just because his father had golden hair that Legolas was blonde - blonde could be a recessive gene. [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img]

<font size=1 color=339966>[ 10:38 PM January 21, 2004: Message edited by: Kaiserin ]

[Elentári_O_Most_Mighty_1]

Is Cibbwen referring to the bit in the Fellowship where Legolas shot down the winged steed of the Nazgul? Because there it says his head was dark and crowned with stars...but that doesn't specifically say his hair, and anyway it was at night time. So it still could be blonde.

And about that reference to the Hobbit. I have scoured the Hobbit, and the closest thing I could find was there was a crown of leaves etc on his head...but it didn't say his golden head or whatever others have said. Does anyone have a full quote? And has anyone had similar trouble trying to find the reference?

[Cibbwin]

I'm looking, Estelyn, but I'm not 100% sure where it was... something about "he was tall and dark-haired"... I just know that I saw it.

[Leyrana Silumiel]

I'm looking, Estelyn, but I'm not 100% sure where it was... something about "he was tall and dark-haired"... I just know that I saw it.

I know what you're referring to. Fellowship of the Ring, in the chapter called "The Great River":

Frodo looked up at the Elf standing tall above him, as he gazed into the night, seeking a mark to shoot at. His head was dark, crowned with sharp white stars that glittered in the black pools of the sky above.

However, this does not definitively say he is dark-haired; it only says his "head was dark," which could be caused by just it being dark outside.

Hope this helped.

[Lost One]

Kaiserin - I'm not aware of any source for Celeborn being Noldor and part Vanyar, as you suggest. He's Sindarin in LOTR and most writings, and Teleri in a late development, but always a relation of Elwe.

[Imladris]

...and at the head of a long line of feasters sat a woodland king with a crown of leaves upon his golden hair...

Flies and Spiders in The Hobbit

I have the annotated Hobbit and this is what the note says:

The golden hair of the Elvenking is unusual. In Appendix F of The Lord of the Rings , Tolkien wrote of the Elves that "they were tall, fair of skin and grey-eyed, though their locks were dark, save in the golden house of Finarfin." ... However, the passage cited from Appendix F has a curious history, and when originally written it was meant to refer to the Noldor, not to all of the Elves. Christopher Tolkien has noted that the Vanyar, one of the Three Kindreds of the High Elves, had golden hair, and it was from the Vanya Indis (the mother of Fingolfin and Finarfin) that the golden haired Noldor descended.

I hope this helps. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

[Kaiserin]

Correction made in the post above, Lost One. Thanks for pointing it out [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] I've committed the folly of taking the both of them as a whole.

<font size=1 color=339966>[ 11:54 PM January 21, 2004: Message edited by: Kaiserin ]

[Aragrax]

While I am not Sauron, nonetheless, I am going to serve as a Necromancer on this long dead thread (or am I just stealing a cup from a sleeping dragon?) to add one bit in defense of a dun-haired Legolas.

I believe JRRT gave us ringing (ahem) evidence of a brunette son of Thranduil. This evidence of Legolas's brown hair, in spite of Tolkien saying nothing about it, was thus:

Tolkien said nothing about it.

The old boy went to GREAT pains to point out when someone was blonde, silver-locked (Celeborn being named for it) or was black haired (this usually being paired with grey eyes). He was pretty much mum, otherwise. I have always taken this as a big red (or brown?) flag that the person in question had hair "of the usual sort". While Legolas's father was specifically noted for his golden locks, it would tend to follow that his son would be commented upon for having similar hair, yet he was not so noted.

Thus, via his very silence on the matter, JRRT painted L's hairs in earthen tones to match his outfit. Now THAT's some skillful editing!

IMO, anyway.

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Aragrax

Thus, via his very silence on the matter, JRRT painted L's hairs in earthen tones to match his outfit. Now THAT's some skillful editing!

No, that is just an argument from silence.

If you could prove that every time Tolkien did not mention hair-colour than it was the most normal hair-colour for that kind of being, then you would have a point. But you can’t.

[MCRmyGirl4eva]

Originally Posted by Cibbwin

There is only one mention of Legolas hair in the books, I don't remember where, but it mentions him having dark hair.

It said Legolas's head was dark and crowned with stars as he stood on the riverbank. However, it was the middle of the night, and Frodo was looking up at him. Everything was dark, so therefore that is not a reliable quote. The only note we get on the appearance of Legolas is that

"He shielded his bright eyes with a long slender hand"
and
"For Legolas was fair of face beyond the measure of Men, and he sang an Elven-song..."

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Beware pigeonholes and absolute rules!

For example, it's often said (with citations) that ALL Noldor (save Finarfin's descendants) are dark-haired; yet we learn later that Feanor's wife Nerdanel and at least two of her sons were redheads.

We also know that Glorfindel is blonde (his very name means "Golden Hair"), yet he's indisputably a Noldo.

There is also a nameless Elf of Lorien (the one who catches Haldir's rope) who has golden hair.

[jallanite]

Fëanor’s three (not two) red-headed sons (Maedhros, Amrod, and Amras) and their mother’s family may have had darkish red hair, in which case there is no contradiction to Tolkien’s rule that among the Noldor their locks were dark save in the golden house of Finrod.

Glorfindel is more of a problem. One can speculate that Glorfindel had a mother of the Vanyar, possibly sister or other close relative of the Vanyarin Elf Amarië who married Finrod. If so, Glorfindel could be loosely reckoned as belonging to the golden house of Finrod. No pure-bred Vanyar joined the host of the Noldor on their return to Middle-earth, in which case Glorfindel’s closest relatives in Middle-earth would probably be Finrod’s sons.

Most of the folk of Lórien were of Silvan origin. The Silvan Elves of Lórien were mainly of Nandorin descent but also mixed with Avari and Sindar. Presumably this golden-haired elf of Lórien would be of Avari origin from outside the “People of the Great Journey/People of the Stars” about whom Tolkien is writing when he discusses hair colour.

There is also Celegorm the Fair, one of the sons of Finrod.

Considering that Tolkien later decided that the Silmarillion and associated tales were to be understood as somewhat garbled Mannish tradition, perhaps indeed we must understand that the tradition that Tolkien presents about dark-haired Noldor has been over-regularized. The Noldor were only mostly dark-haired.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

"in which case Glorfindel’s closest relatives in Middle-earth would probably be Finrod’s sons."

If that were the case, though, why would he be one of Turgon's folk in Gondolin?

"we must understand that the tradition that Tolkien presents about dark-haired Noldor has been over-regularized. The Noldor were only mostly dark-haired."

Bingo.

[Galin]

For example, it's often said (with citations) that ALL Noldor (save Finarfin's descendants) are dark-haired; yet we learn later that Feanor's wife Nerdanel and at least two of her sons were redheads.

If I recall correctly Nerdanel herself is noted as having brown hair and a ruddy complexion. As already noted, Maedros, Amros and Amros have the rare red-brown hair of Nerdanel's kin (using the forms of the names that go with this notion).

Just to note it: the Appendix F description (dark-haired save for the House of Finarfin) actually concerns the Eldar, not merely the Noldor, but I fully agree that this is a general description in any case, allowing for exceptions.

And I don't think we necessarily need any of the Silvan Elves to be Avari to be golden haired, as according to The Lord of the Rings at least, the Silvan Elves of Lorien and Mirkwood are not considered Eldar in any case.

[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.

-----------------------------------------

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').

[Galin]

Originally Posted by 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.

I'm not sure there is a mistake here due to rushing however. CJRT even raised the idea that the golden-haired Vanyar might have arisen before the ultimate version of Appendix F...

... but in any case, he also notes his father 'carefully' remodeled the passage to refer to the Eldar (instead of the Noldor).


For the second edition, Tolkien even altered Finrod without changing the meaning of the passage. He may not have been focused on the 'Vanyar' question here -- or perhaps he meant the 'Eldar of Middle-earth' since the Vanyar had very early on left Middle-earth (total guess by that might explain things, or at least arguably allow for his later idea about the golden Vanyar).

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.

Plus The Lord of the Rings itself 'defines' or describes the Eldar as those who crossed the Sea, including only the Sindar. These are the West Elves or Eldar -- while the Silvan Elves are the East-elves whose languages are not Eldarin (Appendix F).

I knw this isn't the scenario as depicted in The Silmarillion, but it's the one JRRT himself published anyway.

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

"in which case Glorfindel’s closest relatives in Middle-earth would probably be Finrod’s sons."

If that were the case, though, why would he be one of Turgon's folk in Gondolin?

Easily answered. Glorfindel’s father might well have been an Elf of Turgon’s people. Think it through.

"we must understand that the tradition that Tolkien presents about dark-haired Noldor has been over-regularized. The Noldor were only mostly dark-haired."

Bingo.

Hardly. If you attribute this is quotation to me then you ought to have included the beginning of my quotation:

Considering that Tolkien later decided that the Silmarillion and associated tales were to be understood as somewhat garbled Mannish tradition, perhaps indeed …

The words “perhaps indeed″ are important to my thought and should not have been omitted.

When attempting to argue about any fictional story it is important to remember that it is just a story and that in apparent discrepancies within the story one should consider all reasonable possibilities. I presented one possibility only here.

Not “Bingo.″

Originally Posted by Galin

If I recall correctly Nerdanel herself is noted as having brown hair and a ruddy complexion. As already noted, Maedros, Amros and Amros have the rare red-brown hair of Nerdanel's kin (using the forms of the names that go with this notion).

Quite correct and I mentioned that “… their mother’s family may have had darkish red hair″, the main emphasis on the word “darkish″. It would have been clearer if I had italicized “darkish”.

Just to note it: the Appendix F description (dark-haired save for the House of Finarfin) actually concerns the Eldar, not merely the Noldor, but I fully agree that this is a general description in any case, allowing for exceptions.

Yes, for the Appendix F description taken by itself. But Christopher Tolkien notes in The Book of Lost Tales, Part One (HoME 1), pages 43–44, and in The Peoples of Middle-earth (HoME 12), page 77, that earlier forms of this passage in earlier writings applied to the Noldor only and that it was originally in an aborted forward to The Lord of the Rings as given in The Peoples of Middle-earth (HoME 12), page 23, that Tolkien first modified this description so that it applied to all the Eldar.

This problem first came to a head when The Silmarillion was published in which the Vanyar were all (or mostly) fair-haired which very much conflicted with the statement in The Lord of the Rings which indicated that the locks of all of the Eldar were dark, save in the golden house of Finrod.

This description published in The Lord of the Rings creates problems with all the Vanyar who would now also have dark locks and possibly with the silver-haired Celeborn. It is commonly understood to be an unintentional error by Tolken. William Cloud Hicklin appeared to be taking the earlier description as a base of argument and I accepted that.

And I don't think we necessarily need any of the Silvan Elves to be Avari to be golden haired, as according to The Lord of the Rings at least, the Silvan Elves of Lorien and Mirkwood are not considered Eldar in any case.

No, the golden haired Elf of Lothlórien need not necessarily be an Avari. But he could be from all we are told, which makes mention of him irrelevant in William Cloud Hicklin’s list of Elves of anomalous hair-colouring. That was my intended point.

[Galin]

Originally Posted by Jallanite

Yes, for the Appendix F description taken by itself. But Christopher Tolkien notes in The Book of Lost Tales, Part One (HoME 1), pages 43–44, and in The Peoples of Middle-earth (HoME 12), page 77, that earlier forms of this passage in earlier writings applied to the Noldor only and that it was originally in an aborted forward to The Lord of the Rings as given in The Peoples of Middle-earth (HoME 12), page 23, that Tolkien first modified this description so that it applied to all the Eldar.

But this 'but' merely refers to a rejected draft version, and considering that Christopher Tolkien also noted that his father carefully revised the passage to refer to the Eldar...

(...) This description published in The Lord of the Rings creates problems with all the Vanyar who would now also have dark locks and possibly with the silver-haired Celeborn. It is commonly understood to be an unintentional error by Tolken.

... looking at things another way maybe: the description published in The Silmarillion creates the 'problem' in my opinion. And even Christopher Tolkien is not wholly sure Tolkien had made an unintentional error when he wrote Appendix F. CJRT mused on the possibility that Tolkien had not, at this point, landed upon the idea that most of the Vanyar were imagined as golden-haired -- although admittedly he cites (but) one example that appears to pre-date the final form of Appendix F -- but even here we can't be sure that that idea was yet 'concrete' in the early 1950s.


There is, of course, nothing wrong with Appendix F as revised until one compares it to later, but never published (by the author himself), descriptions concerning the Vanyar.

Why not see the 'private' description as the error instead of The Lord of the Rings? I think Tolkien himself would arguably weight The Lord of the Rings, it being already published and never revised on this point, if he realized the problem and attempted to solve it. Either that or he could claim that he meant the Eldar of Middle-earth were dark-haired -- but the point is, no one really knows how Tolkien himself would have handled this.

The Vanyar were the smallest clan, living in Aman since before the Exile of the Noldor. If they too were mostly dark-haired, Middle-earth is not shaken to its foundations (hyperbole alert). And golden hair could even be said to be more rare among the Eldar, if so. It's not necessary that the Vanyar explain the House of Finarfin's golden locks, it's just part of the corpus that remained private, essentially draft text, until made public by Christopher Tolkien.

They don't even have to be called the Vanyar that I'm aware of, considering what it means according to Quendi And Eldar for example.

Anyway I'm just trying to raise a different perspective compared to saying that this author-published description is commonly understood as an (even unintentional) error. It's only so from a certain point of view in my opinion, even if Tolkien had forgotten about the Vanyar when he first wrote the passage (again if the idea was certain at the time), and even if he had again forgotten when he chose to revise Finrod to (ultimately) Finarfin* in the very same passage.

Did JRRT miss this twice? Maybe. It would seem so in that he never appears to address the matter. And even if Tolkien might have characterized Appendix F as the error here in general, it's not necessarily a given that the characterization would be: the mistake was that only the Noldor were meant...

... as according to later text, the Sindar themselves were mostly dark-haired too. Only the Vanyar needed explaining here according to CJRT -- again if considering the same sort of comparison that creates the 'problem' under discussion: comparing what had been published versus what had been written at a later point, but still remained private from Tolkien's perspective.

__________
*a revision itself that was hardly necessary, even if desired, incidentally.

[Mithalwen]

Or he might have meant the Eldar in Middle Earth maybe? Given that they are the ones that the readers of LOTR would need to know about and given the translator conceit, the ones that the scribes in Gondor (whose work IIRC the appendices were meant to be) was aware of,

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Galin

Anyway I'm just trying to raise a different perspective compared to saying that this author-published description is commonly understood as an (even unintentional) error.

William Cloud Hicklin wrote “it's often said (with citations) that ALL Noldor (save Finarfin's descendants) are dark-haired.” I recognized that when using the words “ALL Noldor” William Cloud Hicklin was assuming the common understanding of a passage mentioning hair colour and its common understood emendation in The Lord of the Rings.

I naturally followed his common assumption. I have long been aware that various other meta-theories are possible but did not see fit to muddy the water when this part of the thread was concerned with Tolkien’s works as generally interpreted.

Your discussion is quite valid on its own. But it throws things so open that almost nothing can be discussed because nothing is certain. Perhaps Orodreth was a woman.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Now we're getting into two really separate questions which run through an overlap of texts; but I'll split them up, turning to hair first.

The notorious passage from Appendix F remained a description of the Noldor even in the penultimate version of that text: "I have sometimes (not in this book) used Gnomes for Noldor, and Gnomish for Noldorin. This has been done...." etc. Note that this was several iterations after the "golden house of Finrod" line had first appeared. This vanished in the final text for the publishers, apparently since it seemed (in CT's word) otiose to talk about terminology which T had scrubbed from the LR. When preparing BOLT 1, Christopher was at a loss to explain it; "I am unable to determine how this extraordinary perversion of meaning arose." A dozen years later, after intensely studying the Appendices texts, he was more measured in expressing his puzzlement but no less puzzled: "it does indeed seem 'extraordinary' that he should have failed to observe this point [the Vanyar's hair]." He goes on with a speculation that Vanyarin hair-color had not yet arisen; but then, in a footnote (CT, it should be noted, often adds late corrections via footnote rather than disturb galley-proofs), shoots his own argument down, observing that the Golden Hair already existed in the first draft of the Tale of Maeglin, which is definitely older than the text at issue.

However carefully Tolkien emended "Noldor" to "Quendi" and "Eldar", and however attentive he was in emending Finrod to Finarfin in the 2nd Ed, it's still noteworthy that this 'care' didn't extend to noticing that his statement as re-applied was simply wrong. Homer does sometimes nod! (remember the Thror/Thrain mixup?) It becomes even more confusing when one observes that the passage is actually unclear as to whether "They" actually refers back to Eldar or to Quendi; grammatically and logically it could be either.

"In the final typescript, that sent to the printer, many changes entered that were not, as was almost invariably my father's practice when proceeding from one draft to the next, anticipated by corrections made to the preceding text: they seem in fact to have entered as he typed. There is no suggestion in Text B ... of the alteration of the passage concerning the word Gnomes so that it should apply to the word Elves, and the placing of it at the end of the text instead of preceding the discussion of Dwarves. Nothing could show more clearly the extreme pressure my father was under."

In short, the fact that a particular set of words appeared in print, while entitled to a presumption in its favor, doesn't get an irrebuttable presumption that this, absolutely, was precisely what Tolkien meant, especially since we know that T could in fact goof, or express himself elliptically, and further was capable of changing his mind about aspects of his world large and small. For example, App F as printed contains the statement that "The Westron was...in origin the language of those whom the Eldar called the Atani or Edain"- a shorthand which is not, strictly, accurate. The fact that the veteran Patience-player late in life set himself a 'rule' regarding printed matter, as in the Question of Ros, doesn't alter the freedom which on other occasions he exercised, nor the fact that Tolkien may have been the Creator of Arda but he wasn't the infallible Iluvatar.

---------------------------------------

This Appendix was written and re-written during the period of the Great Linguistic Shift, the momentous decision, marked by the 'discursus' added to the Grey Annals, to convert the Noldorin of the Exiles into the Sindarin of Beleriand.

This required a complete recasting of the family tree of languages which had been in effect since Lammasthen, and which had still been 'valid' when the LR narrative was written. It took Tolkien a while to sort out what had become a real problem for him: whereas before "Doriathrin" and other Elf-tongues of Middle-earth could be classed as East-elven (and largely ignored), now he had to bring 'Danian' languages into a close relationship with Sindarin, a native Beleriandic language rather than a devolved Exilic Quenya. And the linguistic question necessarily redounds upon the 'ethnic question' (inevitably for the old philologist); if Sindarin was an Eldarin tongue then related languages must also in some way be 'Eldarin' and not Avarin, and the folk who spoke them likewise.

To be sure, even before the GLS T had hedged his bets somewhat, stating that Noldorin in Beleriand had "drawn closer" to the Doriathrin tongue of the natives; but even there of course Doriathrin was seen as a West-elven or Eldarin dialect. Yet Tolkien had in the 30s decided already that the Green-elves and their relatives east of the Blue Mountains were *not* Avari, but Pereldar . The Danas were "not counted among the Eldar, nor yet among the Lembi [->Avari]...nor was their tongue like the tongues of the Lembi, but was of its own kind, different from the tongues of Valinor and of the Lembi, and most like that of Doriath." This is I think an important conception for the future; remember that at this time and throughout the writing of LR there was apparently no connection at all between the Laiquendi and the Elves of the Vales of Anduin.

There is no question of course that at the time Tolkien wrote the Lorien chapters the woodland Elves were conceived as speaking an 'alien tongue' that none of the company save Legolas apparently can understand, especially so when one reflects that then and for a very long time thereafter T conceived of the Common Speech as being a sort of demotic Numenorean Noldorin; Rumil's inability to communicate in CS, and Haldir's hesitancy, indicate a native speech completely unconnected to Noldorin. Even as late as Text F4 of the Appendix, which came after the GLS, T explicitly tells us that the majority of the Elves of Mirkwood were "Eastern Elves that had hearkened to no summons to the Sea;" i.e. Avari. And yet, and yet: whereas earlier App F texts repeated the idea that personal and place-names from Mirkwood and Lorien were of Silvan or 'Lemberin' origin, in F4 he declares them to be Sindarin. It was at this time Thranduil and Legolas (and Celeborn) became Sindar of Beleriandic origin, and the Silvans had become "Sindarized" by their incoming ruling caste.

So in the text rushed to the printers in 1955 he simply draws a bright line between West-Elven and East-Elven tongues, the latter absent since former 'Silvan' vocabulary has become Sindarin (remarkably easily). But the history was moving apace. Most significantly for our purposes, the 1951 revision of the Quenta Silmarillion takes up the story of Dan and his breakaway, but expressly changes the neither-nor staus of QS and Lammasethen to make them Eldar and Alamanyar just like the (newly-renamed) Sindar. The Annals of Aman, contemporaneous but slightly later, makes it explicit for the first time that it was at the Anduin and the barrier of the Hithaeglir that the Nandor (now so named) broke away: again, a pregnant notion, but its import not yet realised ca. 1955; it would be by the time of Quendi and Eldar, about 4 years later, that the identity of the Silvan Elves with the Nandor becomes explicit.

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

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).

I don’t recall the passage you mentioned claiming that no Avari were to be found in the West. But from The War of the Jewels (HoME 11), page 381:

For in contrast the Lindarin elements in the western Avari were friendly to the Eldar, and willing to learn from them; and so close was the feeling of kinship between the remnants of the Sindar, the Nandor, and the Lindarin Avari, that later in Eriador and the Vales of Anduin they often merged together.

This very strongly suggests that Avari were included among the Elves of Lórien, at least in Tolkien’s thought at one time.

From the same article, page 410:

The form penni is cited as coming from the ‘Wood-elven’ speech of the Vales of Anduin, and these Elves were among the most friendly to the fugitives from Beleriand, and held themselves akin to the remnants of the Sindar.

Penni was one of the five Avari names meaning “Elves”.

[Morthoron]

Only the Elves could be embroiled in such hirsute minutiae.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Oh, certainly Tolkien never could make up his mind. That's rather the point: any discussion about Middle-earth really contains within it the question "when?" The publication of one book plus its cursory revision simply cut through an ongoing development transversely in time. When he wrote The Lord of the Rings T clearly thought the Wood-elves to be Avari; but in the History of Galadriel and Celeborn "They were descended from those of the Teleri who, on the Great Journey, were daunted by the Misty Mountains and lingered in the Vale of Anduin...but they still remembered that they were in origin Eldar."

Yet still at the same time T could give us Mithrellas, an Elf of Lorien who, according to the Appendix A statement that there were only three marriages of Eldar and Edain, by definition could not be Eldarin.

Even that is less solid than it appears; the 1st Edition text has it that there were three marriages "between High Elves and Men" - a statement which was an error when he wrote it because Luthien, however lofty her maternal lineage, was never a High Elf.

Similarly the Silvan tongue: when T wrote the chapter, Frodo simply couldn't understand the Avarin dialect of Lorien. By the Second Edition, a footnote tells us F was listening to Sindarin spoken with a Silvan accent. Two late essays state that A) Thranduil's household spoke Sindarin but not his Silvan-speaking people, and B) Silvan was no longer spoken in Mirkwood/Lorien by the late Third Age. Pick one.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

In this context it's worth bringing up the meaning of Vanyar, a name which replaced Lindar in the revisions to QS ca 1951 (and somewhat before Maeglin was first written*).

According to 'Quendi and Eldar' (XI.382) Vanyar "Fair Ones" expressly meant "fair" as in "light-complected, blonde," and was given by the Noldo specifically because of the preponderance of golden or yellow hair amongst the First Kindred (who continued to refer to themselves as Minyar).

Now Q&E was written about 1959-60 and so post-dates the texts in question. It's worth noting that around this time, on the 1958 LQ2 typescript, Tolkien went back and changed "High Elves" (ref the Vanyar) to "Fair Elves" throughout.

The App F passage at issue, describing the Noldor (later Eldar), first appeared in the draft Foreword which was done not later than mid-1950, and in any event certainly predated the post-LR work on the First Age material- it doesn't in its original form include any "House of Finrod" exception. So there isn't any particular reason to think that when first written (applied then to the Noldor) there had yet arisen the idea of a particular golden-haired ethnicity among the Elves, even though individual blonde Elves had.

So when did the idea of (1) blonde Vanyar and (2) a blonde Vanyarin-derived branch of the House of Finwe, come to be?

(1) The D-text of Ainulindale and the Quenta Silmarillion revision both have Lindar, later emended to Vanyar. The Annals of Aman has Vanyar as written, so this change can be pretty well pinned down to 1951, or later than the draft Foreword. This date sequencing is reinforced by the fact that Ainu D already uses Teleri, whereas the draft Foreword still uses Lembi.

There's no evidence to set against the assumption that Vanyar had the same meaning from the time of its introduction as it had in Q&E. But we can't be sure of it, either, although the fact that T saw fit to change an old name is suggestive.** But obviously this isn't definitive; it is interesting though to observe that an addition to the A-text of QS includes, referencing the Noldor, "Dark was their hue and grey were their eyes," which at least implies that at this time T thought that this was a distinctive Gnomish coloration and, presumably, other Kindreds were not necessarily dark-haired. However, one would think T would also have added a note on the golden hair of the Lindar had the concept then existed- but, again, arguing from the absence of evidence is a shaky business. They were, however, still Lindar "Singers" not Vanyar "Fair Ones."

I think therefore it's clear that dark-haired Noldor arose before golden-haired Vanyar.



BUT- it's unquestionably the case that the original 1951 text of Maeglin refers to golden-haired Vanyar. Still, note what it actually says: Idril's hair "was golden as the Vanyar, her mother's kindred." In other words, we are not here dealing with the Indis-Finarfin line, but rather Turgon's marriage to a Vanya, Alaire -> Anaire -> Elenwe, who according to the original text would not leave Valinor, (much) later changed to a death in the Grinding Ice.

This episode is interesting- QS as rewritten makes no mention of Turgon's wife, nor does the original text of AAm.*** It seems as far as I can tell that the idea that Turgon married a Vanya, who bequeathed her fair hair to her daughter, arose ab initio with the expanded Maeglin story. But it also seems that we can with some assurance conclude that the Vanyar were blonde from at least the same time-frame as that in which their new name was coined, and I would submit therefore that the new name had the meaning "Fair (blonde) Ones" from the start.

But that doesn't get us to the House of Finarfin....


(2) In the QS and AAm texts of this period, there is no suggestion that Finwe had two wives or that his sons were other than full brothers; and certainly no mention of Finarfin's line being blonde. But, continuing a tradition, Celegorn "the fair" is contrasted with Cranthir "the dark"; and for the first time in the Sil matter Galadriel appears, her hair "lit with gold as though it had caught in a mesh the radiance of Laurelin." In other words, although T was at about the same time introducing the idea of the Noldor as *generally* dark-haired, individual blonde Noldor were certainly still included. But were they individual exceptions to a rule, or was there a new House of Finrod or Vanyarin Descent sub-rule at this time?

I can't come up with any text which introduces the death of Miriel and Finwe's remarriage to Indis of the Vanyar before the "second post-LR phase" of work on the matter of the Elder Days- work of uncertain date, but which was almost certainly done after the publication of the LR and not later than 1958. Yet already by the text F3 of the later Appendix F - which unquestionably *predated* the Grey Annals (and thus also Maeglin) - the "golden house of Finrod" has entered.

An interesting view of that House at the same time appears in text T4 of the Tale of Years, which was made at about the same time as the early F-texts: Galadriel here makes her earliest appearance in relation to the wider mythology, and is said to be the "sister of Gil-galad," soon after amended to "sister of Felagund Gil-galad's sire." The idea that Gil-galad was Felagund's son was abandoned by the time of the Grey Annals, again demonstrating how early this text and the contemporaneous Golden House notion appear to be. But nothing in the TY suggests hair-color for anyone.

In fact, and this is worth looking at, it was with the revised QS of 1951 that two new twists occur with regard to the Teleri: A) Elwe becomes Thingol and the former Elwe is renamed Olwe, and the two of them are said respectively to have had silver-grey and white hair; and B) Finrod (-> Finarphin) marries Olwe's daughter. A is noteworthy because IIRC this is the first time in the legends of the First Age that *any* elven hair-color had been mentioned other than "yellow-haired Glorfindel" and Luthien's raven locks.**** B is perhaps of significance because, in emphasizing the Finrodians' kinship and good relations with Thingol, it seems to be the first time that Tolkien appears to attach importance to the in-laws: marital ties (indeed wives) don't seem to have had any role in the pre-LR versions of the mythos.

Where does all this lead us? Well, my roughly-formed hypothesis- and it is only that - is that here is another case where Tolkien's efforts to answer a relatively small question grew organically into having much wider significance.

The question was "Why does Galadriel have golden hair?"

It seems that at this time, circa 1950 with the LR written, it was easy enough for Tolkien to slot in his new royal Noldorin characters, Galadriel and Gil-galad, with his favorite branch of the house of Finwe, that of the noble Felagund. But it seems also that at this same time, for reasons never really explained, Tolkien decided that the Noldor on the whole had dark hair and grey eyes.

Is it possible that in his first cut at the problem, when revising QS, he reckoned that a dark-haired Finrod marrying a silver-haired Earwen would have had golden-haired children, the original notion behind the first appearance of the Golden House of Finrod?????

Whether or not that notion crossed his mind, it does seem to be the case that roughly a year after the Noldor were ruled dark, the former Lindar were renamed Vanyar and got fair hair to match. And almost as an aside Tolkien introduced what seems to be a new but trivial element: he decided Idril should be blonde, and was so through a Vanyarin mother. Why? It isn't important politically, since said mother was back in Valinor. It isn't really important at all. My only wild-hare guess is that for whatever reason T felt it was a visual indication of Nordic Tuor being a better match for her than dark, dark Maeglin, but that's rawest speculation. More important is simply the fact that he did it, and I think from it came the idea that his Golden House of Finrod could also arise from a Vanyarin marriage.

But for that to happen, Finwe's first wife had to be got out of the way. Notes of uncertain date suggest he toyed with the idea of Feanor having been born in Cuivienen, firstborn of all the Children of Iluvatar, and his mother (named Indis!) later lost on the Great March; but instead he took the path he did, which created a huge and I think much enriching upheaval of the story, not only in the House of Finwe's Peyton Place dynamics, but even in his conceptions of fea and hroa, death and immortality.







* in the ca 1950-52 'phase' the order of composition was Ainulindale - Quenta Silmarillion - (some overlap) - Annals of Aman - Grey Annals- "long Tuor" - Maeglin. Alterations to the Grey Annals to incorporate the Maeglin material were made using leaves from a November 1951 calendar.

** I've asked Carl Hostetter whether there's a note on the meaning of Vanyar which is any earlier than Q&E.

*** The 1959 genealogies as written had her as a Vanya who remained behind, altered later to "lost in the ice."

**** Unless we count "Celegorn the fair and Cranthir the dark")


-------------------------------

Of course, in Quendi and Eldar he had the space to state the obvious, which was that these genetic hair markers were only predominant, not universal; in similar wise we speak of Swedes being blonde and Italians dark, but are perfectly well aware that there are dark Swedes and blonde Italians.

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

Two late essays state that A) Thranduil's household spoke Sindarin but not his Silvan-speaking people, and B) Silvan was no longer spoken in Mirkwood/Lorien by the late Third Age. Pick one.

There is no need to pick only one of these two possibilities as there is no contradiction between them. They speak of different times and different places.

In The War of the Jewels (HoME 11) in the article “Quendi and Eldar”, which Christopher Tolkien dates to 1959–60, there are some mentions of hair colour which you have not quoted though they tend to support you.

The first is from page 382 with bold italics and material in square brackets added by me:

The name [Vanyar] referred to the hair of the Minyar, which was in nearly all members of the clan yellow or deep golden. This was regarded as a beautiful feature by the Ñoldor (who loved gold), though they were themselves mostly dark-haired. Owing to intermarriage the golden hair of the Vanyar sometimes later appeared among the Ñoldor: notably in the case of Finarfin, and in his children Finrod and Galadriel, in whom it came from King Finwë’s second wife, Indis of the Vanyar.

The second is from page 384, again with bold italics added by me:

Elwe himself had indeed long and beautiful hair of silver hue, but this does not seem or have been a common feature of the Sindar, though it was found among them occasionally, especially in the nearer or remoter kin of Elwe (as in the case of Cirdan). In general the Sindar appear to have closely resembled the Exiles, being dark-haired, strong and tall, but lithe.

These quotations support your idea that the Vanyar were only mostly fair-haired and that the other kindreds were only mostly dark-haired.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Originally Posted by jallanite

[/INDENT]These quotations support your idea that the Vanyar were only mostly fair-haired and that the other kindreds were only mostly dark-haired.

That's actually what I was referencing in my last (hard to see) line: "Of course, in Quendi and Eldar he had the space to state the obvious, which was that these genetic hair markers were only predominant, not universal; in similar wise we speak of Swedes being blonde and Italians dark, but are perfectly well aware that there are dark Swedes and blonde Italians."

[Galin]

** I've asked Carl Hostetter whether there's a note on the meaning of Vanyar which is any earlier than Q&E.

Carl will certainly know better, but we do have a base BAN- in Etymologies from which Q. vanya beautiful and 'Cf. vanima 'fair' (also noting Aragorn's words in Lothlorien about Arwen).

And as far back as the early Qenya Lexicon we have 'vane (i) fair, lovely.' I didn't stumble across anything in these earlier accounts (quick search however) that certainly noted 'pale, light coloured' as we find connected to the Q&E stem WAN (where it's noted that the implication of beauty was secondary).

In Words Phrases And Passages Tolkien notes BAN- 'beauty' and a distinct stem WAN- 'fair-haired (yellow to golden). This was reason for name of the Mindi. But since later Q wanya/vanya, late Q vanya became almost an exact synonym of English 'fair' = just, good, right, prosperous, blessed, fine (weather) -- blond [but it never meant 'moderate, mediocre'] For 'beautiful' late Q used vanya.'

This is probably somewhat connected to Q&E I think. Also see note 4 to Dangweth Pengolodh (Banyai)

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Note also the very early negative formation uvanimor "monsters, giants and ogres:" hideous creatures.

And of course Vana the Fair, the wife of Orome, Vala of spring and (strongly implied) of beauty, whose name goes back to the beginning.

But it's no secret that variations on van-, ban- meant "beautiful" for a very long time. I'm interested in the alternative wan- "blonde", and whether it can be found earlier than Q&E... or whether, by contrast, Vanyar when first coined meant "Beautiful Ones"

[Galin]

My guess so far is that WAN- with this meaning (the bases GWAN- and GWAY- also appear in Words, Phrases And Passages, some entries having been deleted however) arose in 1959, 1960, around the same time as Quendi And Eldar.

Tolkien seems to ponder words for beautiful (WPP, base MIR-) while considering van and the fact that Arwen is dark-haired, and appears to answer himself with two bases in this context (here BAN- and GWAN-).

Also the editors for WPP often seem to note earlier or other appearances of a given base, sometimes pointing to QL or Etymologies, but for *WAN they merely note Q&E.

If Christopher Tolkien is correct that Dangweth Pengolodh might date to the early part of the 1950s rather than the later part, the form Banyai -- altered to Vanyar internally by the Elves themselves -- seems to suggest (keeping in mind I'm no linguist) a root BAN- and a possible meaning 'Beautiful Ones' at this point (although it might be added that this footnote does not apear in both versions, if I recall correctly).

Anyway I would be interested in Carl's response, and there could easily be other evidence I'm forgetting or don't have, even if my guess is well enough founded on this much.

[Galin]

Not to derail things, but perhaps as a side topic, I was wondering about the following from The History of the Hobbit. In 'In The Halls Of The Elvenking' (Mr. Baggins part one), P. 407 John Rateliff writes:

'... and there is some evidence that he originally conceived of the Second Kindred or Noldor (the Deep-elves) as golden-haired: in the genealogies meant to accompany the ('Earliest) Annals of Beleriand' [early 1930s] they are referred to as Kuluqendi or 'Golden-elves' (HME V. [403]); the 1937 Quenta Silmarillion includes 'the Golden' as one of their many descriptors (HME V. 215) and Christopher Tolkien notes (BLT I. 43-4, HME XII. 77) that the passage in Appendix F of the first edition of The Lord of the Rings describing the Eldar (the Three Kindreds of the High Elves) as dark haired, 'save in the golden house of Finrod' (i. e., the character known as Finarfin in the published Silmarillion and more recent editions of The Lord of the Rings [cf. LotR. II71]: Galadriel's father not her brother, some of whose children were golden haired because of his Vanyar wife), was written as a description of the Noldor (the Second Kindred) before being applied to the Eldar as a whole'.

Anyway the last example confuses me a bit within the context of the idea raised.

I think the Gnomes in The Book of Lost Tales were given a relationship of sorts to golden light. In The Tale Of The Sun And Moon: 'Now golden light not even the Gods could tame much to their uses, and had suffered it to gather in the great vat Kulullin to the great increase of its fountains (...) 'Tis said indeed that those first makers of jewels, of whom Feanor has the greatest fame, alone of the Eldar knew the secret of subtly taming golden light to their uses, and they dared use their knowledge but very sparingly, and now is that perished with them out of the Earth.'

And the first makers of jewels are the Noldoli: '-- and therefrom did the Noldoli with great labour invent and fashion the first gems' (The Coming Of The Elves)

Well, as far as that goes anyway. And Mr. Rateliff surely knows the contex of the Silmarillion reference to the Noldor as the Golden from HME V, but looking at the other references (extremely edited here to do so), starting with the Lindar/Vanyar: '...they are the fair folk and the White. The Noldor are the Wise, and the Golden (...) The Teleri (...) the Blue Elves, the Pearl-gatherers (...) The Danas (...) the Hidden Elves, the Green-Elves (...)'

And jumping rather notably in the external timeline to Q&E, as posted already it's said that the Noldor loved gold.