Sons of Olwe

[Arvegil145]

In The Silmarillion there is a passing mention of the fact that Olwe had (at least two) sons in addition to his daughter Earwen.

I always wondered why he never bothered naming them, until I realized that he actually did (sort of...maybe...).

So, in a 1930s genealogy associated with the earliest Annals of Beleriand we get a one and only mention of a character called Elulindo, son of Elwe of Alqualonde (Lost Road, 'The Genealogies', p. 403).

Confusingly enough, at this point in time the name Elwe applied to the brother of Thingol and the Lord of the Teleri in Valinor - in other words, this is basically Olwe under an earlier name (Lost Road, 'Quenta Silmarillion', note to §23 of chapter 3, p. 217).

Another interesting thing is that this Elwe is called 'Lord of Ships' (p. 403, 'The Genealogies'), while decades later in the Shibboleth Olwe holds the title of Ciriáran ('mariner king') of the Teleri of Valinor (PoME, 'Shibboleth of Feanor', 'The names of Finwe's descendants', p. 341).

However, I'm still not sure if Tolkien would've kept the name Elulindo after he switched Elwe > Olwe.




This used to be all that there was to this until a few months ago with the publication of Parma Eldalamberon 23 that is.

So, on p. 143 of PE 23 there is this gem:

Celeborn Gildírion, C. son of Gildír (Sindarized form of his father's Telerin name Gilitīro 'starwatcher').

This text dates from at least c. 1968 because it references the Eldarin Hands, Fingers and Numerals by name on the very next page (p. 144).

And depending on how long after 1968 it was written it could be close in time to the 1973 text describing Celeborn as a grandson of Olwe (UT, 'History of Galadriel and Celeborn', p. 299 of HarperCollins version).

Therefore, this Gilitīro (notably having a Telerin name!) could very well be one of the sons of Olwe.




With all that out of the way - what is everyone's thoughts on this? And more importantly, does anyone know of anything else that might shine some more light on the subject?