Random musings from a bored and tired mind

Cirashala

Cirashala

Valinor
Some random questions that have popped into my head of late (and yes I know some of these won't have 100% provable answers, so feel free to speculate on what the Prof didn't elaborate on):

1. Elves and body hair- we know that Cirdan is the only elf with a beard (a rather inconsistent portrayal from Tolkien regarding elves), but what about body hair? I'm not talking elves as being little tanks of hairballs like dwarves, but do you think that elves at least had body hair in the "usual places"?

2. Do elves go through puberty? I would imagine they at least have to experience the effects of growing up from child to adult, but do they have to deal with crazy hormones and acne too? Imagining Arwen with acne is...different.
3. Why did the men always marry up, and the women always marry down, in terms of either race or social class? Melian was Maia, Thingol/Elwe was elf; Arwen was born elf, Aragorn man; Luthien half/elf half/maia and Beren man; Mithrellas elf, her spouse (whats-his-name) man; Eowyn (royal line of Rohan) and Faramir (steward line, not royal); etc. Are there any instances where the man marries down, as opposed to the reverse?

4. Is there such a thing as love at first sight in ME? We have Thingol enchanted by Melian, Aragorn enchanted by Arwen, Beren by Luthien, Sam by Rosie, etc. But is it possible that love also grows slowly, as opposed to being instantaneous?

5. Sadly, we know that slaves were taken by many peoples in ME at one point or another, not just orcs. What would their slave ships have looked like? Keeping in mind we are talking (if we are to adopt Tolkien's attitude as this being a much earlier world within our own) many thousands of years before the Atlantic slave trade of the 19th century.

6. Does Tolkien contradict himself when it comes to elven mortality and "being forced"? Aredhel and Eol come to mind, and so does Mithrellas (I can't imagine anyone leaving their children behind unless it she was NOT there willingly). This topic does come up some in Tolkien's works, including two of Feanor's sons wanting to take Luthien by force. Did they not know her spirit/fea would leave her body if they tried? If so, it would seem odd that they would continue to pursue it. Or was the "author" of the Silmarillion, et al, just simply trying to gloss over the reality of such an awful crime?

7. I'm not 100% sure about the book (have to read the Dunharrow part again) but do elves actually see the "spirits of the dead" or just sense they're present? I suppose this ties into the idea that elves have a "sixth sense" when it comes to the "spirit/unseen world" vs the seen world. I'm wondering if they can actually see it as you see this post, or if they just sense it with remarkable accuracy.

8. We all know Athelas, aka Kingsfoil, is a powerful healing plant, especially in the hands of a king (I refuse to acknowledge the "Tauriel heals Kili" scene because the way it was carried out was really stupid, IMHO). What other healing herbs do you think ME would have had? I recently read about a plant that grows in the Sinai desert (a very, very desolate place) that has antiseptic qualities, and I also know raw honey (Beorn) is naturally anti-bacterial. What other herbs do you think could heal?

9. Do Simbelmyne (sp?) ONLY grow on the tombs of kings in Rohan, or does it grow elsewhere too?

10. The elves in Mirkwood get Dorwinian wine, which is apparently from a region near Rhun. Does that point to a possible elf colony there that simply isn't mentioned in the stories? Or do you think it was a human settlement? I'm leaning toward a human settlement, but then again we are talking elves and I suppose it's possible there was an elf colony down there. How else would the wine be so potent that the elves would fall asleep from it? Legolas (in the films, not sure if that contest was in the book) barely felt a tingling with a substantial amount of ale in Rohan. Very potent wine indeed!

Anyway, if I think of more random questions that have popped into my head of late, I'll add onto this list :)

I would love to hear your thoughts on these! And if you've got book-proof of some answers, even better! If not, speculation is fun, especially when the boards are slow [cool]
 
I can't remember right now which Elf it was - maybe Mablung from the First Age? And I remember there was always a controversy over whether it was just a smudge, but I'm pretty darn sure it's a beard. I would assume that they have body hair too.

I'm not sure whether it's ever explicitly stated that Sam fell in love with Rosie at first sight. I imagine their love to be one that grew slowly. Interesting note about the men always marrying up, and the women down - now that I think about it, that does seem to be very common in Middle-earth. Even Bungo Baggins, an ordinary gentlehobbit, married one of the extraordinary daughters of the Old Took, who was rumored to have an elf in his family history. And Aredhel, whom you mention a little later in your post, married the lowly Dark Elf, Eol.

I do imagine Dorwinion as a settlement of humans, but nothing whatsoever is written about them - and it's within possibility that they are Elves, I suppose. Many Elves never crossed the Anduin in the First Age, and remained in the east.

Those are the only ones I can answer right now off the top of my head - I've not read Unfinished Tales in a while, so that might contain other info that I can't remember.
 
Thanks for contributing! I can't fathom why the boards are so slow of late. Weird.

Are you thinking of Cirdan? I know Tolkien slipped and said he had a beard, but I was unsure about Mablung. I guess this merits another reading of the Silmarillion! [;)]

That is a good point about Sam and Rosie. I got the impression that the story started with infatuation on Sam's part, but you might be right. That might have grown more slowly.

I do wonder- since the love at first sight seems to be concentrated with elves or (in Luthien's case) half-elf half-maia (and in Thingol/Elwe's case, Melian a Maia herself), is it the beauty and grace of the elves that make the men instantly fall in love? That seems to be rather shallow, in a way- if they're falling for them solely on beauty and grace alone. I mean, what would have happened if they were in love on sight and then found out she snores like a chainsaw? Or if her temperament was completely disagreeable? Or if she hates fish and he loves it? Altogether problematic (and why I don't believe in love at first sight. Lust sure, infatuation sure, but not love. Love needs time to grow and mature just like a flower seed needs to be tended and watered to grow to its full beauty). In fact, my novel debunks this idea right from the start and shows what maturing, genuine love looks like [;)]

In Aredhel's case, I maintain she was raped by enchantment. I know it sounds bad, and it most assuredly was, but I liken Eol's enchantment of her to be akin to a date rape drug. Sorry for being blunt, but that "well she wasn't wholly unwilling" doesn't necessarily work if she went to him under false pretenses in the first place (said pretenses being Eol's enchantment). That is exactly the same thing as dropping a roofie in a woman's drink, IMHO. So I wouldn't count Aredhel as marrying down- more like Stockholm Syndrome or just plain drugged/enchanted deceitfully.

I guess Dorwinion could go either way :) But if men were able to fashion wine so potent it made elves drowsy, it makes one wonder- just what the heck is in that wine?! Probably knock even the most tolerant of human drinkers straight toward alcohol poisoning with one sip! Which does beg the question- how on earth did teeny little Bilbo not get skunk drunk at least with drinking Thranduil's wine??????

I don't know where my UT copy went- which is annoying me greatly at this point...I keep all my ME-related books together.
 
I'm pretty sure it was Mablung, or somebody from the Tale of Turin. I can't remember specifically.

The love at first sight question is an interesting one to ponder - I like to think it's not so much for their physical beauty or grace, but rather…well, it's hard to explain. The thing about falling in love with an Elf is that, like, it feels that these Men are seeing for the first time a person who is utterly, entirely pure and clean and free of all mortal sins, something, a being so permeated with the essence of Eru that it's hard not to fall in love. It's not physical beauty, I think, but something so perfect - that feeling that Aragorn gets when he first sees Arwen and thinks that he has awoken a spirit of elder days from song. That feeling of being in the presence of something so far above you, so much like a living star, a light encased in a human body, that it is all the slow stages of genuine love rolled into one moment - time works differently for the Elves, and for those it affects, I feel. What you mention in your post, about how true love needs time - for the Elves that time is just a moment, a blink in the eye, and I imagine that that's what happens to Men who fall in love with them, that the whole definition of time becomes strange and different, and whole years become just moments. I might be wrong - I don't have any proof to offer! - but that's how it feels like to me. Maybe I'll try to explain it in greater detail in a future post.

I understand completely what you say about Aredhel! No need to be sorry about your word-choice.

As for Dorwinion, the question of what makes their wine so powerful is truly a good one! I'm glad you asked it, but the only answer I can think of is that it was made by Elves.

I try to keep all my ME-books together too, but at the moment I've got some of them scattered around the house. Fall of Gondolin is somewhere upstairs. Unfinished Tales, unfortunately, I don't have a copy of - I need to get one for myself this Christmas!
 
CoH, Fall of Gondolin, etc is all in the one copy of the Silmarillion I have :) I have LOTR paperback (gosh the hardcover is so dang expensive!), TH hardcover, The Atlas of ME by Fonstad hardcover, LOTR weapons and warfare, Visual guide to ROTK, the Letters of JRR Tolkien, UT, and A Guide to Sindarin by David Salo. HOTH and HOME are on my wishlist but if I thought LOTR HC was expensive, HOLY COW!!! O.o

On a side thought- maybe I borrowed UT from my brother in law....darn it. Oh well. It's now on my wish list too...

Your explanation makes sense :) They're drawn to the light that is in the eyes of the Eldar. Though I believe that light can be in one of the human race if they choose to embrace the beauty of the world Eru created. The problem is that most of them do not allow themselves to be truly free to do so. They worry about so many things and are weary with the toll that their world wrought upon them that they don't appreciate the beauty around them. So when they are confronted by that beauty, they are drawn to it as a dying man is drawn to water in the desert. I believe it's that light within them that draws them. Whether that equates to love or not, I don't know. Perhaps Tolkien's ideas about humanity eventually having a small part of elf in them is that light and appreciation for the natural, unblemished world around them and the orc side of humanity is the darkness that can also reign if one allows the light within them to fade into obscurity.

I try to be sensitive about that particular word because, as a childhood abuse survivor myself (though thankfully not that far), I know that it can affect others who have suffered. At the same time, it's really difficult to get the meaning across without using the actual word, so it becomes a matter of discernment anytime I use it.

That's the only explanation I can think of- unless they lace it with crack or something [crazy] It seems to me that something greater than mere distillery and fermentation would end up with such a strong wine.

This sounds odd, but I ran out of space on my bookshelf so I have all the ME books on the bathroom over-the-toilet cabinet shelf...lack of bookshelves is a rough state indeed when one is an avid reader (though admittedly at least half of our books are textbooks from college, my sketch books, gardening, farming and construction, etc. We really need to go through them). But decent not-going-to-fall-apart-like-the-walmart-ones-did bookshelves are spendy. We plan on building our own but the wood isn't cheap either.
 
Elven endurance. We know elves can drown (Amroth) and that they can die of starvation and thirst (Dior's sons). They can be slain as well, though they can survive wounds that would be fatal to men. We know Legolas at least can run for three days straight without stopping (though he still remarks on the uruks' speed, leading to the suggestion that he was at his maximum capacity as well and tiring. However, could that have been influenced by Saruman in some way?). But as elves still can sleep (though Tolkien suggests he can sleepwalk-er, run...), surely there's a point where even an elf can reach exhaustion.

So how hardy are the elves? How much could an elf take before succumbing to drowning in a rough sea, starvation, thirst, wounds, exhaustion, etc?

And I know elves aren't as temperature sensitive (dwarves too, I think, though not as much as elves) as mortals, but given that they have cloaks and such, surely there comes a point where even they get hot or cold?

It would seem to me that, though elves and men are different, biologically they're one race (else Aragorn wouldn't exist, for starters), so while an elf can endure more than a mortal, surely even elven endurance has its limits?
 
And you've actually got a head-start over me - I've not got the Atlas of ME (I had it once, but lost it), I've not got a lot of the film companion books, and I don't have Letters or A Guide to Sindarin! [blush]

I'm glad that my explanation made a sort of sense - I don't know whether it equates to love, or whether it's something that is higher, purer, more free and everlasting than anything we mere mortals can comprehend. For Elves, love seems to be mainly spiritual, rather than physical. I love your explanation, about how humans have two sides to them - the "inner elf" so to speak, that comes out when you find yourself in a transcendent moment of extreme faith and joy, and the "inner orc" that reigns when all lights go out.

As for the wine, yeah, I'd have to assume it's got an ingredient of magic!
 
I know that Legolas does indeed comment that some enchantment of Saruman's was preventing the Three Hunters from catching up with the Uruk-Hai. But how far he could have gone, running endlessly night and day, is hard to say. Maybe incredible speed/endurance is one of their talents, but I do wonder how long they can endure actual wounds and exhaustion. Felagund survived in the dungeons of Sauron for weeks, I believe, and even at the end of his strength was still able to wrestle a werewolf bare-handed and kill it - and that was after he had faced down Sauron himself and challenged him in a contest of magics. They are clearly incredibly hardy creatures. The Noldor (or, some of them) survived the crossing of the Helcaraxe, too, which was an incredible feat. And Earendil was able to carry the Silmaril on his brow - that may have been due to his spiritual purity, I can't remember. Because I know it burned the flesh of the wolf of Angband, and also the hand of Maedhros, who were both flawed creatures, to put it lightly. And if you go by Tolkien's early writings, then you'll also find an elderly elf who was able to survive on the Moon without any food or water! - no kidding.
 
Ar-Pharazon took Miriel to wife by force- and it is tragic. Eol and Aredhel is another example- an enchantment, a spell if you will, was cast on her by Eol and he took her to wife. One can plausibly argue Mithrellas was also taken against her will, as she ran off and left her husband and children behind (I can't imagine anything short of forced, traumatic captivity would lead any woman, an elf woman no less, to abandon her children).

Why is it that Tolkien seems to make his forced characters- Miriel, Aredhel, Mithrellas, and possibly others I don't remember- always bound by marriage, even if it's forced? I understand the CAPTORS wanting this, because then it gives their potential bloodline legitimacy, but why is it treated as marriage and not plain abduction? By treating it as marriage, or seemingly legitimizing the rapes as being under the umbrella of matrimony, it basically forces the women in question to stay married to their captors (with exception to Mithrellas but Tolkien makes a point that she ran away).

It seems rather odd to me. Does rape automatically mean one is married to the other in ME, even if said act was against her will? Since marriage is treated, at least by elves, as being incapable of divorce (Finwe being the rare singular exception), that dooms these poor women to a lifetime of being with a rapist, essentially [:(]

I get the rather antiquated idea of rape leaving a woman "tainted" and the child (if one is conceived during said act) an illegitimate child, but to condemn the women to a lifetime of being assaulted? That seems unusually cruel even for Tolkien, don't you think?

Or was that the point in the above three cases?
 
Morgoth, Sauron, Orc-tribes and evil men had slaves, surely, but none of them were oceanic at least in the western lands, so they did’nt need ships in their slave-trade
 
Also grew elsewhere on Rohan, Lebennin and probably most of Gondor and surroundings. Mostly on graves it is mentioned. In modern terms one would say it needed loosened soil and high nitrogen/calcium, but I don’t think Tolkien would have thought about that
 
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that makes perfect sense re nitrogen and calcium- two things that decomposing bodies contain in abundance. Manure, especially chicken manure, is also very high in nitrogen and many plants require high calcium and nitrogen content.

I imagine so- Tolkien was a linguist, not a horticulturist [;)] I figured it might be bound to more graves than anything, but I wasn't sure.
 
The Corsairs of Umbar were on Sauron's side in the War of the Ring, and they were a major southern port and had ships in abundance. I believe piracy may also have been mentioned....?
 
Thanks for all the fun questions - I hope it is helping you to have things to think about and am still wishing for your good health. Hope things get better!
About the marrying up and down thing, some depends on how you define up and down (if Galadriel married down by marrying a Sindarin noble, did Finarfin also marry down by marrying a Teleran princess?), but there are some potential cases I can think of: Elros, Arathorn II, Meriadoc.
The argument rests on how royal families are defined, but anyway, here goes. Elros, first King of Numenor, presumably married a Dunedain woman who couldn't possibly have been royalty since the royalty had only just been created and Elros was the only royal. Similarly, would you consider Aragorn's father to have married down since he was an heir of Isildur and Gilraen's family was not in the direct line? Did Merry marry down since he was the Master of Buckland and his wife was a Bolger?
 
Depending on what you think pipeweed is, :) it may have been used for healing. If its Nicotiana: Columbus observed it used in Cuba as a disinfectant and Vespucci saw it used in Venezuela as a toothpaste. People in Brazil used it to treat sores, and in Mexico to treat headache and pain. Fascinating article here. If Cannabis, well of course it is a known pain reliever today. Middle Earth pipeweed is soothing at least!

Thyme, which grew in Ithilien, could be another candidate. Apparently, Thymus is a natural antibacterial. Source.
 
but those are few and far between, it seems, when it comes to any prominent marriage in Tolkien's world. Most of the time, the women marry down and the men marry up.

Elros does bring on another question though...did he (and Arwen, and Luthien) have to give up their pointy ears when they chose the life of a mortal? Or did they still remain fair (and with elvish ears) and in general elvish-looking, even though they were now subject to the elongated but mortal lifespan of men? Did they begin to age physically as mortals do, or not? I do wonder just how much "grace of the Eldar" left them, and what remained. Obviously in the films Arwen remained as beautiful as she was before, even until Aragorn died and then her grace seemed visually only diminished by her grief/sadness. I am curious if Tolkien says anything other than "grace diminishes" and if not, what do you and others think?
 
He does say the hobbits were the first to smoke it, but that certainly doesn't preclude the idea that it could have been used in other ways prior to that.

That's good to know about thyme! Do you know if there's a difference between wild thyme and cultivated thyme? And could you possibly provide where it says that thyme grew in Ithilien? I'm quite curious to know :) It would be much appreciated!

Do you have any thoughts on any of the other questions by chance?
 
It's just funny how that word has changed :)

I didn't even know there was a difference between wild and cultivated thyme! Lesson for the day.

It's mentioned as one of the Herbs that went into the Stewed Rabbit (so it's in the Two Towers, Book IV Chapter IV) in Ithilien, the Garden of Gondor:
Many great trees grew there, planted long ago, falling into untended age amid a riot of careless descendants; and groves and thickets there were of tamarisk and pungent terebinth, of olive and of bay; and there were junipers and myrtles; and thymes that grew in bushes, or with their woody creeping stems mantled in deep tapestries the hidden stones; sages of many kinds putting forth blue flowers, or red, or pale green; and marjorams and new-sprouting parsleys, and many herbs of forms and scents beyond the garden-lore of Sam.
Click to expand...

I'm sure that that list, and the flowers mentioned in the next sentence (saxifrages, stonecrops, primeroles, anenomes, asphodels, lilies) probably include many with traditional medicinal uses.

You might enjoy browsing the classic work A Modern Herbal (published 1931) which lists the traditional uses of many English plants. I wonder if Tolkien had a copy? Re thyme, she says "Garden Thyme" is an antiseptic and was used for whooping cough. And she says "Wild Thyme" was considered to have the same properties but less strong.

(I'm afraid I have no knowledge or even speculation on your other questions, but I think the board has covered most of them - amazing people here!)
 
I couldn't find it before but just found it now - our own squire pulled together some information on all the plants in that passage.

What I really like is that he also included the mythic dimension, which is something you don't want to forget when considering healing in Middle Earth. So, for instance, still using thyme as the example, he found that the ancients linked it with courage and putting venomous creatures to flight. I can't help noticing that after eating his rabbit stewed with thyme Sam went on to face Shelob and put her to flight... :)
 
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