Re: Answer to Sally's Question: Elves, Neste

Sally Caves scripsit:

> Tolkien neatly removed his Elves from all taint of the sexually
> dangerous, while restoring them to proper size and to an original
> Otherworldliness.  He turns them into almost angelic figures whom mortal
> women cannot possibly fear or desire!
In _Morgoth's Ring_ (volume X of _The History of Middle-Earth_)
there is a wonderful piece called "Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth", which
is a debate between the Elvenlord Finrod and the human woman Andreth
set during the First Age.  Tolkien wrote it while trying to revise the
Silmarillion after the publication of LotR.

What they are talking about is primarily the difference in human and
elvish attitudes about death/deathlessness (JRRT's elves, just to review,
have no natural death, and even if they die of wounds or grief, they can
be reincarnated).  But the underlying motivation for the conversation is
that Andreth is hopelessly (quite literally) in love with Finrod's
relative Aegnor, and Finrod knows it.

It would be interesting if (in your copious spare time) you could read
the Athrabeth (only the title's in Sindarin, I hasten to add!) and
tell us how/if it changes your views.

--
John Cowan           http://www.ccil.org/~cowan              cowan@ccil.org
To say that Bilbo's breath was taken away is no description at all.  There
are no words left to express his staggerment, since Men changed the language
that they learned of elves in the days when all the world was wonderful.
        --_The Hobbit_

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