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

From:John Cowan <cowan@...>
Date:Monday, March 31, 2003, 4:47
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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Sally Caves <scaves@...>