Re: Elliott's peoples

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Cowan" <cowan@...>

> For the record, I think the spelling "elvish" predates JRRT, though
> "dwarvish" does seem to be his own (unconscious) invention.
I think it has a very early connotation (and spelling) in medieval and
renaissance parlance, as something "frightening, outre'."  But if Tolkien is
drawing on any kind of Victorian tradition of the "elvish" or the "elvan" as
"beautiful" or "fay," I'd be interested.

How do elves get associated with pointy-ears, for instance?  In some letter
of his, IIRC, Tolkien inveighs indignantly against such interpretations of
his elves, and insists that they have no such deformities in body or limb.
And I think it was about things like pointy-ears, not the diminished size.
But I can't possibly resurrect that text, remembering it as I do from the
early eighties.  I can see myself in my apartment in Berkeley reading it.  I
think it might have been quoted in a review of Bakshi's Lord of the Rings,
where everyone was upset that Bakshi had given the Elves slanted eyes.  I
was sort of mildly annoyed that they had to have pointy ears in Jackson's
film.

Sally Caves
scaves@frontiernet.net
Eskkoat ol ai sendran, rohsan nuehra celyil takrem bomai nakuo.
"My shadow follows me, putting strange, new roses into the world."




Sally Caves
scaves@frontiernet.net
Eskkoat ol ai sendran, rohsan nuehra celyil takrem bomai nakuo.
"My shadow follows me, putting strange, new roses into the world."

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