Male Elves and Human females
brian larkin
This may seem rather a strange subject but I think it's an interesting
aspect of the interaction between races in TLOR. Here's the question: If
female elves found human males attractive as mates (e.g. Aragorn-Arwen,
Beren-Luthien, etc.), why wouldn't male elves find human females attractive?
The way Tolkien describes Luthien, Arwen, and Galadriel gives me the impression
that they'd be way beyond a "10" but would a mortal female (Eowyn for example)
appear sexually attractive to an elf. I know that Tolkien's races seem to
conform to a stricter moral code in cases like this (much more so than people
in our world) but I find the thought interesting and wide-open to subjective
interpretation.
Brian Larkin
California State University at Long Beach
Joseph Dzikiewicz
>
> This may seem rather a strange subject but I think it's an interesting
>aspect of the interaction between races in TLOR. Here's the question: If
>female elves found human males attractive as mates (e.g. Aragorn-Arwen,
>Beren-Luthien, etc.), why wouldn't male elves find human females attractive?
It is my opinion, after thinking through this and similar questions, that
male elves have extremely weak sex drives.
Think about it: the number of children in the average elf family is extremely
low, especially when you consider how many years they have to breed. The
largest elf family that I can think of off-hand is the children of Feanor,
and he may be an exception to the weak-sex-drive male elves (after all,
they didn't call him the "Fire-Spirited" for nothing).
The low number of children cannot be attributable to the female elf: when
female elves marry humans, they tend to have about as many children as
you would expect if they were humans.
Further, in the one case we have of a male elf marrying someone from another
race, Thingol, they had only one child over ages of marriage.
So, my conclusion is that the male elves had weak sex drives. It took the
incredible attractiveness of a female elf to interest them at all,
and even that did not arouse much of their interest. So it is no
wonder that they did not find human females attractive.
Joe Dzikiewicz
COLIN JAMES BUNNELL
> In article <HRB360Q1.93...@beach.csulb.edu> hrb3...@csulb.edu (brian larkin) writes:
> >
> > This may seem rather a strange subject but I think it's an interesting
> >aspect of the interaction between races in TLOR. Here's the question: If
> >female elves found human males attractive as mates (e.g. Aragorn-Arwen,
> >Beren-Luthien, etc.), why wouldn't male elves find human females attractive?
>
> It is my opinion, after thinking through this and similar questions, that
> male elves have extremely weak sex drives.
>
> Think about it: the number of children in the average elf family is extremely
> low, especially when you consider how many years they have to breed. The
> largest elf family that I can think of off-hand is the children of Feanor,
> and he may be an exception to the weak-sex-drive male elves (after all,
> they didn't call him the "Fire-Spirited" for nothing).
>
> The low number of children cannot be attributable to the female elf: when
> female elves marry humans, they tend to have about as many children as
> you would expect if they were humans.
What do you mean? The only pairings I recall off hand of a man and a female
elf (Beren-Luthien, Tuor-Idril, Aragorn-Arwen) each had one child. Not exactly
hordes of children, eh?
>
> Further, in the one case we have of a male elf marrying someone from another
> race, Thingol, they had only one child over ages of marriage.
>
> So, my conclusion is that the male elves had weak sex drives. It took the
> incredible attractiveness of a female elf to interest them at all,
> and even that did not arouse much of their interest. So it is no
> wonder that they did not find human females attractive.
>
> Joe Dzikiewicz
>
>
Elves were probably not very fertile, period. Male or female. Not only that,
but the shortage of children made for easy genealogical charts...:)
-Colin
Lucifer
>Elves were probably not very fertile, period. Male or female. Not only that,
>but the shortage of children made for easy genealogical charts...:)
>-Colin
As opposed to the damn hobbits, who bred like another burrowing animal
with a similar name...<hmm..>
HOW many children did Sam and Rosie have again? I can count off at least
eight by visualizing the chart...one more than Feanor, the hottest
male of the Quendi. Poor Rosie...
|>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>[Phoenix<<>>Damien R. Sullivan<>[X-) Kiljoy]<<<<<<<<<<|
|6x9=42 | AIXELSYD | 1374245896=4 | Libertarian Dictatorship |
|Honk if you're American and have heard of Steeleye Span... | Finger me! |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
ALI0...@unccvm.uncc.edu
had more than one child; one SON, to be the next King, but I THINK that there
was reference to "daughters."
Another Rust-Belt Yankee Exile in Charlotte!
Any opinions expressed are mine, not those of the Atkins Library.
Bruce Alan Wilson ali0...@unccvm.uncc.edu
Justin Fang
(Lucifer) wrote:
> As opposed to the damn hobbits, who bred like another burrowing animal
> with a similar name...<hmm..>
Which brings up another question: Hobbits have *large* families, and most
of their children seem to survive to adulthood and get married.
Furthermore, they only live in one small area, where they've been for
centuries. So, why isn't the Shire incredibly overcrowded? The usual ways
to reduce overpopulation involved disease (never mentioned by Tolkien,
also, many hobbits live to 100+), war (not likely), or emigration (the only
other place they live is Bree).
> |>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>[Phoenix<<>>Damien R. Sullivan<>[X-) Kiljoy]<<<<<<<<<<|
> |6x9=42 | AIXELSYD | 1374245896=4 | Libertarian Dictatorship |
> |Honk if you're American and have heard of Steeleye Span... | Finger me! |
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Justin Fang (jus...@cco.caltech.edu)
This space intentionally left blank.
COLIN JAMES BUNNELL
I just checked. Yer right. Sorry. My point is still much the same, but
there is a reference in ROTK to daughters.
-Colin-
Dane Johnson
>
>Which brings up another question: Hobbits have *large* families, and most
>of their children seem to survive to adulthood and get married.
>Furthermore, they only live in one small area, where they've been for
>centuries. So, why isn't the Shire incredibly overcrowded? The usual ways
>to reduce overpopulation involved disease (never mentioned by Tolkien,
>also, many hobbits live to 100+), war (not likely), or emigration (the only
>other place they live is Bree).
>
Well, actually, I remember some mention of a Plague having hit back in
the past somewheres, plust the Dire Winter (where the wolves from the
north came wandering down looking for food). Plus there was whatever
battles Bullroarer Took fought in.....
However, I agree: there don't really seem to be a sufficient number of
these sorts of problems within "recent memory" to account for the lack
of overcrowding....
Dane
"...he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of
wisdom." -- Gandalf the Grey
Mike Hatz
Mike
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John Alonzo Pickard
than humans when they had children.. They aren't even adults until they
are in their 30's.. Also, the great size of these famalies was due to the
fact that so many hobbits were related to eachother.. That has a tendency
to make famalies appear much larger.. It seems that disease and hunger are
not mentioned, but as with any healthy rural community I am sure things like
death at birth and the like are factors as well..I think back about the stories
that my grandmother tells of her childhood in a little village in
Canada..much like the shire..other than living in holes in the ground.. The
folks lived long lives, but it still seems that they never over-populated
the valley they lived in.. It doesn't seem that hunger is a problem or
population control in the shire, though..
John
John Alonzo Pickard
mentioned as being married.. Frodo wasn't really looked at as being
strange for not having a wife, yet.. The thing that made him strange
was his desire to explore beyond the shire and his acquantance with
folks beyond the shire..
Bob Myers
Justin> Which brings up another question: Hobbits have *large* families, and most
Justin> of their children seem to survive to adulthood and get married.
Do they? How many of them really do get married? Both Bilbo and
Frodo did not marry before they went off on their adventures, and
didn't really seem to be thought so very odd for that.
--
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Internet: Bob....@st.unocal.com Exploration and Seismic Technology
Phone: [714] 693-6951 P. O. Box 68076
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Paul A Watters
: >>>>> On 21 Mar 1993 05:37:05 GMT, jus...@cco.caltech.edu (Justin Fang) said:
: Justin> Which brings up another question: Hobbits have *large* families, and most
: Justin> of their children seem to survive to adulthood and get married.
: Do they? How many of them really do get married? Both Bilbo and
: Frodo did not marry before they went off on their adventures, and
: didn't really seem to be thought so very odd for that.
well, Bob, is that really true? I mean consider the general feeling in
Bywater etc. about the "eccentricity" of the hobbits in question?
Perhaps the "mystery" of their bachelorhood enhanced the effect
somewhat for the local hobbits.
Paul Watters
--
"I am neither internee nor informer; | Paul Watters
An inner emigree, grown long-haired | ps...@alinga.newcastle.edu.au
And thoughtful." | pwat...@hiplab.newcastle.edu.au
-Seamus Heaney | ps...@cc.newcastle.edu.au
Bob Myers
>>>>> On 21 Mar 1993 05:37:05 GMT, jus...@cco.caltech.edu (Justin Fang) said:
Justin> Which brings up another question: Hobbits have *large* families, and most
Justin> of their children seem to survive to adulthood and get married.
Bob> Do they? How many of them really do get married? Both Bilbo and
Bob> Frodo did not marry before they went off on their adventures, and
Bob> didn't really seem to be thought so very odd for that.
Paul> well, Bob, is that really true? I mean consider the general feeling in
Paul> Bywater etc. about the "eccentricity" of the hobbits in question?
Paul> Perhaps the "mystery" of their bachelorhood enhanced the effect
Paul> somewhat for the local hobbits.
I don't believe Bilbo was thought to be particularly odd until after
he had returned from Erebor. Indeed, he was quite the upright and
respectable Baggins, wasn't he.
Frodo, however, always was a little odd --- I mean, consorting with
Mad Baggins and wizards and such --- ok, a bad example there, I guess.
Browsing the family trees in Appendix C of LOTR, it appears that
hobbits tended not to have children until they were about 40 years old
or so, which reduces the number of generations, of course, and also,
it looks like truly *large* families, while common, were not the rule.
Bilbo himself was an only child. It can't be judged how many hobbits
never married, as the chart doesn't show everything.
Joseph Dzikiewicz
>elf (Beren-Luthien, Tuor-Idril, Aragorn-Arwen) each had one child. Not exactly
>hordes of children, eh?
Good point. But consider: Beren-Luthien, Tuor-Idril, and Aragorn-Arwen all
had one child in a relatively short period of marriage. (A couple decades
for the first two couples, a couple centuries for the last). Your
average elf couple has one or two children in millenia of marriage.
Strictly in a child-per-year view, elves are much less fertile.
Also, why is it that their seems to be a lack of great elf-elf romances?
Admittedly, there isn't a huge amount of romance in Middle Earth. But
what there is seems to be mostly human-elf, with the occasional human-human
romance. Again, I'd contend that this is because the male elves just
aren't all that interested.
Andrew Solovay
>Also, why is it that their seems to be a lack of great elf-elf romances?
>Admittedly, there isn't a huge amount of romance in Middle Earth. But
>what there is seems to be mostly human-elf, with the occasional human-human
>romance. Again, I'd contend that this is because the male elves just
>aren't all that interested.
There are a few. Galadriel-Celeborn, Amroth-Nimrodel, Finwe-Miriel,
Finrod-Amarie come to mind. But they don't get much air time, to be
sure.
--
Andrew M. Solovay
"I have been Foolish and Deluded,
and I am a Bear of No Brain at All." -- Pooh
Charles F Fitzgerald
> Joseph Dzikiewicz writes:
> >Also, why is it that their seems to be a lack of great elf-elf romances?
> >Admittedly, there isn't a huge amount of romance in Middle Earth. But
> >what there is seems to be mostly human-elf, with the occasional human-human
> >romance. Again, I'd contend that this is because the male elves just
> >aren't all that interested.
>
> There are a few. Galadriel-Celeborn, Amroth-Nimrodel, Finwe-Miriel,
> Finrod-Amarie come to mind. But they don't get much air time, to be
> sure.
> --
Also remember that originally the Beren/Luthien romance was an elf/elf
romance. Only after a while did it change to the human/elf relationship
with which we are familiar.
--
Charles F. Fitzgerald | '...it's a tale, told by an idiot,
Iowa State University | full of sound and fury,
cffi...@iastate.edu | signifying nothing.'
| _MacBeth_, by W. Shakespeare.
GUNNAR HORRIGMO
>Elves were probably not very fertile, period. Male or female. Not only that,
>but the shortage of children made for easy genealogical charts...:)
>-Colin
Elves are only fertile every 25th year. At least that's in all other books I'
ve read. I don't think I have read anything about that in any Tolkien book,
but other writers seem to agree on this.
MAIL-mail: gun...@sofus.dhhalden.no SNAIL-mail: Gunnar Horrigmo
gun...@fenris.dhhalden.no Oskleiva 17
N-1772 Norway
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Disclaimer: The above posting may seem like insignificant rubbish at
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surprised to discover the annals of Burt Bacharach, world peace,
Oxford Advanced Readers Dictionary, quantum physics made easy, and an
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stee...@woods.ulowell.edu
> Good point. But consider: Beren-Luthien, Tuor-Idril, and Aragorn-Arwen all
> had one child in a relatively short period of marriage. (A couple decades
Ummm...didn't Tuor and Idril have Elrond and Elros?
-darkelf
-----
"I have no brother, am like no brother;
And this word "love", which the greybeards call divine,
Be resident in men like one another
And not in me. I am myself alone."
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-----
Andrew Solovay
>In article <1okolb$r...@access.digex.com>, dz...@access.digex.com (Joseph Dzikiewicz) writes:
>> Good point. But consider: Beren-Luthien, Tuor-Idril, and Aragorn-Arwen all
>> had one child in a relatively short period of marriage. (A couple decades
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>Ummm...didn't Tuor and Idril have Elrond and Elros?
Nope. They had Earendil, who married Elwing, daughter of Dior and
Nimloth; Earendil and Elwing were the parents of Elrond and Elros.
Mike Kelsey
|> In article <1okolb$r...@access.digex.com>, dz...@access.digex.com (Joseph Dzikiewicz) writes:
|> > Good point. But consider: Beren-Luthien, Tuor-Idril, and Aragorn-Arwen all
|> > had one child in a relatively short period of marriage. (A couple decades
|> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
|> Ummm...didn't Tuor and Idril have Elrond and Elros?
|>
|> -darkelf
Nope. The geneaology is:
Beren---Luthien Tuor---Itril
| |
Dior Earendel
| |
Elwing--------------------+
|
+----------+
Elrond Elros
| |
| ... (*many* generations)
| |
Arwen-----Aragorn
You can find this at the end of the _Silmarillion_, I believe.
-- Mike Kelsey
--
[ My opinions are not endorsed by SLAC, Caltech, or the US government ]
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off
the shoulder of Orion. I've watched C-beams glitter in the darkness
near the Tannhauser Gate. All these memories will be lost in time, like
tears in the rain." -- Roy Batty
Mithrandir
>In article <C46B6...@unix.amherst.edu> cjbu...@unix.amherst.edu (COLIN JAMES BUNNELL) writes:
>
>>Elves were probably not very fertile, period. Male or female. Not only that,
>>but the shortage of children made for easy genealogical charts...:)
>>-Colin
>
>Elves are only fertile every 25th year. At least that's in all other books I'
>ve read. I don't think I have read anything about that in any Tolkien book,
>but other writers seem to agree on this.
>
This is by far one of the sillier posts I've read, although the "Ungoliant was
a Maia corrupted into the service of Melkor post a few back views for the
distinction.
WHy should the writings of other others, most at least owing a piece of their
concept of Elves to Tolkien, dictate how oftern Tolkien's Elves were fertile?
*sigh*
>
>MAIL-mail: gun...@sofus.dhhalden.no SNAIL-mail: Gunnar Horrigmo
> gun...@fenris.dhhalden.no Oskleiva 17
> N-1772 Norway
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>Disclaimer: The above posting may seem like insignificant rubbish at
>first glance, but if you read between the lines, you will be
>surprised to discover the annals of Burt Bacharach, world peace,
>Oxford Advanced Readers Dictionary, quantum physics made easy, and an
>easy-to-use step-by-step walkthrough on how to make a time travelling
>device that actually works.
Mithrandir
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Many are my names in many countries. Mithrandir among the Elves, Tharkun to
the Dwarves; Olorin I was in my youth in the West that is forgotten, in the
South Incanus, in the North Gandalf; to the East I go not.
COLIN JAMES BUNNELL
> In article <1okolb$r...@access.digex.com>, dz...@access.digex.com (Joseph Dzikiewicz) writes:
> > Good point. But consider: Beren-Luthien, Tuor-Idril, and Aragorn-Arwen all
> > had one child in a relatively short period of marriage. (A couple decades
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> Ummm...didn't Tuor and Idril have Elrond and Elros?
Nope. Earendil. Earendil and Elwing had Elrond and Elros.
-Colin-
Dan Peters
>Also remember that originally the Beren/Luthien romance was an elf/elf
>romance. Only after a while did it change to the human/elf relationship
>with which we are familiar.
I recently read that part of the Lost Tales. Beren was a human originally
(in the first (erased) draft; CT gives lots of evidence to back this up) but
was changed to an elf for the later drafts of this tale, so that's what you
see if you read the Lost Tales without reading the commentaries. And of
course he was changed back to a human eventually - I don't know when; I
haven't read beyond the Lost Tales in the HoME series.
Drin
--
^..^ / | Dan Peters | "I've got too much energy |
/_/\_____/ | | to switch off my mind, |
/\ /\ |pet...@physics.ubc.ca| but not enough _ _ |
/ \ / \ | | to get myself organized...." -The The |
Dan Peters
>Ummm...didn't Tuor and Idril have Elrond and Elros?
You've skipped a generation. Remember Earendil?
Alien
>>aspect of the interaction between races in TLOR. Here's the question: If
>>female elves found human males attractive as mates (e.g. Aragorn-Arwen,
>>Beren-Luthien, etc.), why wouldn't male elves find human females attractive?
Tolkien was not interested in describing sex in any detail - no doubt he
viewed it as a private matter and that prurient interest in sex in literature
was in bad taste.
The books are very masculine on the whole and female characters are mostly
'goddesses' (not sex-goddesses needless to say) such as Galadriel. Now a human
can look upon an elf woman as something impossibly beautiful and almost beyond
his reach ;but a male elf cannot regard a mere human female of 'earthly'
beauty in the same light.
>It is my opinion, after thinking through this and similar questions, that
>male elves have extremely weak sex drives.
Or extremely high self-control! And many other interests in life!
>Think about it: the number of children in the average elf family is extremely
>low, especially when you consider how many years they have to breed. The
>largest elf family that I can think of off-hand is the children of Feanor,
>and he may be an exception to the weak-sex-drive male elves (after all,
>they didn't call him the "Fire-Spirited" for nothing).
Not many examples are given so you cannot judge.
>The low number of children cannot be attributable to the female elf: when
>female elves marry humans, they tend to have about as many children as
>you would expect if they were humans.
I suppose you would say that the humans have very low sex drives as well or
else women would be worn out with child-birth, as happened in most real
societies before the advent of generally available contraception. This is
fantasy after all.
>Further, in the one case we have of a male elf marrying someone from another
>race, Thingol, they had only one child over ages of marriage.
One child into whom they put all their spirit. It was only out of Melian's
great love for Thingol ,and fate, that she ,a Maia, was able to reproduce at
all - or perhaps it was only for those reasons that she deigned to have a
child by him.
Matt
--
Matthew Woodford Welcome watchers of illusion,
m...@uk.ac.coventry.cck To the castle of confusion,
Alien This is the place to live or die,
This is the place for getting HIGH.
stee...@woods.ulowell.edu
> Nope. They had Earendil, who married Elwing, daughter of Dior and
> Nimloth; Earendil and Elwing were the parents of Elrond and Elros.
So I skipped a generation...big deal....
=)
Thanks for correcting me, tho...
Anna Korra'ti
>ve read. I don't think I have read anything about that in any Tolkien book,
>but other writers seem to agree on this.
literature (*AND* in actual nonfictional myths) that to try to consider one
source's information as any more valid than another source strikes me as
rather impractical. :) One reader might prefer the Eldar of Tolkien's
books; another may well prefer the Wolfriders of the world of Two Moons
in Wendy and Richard Pini's _ElfQuest_; yet another might prefer the elves
of Gael Baudino's _Strands of Starlight_.
That said, I've never seen any reference in any elf-related fantasy or
mythos to cyclic fertility patterns. Have you a reference for fiction or
myth which does?
A side comment: that elfin children are highly infrequent does not
necessarily imply that the elves are therefore uninterested. It is certainly
possible to mate for pleasure without also mating for children.
Namarie,
Sh'k'anna
Anna Korra'ti
In article <solovayC...@netcom.com> sol...@netcom.com (Andrew Solovay) writes:
>In article <1okolb$r...@access.digex.com> dz...@access.digex.com (Joseph Dzikiewicz) writes:
>>Also, why is it that their seems to be a lack of great elf-elf romances?
>>Admittedly, there isn't a huge amount of romance in Middle Earth. But
>>what there is seems to be mostly human-elf, with the occasional human-human
>>romance. Again, I'd contend that this is because the male elves just
>>aren't all that interested.
>
>There are a few. Galadriel-Celeborn, Amroth-Nimrodel, Finwe-Miriel,
>Finrod-Amarie come to mind. But they don't get much air time, to be
>sure.
A postulation upon why we see few elf-elf romances in Tolkien:
Perhaps he wished to preserve, as much as possible, the sense of the
Elves as "distant, magical, remote". Seeing an elf-elf romance put forth
in anything other than the broadest terms would work against this; it would
make them seem more human.
Namarie,
Sh'k'anna
fsj...@aurora.alaska.edu
parings...if YOU were a male elf, would you find the average human female
attractive? I think it may be a matter of both this aspect, and the fact that
all elves, no matter what race or caste deemed themselves of a certain nobility
(rightly) and may not have wanted to associate with humans (this is not
snobbery, but common sense.) Aside from the fact that elves were sympathetic to
the fact that they would FAR outlive their human spouses..I aggree with the low
fertility idea..I think that an efl'elf pairing would produce few offspring,
but a human/elf pairing, the human being the more fertile of the pair would
influence the fertility in such a way as to be able to produce more young than
the elf/elf paring (deep breath)...right?
JASON WILLIAM JARVIS
writes:
>>> This may seem rather a strange subject but I think it's an interesting
>>>aspect of the interaction between races in TLOR. Here's the question: If
>>>female elves found human males attractive as mates (e.g. Aragorn-Arwen,
>>>Beren-Luthien, etc.), why wouldn't male elves find human females attrac-
>>>tive?
>Tolkien was not interested in describing sex in any detail - no doubt he
>viewed it as a private matter and that prurient interest in sex in literature
>was in bad taste.
It's really not necessary in LotR either.
>The books are very masculine on the whole and female characters are mostly
>'goddesses' (not sex-goddesses needless to say) such as Galadriel. Now a
>human can look upon an elf woman as something impossibly beautiful and
>almost beyond his reach; but a male elf cannot regard a mere human female
>of 'earthly' beauty in the same light.
Especially, say, after seeing the light of the Two Trees.
>>It is my opinion, after thinking through this and similar questions, that
>>male elves have extremely weak sex drives.
>Or extremely high self-control! And many other interests in life!
Like getting back to Valinor. . . .
>>Think about it: the number of children in the average elf family is
>>extremely low, especially when you consider how many years they have to
>>breed. The largest elf family that I can think of off-hand is the
>>children of Feanor, and he may be an exception to the weak-sex-drive male
>>elves (after all, they didn't call him the "Fire-Spirited" for nothing).
>Not many examples are given so you cannot judge.
>>The low number of children cannot be attributable to the female elf: when
>>female elves marry humans, they tend to have about as many children as
>>you would expect if they were humans.
>I suppose you would say that the humans have very low sex drives as well or
>else women would be worn out with child-birth, as happened in most real
>societies before the advent of generally available contraception. This is
>fantasy after all.
And not necessary. . . .
>>Further, in the one case we have of a male elf marrying someone from another
>>race, Thingol, they had only one child over ages of marriage.
>One child into whom they put all their spirit. It was only out of Melian's
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>great love for Thingol ,and fate, that she, a Maia, was able to reproduce at
>all - or perhaps it was only for those reasons that she deigned to have a
>child by him.
Pow! I think Matt just hit it on the head. Granted, now I can't say
what I wanted to! Somebody help me out here, I think we've got something to
work with. . . .
Jason
003...@axe.acadiau.ca
Richard Wang
and my assumption is that this sudden fertility was just part of the
general trend of renewal and invigorization that Tolkien attributes to the
end of Sauron's pernicious influence. I don't think Sam's family size was
at all typical. Plus, the hobbits did tend to intermarry, and this
created large families; not necessarily large nuclear families, however.
They were also extremely communal creatures (like rabbits (-: ) and thus
didn't mind being packed a bit closer than humans would find comfortable.
Maybe the inbreeding led to lethal recessive genes ;-) .
About elven fertility? Who knows? The point is that very few elves had
large families; probably some, or most, didn't even have children. Could
this be related to Tolkien's Catholic beliefs? Probably not, but it's a
thought.
Richard Wang
rw...@husc.harvard.edu
"But all these lines and circles, to me a mystery." -- Natalie Merchant
S. Green
No. Earendil and Elwing did. Check the genealogy in the Silmarillion.
Joseph Dzikiewicz
>>a male elf cannot regard a human female
>
> Especially, say, after seeing the light of the Two Trees.
Is it significant that none of the elven women that marry humans had
seen the Two Trees? (Or am I wrong here? Had Idril made the crossing?
I don't remember off-hand, and, of course, she did not forsake her
elvishness, as did Luthien and Arwen.)
>
Ancalagon the Black
Joseph> Is it significant that none of the elven women that marry humans had
Joseph> seen the Two Trees? (Or am I wrong here? Had Idril made the
Joseph> crossing? I don't remember off-hand, and, of course, she did not
Joseph> forsake her elvishness, as did Luthien and Arwen.)
I don't recall it stated specifically, but her mother Elenwe, Turgon's wife,
died during the crossing of the Helcaraxe.
This makes it pretty likely in my mind that Idril saw the Two Trees.
--
Ancalagon the Black
Incinerator of Illiterate Orcs
Roaster of the Repetitively Wrong
Devourer of Dwarves