John Tolkien is best known for his Lord of the Rings trilogy. Its plot develops on the open spaces of a fictional world inhabited by different races, including elves. Middle-earth, thanks to the efforts of the author, has received a rich history. Elven people play a key role in it.
Tolkien Inspiration
Contrary to the prevailing stereotype, Tolkien is not the creator of elves. He borrowed this image from Germanic and Scandinavian pagan myths. In them, the elves are the spirits of the forest. From there, Tolkien took the gnomes and other characters of his fictional world.
The writer supplemented the mythological image with his own ideas. With Tolkien, the elves became a rational, powerful race. Representatives of this nation look like people, but have their own characteristics. Elves live so long that by human standards their life spans are approaching infinity. Nevertheless, they can be killed by force, and in this they do not differ from people. In the world of Tolkien, there are no such ailments that elves could be ill with. Middle-earth is home to many peoples, but it is this race that is distinguished by its sharpest instinct, vision and hearing.
Elf story
According to the chronicles Tolkien left, elves appeared in his world long before humans. Chronologically, this event belongs to the First Age. The elves were awakened by the gods before the sun and moon were created. Therefore, they woke up under a clear starry sky.
Elves originally appeared in Middle-earth. At this time, the world was inhabited by the ancient gods of the Valar. They called the elves to Valinor, a mythical country that was radically different from Middle-earth. It was at this moment that the united nation was divided into clans. Some of them agreed to go to Valinor, others remained in their native land.
In the Second Age, an elven state was created, which was located in Mirkwood. That is what appears in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
Elven Names and Languages
Interestingly, the names of the elves of Middle-earth have several pronunciation options. The fact is that Tolkien was a linguist by training. He taught at universities and was interested in creating artificial languages, which were the quintessence of languages of different human cultures. The author of The Lord of the Rings wanted to create a realistic world in which representatives of each nation would have not only their own culture, but also an adverb. For elves, Tolkien created several languages at once, including Quenya and Sindarin. Their use depended on belonging to a particular clan of this large nation.
For each language, Tolkien created his own phonetics, grammar and other rules of use. The names of the elves of Middle-earth were written depending on the dialect spoken by its bearer.
Life cycle
The author of The Lord of the Rings and the story The Hobbit has written many books dedicated to his fictional world. Many of them can be characterized as chronicles that tell about the history of Middle-earth and its inhabitants. Elves Tolkien paid much attention. He talked about their life and habits, not only in the works, but also in working correspondence with colleagues.
The immortality of the elves was also complemented by their biological ability to quickly heal their own wounds. If the representative of this people did die (for example, in battle), then his soul went to the Halls of Mandas in the distant Valinor. This was necessary in order to be cleansed of all that worldly evil that pursued the elf during his life in Middle-earth. After the spirit of the deceased went through the process of purification, he again received a body that looks similar to that which he had in a previous life. Theoretically, the elf could return to Middle-earth, but in practice no one did this, preferring to stay in Valinor. The only exception was the character Glorfindel, who appeared on the pages of The Lord of the Rings. His name complements the list of Middle-earth elves who participated in the war against Mordor. At the end of the novel, all these people decided to sail back to Valinor by ship.
Travel to Valinor
The reason elves left Middle-earth is because after the War of the Ring, which was described in The Lord of the Rings, their physical strength began to fade away. The only place where they could continue to live was Valinor - a distant land in which there never were people.
Elven kingdoms existed thanks to rings, which were powerful magical artifacts. All of them were destroyed, and the last of them was carried to Mordor in Tolkien's main novel. Because of this, the elves had to sail overseas, leaving the entire mainland to the people.
Those who remained in Middle-earth after the events of The Lord of the Rings degraded over time, until they became a primitive people inhabiting caves and valleys. They have lost many of the traits inherent in their ancestors - immortality, wisdom. Crafts and arts were forgotten, including music, which the Elves of Mirkwood loved very much.