Posted: November 28, 1998 at 22:14:53: by Sandyman
: This small item has bothered or rather irritated me for some time. Basically, which is the eldest race of these three groups - who all claim to be around first.
: 1...Elves
: 2...Ents
: 3...Tom Bombadil ?
: I know this isn't strictly important to the stories, it's just a cause of disagreement between myself and a colleague.
: ( I say elves - Am I right ? )
: Thanks for any replies .....Hi Olorin, ol' buddy. Greetings to everyone else. The ents, as beings other than trees, were given their place in Middle-earth before the Ainur descended as is told in The Silmarilion. I think we can interpret the phrase in The Silmarilion, "the awakening of the first-born" as the beginning of their existence. I.e, they didn't exist before their awakening. On Tom Bombadil, I think we can't make any more precise a statement than what he made of himself. That is that he is older than the hills and the trees et.al. But if you want to speculate, then, if he is a maia or even a vala, you could say that he is not alive in the same way as Ents and Elves and that, since Arda was literally shaped by the Valar, he really was there "before the hills and the trees" and even helped to create them. Anyway that's just what I think. Sandyman.
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