Posted: August 15, 1999 at 08:31:08: by Cuiviar
In his essay "Laws and Customs among the Eldar", Tolkien states that elves
married often at a young age, which would be around their 50th year. Also
in Morgoth's Ring, the "Annals of Aman" states that Finrod (read: Finarfin)
was born in the year 1230 of the Trees and then married Earwen in the year
1280 - fifty years after his birth. Except, I thought that one year of the
Trees was approximately equal to ten years of the sun(I know that's not the
exact figure, but it's in the ballpark). This would make Finarfin 500 years
old. However, it seems unlikely that Tolkien would use tree years in his
essay since he makes age and growth comparisons between men and elves, and
such comparisons would presume a common measure of time. Yet, I have not
seen any weddings of 50 (sun) year old elves: Elrond married Celebrian at
about 3,600 years old; Idril did marry Tuor around her 500th year(which
would relate to 50 tree years or so); on the opposite end, Dior married
Nimloth when he was only 20 or so.
My questions are: (a)are the "Laws and Customs" refering to sun years or
tree years? ;(b) can the essay be counted as relaible information?- ie,
being cited as "Aelfwine's Preamble" makes me think that it was an older
work of Tolkien; (c) is the essay refering to common elves, and the
marriage ages just tended to vary between the commoners and the royalty?......................
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