Posted: August 15, 1999 at 12:18:05: by Jon
: 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?: ...................... It could be that Tolkien could have "translated" the years of the "trees" into years of the "sun", so it would be easier for the every day person to understand. As for the marriages of other elves, they were certainly not average elves. Of the many elves in Arda, many probably did marry around 50. The cases of the elves mentioned above are simply some of the few who didn't marry young. I think it's nothing more than that.
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