Posted: September 23, 1999 at 23:09:23: by Michael Martinez
: : In a discussion about Merry, Goodgulf said that elves have
: : pointy ears.
: : Quote: "No where in the book does Tolkien describe pointy
: : ears. blah, blah, blah...And then I had to swallow my word
: : when I saw Tolkien's discription.": : I found this strange as I have never seen or heard of elves
: : as having pointy ears. : : Does anybody have a quote confirming this?
: : Thanks. : In one of his history books (Unfinished Tales, one of the books
: in the history of Middle-earth, I can't remember). Tolkien
: described them as leaf-like. He kind of expanded but I can't
: recall right now. But I think the general idea was an oval
: type leaf with some type of point at the end. Actually, what Tolkien wrote was that Quendian ears were more pointed and leaf-shaped than ????. Unable to decipher the "????" part, Christopher Tolkien put in "[human]" to indicate he was taking a wild, uncertain guess. Many people have erroneously used this entry (found in "The Etymologies" in THE LOST ROAD AND OTHER WRITINGS) to argue that Elven ears were pointed. Elves looked just like Men. Men were occasionally mistaken for Elves. No one ever said anything like, "I see by your ears you are an Elf". So Tolkien Elves do not have noticeably pointed ears, but some people (most, according to the poll I ran on the LOTR/HOBBIT MOVIE site) feel they should have pointed ears.
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