: 1. When the elves of Lorien give Boromir the lembas they say one wafer will keep you on your feet for a day "even if he be one of the tall men of Minias Tirith." This seems to imply that Boromir is bigger than the elves of Lorien (or maybe I'm just reading to much into it).

: 2. Thingol is the tallest of all the Children of Illuvatar. This clearly implies that elves were taller than men (or at least some were).

: 3. (This will get a response) In the Sil it says that in the begining that men and elves were of similar size and strength (or something like that). Would that mean elves and men were about the same size in the FA but as time went on and elves "wearied of the world" they would diminish? Perhaps that would explain the two previous points.

: So how big were elves? My guess is that by the LoTR the average elf was around 5 1/2 to 6 ft. tall and probably had slender build. This leads us to the next question. How physically strong were elves?

: Many thanks for any answers

: Thorin
~1. I always took this to mean that the men of Minas Tirith were taller than most other men in Middle Earth.

~2. I don't think it implies that elves were taller, just that Thingol was the tallest of any elf or man.

~3. We have discussed the dimishment of the elves before. It comes down to two schools of thought. One school believes that elves became perhaps smaller in size and less physically/magically powerfull. The second school believes the the diminishment had nothing to do with size or strength, but more to do with a decrease in both numbers and the elve's ability to influence the world around them. I fall into the second school of thought.

I tend to see elves as being between 6ft to 7ft, if male, and slightly shorter, if female. I think of their strength as being slightly stronger than men. I see their build as ranging from slime to regular in appearence. I just can't visualize a rotund elf.
~Aelmer