The White Council

Re: What did the Elves Sing about when they first Woke?

Tolkien and Inklings Discussion

: In every story we have of elves, they are always singing about : history and lands that have been charted and where their : history is ancient, so that begas the question....Ulmo found : them singing at Cuivinien-happy and content as they always : are-and even more so, since original sin hadn't infected them : yet-but what did they find to sing about in these elven : pre-historic times?

In one place Tolkien records that when the Elves first awoke they looked up at the stars and cried out, "Ele! Ele!" (Behold! Behold!).

In THE WAR OF THE JEWELS Christopher Tolkien includes a brief account of how the Elves awoke. Originally there were three couples sleeping together. The males woke up first, and they began to speak together for a while, creating a language.

The story goes as follows:

   "While their first bodies were being made from the 'flesh of   Arda' the Quendi slept 'in the womb of the Earth', beneath   the green sward, and awoke when they were full-grown.  But the   First Elves (also called the Unbegotten, or the Eru-begotten)   did not all wake together.  Eru had so ordained that each   should lie beside his or her 'destined spouse'.  But three   Elves awoke first of all, and they were elf-men, for elf-men   are more strong in body and more eager and adventurous in   strange places.  These three Elf-fathers are named in the   ancient tales Imin, Tata, and Enel.  They   awoke in that order, but with little time between each; and   from them, say the Eldar, the words for one, two, and three   were made: the oldest of all numerals.
  Imin, Tata, and Enel awoke before their spouses, and the first   thing they saw was the stars, for they woke in the early   twilight before dawn.  And the next thing they saw was their   destined spouses lying asleep on the green sward beside them.   Then they were so enamoured of their beauty that their desire   for speech was immediately quickened and they began to 'think   of words' to speak and sing in.  And being impatient they   could not wait but woke up their spouses.  Thus, the Eldar   say, the first thing that each elf-woman saw her spouse, and   her love for him was her first love; and her love and reverence   for the wonders of Arda came later." 

The story goes on about how they eventually leave the place where they awoke and begin to find other groups of Elves. Imin takes the first 12 to be his companions. Eventually they become the Vanyar. Tata takes the third group, 18 Elves, to be his companions, and Enel takes the third group of 24. They gather a fourth group of 36 Elves who are joined to Tata's group because Imin has figured out that if he waits long enough he'll end up with the largest following. But the last group they find, 48 Elves, had awakened beside a waterfall. The men were swimming and the women were watching them on the shore. They had no language as yet but were singing "sweetly, and their voices echoed in the stone, mingling with the rush of the falls."

These last Elves were joined to Enel's group. Of course, Tata's people became the Noldor and Enel's people became the Lindar or Teleri. So, according to this legend, the first songs of the Elves were about beauty and the natural sounds of water falling and echoing on the stones.

Eventually they developed songs of greater sophistication, which probably were their original means of retaining cultural knowledge.

BTW -- there is a variation of the "Ele! Ele!" tradition in this story that gives it as "Elen! Elen!".

Michael