The White Council

Re: Legolas

Tolkien and Inklings Discussion

: : : Thranduil had apparently come from Doriath and there are : : : some hints that he may have been related to Thingol (though : : : neither Legolas nor Thranduil which is so evident of the : : : blood-relatives of Thingol).

: : Michael, please clarify: what was so evident in the blood : : relatives of Thingol?

: I'm noticing that exhaustion this morning from that trip to Texas (we drove through snow going there and coming back, so the trip took much longer than planned and I hadn't gotten much sleep the night before) led me to post a number of "cryptic" messages this morning. :)

: Thingol, Cirdan, Earwen, Celeborn, and probably some others I cannot think of right now were all characterized by silver hair, which was said to be a trait of Thingol's family. I'm sure Olwe had it, too, and probably Elmo.

: I believe Thingol's relatives were also unusually tall among the Elves (both Cirdan and Celeborn, for instance, are very tall).

: Thranduil was golden-haired (perhaps a mistake Tolkien failed to rectify in THE HOBBIT). Legolas' hair-color is never stated (although movie makers all seem to fancy him as a blond). Nonetheless he was tall and Celeborn said "Welcome, son of Thranduil! Too seldom do my kindred journey hither from the North."

: Did Celeborn mean Legolas was a relative, or merely an Elf of the same "tribe"? Christopher points out in UNFINSHED TALES that at the time of the writing of THE LORD OF THE RINGS his father almost certainly envisioned Celeborn as a Nandorin Elf. On the other hand, the greeting to Legolas was one of the latest additions to "The Mirror of Galadriel". It doesn't appear in the early drafts of the chapter published in THE TREASON OF ISENGARD.

: And then there is a note somewhere (either in UNFINISHED TALES or THE PEOPLES OF MIDDLE-EARTH) Tolkien implies that Thranduil and Amroth may have been related (I think it's in POME, and he actually says something like, "Whether they were akin is not now known....") For a brief time Amroth was regarded as the son of Celeborn and Galadriel, but eventually he became the son of Amdir (also called Malgalad in one place), and Thranduil became the son of Oropher. Oropher came from Doriath. So maybe Oropher and Amdir were kinsmen (possibly even brothers) and maybe they were somehow related to Thingol's family.

: Of course, if they were simply Sindar and Celeborn viewed himself as a Sinda, then his comment would still make sense, from a certain point of view, as Obi-wan Kenobi might say (under the influence of Qui-gon Jinn).

: This is one situation where logic really doesn't provide any guidance. We have too little information with which to make reliable deductions and inferences.

: My interpretation requires that Celeborn be a Sinda, and that Amdir and Oropher both be Sindar from Doriath, possibly related to the House of Thingol through marriage.

: Hence, let us say that Oropher and Amdir are brethren (and I suspect there may be linguistic problems with this supposition). Hence, one of their parents could have been a kinsman of Thingol (he supposedly had a lot of them). The other parent could have been, say, an Exile of mixed Noldo/Vanya ancestry. Let us assume this parent was someone from the following of Finrod -- one of the Nargothrondim, or possibly one of Turgon's people (since Glorfindel seems to have had mixed Noldo/Vanya heritage).

: Both Turgon and Finrod are free of the taint of the Kinslayings. And neither was particularly close to the Feanorians (although Finrod did take in Celegorm and Curufin). It would be impossible for Oropher to survive the ruin of Doriath if one of his parents came from Gondolin, however, so we'll have to assume that that parent came from Nargothrond (and perhaps we could assume this parent left Nargothrond when the Feanorians arrived).

: So, now Oropher and Amdir would have to be born in Doriath sometime between the years 455 and 509 (the years of the Dagor Bragollach, after which Celegorm and Curufin fled to Nargothrond, and the year in which the Feanorians destroyed Doriath). This is pretty tight, but it's workable.

: In the Second Age, Oropher and Amdir left Harlindon (probably around the year 750 -- an early version of the Tale of Years in POME indicates the Sindarin migration was originally envisioned as occurring around that time) and settled in the Vales of Anduin.

: Figuring out where/how Celeborn figures into all that mess is difficult. But apparently Elwe, Olwe, and Elmo had some cousins: Cirdan at the least, and possibly Eol (depends on how you view Eol). Aranwe, father of Tuor's friend Voronwe, married a Sindarin Elf who was related to Cirdan. Was she one of Thingol's relatives? We don't know. But though Tolkien never mentions a wife for Cirdan, I suppose there is the possibility that Cirdan had a wife, children, grandchildren, cousins, in-laws, etc.

: Orodreth's wife simply came from the north. We don't know anything about her. I would not assume she was related to Thingol, but I wouldn't assume otherwise, either.

: So, my interpretation gets vague pretty quickly. :)

>>>I read somewhere that Thranduil was not the first king of the Mirkwood Elves (I think it was in Unfinished Tales, about the Sindarin princes of the Silvan Elves, I don't have my books with me), but was the son of Thorongir (or something like that). It then says how this king was summoned to the Battle of the Last Alliance, and reluctantly came with as large an army as he could muster. He was very prideful, and he rushed ahead of Gil-galad to battle on the Dagorlad and was therefore slain. If I am mistaken, please let me know. Or perhaps I will go and get my books and come back later and correct myself. But I remember reading something that Thranduil was Sindarin, and inherited the realm from his father, but the majority of the population was Silvan. - Gildor Inglorion