# Blonde Elves



## Slimybug (Apr 5, 2022)

Hiya! So I just finished Lord of the Rings for the 3rd time (twice reading, once listening to audiobooks) and am finally starting The Silmarillion. It occurs to me I may have come across an error Tolkien made, or maybe not. You guys can help me with it, I'm sure.

First off, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings make it nice and simple, or seems to: There are High-Elves, or Noldor, and Grey-Elves, or the Sindar, the former went West and came back, the latter didn't. Elrond is a High Elf, Thranduil and the Elves of Mirkwood are Grey Elves. Yeah, then you get to Silmarillion, and Tolkien throws that out the window and is like "There were 13 different kind of Elves depending on when they went west, or how long they tarried in Middle Earth." But for all intents and purposes, from what I can tell so far, it still kinda comes down to Noldor and Sindar, in terms of the main characters.

But which was Galadriel? Well...

In The Hobbit, it is clearly stated that Thranduil has blonde hair. (This no doubt was what led Jackson to portray Legolas as blonde in the film trilogy). In LotR, however, it is stated (I can't recall where, but it's definitely in there) that all Elves are brown-haired except for those descended from Finarfin. For this reason, I thought Finarfin and his daughter Galadriel must be Sindar, in spite of Galadriel being called "highest of the Elves." Nope. I just got to the point in the first 100 pages of The Silmarillion where it is definitively stated that Finarfin was a High Elf. 

So what's the deal? Could Thranduil still have blonde hair, or is this a blip that Tolkien missed?


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## Melkor (Apr 5, 2022)

Slimybug said:


> Thranduil and the Elves of Mirkwood are Grey Elves.


Elves of Mirkwood are not just Sindar, but also Silvan.



Slimybug said:


> In LotR, however, it is stated (I can't recall where, but it's definitely in there) that all Elves are brown-haired except for those descended from Finarfin.


Only Noldor elves are dark-haired (black or brown, sometimes red). Some Avari elves also may be dark-haired, because they share origin with Noldor (and Teleri). Vanyar elves are blonde, Teleri are silver-haired. Sindar, Silvan, Laiquendi, Falathrim - they are all Teleri which stays in Middle-Earth, never reach Valinor (except Thingol). Thranduil is Sindar, but he is descirbed as blonde (but silver and blond aren't that different, both are light colours, so as you can see, some Teleri were probably blonde, maybe this blonde was little bit different than blonde of Vanyar elves - maybe Thranduils hair were something between silver and blond, but this is just speculation. Or maybe he have some Vanyar genes, all elves live together at Cuiviénen at the start).



Slimybug said:


> For this reason, I thought Finarfin and his daughter Galadriel must be Sindar, in spite of Galadriel being called "highest of the Elves." Nope. I just got to the point in the first 100 pages of The Silmarillion where it is definitively stated that Finarfin was a High Elf.


Finarfin's mother Indis is Vanyar. He have hair after his mother (Fingolfin after his father, because he is dark-haired). Finarfin's wife Eärwen is Teleri, she is silver-haired. And all their childern have fair hair. Galadriel is Noldor, Teleri and Vanyar genetically. But she is refered as Noldor, because of her father.


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## Elthir (Apr 5, 2022)

Blue/bold equals Tolkien-written text.

*The Hobbit*

Elves who went West: Light-elves, Deep-elves, Sea-elves (High-elves of the West)
But *"the Wood-elves lingered in the twilight of our Sun and Moon"*

*The Lord of the Rings*

Far back in the Elder Days the Elves became divided into two *"main"* branches: *"the West-elves (the Eldar), and the East-elves. Of the latter kind were most of the Elven folk of Mirkwood and Lorien." *And the Grey Elves were those who *"coming to the shores of Middle-earth, had not passed over the sea but had lingered on the coasts in the country of Beleriand."*

Thus the Grey Elves are Eldar/West-Elves -- as in, they originally went West as far as Beleriand and
the coasts, and Appendix F states that the term Eldar referred to the Three Kindreds who passed into the Undying Lands -- save the Sindar only -- which I take to mean, the Sindar *only* are considered Eldar/West Elves along with those who passed over sea, and indeed the Sindarin tongue is an Eldarin tounge.

And the *Eldar* were (Appendix F): *"tall, fair of skin and grey-eyed, though their locks were dark, save in the golden house of Finarfin; . . ."*

I notice two things: Tolkien does* not* *write* that far back in the Elder Days the Elves divided into The West-elves (Eldar) and the East-elves (*the Avari*) -- in other words, basically we have West-Elves or Eldar, and East-elves or "Non-Eldar".

Second thing, in my opinion, according to this Tolkien-published (and not revised by the author) description, the Vanyar should be dark-haired as well, as they are Eldar/West-Elves. In any case, the term _Vanyar_ is not used here, nor _Avari_.

I think this arguably leaves the interpretation that golden-haired Elves are still possible among the "Non-Eldarin" Elves -- like maybe this guy in Lorien -- *" . . . and out of a thicket of young trees an Elf stepped, clad in grey, but with his hood thrown back; his hair glinted like gold in the morning sun." *

And to further the fuzzlement: the term *High Elves* often refers to the Noldor (as far as those who returned to Middle-earth that is), but can also refer to the Eldar/West Elves -- when differentiating them from the East-elves.

In any case, *Thranduil* is referred to as Sindarin in Appendix B, and yet his description of being golden-haired remains in the author-published corpus [in a late text, even Amroth's description (noted here as "Sindarin in descent") includes the sun having *"lit his bright hair like a spark of gold"*]



*My take* is that the author-published description of the Eldarin dark locks (save in the House of Finarfin) was the _general rule_, with allowable exceptions. I don't think, however, that an entire clan, even if small and mostly golden or yellow-haired, counts as a "good exception" however -- and indeed, in HME we find Christopher Tolkien's objection to this description with respect to the Vanyar, and an editorial note is ultimately added (that is,* not* added by JRRT himself) to Appendix F concerning this.

And (except for the Amroth description mentioned here), this is largely *before* you get to what Tolkien himself never published!


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