# Mirkwood elves...Too harsh?



## Bilbo Baggins57 (Jul 28, 2002)

Were the wood elves too harsh on the dwarves when they caught them in Mirkwood? The king seemed a little rude & self centered to me. The only things he was interested in were his feast & any treasure he thought the dwarves might be going to find. What do u think?


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## Beorn (Jul 28, 2002)

Well, in general Elves and Dwarves don't like each other...Their hatred for each other traces back to a time where they got together. The elves gave the dwarves some jewels, and said make a necklace (I think). The dwarves made it so amazingly beautiful, then got pissed because they didn't get paid (I also think...I'm rusty...wait till someone else comes and puts me to shame)....

Anyway, Tolkien hadn't really made up his mind on the nature of elves during the writing of the Hobbit, so that's probably the reason they were so different than described in LotR...


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## Ariana Undomiel (Jul 28, 2002)

In the Hobbit, Tolkien had not yet really developed the characters of the Elves. There is a large contrast between the Elves of Rivendell and Mirkwood in the Hobbit, in comparison with Elves of Rivendell and Mirkwood in the Lord of the Rings. Also, just as Beorn said, there was always a great deal of enmity between the Elves and the Dwarves. Remember Haldir's reaction to Gimili in FOTR? He would probably have been worse had Aragorn and Legolas not been there. Only did great need drive the Elves and the Dwarves to act together.

~Ariana


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## Merry (Jul 29, 2002)

> _Originally posted by Beorn _
> *Well, in general Elves and Dwarves don't like each other...Their hatred for each other traces back to a time where they got together. The elves gave the dwarves some jewels, and said make a necklace (I think). The dwarves made it so amazingly beautiful, then got pissed because they didn't get paid (I also think...I'm rusty...wait till someone else comes and puts me to shame)....
> 
> Anyway, Tolkien hadn't really made up his mind on the nature of elves during the writing of the Hobbit, so that's probably the reason they were so different than described in LotR... *



Are you playing with us Beorn? You must know this as you know loads about Tolkien!!  

I think it started in the Sil when (as you say) the Dwarves were asked to make a case that housed the captured Silmaril so it could be worn as a necklace. The Elven king (can't remember name, began with a T, Luthiuns dad) fell so deeply in love with it that he ordered the dwarves to bugger off without being paid. They got annoyed and lots of killing then followed and dwarves from all over came to the kingom of a thousand caves and tried to avenge the murders and take back their craftwork.

Boy, I need to read the Sil again as I'm getting rusty on my facts!


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## Legolam (Jul 29, 2002)

Thingol?

Are we talking about the Mim the Dwarf story here?


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## Gamil Zirak (Jul 29, 2002)

> _Originally posted by Legolam _
> *Are we talking about the Mim the Dwarf story here? *


Wrong story. This one isn't about the petty dwarves.


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## Grond (Jul 30, 2002)

One must realize that both Thranduil and his father Oropher were Sindarin Elves and Oropher was a close kinsmen to Thingol as was Celeborn. Both Celeborn and Oropher had never forgiven the Dwarves for the sack of Menegroth and the slaying of Thingol Elu. This was evidenced by the imprisonment of Thorin and Company as well as Celeborn's cool reception of Gimli when the Fellowship reached Lorien.


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## Walter (Jul 31, 2002)

One must also realize, that at the time _TheHobbit_ was written little to none of the stories of _TheSilmarillion_ existed in the form we know them, so - IMHO - that can't quite be the reason for the rudeness of the Elven-king in Mirkwood towards the dwarves... 

I think that Beorn hits the spot, I too somehow doubt that Tolkien actually had much of the stories of the elder days in mind when he wrote _TheHobbit_, he was simply writing a childrens book, I am not even sure he had been mentally connecting it with "MiddleEarth", e.g. the Orcs were still Goblins, etc.

What could be a reason is, that in most major mythologies and fairy-tales dwarfs are seldom really liked, mainly due to their greedy nature. Furthermore there is some form of polarity between elfs and dwarfs, the two races seldom seem to understand each other, which could be due to the different "lifestyles" they belong to: Here the dwarfs living under the mountains manufacturing jewelry and weapons and burning lots of wood for that task, not giving a damn for a beautiful envoronment and an intact nature, and there the elfs living in the woods and enjoying nature, realizing the dwarfs just took another part of their beloved wood just to fuel their smithies...


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## Grond (Jul 31, 2002)

> _Originally posted by Walter _
> *One must also realize, that at the time TheHobbit was written little to none of the stories of TheSilmarillion existed in the form we know them, so - IMHO - that can't quite be the reason for the rudeness of the Elven-king in Mirkwood towards the dwarves... *


I must humbly disagree with your comments Walter. Tolkien had written volumes of material on the First Age of Middle-earth well before the Hobbit was published in 1937. 



> _From Comments made by Tolkien to Allen and Unwn concerning comments made on the jacket-flap of The Hobbit in 1937._
> ...The magic and mythology and assumed "history" and most of the names (eg. the epic of the Fall of Gondolin) are, alas!, drawn from unpublished inventions, known only to my family, Miss Griffiths, and Mr. Lewis. I believe they give the narrative an air of 'reality' and have a northern hemisphere. But I wonder whether one should lead the unsuspecting to imagine it all comes out of the 'old books', or tempt the knowing to point out that it does not?


It should also be pointed out that Tolkien lunched with Stanley Unwin of Allen and Unwin on 11/15/37 and at that time provided Mr. Unwin with a completed manuscript of the Quenta Silmarillion as is evidenced in Letter #19 to Stanley Unwin. 

I am positive that if you will reread the Hobbit again you will see inferences to Gondolin, Elrond and his involvement in matters of the first age, as well as inferences to Elbereth and the like. Just my two bits.


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## Gamil Zirak (Jul 31, 2002)

The Mirkwood elves just remind me of the dark elves from the Sil. It just seems so un-elf like to have a immense liking to gold. It's almost a dwarf liking to gold.


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## Grond (Jul 31, 2002)

> _Originally posted by Gamil Zirak _
> *The Mirkwood elves just remind me of the dark elves from the Sil. It just seems so un-elf like to have a immense liking to gold. It's almost a dwarf liking to gold. *


One must remember that while Thranduil is a Sindar Elf and deemed to be one of the Eldar, his subjects are in fact Silvan Elves of the Moriquendi who never saw the light of the trees and who have never beheld the land of Valinor. 

What I'm saying is that your analogy is quite correct.


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## Walter (Jul 31, 2002)

Grond,

I said _little to none of the stories of TheSilmarillion existed in the form we know them_, I did not say ...the stories of the Lost Tales...

But indeed the "The Nauglafring" has been written somewhen between 1917 and 1920, so I humbly stand corrected, Tolkien possibly could have had that in mind as well...


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## Grond (Jul 31, 2002)

Gosh Walter, I don't want to beat a dead horse but are you saying that in 11/37 JRRT went to Stanley Unwin with a work called the Quenta Silmarillion but that it was really what we now know of as the Book of Lost Tales I and II? I wouldn't argue with you because I have yet to find any information on what was in the material JRRT presented. 

Please provide me with the sources of your information so I can see for myself.


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## Lady Legolas (Jul 31, 2002)

I thought the Elves were a little harsh on the dwarves, but elves and dwarves didn't like each other, that maybe why the elves were harsh.


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## Walter (Jul 31, 2002)

Geeez Grond, I was ready and willing to accept defeat, couldn't you just have let me off that hook? 




> A few weeks after The Hobbit had been published Tolkien went to London and had lunch with Stanley Unwin to discuss a possible successor to the book. He found that the publisher, small, bright- eyed, and bearded, looked 'exactly like one of my dwarves, only I don't think he smokes'. Unwin certainly did not smoke, nor did be drink alcohol (he came from a strict Nonconformist family), and each man found the other rather strange. Unwin learnt that Tolkien had a large mythological work called The Silmarillion that he now wanted to publish, though Tolkien admitted that it was not very suitable as a successor to the adventures of Bilbo Baggins; he also said that he had several short stories for children, 'Mr. Bliss', Farmer Giles of Ham', and 'Roverandom'; and there was an unfinished novel called 'The Lost Road'. Unwin asked Tolkien to send all of these manuscripts to his office in Museum Street.
> 
> They were sent, and they were read. The children's stories were all enjoyed, but none of them was about hobbits, and Stanley Unwin was certain that this was what the people who had enjoyed the first book wanted. As for 'The Lost Road', it was obviously unsuitable for a juvenile audience. But The Silmarillion presented a more complex problem.
> 
> ...



So, no, I don't really know what all Tolkien presented Unwin as _The Silmarillion_ and you probably know the HoMe better than I do, to judge which changes were made lateron. But from the quoted passage it appears that it was not quite in a form ready to be published...


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## aragil (Aug 1, 2002)

HoME IV comprises the state of the Sil in 1930 (just prior to the writing of the Hobbit, although some of the Hobbit was extant in oral form at the time I believe). I looked at it this morning, and the sack of Doriath is present in the (more or less) current form. The Dwarves are summoned to fashion a necklace for Thingol out or the 'cursed' treasure from Nargothrond. They are overcome by lust for the cursed treasure, and likewise Thingol is overcome (there is also a mention of the seed of Goldlust in Thingol, which perhaps agrees with Thranduil's greed for Smaug's treasure in The Hobbit). The Dwarves try and keep the treasure, then Thingol kicks them out without _any_ payment (i.e. slip-ups on both sides). The Dwarves then come back with an army, get into Doriath with the treachery of some Elves there who are also overcome by the cursed treasure (this runs afoul of the Girdle of Melian, explaining why this part of the story was re-written in the published Sil), slay Thingol while he's hunting, and then sack Doriath. Beren later waylays the Dwarven army while they return with the treasure, but uses an army of Green-Elves from Ossiriand (Ents having not yet been invented). So certainly, there would be emnity between the two races, even way back when the Hobbit was published. I'm not sure if there's anything linking the 'King of the Elves of Mirkwood' (the later Thranduil) with Elwe at the time of writing of the Hobbit, but there would hardly need to be (IMO).


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## Grond (Aug 1, 2002)

> _Originally posted by aragil _
> *I'm not sure if there's anything linking the 'King of the Elves of Mirkwood' (the later Thranduil) with Elwe at the time of writing of the Hobbit, but there would hardly need to be (IMO). *


Aragil, the first King of the Elves of Mirkwood was King Oropher, King of Greenwood the Great. He was Thranduil's father and was slain as he returned to Greenwood after the Battle of the Last Alliance. Both Celeborn and Oropher were Sindarin Elves and I think both were subjects of Thingol's in the realm of Doriath. I am certain of Celeborn but will have to go back and look as to Oropher's origins. I am sure he was Teleri, just not sure who was his Master. (Thingol, Cirdan, ????)

There is also mention in one of the books of HoMe, I read this morning, which alludes to Oropher's distress when Celeborn and Galadriel intrude into Lorien. I think it was from Return of the Shadow but it could have been another one. (I have been combing HoMe for our discussions in that forum.)


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## aragil (Aug 1, 2002)

Sorry Grond- I figured I might have been unclear on that, but was too lazy to type more at the time. What I meant was, I'm not sure that when JRRT wrote the Hobbit that he envisioned the Elf-king to be any relation to Elwe. I know that Thranduil (and his father Oropher) were related, but I'm not sure when JRRT decided that the Elf-king of the Hobbit _was_ Thranduil. My suspicion is that whenever JRRT wrote the Hobbit he envisioned some relation between the 3rd Age Elf-King and Elwe, simply because of the similarity of their realms- Caves in the Forest, delved with the aid of Dwarves.


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## Ceorl (Aug 1, 2002)

The Elves and Dwarves traditionally didn't like each other, even before the slaying of Thingol there was trade but no great friendship between those peoples. Thingol and the Dwarves had previously agreed on a payment before the dwarves added a Silmaril to the Nauglamir, however when they saw the thing they had created, they were overcome by lust of it. They demanded that they keep the Nauglamir, which Thingol obviously refused, so they killed him and escaped from Doriath. ]

As they neared home they were waylaid by the Laiquendi of Ossiriand and at the fore were Beren and Luthien who then took the Nauglamir into their keeping whereby it passed to Dior and then Elwing. Melian went into mourning and left ME and the girdle of Melian fell. The dwarves of Belegost then arranged a revenge attack and near destroyed Doriath before they were driven off. Thus is there a ancient grief between the two races. 

This would explain Celeborns reaction to Gimli and Thranduils to the company of Thorin (if Thranduil was part of the host of Doriath)

But there was no treachery among the Elves of Doriath. They alone remained faithful of all the kingdoms of the Eldar.


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## aragil (Aug 1, 2002)

I'm afraid there was treachery among the Elves of Doriath _in the extant draft of the Quenta at the time of the writing of The Hobbit_ This did not seem to make much sense (to JRRT) in light of the properties of the Girdle of Melian, so it was changed in the later versions of the stories.


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## Walter (Aug 1, 2002)

I would like to - if I may - come back to the topic at the beginning of this thread and the question whether the - IMO doubtless rude and offensive - behaviour of the mirkwood elves has to be seen in the context of the events in _The Silmarillion_ or not:


> The story began, then, merely for personal amusement. Certainly Tolkien had at first no intention that the bourgeois comfortable world of Bilbo Baggins would be related in any way to the vast mythological landscape of _The Silmarillion_. Gradually, however, elements of this mythology began to creep in...
> 
> H.Carpenter - JRRTolkien - A Biography


IMO there is no evidence at all that Tolkien actually had particular events of _The Silmarillion_ in mind while he was writing _The Hobbit_. But of course


> 'One writes such a story,' said Tolkien, 'out of the leaf-mould of the mind';...
> ...One learns little by raking through a compost heap to see what dead plants originally went into it. Far better to observe its effect on the new and growing plants that it is enrichening. And in _The Hobbit_ the leaf mould of Tolkien's mind nurtured a rich growth with which only a few other books in children's literature can compare...
> 
> ibid.


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## Grond (Aug 1, 2002)

Walter, again from the Letters,


> _From Comments made by Tolkien to Allen and Unwn concerning comments made on the jacket-flap of The Hobbit in 1937._
> ...The magic and mythology and assumed "history" and most of the names (eg. the epic of the Fall of Gondolin) are, alas!, drawn from unpublished inventions, known only to my family, Miss Griffiths, and Mr. Lewis. I believe they give the narrative an air of 'reality' and have a northern hemisphere. But I wonder whether one should lead the unsuspecting to imagine it all comes out of the 'old books', or tempt the knowing to point out that it does not?


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## Walter (Aug 2, 2002)

Grond, 

IMO this quote from the letter #15 goes pretty much in agreement with the statements from the bio, especially when seen in the context of the rest of this letter and it's last sentence seems closely connected to the passage with "the leaf mould of the mind"... 

To sum it off, statements that seem to cause you to assume there was a strong connection between the Hobbit and the Sil (whatever it's state was in 1937), seem to convince me there is only a very weak connection. But - of course - both standpoints are valid...


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## Maeglin (Aug 2, 2002)

Alright, alright, a lot of you are going off topic talking about The Sil and Lost Tales. Anyway I really don't think Thranduil treated the elfs too bad, and if anyone thinks he did he had good reason. One, which is not as strong as the next reason I'll give you, is because of the bad blood that was already there between dwarves and elves, and two, why would he trust anything in or going through Mirkwood anyway, is there any good reason to? 
Just a thought.


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## Grond (Aug 2, 2002)

> _Originally posted by Glorfindel1187 _
> *Alright, alright, a lot of you are going off topic talking about The Sil and Lost Tales. Anyway I really don't think Thranduil treated the elfs too bad, and if anyone thinks he did he had good reason. One, which is not as strong as the next reason I'll give you, is because of the bad blood that was already there between dwarves and elves, and two, why would he trust anything in or going through Mirkwood anyway, is there any good reason to?
> Just a thought. *


While I understand that we are in the Hobbit forum, we would be remiss if we didn't delve into all the areas of Tolkien's mind and works to try to understand WHY Thranduil acted as he did. As it turns out, much of the information that would answer this question is most certainly not found in the Hobbit but in the author's other works.


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## Walter (Aug 3, 2002)

While I do think that the Mirkwood-elves treated the dwarves rather rude and harsh, I never said or assumed they did not have a good reason to do so within the frameset of the internal logic of the story...


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## Gil-Galad (Aug 3, 2002)

> _Originally posted by Beorn _
> Anyway, Tolkien hadn't really made up his mind on the nature of elves during the writing of the Hobbit, so that's probably the reason they were so different than described in LotR... [/B]


I think that's the best answer to this question.


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## Walter (Aug 10, 2002)

I cannot wholeheartedly agree with Gil-galads last statement, I think Tolkien had made his mind about the elves, but did not intend to connect _The__Hobbit_ with the mythology as far as he had created it by that time. But it seems he could not totally avoid it either...

Another quote that has not yet been brought up here, I think:


> I returned to Oxford in Jan 1926, and by the time The Hobbit appeared (1937) this 'matter of the Elder Days' was in coherent form. The Hobbit was not intended to have anything to do with it. I had the habit while my children were still young of inventing and telling orally, sometimes of writing down, 'children's stories' for their private amusement — according to the notions I then had, and many still have, of what these should be like in style and attitude. None of these have been published. The Hobbit was intended to be one of them. It had no necessary connexion with the 'mythology', but naturally became attracted towards this dominant construction in my mind, causing the tale to become larger and more heroic as it proceeded. Even so it could really stand quite apart, except for the references (unnecessary, though they give an impression of historical depth) to the Fall of Gondolin, the branches of the Elfkin, and the quarrel of King Thingol, Lúthien's father, with the Dwarves.
> Letter #157


 although it is from a letter written many years later (1964), especially his statement about the "coherent" form of the Sil doesn't quite seem to fit into the picture given by Humphrey__Carpenter or Christopher__Tolkien


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## blu_orb (Aug 10, 2002)

Tolkien wrote a good chunk of the Silmarillion while recovering from his wounds incurred at the battle of Ypres in 1917, where he was an infantryman, but it wasn't completed until much, much later.

and i think the woodelves were just being paranoid, and rightfully so. granted, they are a little egomanical...and selfish.


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## Walter (Aug 10, 2002)

Hmmm, I thought he was sent back from France suffering from "pyrexia of unknown origin" (french fever, causing high temperature and some discomfort) on Nov. 8th 1916. The fever did not die down until early in 1917, and when he was about to return to his duties he was taken ill again. He spent most of 1917 in sanatoriums and hospitals, recovered in spring 1918 and was taken ill again shortly before he was sent back to his battalion. He was discharged from hospital by october, the war ended Nov. 11th 1918, he had not returned to France... 

Welcome to this forum, blu_orb, I don't know where you got your infromation about "his wounds..." from, mine is from Humphrey Carpenters: _JRR Tolkien - A Biography_, but you are right during his time at the hospitals 1916-1918 he was working on his mythology which later became _The_Silmarillion_


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## aragil (Aug 11, 2002)

I don't quite follow you there on the 'coherent form' bit Walter. HoME v IV represents the state of _The Silmarillion_ in ~1930, seven years before the Hobbit was published and presumably during its conception and writing. Elrond, Gondolin, and the Elf-Dwarf quarrel are all there in almost exactly the same form as the published Sil.


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## Walter (Aug 11, 2002)

> _Originally posted by aragil _
> I don't quite follow you there on the 'coherent form' bit Walter.


np


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## Walter (Aug 11, 2002)

As a somewhat more serious reply, aragil, I was mainly referring to the passage from the Bio I quoted in one of my former posts. But what also has me puzzled is the Preface of HoME IV, several remarks Christopher Tolkien made in the annotations to the text throughout the HoMe, where he explains how he had to attempt to date his fathers works (e.g. the various typewriters, the exam-texts at the backside of the paper, etc.). I mean after all the HoMe IV was first published 1986, ~50 years later, I just wonder how accurate Christopher's dating can be at all...


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## aragil (Aug 12, 2002)

I know some of it was fairly solid- last night I was reading in _The Treason of Isengard_ that one of the dating methods was based on Tolkien's habit of doodling newspaper headlines on the same page he was writing a draft. Since the period from ~1927 to 1935 (I think that was when _The Hobbit_ was published) had some very memorable headlines, this might have provided some very solid dating.


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