# Legolas of Gondolin?



## Khôr’nagan (Sep 15, 2003)

I have been aware of the fact that there is a Legolas mentioned leading the Exhiles of Gondolin after its fall in one of the earlier versions of the story.


> *Galdor and a band of men spear-armed went ahead, and Legolas was with them, whose eyes were like cats' for the dark, yet could they see further.* _(Book of Lost Tales 2: Page 192)_


What does this mean? This might be a repeat of an earlier question, but I have not found any others. Does anyone know anything about it? Any information would be appreciated.


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## Tar-Elenion (Sep 16, 2003)

It means that that there was an Elf named Legolas in Gondolin.
If you are inquiring if there is some relation between the Legolas of Gondolin and Legolas of the LotR, then the answer is no. Legolas of Gondolin was one of the Noldoli (an earlier name of the Noldor) whel Legolas of LotR was a Sinda.


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## Niniel (Sep 16, 2003)

It doesn't mean there is a connection between the two Legolasses, just that Tolien used the name twice. Somewhere in the HOME there is an Elf named Gimli.


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## Flammifer (Sep 16, 2003)

> Somewhere in the HOME there is an Elf named Gimli.



LOL haha really? Hehe that's cool...........but I guess it makes sense with the whole Elf-friend thing......



> It doesn't mean there is a connection between the two Legolasses, just that Tolien used the name twice



Yes, Tolkien does this quite often, e.g. Rúmil the great sage of Tirion, and Rúmil the border-guarding Elf of Lorien in the Third Age.

Also Ecthelion the Elf of Gondolin, and Ecthelion the Man Gondor. There are many more.


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## Khôr’nagan (Sep 16, 2003)

Okay, okay. Just thought I'd ask.


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## Confusticated (Sep 16, 2003)

Why not ask about Galdor too?


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## Khôr’nagan (Sep 16, 2003)

Because Legolas is so much cooler than Galdor And besides, Legolas is also a main character, while Galdor is not.


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## Lord Gil-galad (Sep 17, 2003)

ehh.... There are only how many good elvish names to use.. ^_^.... Plus... he often uses main characters names on minor characters that are only mentioned once or twice.... on only major chars for other books....


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## Ledreanne313 (Sep 17, 2003)

And people are named after things ie Celeborn. There is also a person named Denethor meantioned I think, I cannot really remember, maybe it was Boromir, that was mentioned in The Sil and messed me all up I was very confused the first time reading that!

Anne


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## Kelonus (Sep 18, 2003)

I guess thats why it says Legolas of the Mirkwood realm and Legolas of Gondolin.


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## Inderjit S (Sep 18, 2003)

> LOL haha really? Hehe that's cool...........but I guess it makes sense with the whole Elf-friend thing......



There is no link between the two, just Tolkien re-using names. 'Gimli' is not a Sindarin name anyway, since it is from the tongue of the Northmen of the North, as were all of the Dwarvish names.



> And people are named after things ie Celeborn.



Celeborn is not named after the Tree of Tol Erresea since he was a Sindar and they had no knowledge of the affairs in Aman. We can see that from our _The Treason of Isengard_ (HoME 7) that Tolkien meant for no such a link. Here he appears to be a Nandorin prince, in the first conceptions. Tolkien later on states in several essay (One is given in _Unfinished Tales_, _Of Dwarves and Men_ (HoME 12) and a letter at about the same period that he was a Teleri, though he then had the rather humorous name of Teleporno. 



> And besides, Legolas is also a main character, while Galdor is not.



Well, Galdor *is* a main character in the *Fall of Gondolin* (BoLT 2) and a lot cooler then Legolas.  C.T also gives us a note by Tolkien when discuses the possibility of him being the same Galdor of the FoG in the appendix to _Last Writings_ (HoME 12) but Tolkien fails to note that he wrote 'Galdor' (and Legolas) both went to Tol Eressea. But when he was writing LoTR, Tolkien never conceived that either of the two were to be linked with the FoG characters. Glorfindel on the other hand, tells of he ancestry in Gondolin.  (_Return of the Shadow, HoME 6_)

Note on the name of the Stewards/Kings Gondor many are named after heroes of the F.A plus the fact that they were given Sindarin and in some cases (Elendil, Anarion) Quenya names.


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## Ithrynluin (Sep 18, 2003)

*The origin of Celeborn's name*



> _Unfinished Tales: The History of Galadriel and Celeborn_
> The name Celeborn when first devised was intended to mean "Silver Tree"; it was the name of the Tree of Tol Eressëa (The Silmarillion p.59). Celeborn's close kin had "tree-names" (p.244): Galadhon his father, Galathil his brother, and Nimloth his niece, who bore the same name as the White Tree of Númenor. In my father's latest philological writings, however, the meaning "Silver Tree" was abandoned: the second element of Celeborn (as the name of a person) was derived from the ancient adjectival form ornā "uprising, tall," rather than from the related noun ornē "tree." (Ornê was originally applied to straighter and more slender trees such as birches, whereas stouter, more spreading trees such as oaks and beeches were called in the ancient language galada "great growth"; but this distinction was not always observed in Quenya and disappeared in Sindarin, where all trees came to be called galadh, and orn fell out of common use, surviving only in verse and songs and in many names both of persons and of trees.)


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## Lantarion (Sep 18, 2003)

Hey, you can't expect Tolkien to invent a new name for EVERY character in his whole mythology!! And it would be unnatural for there to be nobody of the same name *anywhere*.


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## Khôr’nagan (Sep 19, 2003)

Only from our perspective. It could have been a custom for Elves _not_ to use one name more than once. But anyway, that doesn't matter... I was just wondering, because Legolas would be so much cooler if he was the same in Gondolin and then later in the LotR. Oh, and by the way... How old is Legolas again? I forget...


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## Tar-Elenion (Sep 19, 2003)

JRRT never says how old Legolas is. I suspect that if he had given Legolas an age it would be sometime in the mid-Third Age. It is unlikely the Legolas was born in before the Third Age as he is unfamiliar with areas the Fellowship travelled through (Hollin and Lorien and its environs) though his father and grandfather went through those areas. We do know that he is older than Gimli, who is about 140 (IIRC) at the time of the War of the Ring.


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## Arvedui (Sep 19, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Lantarion _
> *Hey, you can't expect Tolkien to invent a new name for EVERY character in his whole mythology!! And it would be unnatural for there to be nobody of the same name anywhere. *


I'm not sure if I agree with you, Lantarion. At least not 100%. Elves have this tendency to not perish as long as Arda remains, so that many Elves with the same name could make for some impractical situations.. There could be a number of Legolas'es or Galdor's in Valinor after a while
Now, I am not an expert on Elves and their names, but aren't their names supposed to be a one-of-a-kind? That their names should say something of their abilities and gifts?

Just wondering...


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## Inderjit S (Sep 19, 2003)

Well we get a frequent use of the name 'Telperimpar' amongst the Teleri:



> This was a Sindarized form of Telerin Telperimpar (Quenya Tyelpinquar). It was a frequent name among the Teleri, who in addition to navigation and ship-building were also renowned as silver-smiths.


 _Of Dwarves and Men; HoME 12_ 

And also this from _Late Writings_ (HoME 12)



> In the margin of the page my father asked subsequently: 'Why not?' The question seems to be answered, however, in the following sentence of the text – where the emphasis is of course on the word 'Elvish': 'no other major character in the Elvish legends ... has a name borne by another Elvish person of importance.' It would indeed have been open to him to change the name of Glorfindel of Gondolin, who had appeared in no published writing, but he did not mention this possibility.]


 _Late Writings_ (HoME 12)

Legolas may have been over 500 years old too, since he makes a reference to the riding of Eorl, some 500 years earlier, being a short time in the eyes of the Elves.


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## Starflower (Sep 19, 2003)

hmmm.. I should think that as there are a million Joe's and Jane's in our world, why can't there be elves called Legolas? And if the other Legolas was among the people of Gondolin, isn't it possible that he might have died in the later Battles or just gone over the Sea, in which case it would be feasible to think that somebody would be named after him. There are a lot of sam names among the Men, Beren for example was the name of one of the Stewards of Gondor.


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## Lord Gil-galad (Sep 19, 2003)

But its expected for one of the steward to be named Beren, because as was said, many stewards were named after the great heroes of men.... 

As for his age, I beleived he was born about 500 or so years after the Battle with Sauron making him just bout 2000 years old.... I'm not sure where I read that.. it was a while ago and may have been inaccurate...


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## Turin (Sep 19, 2003)

Hmm, it seems that I posted a thread almost identical to this one a couple months ago, that shows how good my ideas are for them to be repeated by other members.


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## Inderjit S (Sep 19, 2003)

> As for his age, I beleived he was born about 500 or so years after the Battle with Sauron making him just bout 2000 years old.... I'm not sure where I read that.. it was a while ago and may have been inaccurate



Yes it is innacurate, that isn't stated/implied anywhere. His movie age is something close to 2000 yrs I think.


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## Khôr’nagan (Sep 19, 2003)

2,931 years old, to be exact (I went to where I remembered seeing it).

But what do you mean by "movie age?" I had not known there was a difference between that and his "book age." Could you please elaborate?


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## Tar-Elenion (Sep 21, 2003)

Legolas age is never given in the books. That means that his movie age was simply made up, and is irrelevant with regards to JRRT's works.


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## Khôr’nagan (Sep 21, 2003)

Oh... Really? That's very disapointing. Are you sure Tolkien never mentioned it? Oh well. Thus must I now return to the only knowledge of his age that I am yet aware of:


> *'Five hundred times have the red leaves fallen in Mirkwood in my home since then,' said Legolas, 'and but a little while does that seem to us.' - The Two Towers "The King of the Golden Hall," page 142*


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