Silvan Elves - physical appearance
Appearance, behaviour, clothing and other aspects of Silvan life
Sources:
TH - The Hobbit,
FOTR - The Fellowship of the Ring, chapter Lothlórien: Pages refer to HarperCollins 50th Anniversary Edition.
UT - Unfinished Tales: HarperCollins 2006 edition.
My comments in Italics.
Summary:
The Silvans were a shy and suspicious people; they did not as a rule trust strangers and they were considered dangerous and less sophisticated by their Noldor and Sindar cousins.
The Wood-elves had a greater knowledge of living things and preferred to live in woods, usually near the edges and near streams as they loved water. The Elves of Lórien had taken to building homes in the trees since there was no good stone available in that realm. Wood-elves were hunters, but at least the Lórien Elves must have had fields, too, since they baked lembas.
Physically, the Silvans were shorter and not as powerfully built as the Noldor; they could move soundless; and they were very agile - a useful trait when you spend much of your life in trees. The Elves of Lórien dressed in grey, hooded clothes which worked well as camouflage among the Mellyrn, and had fur-cloaks which they also used when sleeping in a watch talan.
They were armed with bows and spears, and probably carried daggers, too (a most useful weapon and tool) and were regarded as brave warriors, although they wore little armour in battle and were therefore vulnerable.
For more on the origins of the Silvans, see my collection of notes on the subject: Silvans - who were they.
Behaviour and way of life:
TH, Flies and Spiders,
P. 188 (NB: Describes Elves of Mirkwood!)
"... a clearing where some trees had been felled and the ground levelled. There were many people there; elvish-looking folk, all dressed in green and brown and sitting on sawn rings of the felled trees in a great circle. There was a fire in their midst and there were torches fastened to some of the trees round about; but most splendid sight of all: they were eating and drinking and laughing merrily."
P. 191 (NB: Describes Elves of Mirkwood!)
"The feast they now saw was greater and more magnificent than before; and at the head of a long line of feasters sat a woodland king with a crown of leaves upon his golden hair ... The elvish folk were passing bowls from hand to hand and across the fires, and some were harping and many were singing. Their gleaming hair was twined with flowers; green and white gems glinted on their collars and their belts, and their faces and their songs were filled with mirth. Loud and clear and fair were those songs ...
p. 206-209 (NB: Describes Elves of Mirkwood!)
“Then the Wood-elves had come to him, and bound him, and carried him away
...
[the Wood-elves] are not wicked folk. If they have a fault it is distrust of strangers. Though their magic was strong, even in those days they were wary. They differed from the High Elves of the West, and were more dangerous and less wise. For most of them (together with their scattered relations in the hills and mountains) were descended from the ancient tribes that never went to Faerie in the West. ... In the Wide World the Wood-elves lingered in the twilight of our Sun and Moon, but loved best the stars; and they wandered in the great forests that grew tall in lands that are now lost. They dwelt most often by the edges of the woods, from which they could escape at times to hunt, or to ride and run over the open lands by moonlight or starlight; and after the coming of Men they took ever more and more to the gloaming and the dusk. Still elves they were and remain, and that is Good People.
... The subjects of the king mostly lived and hunted in the open woods, and had houses or huts on the ground and in the branches. The beeches were their favourite trees.
... [The Elf-king’s] people neither mined nor worked metals or jewels, nor did they bother much with trade or with tilling the earth....
They gave him [the prisoner Thorin] food and drink, plenty of both, if not very fine; for Wood-elves were not goblins, and were reasonably well-behaved even to their worst enemies, when they captured them. The giant spiders were the only living thing that they had no mercy upon.”
UT, History of Galadriel and Celeborn
P. 249 (NB: Describes Elves of Mirkwood)
"Oropher was of Sindarin origin ... He had not the arts nor the wealth nor the aid of the Dwarves; and compared with the Elves of Doriath his Silvan folk were rude and rustic. Oropher had come among them with only a handful of Sindar, and they were soon merged with the Silvan Elves, adopting their language and taking names of Silvan form and style.
...
They wished indeed to become Silvan folk and to return, as they said, to the simple life natural to the Elves before the invitation of the Valar had disturbed it."
Appearance:
UT, The Disaster of the Gladden Fields
P. 273
“... but the Teleri* were in general somewhat less in build and stature than the Noldor.”
*)from which the Silvans descend.
FOTR, Lothlórien
P. 445
“There was a sound of soft laughter ... and then another clear voice spoke in an elven-tongue.”
P. 447
“The Elves spoke together in soft voices and questioned Legolas in their own tongue.”
P. 450
“... 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.”
Physical abilities:
FOTR, Lothlórien
P. 449
“… the Woodland folk were altogether noiseless in their movements.”
My notes:
Legolas also calls Lórien ‘the woodland’ - strange since his own home is definitely more of a “woodland”.
“Haldir came climbing swiftly up through the branches.”
P. 451
“Haldir skilfully cast over the stream a coil of grey rope ... “
“‘... we do not make bridges. This is how we cross! Follow me!’ He made his end of the rope fast about another tree and then ran lightly along it, over the river and back again, as if he were on a road.”
Clothing:
FOTR, Lothlórien
P. 446
“They were clad in shadowy-grey, and could not be seen among the tree-stems, unless they moved suddenly.”
P. 449
“… a grey-hooded Elf.”
P. 448
“It is cold in the tree-tops in winter … we have skins and cloaks to spare.
...
Then they wrapped themselves warmly, not only in the fur-cloaks of the Elves ...”
Weapons:
TH, Barrels out of Bond
P. 210 (NB: Elves of Mirkwood!)
“Out leapt Wood-elves with their bows and spears and called the dwarves to halt. ... the arrows of the elves that could hit a bird’s eye in the dark.”
FOTR, Lothlórien
P.453
“Haldir and his companion bent their bows.”
UT, History of Galadriel and Celeborn, on The War of the Last Alliance,
P. 248
“The Silvan Elves were hardy and valiant, but ill-equipped with armour or weapons in comparison with the Eldar of the West; ...”
Telain:
UT, History of Galadriel and Celeborn
P. 231
“Amroth was King of Lórien, ... Though Sindarin in descent he lived after the manner of the Silvan Elves and housed in the tall trees of a great green mound, ever after called Cerin Amroth.”
UT, History of Galadriel and Celeborn
P. 236 ff
“... a high talan or flet, the wooden platforms built high up in the trees of Lothlórien in which the Galadhrim dwelt ...
It is said here that the custom of dwelling in trees was not a habit of the Silvan Elves in general, but had developed in Lórien by the nature and situation of the land: a flat land with no good stone, except what might be quarried in the mountains westward and brought with difficulty down the Silverlode. Its chief wealth was in its trees. But the dwelling in trees was not universal even in Lórien, and the telain or flets were in origin either refuges to be used in the event of attack, or most often (especially those high up in great trees) outlook posts from which the land and its borders could be surveyed by Elvish eyes ...
...
The abode of Celeborn in Caras Galadhon was also of the same origin; its highest flet, which the Fellowship of the Ring did not see, was the highest point in the land. Earlier the flet of Amroth at the top of the great mound or hill of Cerin Amroth, piled by the labour of many hands, had been the highest, and was principally designed to watch Dol Guldur across the Anduin. The conversion of these telain into permanent dwellings was a later development, and only in Caras Galadhon were such dwellings numerous. But Caras Galadhon was itself a fortress and only a small part of the Galadhrim dwelt within its walls. Living in such lofty houses was no doubt at first thought remarkable *), and Amroth was probably the first to do so. It was thus from his living in a high talan that his name - the only one that was later remembered in legend - was most probably derived.
...
Unless it was Nimrodel. Her motives were different. She loved the waters and the falls of Nimrodel from which she would not long be parted; but as times darkened the stream was too near the north borders, and in a part where few of the Galadhrim now dwelt. Maybe it was from her that Amroth took the idea of living in a high flet.”
*: Perhaps it was thought remarkable by the Sindar; see quote from UT p. 231. However, I’m sure that Nimrodel’s people had lived in flets for countless years before the Sindar came.
FOTR, Lothlórien
P. 444: Legolas speaks.
‘It is told that she [Nimrodel] had a house built in the branches of a tree that grew near the falls; for that was the custom of the Elves of Lórien, to dwell in the trees, and maybe it is so still. Therefore they were called the Galadhrim, the Tree-people. Deep in their forest the trees are very great. The people of the woods did not delve in the ground like Dwarves, nor build strong places of stone before the Shadow came.’
…
P. 446
“… but near the top the main stem divided into a crown of many boughs, and among these they found that there had been built a wooden platform, or flet as such things were called in those days; the Elves called it a talan. It was reached by a round hole in the centre through which the ladder passed.”
P. 448
“The flet … had no walls, not even a rail; only on one side was there a light plaited screen, which could be moved and fixed in different places according to the wind.”
Lamps:
FOTR, Lothlórien
P. 446
“One of them uncovered a small lamp that gave out a slender silver beam. He held it up, looking at Frodo’s face, and Sam’s. Then he shut off the light again.”
P. 459
“Night came beneath the trees as they walked and the Elves uncovered their silver lamps.
...
... mallorn-trees ... in their many-tiered branches and amid their ever-moving leaves countless lights were gleaming, green and gold and silver.”
Hithlain:
FOTR, Lothlórien
P. 446
“Out of the shadows a ladder was let down; it was made of rope, silver-grey and glimmering in the dark, and though it looked slender it proved strong enough to bear many men.”
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Last rev. 07 June 2008/Lissa