Siblings of the Firstborn?

[Taniquetil]

Entmoot,
I finished reading the Sil a while ago, and when I was considering the genealogies of important elves I came across an interesting conundrum.

1. It is stated that Elwe and Olwe were brothers, and other legendarium suggests that they might have had another brother, Elmo, grandfather of Celeborn.

2. That Indis was the niece of Ingwe, implying that he had a sibling.

Yet nowhere have I found any reference to their parents, and surly Tolkien would have at least mentioned the parents of the Kings of Elves if they had them, thus we mist assume that they were firstborn. This idea is encouraged by the fact that Elwe says to the dwarves that "his life began at Cuivienen, long before the fathers of dwarves awoke."

Might this mean that they were found in the same "groups" (by Enel and Imin respectivly)?

Possible Implications: we would have to do away with the theory that Ingwe, Finwe and Elwe were in fact Imin, Tata, and Enel renamed. Up till now I considered this the most likely scenario, after all, who wants to walk around with names that mean one, two, and three, for the rest of their life?
But Imin, Tata, and Enel awoke only with one another and their wives,they had no "groupmates" that could later be called their siblings.

Or maybe Tolkien explained this somewhere and I missed it.
What say you?

[Lefty Scaevola]

Nowhere is it stated that any of the elves named in the Silamrillion were among those who first "awoke" at Cuivienen. If, indeed, the story of Imin, Tatya, and Enel is anything more than an Elvish fable and a counting game to teach young Elves numbers and races, we have no statement that any of the created generation have survived in the wild to the time that Orome found them.

[Galin]

Well, if (that's if) you raise details from the Legend of the Awakening then arguably Ingwe, Finwe, Elwe, Olwe were not among the 144 Unbeggoten...

... as the Unbegotten awoke each with their respective spouse (hence 144 Elves in 72 pairs). Elwe wed Melian and she did not awaken at Cuivienen. Elwe also had two brothers Olwe and Elmo, so he had parents (unless one wants to argue 'brothers' in some other sense). Finwe wed MÃ*riel who had a mother name (Serinde), and thus seemingly a mother. So MÃ*riel appears to be born, and Finwe did not Awaken. Ingwe had a sister (Indis or Indis' mother) and hence, arguably, parents.

Again, if one wants to hold these details against certain details in the account of the Awakening -- a child's tale mingled with counting lore -- as a way to arrive at some sort of answer. An Elvish fairytale '... preserved in almost identical form among both the Elves of Aman and the Sindar' contains truths about the Unbegotten?

It's interesting that JRRT appears to have considered Ingwe one of the Unbegotten in The Lhammas (see The Lost Road, here from CJRT's commentary): 'It is now told that Ingwe was not only the high-king of the Eldalie, but was 'the oldest of all Elves, for he first awoke.'). I think JRRT later came to believe that a fairy tale treatment of such an ancient matter worked well, and it might serve to improve the mystery of the ambassadors too.


Perhaps Ingwe will not certainly be noted as one of the Unbegotten, and even he will have a relationship (in The Shibboleth of Feanor for instance, Ingwe is said to have a sister) which -- when compared to the legend of the Unbegotten at least -- might raise questions concerning whether or not he awoke. I don't imagine that Tolkien thought of the earlier texts specifically as he wrote each (there is quite a gap of years between them in any event), but I do think that when he decided to deal with the Unbegotten in Cuivienyarna the ambassadors might generally have come to mind: we would now have Ingwe, Finwe, Elwe from history, and Imin 'One', Tata 'Two', Enel 'Three', from fairy tale.

Even the Elves, who might preserve history and tales from very distant times (especially from a mannish perspective), even they retained their own origin in an Elvish fairy tale, as here I guess that there was to be no competing account from a loremaster of Eressea, for instance -- the author of Quendi And Eldar mentions the legend, but still that's different from a full acount that is not: 'Actually written (in style and simple notions) to be a surviving Elvish 'fairytale' or child's tale, mingled with counting lore.' (JRRT wrote this on a copy of Cuivienyarna).

To my mind it's another brilliant decision to present the matter of the Unbegotten Elves from a source readers might tend to question -- might question in some measure anyway -- while at the same time still wonder what truths might have shaped it.

[Alcuin]

That’s a good observation, Taniquetil. Welcome to Entmoot!

Ingwë, Finwë, Elwë, and Olwë returned with Oromë to as ambassadors. If you consider this for a moment, that implies that they were not the tribal leaders when they were dispatched to travel with Oromë: as Denethor II told Pippin, kings send emissaries and minions to accomplish their purposes. These Elves were not the leaders at the time they left Cuiviénen, but they were likely the sons of the tribal kings. (Cf. Legolas son of Thranduil or Boromir son of Denethor; Aragorn had no choice but to go himself: he had no son, and even if he had, the stakes were too high to stay home.)

The Elves then divided into two camps. All the Minyar (Vanyar), half the Tatyar (Ñoldor), and about 3/5 of the Lindar (Teleri/Sindar) set off with the ambassadors on the Great Journey to Valinor; the rest were called “the Unwilling� (Avari), which were about half Tatyar and half Lindar. (The Vanyar claimed the Tatyar/Noldor were the most argumentative.) The point is that by this time there were a lot of Elves: we can assume that several generations had matured to long Elvish adulthood.

The Elves were originally afraid of Oromë because a dark horseman would raid and seize Elves around Cuiviénen, and there were things in the dark that also took them: they were aware that they could be killed, and that implies that they had already developed some means of inheritance of title and property. (There was a short thread begun earlier this year on Elvish lines of succession (http://www.entmoot.com/showthread.php?t=15219) in which this discussion also arose.)

If this is only an Elvish “fairytale� or children’s story, it might indicate that few or none of the first Elves survived to live in Valinor, which would also explain why the Valar were so keen to remove them to a safer place: since they did not die of disease or old age, that has to mean they were all killed.

Whether it is a Elvish fairytale or not, Thingol’s stinging denigration of the Dwarves of Nogrod – who lusted for the Silmaril and so themselves fell under the Doom of Mandos – and his claim to have awakened in Cuiviénen while the Fathers of the Dwarves still slept could be a poetic (or arrogant) way of saying that he was born in Cuiviénen: he was, by all accounts, one of the most noble and royal of all the Eldar, King of the Sindar, and overlord of the Avari living in Beleriand.

[Galin]

It is true that in The Silmarillion the ambassador Ingwe was 'after' king of his kindred -- but Ingwe was also: 'oldest of all Elves, for he first awoke' according to a generally contemporary text.

In other words, Ingwe being ambassador did not preclude him from being one of those who Awoke. This is the tale of the 1930s, and part of the information only hailed from The Lhammas, but this work was conceived as part of the greater Silmarillion in the general time frame concerned (see The Lost Road HMC HB, page 202), and my point is that it might allow a window into Tolkien's mind here -- he does not seem to have thought that being an ambassador necessarily need mean one is not of the Unbegotten.

Of course, noting what Lefty already noted as well, according to The Silmarillion -- in the larger sense the Silmarillion related texts of the 1950s and later -- neither is it stated that Ingwe or any of the ambassadors were Unbegotten.

Alcuin wrote: Ingwë, Finwë, Elwë, and Olwë returned with Oromë to as ambassadors. If you consider this for a moment, that implies that they were not the tribal leaders when they were dispatched to travel with Oromë: as Denethor II told Pippin, kings send emissaries and minions to accomplish their purposes. These Elves were not the leaders at the time they left Cuiviénen, but they were likely the sons of the tribal kings.

The implication here (in my opinion) could be that the kings or leaders of the ancient Elves dispatched emissaries, and thus, it might be thought, chose who should go to Aman (especially if they were each sons of tribal kings). But, whether you meant that or not, I'll note that in the 1930s it was Orome who chose which Elves would go.

And in the 1950s this idea seems to have held, as Orome chooses again: 'And three only of the chieftains were willing to adventure the journey: Ingwe, Finwe, and Elwe, who afterward were kings.' (Annals of Aman). So we have chieftains, who afterward were kings, but here we still have Orome choosing, and interestingly, also the notion that only these Elves were willing. It's said earlier that the Quendi (in general) were dismayed by the Summons and unwilling to depart from Middle-earth -- thus Orome was sent again to them. The Silmarillion tradition repeats the initial unwillingness of the Elves, that thus Orome was sent again to them, and that he chose three ambassadors.

In later texts Tolkien never specifically denied that Ingwe did not awaken, that I'm aware of anyway (though from his perspective there was no real need to deny it specifically, if it had been abandoned or forgotten) -- again, unless one finds the details of the child's tale a denial of sorts, compared to the later detail that Ingwe had a 'sister' -- but I think JRRT decided to leave the matter of the Unbegotten to an Elvish fairy tale, and be somewhat vague concerning the earlier history of the three ambassadors.

Despite being chieftains these Elves truly rose to historical prominence by first being willing to go to Aman, and so, in any case, details of their earlier history or parentage is basically (at least arguably) outside the 'need' of the tale.

[Alcuin]

Then it is worth considering whether Tolkien intended this “denial� and depiction as a “child’s tale� to represent a late Númenórean memory of what Elves told Men about their origins.

It would seem strange that the Elves themselves – and particularly the Eldar – would altogether forget their origins. They themselves found it remarkable that Men had done this.

That leaves Taniquetil’s original observations in limbo:
1. It is stated that Elwe and Olwe were brothers, and other legendarium suggests that they might have had another brother, Elmo, grandfather of Celeborn.

2. That Indis was the niece of Ingwe, implying that he had a sibling.

Perhaps describing Elwë and Olwë as “brothers� means that they were “brothers� in the same sense that some of the Valar are called “brothers� or “sisters�. The Fëanturi , Lórien and Mandos, are called “brothers�, and Oromë and Nessa are referred to as siblings. Manwë and Melkor are called “brothers� – they are very much unalike! And Yavanna and Vána are called “sisters�.

Otherwise, I think we are left with the logical conclusion that there were intervening generations of Elves, so that Elwë and Olwë were literally “brothers� in the same sense that Jacob and Esau or Moses and Aaron were brothers: they had the same father and mother. In that case, Ingwë’s unnamed sister would be his sister in same the way Finrod and Galadriel were brother and sister. But this cannot properly address your point, Galin, that Tolkien specifically stated that Ingwë was one of the first to awaken.

[brownjenkins]

The Cuivienyarna was a reinvisioning of the elvish history by Tolkien, written far after the texts of the Lost Tales and Silmarillion, so I'm not sure if connecting it to Ingwe, Finwe and Elwe is correct. If anything, Imin, Tata, and Enel were "renamings" of the original three. It was a new origination story, possibly meant to replace the one in the published in the Silmarillion.

[Galin]

I think that the fairytale '... preserved in almost identical form among both the Elves of Aman and the Sindar' is supposed to be an Elvish text rather than Numenorean memory ultimately written down -- considering too that in the tale the Sun already exists before the Elves awaken.

And although 'possibly' was stated of course, I could not agree that the fairy-tale was intended to replace the Quenta Silmarillion account of the ambassadors.

Tolkien was still working on Quenta Silmarillion in the 1950s, and I think the Cuivienyarna represents a tradition intended for the legendarium alongside others, rather than a replacement.

[Taniquetil]

Thanks to all who provided their opinions!

So basically,from the evidence, we might conclude that:

Due to Ingwe's sibling, Finwe's marital status (I hadn't even considered that obvious fact!), and both for Elwe, it is highly unlikely that any of them were unbeggoten. When Tolkien was first formulating the concept of Ingwe, he might have toyed with the idea that he was of those who awoke, but it was probably not his final thought. Elwe's quote that his life began at Cuinvenen did not mean that he was unbeggoten, it just means he was born before Orome found the elves. Also ,now that I have thought of it a bit more, the fact that Tolkien did not mention their parents isn't really that surprising, he did that other places. BUT not to explicitly state that an elf was born directly from the thought of illuvatar would be a huge omission and very unTolkienish. After all, he mentioned it about Ingwe when it was apparently not even set in his mind yet!

Now if I may speculate a bit more:-)

My guess as to why the awakening of elves was reduced to have more the feel of a fairytale or legend than a concrete history: It is rather implied in the Sil that the status of elves when Orome found them was that of survival. There was no practical reason to record history, so they didn't. But when they went to Valinor and became more civilized, THEN arose the phenomenon of "loremasters" those largely or completely concerned with history.
Also when they got to Valinor their language apparently changed drastically such that the Sindar found it hard to understand when the Noldor returned, thus any verbal songs or lays that were in the original tongue were probably not recorded. Thus the story was reduced to its minimum elements, the first three to awaken, and some numbers. And even these seem to be only an ish of a memory.

One more thing (and I'm going purely off of my opinion here!)
To me, it makes a lot of sense for Ingwe to have a sister. That way, none of the actual descendants of the High King himself would ever have to leave Valinor (which would have been awkward) yet a strain of the noblest of the noblest blood in all of Arda might still flow in the veins of Middle Earth and ,more importantly, Elrond might still claim his seven-fold nobility.

[Galin]

Interestingly, Tolkien once noted: '... but the lore of the Eldar did not depend on perishable records, being stored in the vast houses of their minds (*23). When the Eldar made records in written form, even those that to us would seem voluminous, they did only summarise, as it were, for the use of others whose lore was maybe in other fields of knowledge, (*24) matters which were kept forever undimmed in intricate detail in their minds.'

Note 24: 'And as some insurance against their own death. For books were made only in strong places at a time when death in battle was likely to befall any of the Eldar, but it was not yet believed that Morgoth could ever capture or destroy their fortresses.'

The Note on the Shire Records was added in the 1960s, after Tolkien had started to think of the Numenorean line of transmission, and already with the publication of The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, the Numenorean factor had appeared in print: 'No. 14 also depends on the lore of Rivendell, Elvish and Númenorean, concerning the heroic days at the end of the First Age; it seems to contain echoes of the Númenorean tale of Turin and Mim the Dwarf.'

So I think Imladris must contain some Elvish lore -- not just simply lore written in Elvish -- but how much purely Elvish written lore survived in Imladris? so that Bilbo could translate it 'for Tolkien', so to speak.

Surely some of the Elvish lore could be living lore, as in the memory of certain Elves, but the Silmarillion 'proper' (as a text) was not to be Elvish according to Tolkien's later ideas, and the Silmarillion account of the three ambassadors derived from memory in the first place at least, as Rumil had not invented writing until after this event.