Elves
Quendi; the Firstborn; the Elder Kindred
The Elves
Names
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Quendi — “the Speakers”, the name the Elves gave themselves at their awakening; they are “the Firstborn” of Ilúvatar.
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Eldar — “the People of the Stars”, the name given (in the telling of the Quenta) to the kindreds that heeded the summons of the Valar and set forth on the Great Journey; in the broad usage of the published text Eldar covers all Elves who began the journey, whether they completed it or not.
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Elves — the English word; in the mythology they are the elder and immortal kindred, “the fairest of the Children of the earth”.
The Awakening The Elves awoke at
Cuiviénen, the Water of Awakening, in the far east of Middle-earth, in the starlight of the Years of the Trees — before the Sun and Moon appeared. There the primeval darkness was lit only by the stars Varda had set; there the first word of the first Elf — the teaching of speech — gave them the name Quendi. The great Quenta says: — and their awakening was the event that changed the history of the world, for Melkor heard of it and sent his servants to corrupt them, and the Valar at last broke Utumno for their sake.
The Divisions: the Great Journey and after
At the summons of the Valar (carried by Oromë), three kindreds set out westward — the senior clans under their princes Ingwë, Finwë, and Elwë:
- The Vanyar (the “Fair”) — those who reached Aman and never left.
- The Noldor (the “Deep Elves” / “Wise”) — those who reached Aman and, for the most part, later rebelled and returned.
- The Teleri (the “Last” / “Tardy”) — the greatest host; many fell behind in the darkness and dwelt on the journey or the coasts: among them the Sindar (Grey Elves) of Beleriand and the Nandor / Green-elves. Those who refused the summons remained in Middle-earth: the Avari (“the Unwilling”), sundered and scattered. The division of Light (Calaquendi — Elves of the Light who saw the Trees; and Moriquendi — Elves of the Darkness who never did) is one of the deep fault-lines of First Age politics. > Eldar. Eldar, “the People of the Stars”, is the name of the Elves of the Three Kindreds who answered the summons; the term has both a broad sense (all the Journey-folk, including the Sindar and Nandor who tarried) and a strict one (the High Elves who came to Aman and saw the Light). See The Great Journey.
Nature and Gifts
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Immortality within Arda: Elves do not die of age or sickness; their bodies (hröar) are bound to their souls (fëar), and when slain their spirits go to the Halls of Mandos, whence in the Valar’s mercy they may return.
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Memory: their minds hold the past entire; they sing and craft with a power that redeems and preserves — “the Elves love the songs of the voice, and the arts of words, and the secrets of the world’s making”.
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Bond to the world: unlike Men, they are “tied to the earth” until the world’s ending; their centuries-long sorrow is the toll of counting the loss of Valinor.
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The doom of their age: within the Quenta their greatest works — the Trees, the Silmarils, the Rings — are all either marred or destroyed; even their perfections are entangled in the grief of the long defeat.
In the Silmarillion
The Elves are the heroes and the victims of the whole tale: the Noldor who rebelled, the Sindar who hid, the Vanyar who stayed — and the great intermingling of kindreds through Beren and Lúthien, whose descendants unite the blood of all the Elves with that of Men. Their leaders, kings and exiles fill the Quenta Silmarillion from the awakening to the coming of the Third Age.