Mirkwood elves...Too harsh?

[Bilbo Baggins57]

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?

[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...

[Ariana Undomiel]

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

[Merry]

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!! :confused:

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! :D

[Legolam]

Thingol?

Are we talking about the Mim the Dwarf story here?

[Gamil Zirak]

Originally posted by Legolam
Are we talking about the Mim the Dwarf story here?
Wrong story. This one isn't about the petty dwarves.

[Grond]

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.

[Grond]

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. :)

[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.

[Grond]

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. :)

[Grond]

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. :)

[Lady Legolas]

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.

[aragil]

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).

[Grond]

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.) :)

[aragil]

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.

[Ceorl]

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.

[aragil]

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.

[Grond]

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?

[Maeglin]

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.:D

[Grond]

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.:D 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. ;)

[Gil-Galad]

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.

[blu_orb]

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.

[aragil]

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.

[aragil]

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.