“The Burnt Hand Teaches Most About Fire”: Applying Trauma Exposure and Ecological Frameworks to Narratives of Displacement and Resettlement Across Elven Cultures in Tolkien’s Middle-earth by UnnamedElement

Appendices / Additional Information

Appropriate citations for the family backrground narratives will be added over the next few weeks, as well as corrected diacritics.

Appendix A: Elrond and Elros—Tracing Generational Trauma

Elwing’s Family

Elwing is a refugee of Doriath when the children are born in First Age (F.A.) 532. Her mother and father Dior and Nimloth, rulers of Doriath, were slain by the sons of Feanor during the same event from which she fled with a Silmaril: the Second Kinslaying in FA 506, when Elwing was about three years old. Elwing’s siblings Eluréd andElurín, also children at the time, were left to die by Feanorians during the event. While Nimloth’s history is relatively unknown, Dior’s parents Lúthien and Beren had already died once—following a Silmaril-related incident—from, respectively, grief and violent injury. After being granted life a second time, Lúthien gave birth to Dior; later, they were presumed dead with the return of the Silmaril to Doriath in F.A. 503. Beren himself had, as a young man, been a refugee with a group of men and his father following the Dagor Bragollach—he returned after a mission to find his father and kinsmen slaughtered by the forces of Morgoth in, what is implied by Tolkien, a fairly disturbing manner (“blood dripped from [the] beaks [of the carrion]”. He dealt with their bodies and then wandered alone for years—pursued intermittently—until eventually arriving in Doriath, where he would meet Lúthien and begin his quest for a Silmaril.

Lúthien’s parents, of course, are Thingol and Melian. Thingol had been a leader of elves during the first great Sundering, but had been delayed in the journey when he and Melian—a Maia, one of the Ainur—met in the woods of Nan Elmoth, at which point Thingol was sundered from his brother Olwe, who became a leader of the Teleri in Valinor. Eventually, Thingol and Melian established Doriath, and Melian protected it. Like most elves in Beleriand at the time, Thingol was exposed to traumatic events in the form of battles and loss, which culminated in his death at the hands of the dwarves following a Silmaril-related incident. Melian then returned to Valinor, leaving Doriath unprotected, and the folk of Doriath endured the Battle of Ten Thousand Caves in Menegroth (F.A. 503).

Family Tree

Earendil’s Family

Earendil is a refugee of Gondolin, come with his parents after its destruction by Morgoth’s forces in FA 510. Earendil was not only exposed to that horrific battle at seven years old, witnessing the destruction of his home, but he was also threatened with death by his mother’s cousin, Maeglin, and witnessed Maeglin’s attempt on his mother’s life, and his subsequent demise. He then fled with his folk, ending up with his mother and father at the Mouths of Sirion, where Elwing’s people already dwelt. Idril and Tuor would sail West in F.A. 525, and Earendil would lead the folk then, though he was often away due to Sea-longing.

After the First Kinslaying, the stealing of the ships at Alqualonde, and the murder of her great grandfather Finwe by Morgoth, Idril crossed the Helcarexe with her parents Turgon and Elenwe, led by her grandfather Fingolfin, whose wife stayed behind. Many elves—including Idril’s mother Elenwe—died in the crossing, which was filled of “hardihood and woe,” and Idril herself was almost lost in the “cruel sea,” saved by her father even as her mother was lost. Turgon’s life was not a particularly happy one. Soon after arriving in Middle-earth, he begins to build Gondolin in secret. In F.A. 400, his sister Aredhel was murdered in front of him (to which he responded by throwing Eol off a cliff). Turgon’s father Fingolfin died in F.A. 456, after challenging Morgoth to a duel—it was Turgon who buried his father’s broken body. Finally, in F.A. 472, Turgon led a host of his people from Gondolin to support the alliance of men, dwarves, and elves—including his brother Fingon—at the Battle of Unnumbered Tears. There, Turgon saw his brother hewn by Gothmog, and returned to Gondolin with lesser forces as the High King of the Noldor, the last of his siblings.

The trauma associated with Fingolfin and its ripple effects not just through Finwean family history but the entirety of Arda is worth mentioning here. The relationship between Fingolfin and his half-brother Feanor is rather famously stressed, as Feanor resented the loss of his mother and his father’s remarriage. Fingolfin is threatened by his half-brother Feanor on multiple occasions, and then betrayed by him as they come upon the Helcaraxe, a betrayal that ends in the loss of many of their folk, regardless of the Feanorians initial defeat of Morgoth while Fingolfin labored across the Helcaraxe. Fingolfin dies after a solitary assault upon Morgoth, after he wrongly believes all his folk destroyed in the Dagor Bragollach.

Tuor’s family—to say nothing of the tragedy of his uncle Húrin’s line—is also, unsurprisingly, marked by loss. Tuor’s grandfather Galdor is slain in the Dagor Bragollach. Rían was a refugee during and, presumably, after the Dagor Bragollach, separated from, at least, her father. Rían and Huor marry shortly before the Battle of Unnumbered Tears, and then they conceive Tuor. However, before Tuor is even born, Huor is slain, and his mother—not knowing her husband’s fate—lives long enough to birth Tuor, before fostering him to the elves and dying of grief. For sixteen years, Tuor lived in an occupied land with Annael and the elven refugees from Mithrim, until they attempted to flee to the Mouths of Sirion in F.A. 488. However, they were attacked by orcs, and Tuor was ultimately separated from his folk and taken in “thrall” by the Easterlings, where he was “tormented” until he escaped at nineteen. He continued to live as a refugee and “outlaw” for several years until being guided by Ulmo to the hidden city of Gondolin, where he would meet and marry Idril. Their son Earendil—the father of Elrond and Elros—would be born in F.A. 503, seven years before the fall of Gondolin.

More than Peredhel

Appendix B: Lothlorien and Language

“Of events in [the Second Age of] Middle-earth the records are few and brief, and their dates are often uncertain." - Lord of the Rings Appendices

Of Wood-elves and Galadriel

It would be irresponsible not to acknowledge that information on everything having to do with the wood-elves—including Galadriel herself—is simultaneously scarce and contradictory. Christopher Tolkien opens Galadriel and Celeborn’s essay in Unfinished Tales thusly: “There is no part of the history of Middle-earth more full of problems than the story of Galadriel and Celeborn” (239). And while much has been written in scholarly circles about Tolkien’s languages and their relationships in-universe generally, the issue of language and culture as it pertains to a subset of the Teleri—the wood-elves—has been unexplored in publication (though, it is worth noting, discussion of it is alive and well—if contentious—in fan communities). Of the non-Sindar Teleri and Avari, Tolkien himself writes in a pre-LotR 1954 letter, “The lesser Elves hardly appear [in my work], except as part of the people of The Elf-realm; of Northern Mirkwood, and of Lórien, ruled by Eldar; their languages do not appear” (Letters, p174), and this remains almost entirely true, even through his son’s publications over the next several decades.

Language as a Cultural Indicator of Differing Resettlement Processes

Even disparate fields of study regard language as intrinsic to ethnic and cultural identity. Loss of language is often associated with displacement. While languages can and do coexist, language also can be punished or outlawed in order to specifically oppress groups or homogenize a nation. Language may also be lost through more implicit mechanisms like assimilation and cultural capital, wherein one language becomes more useful for survival than another due to the speaker’s environment, or via implicitly communicated beliefs by the larger culture about value. When language is threatened, people may react in various ways, spanning from outright resistance to private use of the language, or for cultural ceremonies. Languages may also evolve within their new context to form a new dialect or creole, which may, eventually, be subject to oppression or erasure as non-dominant languages.