Sea Elves

how long can a "sea elf" hold their breath? given the ability of the elves to skip lightly over new-fallen snow or go who-knows-how-long without food or rest, I'd put my money on "pretty damn long," long enough to basically qualify them as marine mammals, and long enough to make the glades and gardens under the warm waters of Eldamar accessible to them, like a marine version of those greek pastoral settings the romanticist were so fond of; rolling meadows of coral and sea plants, the fish swooping and darting like birds through the water, pods of dolphins like the swift dear of Nessa.

it seems likely (going on the in-universe logic of tolkien's writing that middle-earth is in fact our world in some ancient, mostly forgotten mythic past) that all the myriad stories and creatures of our countless human mythological traditions are the long descendants of our encounters with the eldar, the dwarves, orcs, trolls, wargs, dragons, forest giants and gods during the first several thousand years of our time here. the stories have become confused, traits of each kind have been mixed and with the others, and into the mix have come fictional creatures wholly of our own imagining that never existed and yet nonetheless owe their inspiration to these beings that we once shared the world with, thousands and thousands of years ago. Mermaids therefore - alluring, inhuman beauties from another world, bound up in our imagination with song and the sea-longing - seem surely something left over in our mythology from our interactions with the elves, really all the elves (as most did in fact depart over the sea never to be seen by us again) and especially the mythology of mermaids finds a suitable (and very close to the truth) home in the "Sea elves" of the Falas and tol erresea, who would visit us by sea in the ancient past and give to us wondrous gifts from the world-beyond-our-reach, whose women had, in a few rare, mythologized instances, loved our men and borne children who became great kings and heroes among mankind. The picture of "the sea folk" that we have in the form of mermaids is one corrupted by time and confused re-tellings; often evil, half-fish creatures who live underwater, their song (something consistent with the teleri) often tempting men to their doom (though this too is actually quite fitting, going on the ancient meaning of "doom" as basically "fate," beren is certainly pulled toward his "doom" when he hears luthien's song in doriath) but the essence of the truth is there.


Part of the Weekly Tolkien Sketchbook