July 12, 2003

Response to How Old is Legolas
D

Part of Legolas's problem is he looks so young but of course he is thousands of years old, but none of the so called ‘talking down’ comments like Gimli's "let him go lad" appeared in the book. Great age does not automatically infer great wisdom and Aragorn was a man of far greater lineage than Legolas but in any case they did not have the argument at Helm’s deep in the book that they had in the film. Some people including, so I have heard Peter Jackson, put Legolas's age at about 2,931. This is similar to Arwen's age of 2780 as stated by Tolkien at the end of the Third age. There are no definitive indications in the apendices of LOTR about Legolas's age but there are clues throughout the book. Near Edoras Legolas says in The book of the Two Towers, "Five hundred times have the red leaves fallen in my home since then and but a little while does that seem to us." In Fangorn Legolas says mysteriously to Aragorn and Gimli of the forrest, “It is old, very old. So old that almost I feel young again as I have not felt since I journeyed with you children.” By the time Elrond leaves middle earth in 3021 of the Third age, he is at least 6462 years old but that does not count the many years that he lived in the First age where Tolkien is less specific on dates. One of the most intriguing aspects of the issue of Legolas’s age is that in ‘The Fall of Gondolin’ part of the book of Lost Tales, when some of the Elves and men were trying to escape from the assault by Morgoth in the First age, they were “led by one Legolas Greenleaf of the house of the tree.” Tolkien spoke of him being “night-sighted” and went on “Legolas was with them, whose eyes were like cats for the dark, yet could they see further.” If this was the same Legolas, Elrond’s father Earendil was only 7 at the fall of Gondolin, so this evidence would make Legolas older even than Elrond’s father. Christopher Tolkien who edited this work suggests that this was an earlier Legolas who was an Elf of Gondolin and lives still in Tol Eressea near Valinor and there he is called Laiqalassë. Certainly Christopher Tolkien concedes that Legolas was the first of the names of the Fellowship of the Ring to appear in his father’s writings. If you wanted to accept that the Legolas in Lord of the Rings was at least 7000 years old, for him to have been in Gondolin then you need to explain away the common sense contradictions? If he was so old, older even than Elrond then, he would have been held in even greater respect than Elrond as a lore master. Legolas's grandfather Oropher was killed at the battle of Dagorlad although Thranduil his father survived. This battle ended the Second age of the world at which Isildur took the ring from Sauron. It might seem odd for Legolas to be already over 3000 years old when his grandfather dies in battle. To me it seems likely that when JRR Tolkien was writing Lord of the Rings during the 1930’s and 1940’s, he probably felt that he was writing about the very same Legolas that had helped lead the Elves from Gondolin. That tale he had written as early as 1916 - 1917. Although there are a great many inconsistencies in Tolkien’s work, it has never affected their quality because of its historical nature. If there are contradictions in real history about even recent events then the issue of Legolas’s age is certainly going to cause us some grief. Perhaps Tolkien wrote the Legolas of the fellowship as a different character entirely. However, the descriptions of both Elves are so alike as to make you think that they are the same person. So you can be pretty confident if you say Legolas is at least 3000 years old but if you try and make him much older than that, you need to have your Tolkien history supporting you.