July 31, 2002

Cirdan's Age
Fingolfin

After reading some posts I have noticed that some people beleive Cirdan the shipwright to be only around 7000-10,000 years old. In my opinion he is vastly older. I believe (although i don't think it is stated anywhere) that Cirdan was one of the first elves to awake at Cuivienen along with Ingwe, Finwe, Elwe and Olwe.

Assuming that Cirdan awoke at Cuivienen, here is my arguement: One point of evidence is that the Misty Mountains (which the Elves crossed on the Great Journey) were "taller and more terrible in those days" just this piece of information shows how much time really passed. Between the Great Journey to Valinor and the return of the Exiles to Middle Earth (FA 1) not even half a million years easily couuld have passed because of greadual erosion of the Misty Mountains. As we should all know from geology it takes millions of years for mountains to erode. Again i will assume that in the Third Age the Misty Mountains are 2/3 as tall as they were at the time of the Great Journey, that would roughly be anywhere between 2-5 million years. Therefore, adding that to about 7000 years from FA1-FO1 Cirdan is incredibly old.

Since Tolkien didn't measure this time in years, nobody can know for sure, but this is my estimate.

Cheers,

Fingolfin