| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
Jael
Joined: 18 May 2005
Posts: 1
Location: USA, Wisconsin
|
 Posted: Mon Aug 15, 2005 11:13 pm Post subject: Elvish Burial Customs |
 |
|
Does anyone know how the elves buried their dead? (Or cremated, entombed, whatever.)
I have my own ideas about this, but I'd like to know if Tolkien mentioned this anywhere in his bazillion books. |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
ghettoelleth
Joined: 06 Nov 2004
Posts: 1804
|
| Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2005 12:38 am Post subject: |
|
|
try that good old reliable thing that we're all in denial about, you know
LaCE
There may be something in there.
_________________
"The trouble with quotes on the internet is that you can not confirm their validity." Abraham Lincoln |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Forest
Joined: 22 Jun 2004
Posts: 103
Location: UK
|
| Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2005 7:05 am Post subject: |
|
|
LaCE? What's that? 
~Forest |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
daw
Joined: 16 Jul 2003
Posts: 46
|
| Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2005 10:09 am Post subject: |
|
|
I don't recall anything in LaCE about funeral customs, but in the Sil, Glorfindel is buried in a "mound of stone." That suggests that the Noldor at least buried their dead. I assume the stone cairn was used for Glorfindel because they were in a mountain pass.
Of course, the Sindar or Silvan elves may have had different customs. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Rhapsody
Joined: 11 Apr 2004
Posts: 1153
Location: Maglor's Lap
|
| Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2005 11:57 am Post subject: |
|
|
| daw wrote: | I don't recall anything in LaCE about funeral customs, but in the Sil, Glorfindel is buried in a "mound of stone." That suggests that the Noldor at least buried their dead. I assume the stone cairn was used for Glorfindel because they were in a mountain pass.
Of course, the Sindar or Silvan elves may have had different customs. |
Daw & Forest, everything you want to know about Death and so on related to elves is in the LaCE (Laws and Customs of the Eldar). It can be found in The history of Middle Earth, Morgoth's Ring, book eleven. There you can read that the bodies of the elves perish fast (not that impressive as Fëanor though). Just read it and just fyi, I am not responsible for the plot bunnies that come forth from it.
_________________
I have not lost my mind - it's backed up on disk somewhere...
Maglor's bard & Celegorm's play pal
Nazgul #5 in charge anything liquid or edible things
Icon made by Carnage in c minor. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
daw
Joined: 16 Jul 2003
Posts: 46
|
| Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2005 12:34 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Rhapsody--
Can you point out the section of LaCE that covers funerals? I don't see one. I see the section about the body fading once the fea is gone, of course, but what about funerals? If you could point it out or paste it in, I'd be grateful because I write about funerals sometimes and while I've searched LaCE, I've never managed to find anything on them.
Also, I think Morgoth's Ring is Book 10 of HOME. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Rhapsody
Joined: 11 Apr 2004
Posts: 1153
Location: Maglor's Lap
|
| Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2005 1:53 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| daw wrote: | Rhapsody--
Can you point out the section of LaCE that covers funerals? I don't see one. I see the section about the body fading once the fea is gone, of course, but what about funerals? If you could point it out or paste it in, I'd be grateful because I write about funerals sometimes and while I've searched LaCE, I've never managed to find anything on them.
Also, I think Morgoth's Ring is Book 10 of HOME. |
I was going by memory (which book # it was), at any rate, I am not going to violate copyright laws if you don't mind by copy and paste things here.
The Athrabeth Findrod ah Andreth (The Debate of Finrod and Andreth) explains a big deal. Elves viewed death differently then men, the severance of the fea and hroa for example gives you many clues. Once the fea leaves the hroa, the hroa dissolves (unlooses) quickly. There are three specific parts that give you this information.
Drop me an e-mail, or an PM. For the quotes.
_________________
I have not lost my mind - it's backed up on disk somewhere...
Maglor's bard & Celegorm's play pal
Nazgul #5 in charge anything liquid or edible things
Icon made by Carnage in c minor. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Lainien
Joined: 11 Aug 2005
Posts: 6
|
| Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2005 2:34 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Daw is actually correct. There is no description of funeral rights in LaCE. All LaCE says is this:
| Quote: | | If the hroa be destroyed, or so hurt that it ceases to have health, sooner or later it 'dies'. That is: it becomes painful for the fea to dwell in it, being neither a help to life and will nor a delight to use, so that the fea departs from it, and its function being at an end its coherence is unloosed, and it returns again to the general orma of Arda. Then the fea is, as it were, houseless, and it becomes invisible to bodily eyes (though clearly perceptible by direct awareness to other fear.) |
If anyone can find anything else related to funeral customs, perhaps you could cite the edition of the text and page numbers (or at least chapter titles) because this would be interesting to me too. I only remember references in the Silm, like the one Daw mentioned, to elves being buried (except Feanor, of course, whose spirit was so firey that his hroa quickly...disappeared.  )
But I just read all of LaCE and there is nothing in it that I can find that describes funeral rites--just what happens to the fea and marriages on the death of the hroa. Not what the survivors do to deal with the body of memorialize the departed. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Rhapsody
Joined: 11 Apr 2004
Posts: 1153
Location: Maglor's Lap
|
| Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2005 2:45 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Lainien wrote: | Daw is actually correct. There is no description of funeral rights in LaCE.
<snip>
But I just read all of LaCE and there is nothing in it that I can find that describes funeral rites--just what happens to the fea and marriages on the death of the hroa. Not what the survivors do to deal with the body of memorialize the departed. |
The point is, as I stated before: Elves view death differently then Men, they don't see the need for this because their fea's will be reunited in the Halls of Mandos with their loved ones. If you read both bookparts, especially the debate (the notes are excellent), you can see the *why*.
This is very essential (please forgive me Tolkien Estate):
Save in rare and strange cases: that is, where the body that the fea had forsaken was whole, and remained still coherent and incorrupt. But this could seldom happen; for death unwilling could occur only when great violence was done to the body; and in death by will, such as at times befell because of utter weariness or great grief, the fea would not desire to return, until the body, deserted by the spirit, was dissolved. This happened swiftly in Middle-earth. In Aman only was there no decay.
The very swift decay makes a funeral unnecessary, don't you think?
_________________
I have not lost my mind - it's backed up on disk somewhere...
Maglor's bard & Celegorm's play pal
Nazgul #5 in charge anything liquid or edible things
Icon made by Carnage in c minor. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
ellisk
Joined: 23 Jan 2004
Posts: 579
Location: Icon by Alassante! Wow!
|
| Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2005 4:16 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Rhapsody wrote: |
The point is, as I stated before: Elves view death differently then Men, they don't see the need for this because their fea's will be reunited in the Halls of Mandos with their loved ones. If you read both bookparts, especially the debate (the notes are excellent), you can see the *why*.
This is very essential (please forgive me Tolkien Estate):
Save in rare and strange cases: that is, where the body that the fea had forsaken was whole, and remained still coherent and incorrupt. But this could seldom happen; for death unwilling could occur only when great violence was done to the body; and in death by will, such as at times befell because of utter weariness or great grief, the fea would not desire to return, until the body, deserted by the spirit, was dissolved. This happened swiftly in Middle-earth. In Aman only was there no decay.
The very swift decay makes a funeral unnecessary, don't you think? |
Ok, here's my two cents. I've read this and it does say the dead decay swiftly but I think there is evidence in the Silmarillion of burial traditions. Look at these quotes (all from the Silm):
| Quote: | | And Morgoth took the body of the Elven-king and broke it, and would cast it to his wolves; but Thorondor came hasting from his eyrie among the peaks of the Crissaegrim, and he stooped upon Morgoth and marred his face. The rushing of the wings of Thorondor was like the noise of the winds of Manwë, and he seized the body in his mighty talons, and soaring suddenly above the darts of the Orcs he bore the King away. And he laid him upon a mountain-top that looked from the north upon the hidden valley of Gondolin; and Turgon coming built a high cairn over his father. No Orc dared ever after to pass over the mount of Fingolfin or draw nigh his tomb, until the doom of Gondolin was come and treachery was born among his kin. Morgoth went ever halt of one foot after that day, and the pain of his wounds could not be healed; and in his face was the scar that Thorondor made. |
| Quote: | | They buried the body of Felagund upon the hill-top of his own isle, and it was clean again; and the green grave of Finrod Finarfin's son, fairest of all the princes of the Elves, remained inviolate, until the land was changed and broken, and foundered under destroying seas. But Finrod walks with Finarfin his father beneath the trees in Eldamar. |
| Quote: | | Then Gwindor roused Túrin to aid him in the burial of Beleg, and he rose as one that walked in sleep; and together they laid Beleg in a shallow grave, and placed beside him Belthronding his great bow, that was made of black yew-wood. But the dread sword Anglachel Gwindor took, saying that it were better that it should take vengeance on the servants of Morgoth than lie useless in the earth; and he took also the lembas of Melian to strengthen them in the wild. |
| Quote: | | Then Thorondor bore up Glorfindel's body out of the abyss, and they buried him in a mound of stones beside the pass; and a green turf came there, and yellow flowers bloomed upon it amid the barrenness of stone, until the world was changed. |
So if Fingolfin, Felagund, Beleg and Glorfindel all got buried, that seems to indicate a tradition of doing burials. And I think the question here is if there is any evidence of a ceremony or ritual surrounding that burial that we know of. I don't see any in the Silm or HoME beyond what has been quoted in this thread.
_________________
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.
Ultima ratio regum (The Last Argument of Kings)--engraved on all French cannons by order of Louis XIV |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Alassante
Virtual Village Mod
Joined: 10 Dec 2004
Posts: 20
Location: Hitchhiking to Rivendell
|
| Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2005 4:41 pm Post subject: |
|
|
WOW! 
_________________
Nagzul #2 - The Nazgul of Shmoove
Crucio! Because stupidity should be painful!
http://alikat7.livejournal.com/ |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
daw
Joined: 16 Jul 2003
Posts: 46
|
| Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2005 4:56 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Jael--
This isn't exactly a funeral but it's close. It describes what the people of Gondolin did after they were safe.
And they made a feast in memory of Gondolin and of the Elves that had perished there, the maidens, and the wives, and the warriors of the King; and for Glorfindel the beloved many were the songs they sang, under the willows of Nan-tathren in the waning of the year.
I think if you have a burial (maybe with a rock cairn), feasting, and singing, you're probably safe. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Rhapsody
Joined: 11 Apr 2004
Posts: 1153
Location: Maglor's Lap
|
| Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2005 2:42 am Post subject: |
|
|
| ellisk wrote: |
So if Fingolfin, Felagund, Beleg and Glorfindel all got buried, that seems to indicate a tradition of doing burials. And I think the question here is if there is any evidence of a ceremony or ritual surrounding that burial that we know of. I don't see any in the Silm or HoME beyond what has been quoted in this thread. |
I was thinking, I remember something of Finduilas (Orodreth's daughter) in the Silmarillion. After she got slain during the sack of Nargothrond), she got buried in the Haudh-en-Elleth (the Mound of the Elf-maid; the grave of Finduilas of Nargothrond that stood near the Crossings of Teiglin on the western borders of the Forest of Brethil). For some reason, Tolkien doesn't talk about burial rites that much, except for the unhealthy fascination the Numenoreans had for it.
Btw, this is a great article as well:
Death and funerary practices in Middle-earth
http://www.tolkiensociety.org/ed/death.html
_________________
I have not lost my mind - it's backed up on disk somewhere...
Maglor's bard & Celegorm's play pal
Nazgul #5 in charge anything liquid or edible things
Icon made by Carnage in c minor. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Ningloreth
Joined: 31 Dec 2003
Posts: 39
Location: Manchester, UK
|
| Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2005 3:03 am Post subject: |
|
|
Legolas himself talks about funerary rites after the death of Boromir:
"First we must tend the fallen," said Legolas. "We cannot leave him lying like carrion among these foul Orcs."
Aragorn and Gimli worry about spending time when the Hobbits and Frodo are in danger.
"Then let us do first what we must do," said Legolas. "We have not the time or the tools to bury our comrade fitly, or to raise a mound over him. A cairn we might build."
Burial of some kind is clearly important to him...
N |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
ellisk
Joined: 23 Jan 2004
Posts: 579
Location: Icon by Alassante! Wow!
|
| Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2005 5:38 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Ningloreth wrote: | Legolas himself talks about funerary rites after the death of Boromir:
"First we must tend the fallen," said Legolas. "We cannot leave him lying like carrion among these foul Orcs."
Aragorn and Gimli worry about spending time when the Hobbits and Frodo are in danger.
"Then let us do first what we must do," said Legolas. "We have not the time or the tools to bury our comrade fitly, or to raise a mound over him. A cairn we might build."
Burial of some kind is clearly important to him...
N |
Very good point and right in the trilogy!
_________________
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.
Ultima ratio regum (The Last Argument of Kings)--engraved on all French cannons by order of Louis XIV |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
Live Journal Feed
