#enelye

[thelien-art]

Iminye, Tatie, and Enelye i feel like have to go as a set, especially when their only lore is the shared the originators of lembas

The ✨women✨

So a romanticized version of ancient Roman clothes is what I want the first elves to wear. What a sniff of what groups they will evolve into😌

[chaos-of-the-abyss]

put together for day 1 of @sindarweek, prompt “early days.” the hcs aren’t meant specifically to focus on the early sindar, but since thingol is the subject here, they naturally include a good bit about them. lots of ocs who are members of the proto-sindar

this got pretty graphic towards the end so trigger warning for pretty detailed descriptions of violence! early elves and horror is my jam, and putting characters through terrible things as an expression of love is also my jam, so hereeee goes

thingol and his brothers’ relation to enel and enelye (whom they are canonically descendants of) is that of grandchildren and grandparents. their father, alâkô (“alak” = “rushing/wild wind”, “ô” = primitive elvish masculine ending) is enel and enelye’s eldest son. their mother, luktiênê (“luktiê” = enchantment, “nê” = primitive elvish feminine ending), is the daughter of two of enel and enelye’s close friends of the same generation (aka the og generation of 144 elves who first awakened at cuivienen). she and alako were childhood friends

elwe is closer to his mother than his father, though that’s not at all to say he and alako have a bad relationship. in terms of personality, he takes after luktiene to an almost uncanny degree; his temper, stubbornness, protectiveness, sharp tongue, and commanding presence all come primarily from her, as does his flightiness, love for silly little jokes, and sense of humor. he also has her unusual purple eyes. (olwe’s the one who takes more after alako -- milder and more even-tempered, slower to make judgment calls, but also more calculating) 

thingol will later name luthien after his mother!

enel, thingol’s paternal grandfather, particularly cherished him and had a feeling since elwe was a child that he would be an excellent leader. he encourages elwe’s curiosity and adventurousness -- within reason of course -- and kind of lets him get away with a whole lot, much to luktiene and enelye’s exasperation 

(tanget here: because thingol has such warm and close memories of his grandfather, he turns out to be very much the same way with his own grandson, albeit he spoils dior more than even enel did him; a luxury he can afford thanks to the relative safety of dior’s childhood and adolescence compared to his own. he too gets the feeling that dior is a natural leader -- but it’s not a future he wants for his grandson. he knows only too intimately the burdens that come with that position. ofc we all know dior does end up having to step into leadership…)

physically elwe resembles his maternal grandfather, khyelesô (“khyel(es)” = “glass,” “ô” = primitive elvish masculine ending), a lot. he never met the man -- who was captured by morgoth’s servants, loosed upon the early elves, before luktiene was fully mature -- but he’s heard many people say he’s the spitting image of him. (he does lose some of that resemblance after meeting melian and spending those years with her in nan elmoth, but their physical similarities, especially in their facial features, remain undeniable)

elwe’s maternal grandmother, ailin (“ailin” = “pool, lake” in primitive elvish), is kind but pretty distant both from him and olwe. luktiene explains to them that ailin withdrew emotionally over the years as more and more of the people she loved were killed, taken, or vanished. the number includes khyeleso but isn’t just him; ailin lost most of her close friends too. as a child, elwe doesn’t get it. he thinks that, if anything, he would cling harder to the people he loves if he lost any one of them. it’s only later in life that he understands where ailin is coming from -- in fact, that urge to close himself off in an attempt to preemptively avoid further pain is something he finds himself having to actively work past in his own emotions. he also comes to recognize to what extent he shares her tendency to entirely hide her more vulnerable feelings -- e.g. grief, fear, guilt -- from anyone but the people who are closest to her 

all in all, thingol’s childhood and adolescence were as alright as they could be. they can’t be called happy by any stretch of the imagination -- with unknown dangers lurking everywhere and members of the community, a good amount of whom he knew personally, regularly being snatched off the census by said dangers and either never heard from again or turning up as mangled bodies; everyone’s highkey living in a psychological horror movie -- but he had a loving, stable family and plenty of friends his own age to support him

enel and enelye vanish not long before the war of the powers begins and are presumed to have been taken by morgoth’s servants. their loss affects elwe deeply, especially since he’s still fairly young at the time. he never sees them again and, even until the end of his life, is uncertain of what exactly happened to them. throughout the rest of his time in beleriand he can only pray that they’re dead already, but on some bad days the thought that they might still be out there somewhere, suffering, eats at him. after their disappearance is when the nightmares start -- nightmares about the loss of his loved ones are a recurring thing for the rest of thingol’s life

it doesn’t get much better after that! elwe is already an important leader of the nelyar by the time the valar invite him, along with ingwe and finwe, to valinor as ambassadors, but he has his parents available for counsel or even just for solace and support. however, only a handful of years after the great journey starts and elmo is born, alako and luktiene go missing. people, including elwe himself, try to find them, but it’s no use. he feels sick with the familiar dread he remembers from when enel and enelye disappeared, and every day he just hopes against hope that his parents will somehow turn up unharmed. either alternative -- that they’ll be dead, or they’re alive and being tortured -- is too much for him to contemplate

to make matters worse, elmo is still barely a toddler, and elwe and olwe now have the responsibility of taking care of him when all three of them have in all likelihood just been orphaned or as good as. of course they have friends who are willing to help out, and ailin also steps up and does a good bit of the heavy lifting since she has actual experience raising a child -- but it’s not the same as having their mother and father there

unlike with enel and enelye, thingol actually does get to know what happened to his parents. alako is found first, his body dangling by the neck from the branches of an oak tree. his face has been mutilated -- tongue cut out, one eye entirely missing, deep gouges across his skull -- his limbs have been broken in odd directions, and his abdomen and chest have been horrifically disfigured. he’s given a cremation, and elwe hugs a quietly weeping olwe as they watch their father’s body burn

it’s some years later, when elwe is on patrol with caranor (oc, one of thingol’s close followers, i’ll probably expand on him sometime), that he finds luktiene at the bottom of an immense sequoia tree. at first, elwe thinks she’s dead. her hair is matted with blood from a traumatic head injury, she’s missing fingers, her cheeks and eye sockets are sunken in, and her lips are blue. her body is battered and scraped, as if she was dragged carelessly across rough ground for a long distance. it’s only when elwe runs to her and gathers her in his arms that he realizes her chest is moving very faintly. she stirs and opens her eyes, and when she recognizes him, her first words are to order him to kill her

and she is ordering him -- elwe can always tell when there’s no arguing with his mother. still, he tries to protest; that they can bring her back, that surely someone can do something, that ailin is waiting, that olwe and elmo are waiting. but it’s obvious, both to him and caranor and luktiene herself, that there’s no way to save her. all they’re doing is prolonging her pain

in the end, he complies

he and caranor bring luktiene’s body back to the teleri settlement. olwe and ailin keep asking what happened, but elwe won’t talk about it, no matter how much they pry. caranor doesn’t say anything either, but elwe can see the worry in his eyes when he looks at him

every time caranor tries to bring up what happened to him, elwe shuts the conversation down. he throws himself into his everyday tasks -- hunting, fishing, foraging, making clothes and bedsheets and blankets, mediating between the elves -- with obsessive intensity. he puts distance between himself and everyone he’s close to, even his brothers. he finds it’s hard for him to process luktiene’s death and its circumstances; everything surrounding it feels surreal, like a dream

it’s in this (fairly short) period of time that elwe grows exponentially closer to ailin. he goes to her -- not quite thinking about it, to be frank -- and ends up telling her what happened. ailin listens. when he’s finished she admits that she’s never been good at comforting others and doesn’t have anything she can say or do for him, and for some reason, elwe finds himself comforted by that. he consciously realizes then why he spilled everything to her specifically: they both deal with loss the same way, with burning sorrow that expresses itself as coldness, withdrawal, and self-isolation -- and that shared understanding helps both of them find an odd measure of peace. if not for her, elwe thinks he probably would have lost himself to his grief completely

(jumping to the future real quick -- ailin is among the teleri who leave with olwe’s host for valinor rather than remain in beleriand. though thingol is saddened to hear this when he returns from nan elmoth with melian, he understands how tired she was, and for how long)

thanks to ailin, elwe begins to come back to himself. in some ways he still feels shattered, but he mends the distance that’s grown between himself and the people around him, explains at last to olwe and elmo what exactly happened, and actually allows himself to properly mourn luktiene

elwe and finwe haven’t been in contact since before luktiene’s death -- partly because elwe stopped responding to his friend’s communications -- so he reaches out to him again. their subsequent meeting is a good one; when it’s over, they say a fond goodbye, plan to meet again within the month (note that the concept of a month itself doesn’t exist in-universe at this point, the passage of time is measured by the stars), and elwe strikes out on his way back home. as he gets farther and farther from the place finwe and his people have settled, the stars seem to grow brighter, and he notices that the birds are becoming strangely loud and strangely harmonious. it should make him uneasy -- he’s never heard anything like it before, and he and his people know the dangers that can hide in the forest -- but instead, instinctively, he feels a deep sense of safety and peace

then he hears a voice, raised in song

[velvet4510]

Were Enel and Enelyë Avari or Eldar?

Avari

Eldar

Voting ended onJun 7, 2024

[iminye]

Enel and Enelyë · Third of the Firstborn

→ for day iii of @tolkienocweek - gaps and ghosts

[arofili]

elves of arda ✧ cuiviénenyarna ✧ headcanon disclaimer

          The first of the Children of Ilúvatar to awaken were the elves, who opened their eyes under the light of the stars alone upon the shores of Cuiviénen, the Waters of Awakening. According to elvish legend, the first elf to wake was Imin, and beside him Iminyë his spouse, and the names they took for themselves came to signify “first” in the ancient tongue of the Quendi. Then Tata awoke, and with him Tatië; then Enel, and with him Enelyë: and their names also would come to mean “second” and “third.” These were the Elf-fathers and Elf-mothers, the first to create speech, the first to see the stars.           Soon the pairs of elves began to wander from the dell where they had awoken, searching for others of their kind, and the next dell they encountered held twelve more elves, which Imin and Iminyë claimed as their kindred. Tata and Tatië took two groups of elves into their care, totaling fifty-four in all; Enel and Enelyë welcomed two more groups, seventy-two in all. Imin and Iminyë waited for a final group to be found, that they might expand their own kindred, but there was no more: the Unbegotten numbered one hundred and forty-four, and no more.           Thus the story of the Cuiviénenyarna was woven, and repeated by the original one hundred and forty-four to their descendants. But time warps all tales, and no trace of Imin, Tata, Enel and their wives can be found in the truest histories, and those Unbegotten elves who yet remain have naught to say of their finding by these fathers and mothers of elvenkind. This story of Awakening contains seeds of truth, for one hundred and forty-four elves truly did awaken upon the shores of starlit waters, but which were first is lost to the Ages.           Yet these ancient divisions are repeated as counting-lore to elflings, and reflect the true ratios of the Three Kindreds: the Vanyar who were once the Minyar, named for Imin and Iminyë, are the least in number; the Noldor who were once the Tatyar, named for Tata and Tatië, are fourfold greater in number; and the Teleri who were once the Nelyar, named for Enel and Enelyë, are the greatest in number, though also the most sundered in after days.

[thegirlwhohid]

Now after a time, when they had dwelt together a little, and had devised many words, Imin and Iminyë, Tata and Tatië, Enel and Enelyë walked together, and left the green dell of their waking, and they came soon to another larger dell and found there six pairs of Quendi, and the stars were again shining in the morrow-dim and the elf-men were just waking.

Enelyë moodboard

Legendarium Ladies April: (11/30)

The Silmarillion characters: (120/?)

Characters’ moodboards: (421/?)

[the-unicorns-of-nienna]

Headcanon: Bearded Elves

In all the known writings of J.R.R. Tolkien, exactly two elves are confirmed to have facial hair: Cirdan and Mahtan.

Some of Tolkien’s later writings assert that elves develop beards in their “third cycle of life”. Cirdan and Mahtan were among the first elves to awaken, so they are older than most members of their race. However, the key word here is “most”: the first elves numbered 144, yet-as previously stated-only two elves are described as bearded.

There are three possible explainations:

1.) The link between beards and age is a myth: facial hair in elves is actually the result of a rare genetic mutation.

2.) Other firstborn elves can grow beards, but most choose to shave.

3.) Cirdan and Mahtan are somehow older even than other firstborn elves.

Could they in fact be the very first elves of all?

The creation story of the elves describes how three pairs of elves-six elves total-awoke at Cuivienin. Their names were Imin and Iminye: the first Vanyar, Tata and Tatie: the first Noldor, and Enel and Enelye: the first Teleri. The remaining 138 firstborn elves consisted of various-sized groups found by the first six. The elven kings Ingwe, Finwe, and Elwe were the ambassadors who visited Valinor ahead of the other elves-with Olwe being Elwe’s brother. The first six elves are never mentioned again, which is extremely bizarre considering their significance.

Cirdan is a pretty important elf: he ruled the Grey Havens-the main port from which elves sailed to Aman, and owned the ring Narya for a while. Mahtan learned metalworking from Aule himself, and was the one who taught Feanor. Consider also that Nerdanel-Mahtan’s daughter-was able to create statues “indistinguishable from life”, and managed to bear a record setting seven children-sired by Feanor, no less-without dying.

Cirdan could very well be Enel, with Mahtan being Tata. Nerdanel’s unamed mother would be Tatie.

That accounts the for first Noldor and the first Teleri, leaving only the first Vanyar. What happened to Imin and Iminye?

It’s fully possible that they stayed in Aman, and chose to avoid the limelight. It’s also possible that they were among the elves who, for whatever reason, never journeyed to Aman.

I am legally obligated to ask: could Tom Bombadil-“oldest and fatherless”-be Imin the first elf; with Goldberry-“the River Woman’s daughter”-being Iminye, who awoke by the waters of Cuivienin?

Could it be that the first two elves in existence were also the first orcs?

[laurelsblue]

Some quick dolls for Legendarium Ladies April, left to right: Cuivienen era Iminye, Tatie and Enelye.