WhiteOliphaunt

Welcome to the White Oliphaunt gift exchange! Here, Tolkien fans sign up to exchange humorous gifts with each other.

[whiteoliphaunt]

The White Oliphaunt 2025

Welcome to the White Oliphaunt Gift Exchange! Sign ups are now OPEN! For those of you on mobile, here are some important links for this year:

Guide

FAQ

Sign up (Open November 9th 2025-November 30th 2025)

White Calf Sign Up (Open November 9th 2025-November 30th 2025)

AO3 Collection

[whiteoliphaunt]

That's a Wrap!

Everyone should have received a gift! If for some reason you haven’t seen yours yet, please reach out! I’ll be keeping the AO3 collection open and unmoderated for a bit longer in case anyone would like to cross-post their gifts there.

I hope everyone has a happy new year!

-Mod Minu

[whiteoliphaunt]

@ghostsandgod has written a fun White Elephant gift for @dobadgerseatsnakes featuring Aragorn, Eomer and Faramir. They asked us to make a dedicated tumblr post with the link so that it can be shared on both the AO3 Collection, and here on the blog for all to enjoy. Please enjoy!

[whiteoliphaunt]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

@ghostsandgod has written a cute White Calf gift for @pearlessar featuring Eowyn and Faramir. They asked us to make a dedicated tumblr post with the link so that it can be shared on both the AO3 Collection, and here on the blog for all to enjoy. Please enjoy!

[rach-nn]

My humble gift for @saintstars for this year's @whiteoliphaunt :D

Mairon and Melkor after a little sword fight 🔥

[dobadgerseatsnakes]

My @whiteoliphaunt gift for @thiswaycomessomethingwicked !!

A very short comic about Eomer&Grima& and an unnamed horse. I never really drew Eomer or Grima before, hope it turned out okay. Coming up with a design for Grima is fun though :3

Hope you like it!

Version without text under the cut:

[happyperle]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Chapters: ¼ Fandom: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Celegorm & Curufin (Tolkien), Aredhel & Celegorm (Tolkien), Celegorm & Oromë (Tolkien), Celegorm & Maeglin (Tolkien), Aredhel & Maeglin (Tolkien), Aredhel & Eöl (Tolkien), Idril Celebrindal & Turgon of Gondolin, Aredhel & Turgon of Gondolin (Tolkien), Maeglin & Turgon of Gondolin (Tolkien), Celegorm & Turgon of Gondolin (Tolkien) Characters: Celegorm (Tolkien), Aredhel (Tolkien), Maeglin (Tolkien), Turgon of Gondolin (Tolkien), Idril Celebrindal, Curufin (Tolkien), Eöl (Tolkien), Lúthien Tinúviel, Beren Erchamion Additional Tags: Pre-Fall of Gondolin (Tolkien), Friendship, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Poison, Major Character Injury, Hurt/Comfort, Mentioned Míriel Þerindë | Míriel Serindë, Poisoning, Coma, Family Feels, Aredhel Lives (Tolkien), Protective Turgon of Gondolin (Tolkien), Quest for the Silmaril (Tolkien), no beta we die like no one in this story Summary:

What if Celegorm found Aredhel as she fled from Eol ? What if he decided to go with her to the Nevrast ? How much changes if Curufin find himself alone in Nargothrond when Luthien arrives ? How does Gondolin’s secrecy survive with a Feanorian sleeping beauty in it’s garden ?

[happyperle]

@elentarial

[pearlessar]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Frodo and Sam enjoy a wintery walk in the Shire, and stumble upon a familiar pair in the woods.

my White Oliphaunt gift for @friendofgeorgeharrison!! i hope you enjoy <3

happy holidays and happy new year to all :)

[sadlybeans]

I am currently on vacation with very unpredictable wifi connection so this post is gonna be pre-scheduled…

And it is this year’s @whiteoliphaunt gift exchange!!

For my giftee, @violecov :)

They requested family or fluff vibes so I thought I’d draw my favourite trio of brothers… I really hope you like it !!

POV you walk into them when they were gossiping about you

It’s the first time I properly draw Arvo and Nolvo and also lowkey the first time I draw Náro with long hair lol

[sauroff]

My small gift for @rach-nn for this year @whiteoliphaunt 💖💖

Post canon/4th age silvergifting ☺️

[whiteoliphaunt]

Happy New Year!

This is a reminder that all works must be posted by 1/1/2026 at 11:59PM EST! If you’ve already posted your gift to AO3, please also make a tumblr post with a link so that I can reblog it here, or send me a message with the link if you would prefer the WhiteOliphaunt blog make the post.

-Mod Minu

[ecofutural]

White Oliphaunt 2025: white lady gone riding

A very happy end of the year to @sauroff, who requested (among other pairings) something with Aredhel/Haleth for the 2025 @whiteoliphaunt exchange. The full fic is on ao3 and below the cut.

As soon as I saw that pairing, I did just enough looking at the F.A. timeline to confirm that these two were in fact alive at the same time and technically could have met if you fill in some of the Silm's negative spaces. @sauroff, I hope you enjoy!

white lady gone riding “Duty!” Aredhel said. “I have no duty and therefore no purpose. You are more fortunate than I in this,” she continued, her frown softening at last, “that your people saw your worth and did not dismiss it on account of your birth." ----------- An encounter between Aredhel Ar-Feiniel and Haleth of the Haladin. This fic is most realistically an AU in which Aredhel either never went to Gondolin OR successfully left Gondolin to meet up with C&C; Haleth would probably be older than I've depicted her here.

On Midwinter's Eve, Haleth awoke to find the Elf-maiden reposed against the pillows. Though maiden suggested a certain innocence disproved by last night's several couplings. The lady's eyes were open, another Elven strangeness that she had warned Haleth of the night before. Her irises dark as pitchblende but her pupils shone with a wavering light, not as the flickering of a candle but as if the light of the moon eddied beneath a slow-moving stream. She was one of the bright-eyed Elves who claimed to have come over the sea out of a country that Haleth and her people would never see; and Haleth didn't know if it had been wise to bed her, but she couldn't find it in herself to regret it. On this the second-darkest day of the year, the ordinary business of the Haladin—sweeping the prior night’s ashes from their hearths, leavening the bread for the next day’s feast—began before the sun’s first rays even dreamed of touching the frost. One of Haleth’s own women would come soon, to help her dress, and Haleth did not want anyone to see the Elf-maid like this. There was beauty enough to drive a mortal woman, bent down with work and age, to despair.

"Ar-Feiniel,” Haleth said, curving her hand around the lady's pale shoulder. She didn't shake, but pushed gently. "Wake now, and dress. The storm will be passing and surely your cousins will be looking for you, so that they can depart." Haleth turned away to tend the braziers beside the bed, wrapping a woolen blanket around her shoulders. She didn't want to see the further strangeness of what Ar-Feiniel looked like as she woke, all the smooth white edges of her re-animated. Instead she took in her brother's battle axe mounted on the wall, the thick tapestries that hung over the shuttered windows to keep out the cold, no longer trembling as they had during last night’s gale. The draft and the shutter-rattling had so annoyed Haleth last eve that she’d risen in the middle of their lovemaking to ensure the shutters were drawn as tightly as they could be, to the mingled amusement and indignation of her companion.

When Haleth looked again over her shoulder, she found the other woman awake but only half-sitting, one elbow beneath her, the bear fur and the blankets beneath fallen to expose her to the waist. How could she stand the bite in the air? Beneath Haleth’s hands that elven skin, smooth as stone but far more lively, hadn’t warmed where her fingers explored breast or inner thigh or even sex; and in the night, that same skin hadn’t chilled at all, the way Haleth’s did as she now pressed her hands beneath her armpits to keep them warm while she coaxed the braziers hotter.

But of course the white fur, the pelt of some massive, brawny beast, was not Haleth's but Ar-Feiniel's. She'd boasted of the killing of it around Haleth's table, rebuked her traveling companions for not wanting to continue on in the storm, and displayed her frost-bitten fingertips for the Haladin at large and Haleth in particular to examine—for had not she, Aredhel Ar-Feiniel, once upon a time endured worse than this dainty snow squall? Then she'd slanted a knowing glance at her two cousins, which had been enough to silence the broad, silver-haired one with the enormous hunting hound. But the slighter, dark-haired one had said, "And what of the horses in this weather?" "I would not know," Aredhel replied, "for before we crossed the Ice, a band of horse-thieves came in the night, leaving us no choice but to go on foot." Aredhel had smiled then, vulpine, teeth glinting in the firelight of the common hall. That kept Aredhel’s dark-haired cousin silent for the rest of the evening, though in the end, the three Elves and their company accepted the shelter offered by Haleth's people and shared their own rations in turn.

In Haleth’s bed, Aredhel now smiled, not predatory, but in a way no less hungry. It would warm Haleth a little if she permitted it; but again she wondered at the despair that these Eldar would leave in their wake. Didn’t Aredhel realize what she looked like, the finest and fairest thing that would ever walk in this village and lay in this bed, amongst the rough-spun dun blankets and the pillows filled with goat-hair?

Perhaps she did, because she said, “Come away with me. Ride in my train." "What?" "I trust my cousin Caranthir in few matters," Aredhel said. “My half-uncle imbued his seven sons with his own pridefulness and self-assurance—now that you've met two more of them and Curufin in particular, you may understand what I mean!—but none is so arrogant and belligerent as my cousin Caranthir. And he saw something in you and you refused him. What a delight! I have been so desirous to meet you ever since his letters, full of vehemence, came west to my cousins in Himlad. You have earned the begrudging respect of three sons of Feanor, and before two of them even met you! Wear it as a badge of honor." "You don't speak highly of the companions you would have me join."     Aredhel waved a hand. "If you mislike them, then we can go elsewhere. We can ride to Dor-lomion and hunt orc bands and dragons with my brother. His is a bold heart; I think you would like each other."

"I am only a warrior on occasion and by necessity," Haleth said.

"So are many!" Aredhel said. Plainly she did not think so of herself. "That doesn't lessen their skill or their courage. Soldier or not, chief or not, I can sense the fierceness in you. I want it beside me. I want to ride free with you." Except for the frost-bitten fingertips and the archer's callouses, there was not a mark on Aredhel's body that spoke of age or time. She was a birch, lithe and white and smooth, stretching nimbly towards the sky. Haleth’s hair was the color of iron-galls. In Brethil she rooted deep: for all that her people were Secondborn, they had more generations between them and their original peoples than Aredhel did, for Elves really had no need for children to succeed them.

Aredhel was birch, who returned to the forest first after fire; but Haleth was oak, a mother-tree, for all that she did not and would not have children.

"And who will oversee the sowing of the wheat," Haleth replied at last, "and organize the collection of wood for the winter and arrange to thatch the roof of the common hall when it wears? I have taken up these duties from my father and my brother, and they are not easily discarded. I am not free to flit from branch to branch as you are, Lady, flying wherever you like."

The smile on Aredhel’s face vanished at once and so did her good humor. She sat up straight in bed. “If I seem to you as one who takes nothing seriously—well, you aren’t the first to say so, and I disagree! But what I am flying from is only that which seeks to cage me.”

“Duty can be a comfort as well as a cage,” Haleth said.

“Duty!” Aredhel said. “I have no duty and therefore no purpose. You are more fortunate than I in this,” she continued, her frown softening at last, “that your people saw your worth and did not dismiss it on account of your birth. My father and brother think I act unseemly for the daughter of a king, though I would only follow my eldest brother and Celegorm and Curufin in what they do. No, your duty is good for you, I suppose. I won’t take you from it.”

Reaching out, Aredhel grasped Haleth by the wrist and drew her near again. And oh, Haleth had not been wrong to say that Aredhel’s skin was not warm, but her mouth certainly was. For a few moments they kissed, Aredhel’s long fingers tightening around her upper arms.

Haleth pulled away. “Now, my lady, we really must rise,” she said, as voices called back and forth to each other in the rows between the houses.

Aredhel’s hands didn’t immediately leave her body, but slid a few times up and down the muscled curves of her upper arms. “Will you marry?” she said, abruptly, not meeting Haleth’s eyes. “You’re still young, aren’t you, by the measure of your people?”

Haleth shrugged. This question was sudden coming from Aredhel, blunt, but one she heard often from her older women attendants, who delivered it much more bluntly, Your looks or what you have of them won’t keep for long. And the birthing bed will be no easier the longer you wait.

“Perhaps,” she said.

Aredhel smiled again, a small thing, and finally rose fully from the bed. Standing, she was a head taller than Haleth and indeed taller than any of the Haladin. The sprightly, fast-growing birch. “Then if you won’t permit me to spirit you away,” Aredhel said, bending close so that her lips brushed Haleth’s ear, “may I at least come to you again? In a year or two, on Midwinter?”

“You may.”

And for many years, she did.

[meg-pond]

@whiteoliphaunt 2025 gift

For @silmalope! can you believe it, we've been paired again! So I wrote another adventure in Gondolin. I hope you like it (and I promise if this happens next year too, I'll finally change the theme, the place and the characters :D)

Happy New Year!

count your blessings (4337 words) by the_girl_that_time_forgot Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Ecthelion of the Fountain & Glorfindel (Tolkien), Ecthelion of the Fountain & Penlod (Tolkien) Characters: Glorfindel (Tolkien), Ecthelion of the Fountain (Tolkien), Penlod (Tolkien), Idril Celebrindal, OC elves Additional Tags: Gondolin (Tolkien), First Age of Arda (Tolkien), Friendship, Attempt at Humor, Mystery, (dark academia hehe), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, just slightly and when it comes to worldbuilding, very liberal use of ósanwe Summary:

There is a new urban legend going around the Gondolin Academy. At the request of an old friend, Ecthelion and Glorfindel turn into investigators once again.

[saintstars]

Not so much a funny @whiteoliphaunt gift as a sweet one for @sadlybeans

[friendofgeorgeharrison]

it will bring us goodness and light

Handlemewithcare Bilbo Baggins/Thorin Oakenshield, Bilbo Baggins & Fíli & Kíli Rating G M/M

Dwarvish and Hobbitish traditions mingle under the Lonely Mountain in the upcoming days of Yuletide. Somewhere amidst misunderstandings and cultural differences, love between Bilbo and Thorin starts to blossom and finally bear fruit.

Written for @whiteoliphaunt as a gift for @lucigoo

[ach-sss-no]

My @whiteoliphaunt gift! Sam and Frodo's Yule tree in Bag End with stuff from their adventures on it :) And a few totally anachronistic photos. For fun. I hope my recipient likes it!

notes under the cut

Hobbits don't wear shoes, so they have mittens hung up instead of stockings. Sam's mitten is on the other side of the hearth, off-screen.

Potato stock image credit: https://unsplash.com/photos/brown-and-red-oval-stone-jJUuF4hqCQM it's not a rock, I don't know why the link is like that.

The photo on the hearth was meant to be of them with Elrond. I mean I guess it could be a more era-appropriate painting where they posed there with Elrond for a really long time or someone just took a quick gesture sketch of them posing and finished it later

[ach-sss-no]

Reveals day! This is for @pearlessar - I hope you're having a wonderful holiday season! @whiteoliphaunt

[lucigoo]

Presents In The Woods

A @whiteoliphaunt gift fic for @ach-sss-no

A03 link here

Summary: Bilbo is taking the four young hobbits with him into the woods to meet some old friends of his.

They are all in for a surprise.

And as always, an excerpt:

“So are we seeing dwarves or elves?” Pippin asked once everyone had calmed down from the giggles Bilbo had caused by poking them all. “Neither. Tom and Goldberry are neither dwarves nor elves,” Bilbo finally said as they got underway again. “So are they men?” Peregrin asked in a small voice. All hobbits knew to be wary of men. Even those in Bree who were kind to hobbits, and it wasn’t a surprise that Pippin had been told tales to make him weary. All faunts had, well, not Frodo, because Bilbo had friends who were men and knew that some were of the finest calibre of beings. But Bilbo was sure he was the most widely travelled hobbit since the Wanderings, so he wasn’t surprised at Pippin’s fear, even if it saddened him a little. “They may look Mannish to certain degree, but neither Tom nor Goldberry are men,” Bilbo said as they got closer to the cottage the couple lived in. “If they are not men and they aren’t dwarves and they aren’t elves, what are they? Orcs?” Merry asked with a scowl of confusion on his little face. “Do I look like an orc, young one?” A soft tinkling voice asked from seemingly nowhere, causing all four faunts to scurry behind Bilbo as they looked around for the source of it.