The Lord of the Rings: Immortal, but not forever young – this is how the elves age

• Not only the dwarves, hobbits and wizards, but also the people in Middle-earth usually don’t show their age.
• Of course, the immortal elves age particularly slowly, but they certainly age. How can that be?

The elves from the “Immortal Lands” are just that: immortal. You can’t tell that they’re usually very old. Figures like Arwen or Legolas can easily be over 2,000 years older than Aragorn and yet look much younger.

But then there are elves like Elrond or Galadriel who are even older and also look older. So when elves age, even if they do so very slowly, they are not at a certain point to old? Shouldn’t immortal creatures always look the same? And if so, when do they stop aging and find their final form?

Since the appearance of the elves in the “Lord of the Rings” films tends to raise questions rather than answers, we have summarized for you what JRR Tolkien reveals about the life – and death – of the elves, especially in the “Silmarillion”. has.

The early years

Elves are born about a year after conception. The day of conception is celebrated, not the birthday itself, because it is more strenuous for the mind and body of the elf parents than for humans.

After a year, an elf child can speak, write, walk and dance; elves develop mentally exceptionally quickly. However, this does not apply to their appearance; at the age of 20 they look roughly like 7-year-olds, at the age of 50 they have passed puberty – but they are not considered adults until they are 100 years old.

The second phase of life

Once elves reach 100 years old, the longest period of their lives begins. They no longer change externally, at least not for many thousands of years. In “The Lord of the Rings” Elrond was almost 6,500 years old, Galadriel was over 8,000 years old.

If in “The Rings of Power” Gil-galad and Celebrimbor look significantly older than Galadriel, that makes little sense, because on the one hand Galadriel is older than both elves and on the other hand, elves actually resemble young men and women.

However, severe strokes of fate can change the appearance of the elves so that they visibly age. Círdan the Shipwright, the oldest elf in Middle-earth, was over 10,000 years old when he sailed to Valinor and was one of the few elves to have a beard.

The immortal elves die

Eru Ilúvatar, the god of Middle-earth, created the Ainur, the Elves and the Men. He actually wanted to bind the elves to their bodies forever and make them immortal in a way that is usually imagined by this term. But Melkor alias Morgoth intervened and so the lives of the elves end – at least temporarily.

Illness and most injuries are not a problem for elves, but they can still be murdered or poisoned. In this case, their souls end up in the Halls of Mandos in the Undying Lands. If they wish and have behaved well during their lifetime, the elves can be reborn.

In this case, the elves almost always remain in Valinor, but it has happened that elves have returned to Middle-earth. In their third and final phase of life, elves in Middle-earth usually long for Valinor and leave Middle-earth, otherwise their soul will one day simply separate from their body and while this simply becomes one with Arda, i.e. the earth, Mandos calls the soul to him.

Since the souls of the elves are always preserved, at least as long as the earth exists, they are considered immortal, although their bodies certainly die at some point. Thousands of years pass between death and rebirth, so if Legolas had died in battle, Gimli and Aragorn would never have seen him again during their lifetime.

?

Lord of the Rings Quiz: How well do you know Middle-earth?

What else are the people of dwarves called?

ⵙⵔLuthien’s people ⵙⵔDurin’s people ⵙⵔThe old people