6. Elves & Tuatha Dé Dannan. Greek & Celtic Mythology in Tolkien.

6. Elves & Tuatha Dé Dannan. Greek & Celtic Mythology in Tolkien.

6.1 Who are the Elves?

[...] Your reader's comment affords me delight. I am sorry the names split his eyes - personally I believe (and here believe I am a good judge) they are good, and a large part of the effect. They are coherent and consistent and made upon two related linguistic formulae, so they achieve a reality not fully achieved to my feeling by other name-inventors (say Swift or Dunsany!). Needless to say they are not Celtic! Neither are the tales. I do know Celtic things (many in their original languages Irish and Welsh), and feel for them a certain distaste: largely for their fundamental unreason. They have bright colour, but are like a broken stained glass window reassembled without design. They are in fact 'mad' as your reader says - but I don't believe I am.

Tolkien & Carpenter, Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien., 26

Amongst the most noticeable Celtic 'things' comparable to Tolkien's universe there is the history of the first civilised inhabitants of Ireland. Tolkien wasn't too far from truth when comparing Celtic mythology to broken stained glasses, as the history of this creatures, the Tuatha Dé Danann, is a bit puzzling in itself. VERSIONS. In first place, there are two versions concerning the nature of these people: they are presented either as gods or as high human kings. They were said to have fought the Fir Bolg just as they disembarked from their flying ships and burned them with the purpose to settle in Ireland forever.

Tolkien's Elves first appear (spontaneously) in Cuiviénen, East of Middle Earth [between the Second Age of Trees and the age of the Stars far east of the central continent of Middle-Earth near the Helcar Sea, front coast of Easternesse] and they are summoned to the Undying Lands to be protected from the evil deeds of Melkor/Morgoth by the Valar. Some of them accept, some others reject fearing the might of the Valar and the long journey. These travelling Elves, the Noldor commanded by Fëanor to be precise, burn the Teleri ships to prevent the latter from following them to Aman, in a flight they have started together and after a battle for their mutual interests (though both branches flee to Aman, Fëanor wants independence from the Valar and the Teleri still want to remain faithful to their masters). After that, Fëanor rejects Eru Ilúvatar and the Valar as his protectors, for being unable to keep Morgoth aside, and swears to defeat the Dark Lord himself.

Also, in the history of Tuatha Dé there is a battle against Fomorians, who depending on the version were either giants or gods who had came down to Earth to call the Tuatha Dé back to where they belonged. The people of Danu defeated the Fomorians and gained their freedom to inhabit Ireland. But at the end, the Tuatha Dé Danann were defeated by Milesians and from then on decided to live out of sight, so they become a spurce for the legends of fairies. The Long Defeat of Elves forces them to abandon Middle-earth, or to hide or disappear remaining as a rumour. Dwarves, at the beginning, had to be kept undergound, lifeless, motionless, until Eru allowed Aulë, their maker, to release them into the world. After long years of friendly existence with Elves and Men, they seclude themselves in Moria, former Khazad-dûm under the Misty Mountains. In German/Norse mythology, Elves and Dwarves were sometimes interchanged, for both of them were highly skilled in smithcraft and jewellery.

Despite of all these common points, there are also great differences between the Elves and the Tuatha Dé.

6.2 Of Heaven

When talking about the afterlife in the Lord of the Rings, it is impossible not to talk about elves, for they are the only creatures to go straight to 'Paradise' from Middle-earth. In his Letters, Tolkien gave several brief descriptions on how this Paradise worked:

The ‘immortals’ who were permitted to leave Middle-earth and seek Aman — the undying lands of Valinor and Eressëa an island assigned to the Eldar — set sail in ships specially made and hallowed for this voyage, and steered due West towards the ancient site of these lands. They only set out after sundown; but if any keen-eyed observer from that shore had watched one of these ships he might have seen that it never became hull-down but dwindled only by distance until it vanished in the twilight: it followed the straight road to the true West and not the bent road of the earth’s surface. As it vanished it left the physical world. There was no return. The Elves who took this road and those few ‘mortals’ who by special grace went with them, had abandoned the ‘History of the world’ and could play no further part in it.

The angelic immortals (incarnate only at their own will), the Valar or regents under God, and others of the same order but less power and majesty (such as Olórin = Gandalf) needed no transport, unless they for a time remained incarnate, and they could, if allowed or commanded, return.

As for Frodo or other mortals, they could only dwell in Aman for a limited time — whether brief or long. The Valar had neither the power nor the right to confer ‘immortality’ upon them. Their sojourn was a ‘purgatory’, but one of peace and healing and they would eventually pass away (die at their own desire and of free will) to destinations of which the Elves knew nothing.

Tolkien & Carpenter, Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien., 410-411

There are resemblances to other mythologic paradises, but in fact, the most specific thing on Tolkien's Aman is that it didn't gather spiritual immortality to mortal creatures; Elves and supreme beings were the only creatures to remain there forever. The difference between his and other paradises is the nature of his creatures. If we took the Silmarillion as the Bible of the Lord of the Rings, its story would belong to Elves, for they are the ones to be deprived of an earthly paradise and earthly immortality when denying their gods and spilling the blood of their kin.

Of course one of the sources for the Tolkienian Heaven was Norse Valhalla, though Elves didn't gather again in the Undying Lands to prepare for the final battle of the end of the world. In ancient Greece there were the Elysian Fields, and they casually lay on the western margin of the earth, by the encircling stream of Oceanus, as it did Aman, located at the Western margin of Middle-earth acroos Belegaer, the Sundering Seas. What Tolkien may have 'borrowed' from Greek Paradise was the fact that those related to Zeus reached that land without dying (and so did the Elves for they were the children of Eru) and as it has been already metioned, the geography. There was also some island(s) of Hesiod in front of the Elysian Plains, like there was later the island of Eressëa in the front coast of Valinor. Concerning Celtic mythology, there were two paradises Aman may remind us of: Mag Mell and Tír na nÓg. Mag Mell was a 'plain of joy' reserved only to heroes, an island (or a kingdom beneath the ocean) of eternal youth and beauty far to the west of Ireland. Again, the geographical feature is identical, but this time together with the fact that the inhabitants of both paradises look young and beautiful forever (the signs of time didn't appear on the bodies of elves). Tír na nÓg was said to be the place were Tuatha Dé Danann exhiled themselves after being defeated by the Milesians. It was entered after a long journey through the sea or by being invited by one of its inhabitants. It was also in the western confines of the earth, but in it we can recognise another feature of Tolkien's Aman: entering it after being 'invited to'. Galadriel begs the Valar to allow Frodo to remain in the Undying Lands for a while. Thus, whether it was because he took it for granted, or it was deeply carved in his subconscious mind, or because he rejected it and fought it by reinventing it, Tolkien included many elements which can be traced from and found out in very different mythologies.