When did the last of the High Elves leave Middle Earth ?
 

Anyone got any idea when the last High Elven ship - presumably with Cirdan on board - left the Havens ?

Or did Cirdan wait even longer until all the other Elves from Mirkwood and Ithilien decided to leave ?

ROTK The Grey Havens

And there are Círdan's words to Gandalf to consider:

Silm Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age (emphasis added)

For me, the implication clearly seems to be that Círdan was on board the ship which took the Keepers of the Three, and that the remaining High Elves also went at that time.
Círdan's absence also would explain why Legolas built a ship for himself and Gimli in Ithilien.

All I could find doing a quick search is this from the end of the Prologue to LotR:
As Círdan was presumably older than Celeborn (possibly a first generation Elf from Cuiviénen?), this seems to imply that he sailed either with Celeborn or before him.
As for the remaining Elves from Mirkwood and Ithilien (or Lórien, for that matter), I don't think all of them ever left Middle-earth - many (most?) probably remained, slowly fading over the millennia. For all we know, they're still around;).

(x-ed with Inzil: Thanks for the Silmarillion quote, I vaguely remembered there was something like this.)

I had forgotten that quote from the Prologue. I recalled Celeborn going to Rivendell, but I don't believe Celeborn was of the High Elves. Wasn't he one of the Sindar from Doriath?

The quote from the Silm has another line, which I omitted.

The only explanation for the apparent variance between the statements in the Silm and FOTR would seem to be that some of the remaining High Elves were not of the Noldor, though I don't know how that could be.

Inziladun, my reading of that Silm passage is this: What is the "then" Cirdan talks about? The last ship that will sail, or the return of Gandalf? I think it's the latter. Didn't Sam follow Frodo to Tol Eressea? So the "last ship" isn't the one Gandalf was in.

Anyway I think JRRT made a minor inconsistency here. In the Silm passage Inziladun quotes, "the last of the Noldor set sail from the Havens and left Middle-earth for ever." But then in the passage Pitchwife quotes, there are some High Elves left in Middle-Earth, apparently together with Elladan and Elrohir.

The "long remained" portion however bugs me. Can it mean that eventually, after a long time, they left, or is it an indication that after a very long time, they "faded," whatever that means?

That depends on which of the variant backstories in UT you choose to believe. According to one of them, he was a Teler from Alqualonde; if so, he certainly qualifies as a High-Elf, having lived in Aman - probably the only non-Noldorin High-Elf left in Middle-earth. (Myself, I prefer the Doriath backstory - if only because it gets rid of his Telerin name, one of the most embarrassing unintentional puns in recorded history;!)
Good point about Sam, Lindale. I think we can safely assume that Sam didn't build and/or sail his ship by himself, so some of Círdan's people must have stayed there at least that long. They needn't have been High-Elves, however - more likely they were Sindar from the Falas who came there with their lord Círdan after the ruin of Beleriand. The Noldor never were great shipwrights or mariners, apart from a few illustrious exceptions like Voronwe and his shipmates.
As for the question whether Elladan and Elrohir ever sailed west, see here.

But Legolas and Gimli came to Valinor much later. Did Legolas
have to return to Middle-earth when Gimli died?

And if Legolas could build a ship capable of making the voyage,
why not other elves?

I don't agree that Cirdan left with the Keepers of the Three. In the Appendices of ROTK there's a statement somewhere about the Havens, where it's said in relation to Cirdan that "some say he dwells there still, until the last ship sails".

No, why would he? The Valar originally invited/summoned all Elves to Aman, and I haven't read anywhere that those who didn't make it the first time were excluded later.
Maybe they could, but would they want to? Legolas himself had no yearning for the sea before he came to Pelargir with Aragorn & co.

The 'last ship' could be taken to mean the one carrying Gandalf et al, the last voyage of the Noldor. Certainly he didn't mean to infer it was to be the final ship ever to leave the shores of Middle-earth.
'Then I will await thee' appears to say Círdan is waiting for the return of Gandalf to the Havens after the completion of his mission, which is when that ship was to set forth.

Well, what we do know is that it was definitely no later than when Sam left (in SR 1482, which I think is FA 60), because in The Tale of Years it says

Which means that at the very latest Cirdan left with him then, but definitely no later.

To further muddy the waters, there is this from Letter #144.

I read that as saying all the Noldor left with the Keepers of the Three. The Prologue notwithstanding, what possible reason would any of them have had for staying in ME when Elrond and Galadriel had gone? I always saw the departure of those two as a vastly symbolic moment: the 'official' acknowledgement of the High Elves that their time was up, and they must make way for the Age of Men.
The Silvan Elves were a different matter. They had spent their entire lives far away from the Sea, and knew nothing of the Sea-longing. I doubt Legolas himself would ever have passed Over Sea had he not chanced to hear the cry of the gulls along the coasts of Gondor. I'm fairly certain many of the Silvan Elves never left, and indeed suffered the 'fading' they were doomed to undergo, holding fast to ME to the end.

Yes Celeborn was Sindarin -- the Teler of Aman idea being essentially a draft idea.

It could be because the term High-Elves appears sometimes equated with Eldar (despite the definition of Tareldar published in Morgoth's Ring). For the latest bolstering of this usage (gleaned from Tolkien's own examples), see Christopher Tolkien's description of the Quendi in his Introduction to The Children of Húrin.

I don't know if Tolkien meant the two texts to be taken this way: in other words, maybe the text published in The Lord of the Rings was meant to supersede the description in Of the Rings of Power; but in any case it appears that 'High Elves' can have more than one application.

Upon further examination, it seems 'High Elves' in LOTR does refer exclusively to the Noldor.

Exiles=Noldor

I found another quote in ROTK that supports the statement in the Prologue.

So, the answer to the question of when the last of the High Elves left for the West seems to depend upon which text Tolkien intended to be the 'final word'; the Silmarillion or the LOTR.
I would prefer to think they all went with Elrond, as that simply seems the most fitting to me.

I don't think this is necessarily so. An instance in Appendix B appears to include the Sindar, and is arguably (in part) the source for Robert Foster's comment below. And the Sindar would used the name Elbereth too -- with reference to the statement from Frodo that you raised.

In my opinion a stronger statement for your case appears in Appendix F. But my point is, since two applications appear to exist, even if one outweighs the other in number, one cannot assume an exclusively Noldorin application exists for all occurances in The Lord of the Rings.

So again, what about The Lord of the Rings alone? Perhaps one can interpret the term to refer to the Exiles at all instances, but I don't see this as a given necessarily.

Well, going back to the Letter #144 quote, Tolkien, at least at that time, was apparently certain that the High Elves encountered in LOTR were Noldorin.
He refers to them as 'Exiles', and 'part of one of the last main kindreds of the Eldar: the Noldor.'

The fact remains that after Elrond, Galadriel and Gandalf left Middle Earth, there were still in total many thousands of Elves who remained there who hadn't yet sailed, who lived in at least the following locations :-

- west of the Shire
- Rivendell
- Woodland Realm, Mirkwood
- Lorien
- East Lorien, Mirkwood
- Ithilien

It's also possible that some elves may have been in the far east of Middle Earth, having never made the journey westward throughout the ages.

So did they all sail eventually ?

My feeling is that all did not. The Silvan Elves had not heard the Sea's call, and they seemed quite content to continue on in their forest realms as long as they could. As a comparitively simple and rustic lot, probably some of them were uninformed as to their ultimate fate in ME if they remained.
This ties into the Círdan question. If all Elves did not eventually sail into the West, either because of conscious refusal or ignorance of their plight, how would Círdan know when the 'Last Ship' was to sail? How long would he wait for the last two or three to make up their minds before finally deciding they were a lost cause, and leaving himself?

Right, letter 144 was written to Naomi Mitchison in April 1954, where Tolkien says the High Elves met in the book are Exiles. In letter 154 to Naomi Mitchison in September 1954 Tolkien appears to equate High Elves with Eldar rather -- this is the reference that Hammond and Scull note in their Companion actually.

But rather than argue that Tolkien changed his mind later that same year (to possibly change it again some time later), I would rather suggest that two applications existed, for it is easy enough to imagine how High Elves came to be equated with Eldar (among the Quendi 'the Eldar were as kings' according to Appendix F). The term Eldar itself appears to have altered in reference as well.

And yet it's also easily seen how the same term could technically refer to those Eldar who had passed over Sea. For me the question becomes, how is it used in The Lord of the Rings proper? and need it be used consistently, even there?

High Elves
 

Another factor to consider is that most of hte Noldor would not have been to Aman rather they would be descendants of those. The various disasters sufered by the Noldor kingdoms in Beleriand must have resulted in the deaths of most of them. After the Valar and their host overthrew Morgoth they recalled the Exiles some of whom answered the call and some of whom did not. Those Noldor born in Middle Earth were technically Dark Elves and yet the culture seems to still be referred to as "High Elves."

There also seems to be much merging between the surviving Sindar and Noldor in the Second Age, at least they are a single kindgom under Gil-galad but again they seem to be referred to collectively as High Elves.

Yet the use of the term is still not consistent because if High Elves equates to Eldar which equates to all Elves who at least BEGAN thejourney to Aman then the Silvan Elves should technically be Eldar also but Tolkien distinguishes them from High Elves (I noticed Unifinished Tales, Galadriel and Celeborn, states that the Silvan Elves remembered with pride that they were "in origin" Eldar). Does that mean the Green Elves of Ossiriand (who broke off from the Elves of Greenwood) are considered Eldar/High Elves just because they resumed their journey? It almost seems there is a geographical boundary distinguishing the Eldar, either the Mistly Mountains or the Blue Mountains.

I would suggest that any instances in The Lord of the Rings where High Elves might equate with Eldar, it does so with Eldar in the sense of West Elves.

As I noted above, Eldar itself has variant references, especially considering 'unpublished' text. Again, going by what Tolkien himself published in The Lord of the Rings at least, Eldar refers to the West Elves -- the Elves who passed Over Sea plus the Sindar only, and does not include the East-elves of Lórien or Mirkwood.

BTW, interesting again is Christopher Tolkien's entry for Eldar in The Children of Húrin (list of names):

To Beleriand 'and (some) beyond' yes, but this is basically Tolkien's definition of Eldar in The Lord of the Rings -- in other words, 'as far West as Beleriand' and thus the Sindar are West-Elves or Eldar -- while the East-elves of Mirkwood and Lórien are 'not Eldar' (Tolkien avoids the term Avari in the published text, which means something more specific).

In general the 'problem' is, as in the Primary World, terms change or can have different applications depending on who is using them, and when. And in this circumstance, we are also trying to find a certain measure of consistency when dealing with what are essentially draft texts (or statements in letters), mixed with author-published 'final' texts.

2 September 1973

Sorry but Beren wasn't an Elf

Yeah I know.

Just wondering who would get the reference..of course, the answer here would probably be "everyone", but ya know...