ACK! Legolas..Gondolin....!
 

Ahh, the insane beauty of tolkien...so i was reading a bit from the Lost Tales part II and there was SOMEONE named legolas greenleaf at the fall of gondolin. OK, i really need some help on this one cuz it's driving me crazy! is it the SAME legolas that we all know and love? or not? here are the facts:
*"in this tale appears the keen sighted elf Legolas Greenleaf, first of the names of the fellowship of the ring to appear in my father's writings (see p. 217 on this earlier legolas), followed by gimli (an ELF), in the tale of Tinuviel." does this imply that it is only the NAME legolas, and two different guys, or the SAME guy? cuz it says "this earlier legolas." or is it just an earlier version of the same elf? im going insane....! [img]smilies/eek.gif[/img] and gimli as an elven name?!?!?!??!

*in the idex if you look under legolas greenleaf it says (I) gondolin elf; (II) member of the fellowship of the ring
ARE THEY THE SAME OR NOT?!?!

sry, i know this is a very specific, nit-picky little question, but i would really love to know, if anybody has some insight...and if anybody besides me cares! [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] (im writing something and would like to know about legolas' past...)

Someone else may come along with a more detailed answer but it all comes down to the same thing, "We just don't know."

If you read about Glorfindel you'll understand cos I had the same problem with him. I figured since he died in the Silmarillion could he be the same guy in 'the fellowship of the ring'. The thing is, elves are immortal so when they lose their bodies their spirits go to halls of Mandos until he decides it's time for them to be reborn and sent back to middle-earth. So legolas is probably the same guy in a new body. How do I knwo this? Cos I'm a Tolkien freak!

This better be the only one of my posts. I'm new to this and I've tried to post things 3 times but they somehow appear on the page when I'm not even done with them. But ok, that's a really good question. I'm gonna go crazy trying to find this out now. But go to (www.glyphweb.com/arda)cuz they have a lot of definitions of people and stuff so they might say. But I also agree with the person who said that it probably is the same elf, just different body. I read about that, how they can go to different bodies and stuff. But I also have a question. Where was Legolas in The Hobbit. Is he really that young that he wasn't even born yet when Bilbo and teh Dwarves were taken captive there? And was he in the Battle of the Five Armies? Thanks people!! mailto:Marie385@aol.comMarie385@aol.com</A>

[ April 04, 2002: Message edited by: Lothiriel Silmarien ]

yeah, that kinda does make sense...thanks...it also said glorfindel died @ the fall of gondolin, (oooh poor glorfindel) i dunno, i need to be reading about five books at once! who knows...ack! i'm almost starting to believe all this history is REAL...and then doing my U.S. history homework becomes very confusing... [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

Ah! The joys of immortality!

AHA! i think i might just have had a mini-revelation on this: k, so he wrote these lost tales BEFORE the LotR (trilogy) SO he made up the character of legolas (just an elf that EXISTED) but then maybe decided to use him when he wanted an elf for the Fellowship, and fleshed out his background and personality??? i think he just 'morfed' a little...maybe?
SO i think it's the same guy...just he became a real character later...?

Well, personally I think it is almost impossible that they are the same person. The Lost Tales is not canonical - it was written early on in Tolkien's life and superceded by later writings. Legolas does not appear in any later version of the Fall of Gondolin (although these are shorter than the Lost Tale). Also, although Tolkien discusses Glorfindel (a relatively minor character) in depth, he never makes any mention of Legolas having lived on Gondolin. In any case the Legolas appearing in Lost Tales was stated to have remained in Tol Eressea. In all likelyhood it is merely a case of Tolkien reusing a name he had thought of long before. This happened on many occasions. For example the name Gimli was used of an elf in the original Tale of Tinuviel before it was transfered to the dwarf.

Another thing to point out would be that, living in Gondolin, the Legolas Greenleaf from the Lost Tales would probably have been a Gnome, the Elves that later became named the Noldor. The Legolas Greenleaf we see in Lord of the Rings is by no means Noldorin. This, at least to me, is a clear indicator that this particular character from the early writing was abandoned, at least in name, and that the Professor used the name again when making a new character. This is opposed to Glorfindel of Gondolin, who was retained in the Silmarillion, and was written of by the Professor as being the same as the one at Imladris. ('Last Writings: Of Glorfindel, Cìrdan, and Other Matters'; HoME XII, Peoples of Middle Earth)

Personally i think that it wasn't the same Legolas Greenleaf. I figured the same reason as Bruce, and because Tolkien has mentioned Glorfindel as the only elf who was send back to Arda after his death.

Lothiriel - The LotR is 77 years later than the Hobbit. Legolas Greenleaf is oldest of the fellowship (after Gandalf), and indeed lived a long time before the hobbit. He said he remembered the ride of the rohirrim from the north and that was about 500 years earlier, so that makes Legolas old in our counting, but still young for an elf.

ACK! now i think YOU guys are right! i have no idea, but i did forget about that tol eressea thing...it did sya he stayed there... he probably just made up the name legolas and used it again??? oh well, i will just have to accept these little uncertainties...thanks for sharing your extremly extensive knowledge... [img]smilies/eek.gif[/img] [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

I'm probably not qualified to say anything in here, but Gimli doesn't sound elvish at all (at least in the way Elf names were when Tolkien settled Quenya, Sindarin & predecessors). He imagined the name 'Gimli' in 1917, and it was supposed to be elvish. Doesn't that show by itself how much he changed his mind about things before coming to a later version of his work? (And, subsequently, makes the Lost Tales even more unreliable?)

Trust Voronwe and Bruce.

It could also have been very possible that Legolas Greenleaf, son of Thranduil, was named for the Legolas Greenleaf at the fall of Gondolin. I have not read Lost Tales yet, so I do not know into what depth they describe Legolas Greenleaf (of Gondolin), but if he were a hero in the book, then Legolas Greenleaf, son of Thranduil (just to distinguish between them), may have been named in the other Legolas's honor.

Also: We can all agree that Legolas is most likely over 2000 years old (in the movie, it's 2931 years), and The Hobbit happened so soon before Lord of the Rings (relatively speaking), that Legolas was most likely in Mirkwood, hanging out, being a prince, all that good stuff.

I guess he could just have been named after the other legolas. God knows there are a billion chracters named after old ones especially among mortal men. Just look at the line of stewards of Gondor etc. Well, I haven't read the lost tales so I didn't know he said that Glorfindel was the only one to come back to arda.

Your arguements all seem valid and well thought out everybody. But I'm surprised to hear that none of you mentioned that when Aragorn led them to attack the the cosairs of umbar Legolos mentions that the sea was awakening in him and it was the first time he saw it.
Now when the arguement is stated that Legolos died in the fall of Gondolin and later came back to middle earth he would of crossed the sea. So that arguement should be put to rest right then and there. But as for the whole age of Legolos that is for all these Tolkien message boards to argue over for years to come.

Yeah, as far as the age of Legolas, we'll never really know, unless there's a little scrap of paper that Christopher Tolkien missed somewhere. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

aha...! good, point,haste...that kinda clears it all up, eh?

Personaly, i'm inclined to believe that he was named after the previous Legolas. There are too many inconsistancies to say that they are the same person, althuogh real history is just like that. and dosent it say that Gondolin was the home of many different kinds of elves (kinda the minority groups or something)? Refugees maybe? i dunno, maybe i'm thinking of somewhere else... i'll have to do some research on Legolas' family tree. But my gorgeous, handsome elf in the Battle of Five Armies??!! I never even thought of that!!!! Wow!!! it occured to me that he was of the same race, but... , grrrrrrrrr that's going to bother me to no end!!! oh my awesome Lord... i'm going to have to do research now... if some one finds some striaght answers to these ?'s, please tell us!!!!!!!! [img]smilies/eek.gif[/img] [img]smilies/eek.gif[/img] [img]smilies/eek.gif[/img]

Adding to Voronwë's and Bruce's posts. Even if Tolkien were to revise FoG to make it canonical, Legolas Greenleaf would have most certainly been left out. Not just because of added confusion, but because there are no other instances of an elf having the same exact name as another elf. The closest would be variations of names as in Finwë, Curufinwë, and Curufin.

After reading all of this all I can say is - I don't think we will ever know for sure ! ! I like to think it is the same Legolas but I am not totaly convinced.... we will never know for sure !