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Old 08-16-2002, 02:19 PM   #5
Fingolfin of the Noldor
Haunting Spirit
 
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: NH
Posts: 63
Fingolfin of the Noldor has just left Hobbiton.
Sting

Why did elves in general have so few children, I'm as much in the dark as you are, hope someone can tell us.

I have posted before on this subject

In regard to Elvish birthrates and sexual drive a text entitled The Laws and Customs among the Eldar gives the fullest account. Here is a rather longish, but I think good summary excerpt:

Quote:
It might be thought that, since the Eldar do not (as Men deem) grow old in body, they may bring forth children at any time in the ages of their lives. But this is not so. For the Eldar do indeed grow older, even if slowly: the limit of their lives is the life of Arda, which though long beyond the reckoning of Men is not endless and ages also. Moreover their body and spirit are not separated but coherent. As the weight of the years, with all their changes of desire and thought gathers upon the spirit of the Eldar, so do the impulses nd moods of their bodies change.
...
Also the Eldar say that in the begetting, and still more in the bearing of children, greater share and strength of their being, in mind and in body, goes forth than in the making of mortal children. For these reasons it came to pass that the Eldar brought forth few children...

But at whatever age they married, their children were born within a short space of years after their wedding. For with regard to generation the power and the will are not amoung the Eldar distinguishable. Doubtless they wwould retain for many ages the power, if the will and desire were not satisfied; but with the exercise of the power the desire soon ceases and the mind turns to other things.
Morgoth's Ring pg 212-3
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