[drigel]

But what of Fairies/Elves as beings in their own right? Tolkien (in On Fairy Stories & the Smith essay) repeatedly refers to Faerie & its inhabitants as having an 'objective' existence:

Yes, he spends some thought as to the physical manifistations of Faerie, and also the time/space affects. But to a point. They are almost symbolic/allergoric in nature.

My symbol is not the underground, whether necrological and Orphic or pseudo-scientific in jargon, but the Forest: the regions still immune from human activities, not yet dominated by them (dominated! not conquered!). If Faery Time is at points contiguous with ours, the contiguity will also occur in related points in space - or that is the theory for the purpose of the story. At certain points at or just within the Forest borders a human person may come across these contiguous points and there enter F. time and space - if fitted to do so or permitted to do so.

Meaning this is a Forest, not a forest. In our world, this could be anywhere on the globe, no? It is intersesting to see how (of course) in his mind it's all worked out. But to translate it into the story is where the rub lies.

Yet it seems that he was willing to ignore that 'objective' existence when it suited him & make use of them as 'symbols' or 'metaphors' (or even as 'allegories') of something else - Art, Death, etc.

Faery might be said indeed to represent Imagination (without definition because taking in all the definitions of this word): esthetic: exploratory and receptive; and artistic; inventive, dynamic, (sub)creative. This compound - of awareness of a limitless world outside our domestic parish; a love (in ruth and admiration) for the things in it; and a desire for wonder, marvels, both perceived and conceived - this 'Faery' is as necessary for the health and complete functioning of the Human as is sunlight for physical life: sunlight as distinguished from the soil, say, though it in fact permeates and modifies even that.

Death we can define. But Art? To me, its like defining wind. You can point out
results or examples, you can define air, but you cant point to a spot and say "ah, there is wind".

Also: ruth - ruth as in Compassion or pity for another, or, Sorrow or misery about one's own misdeeds or flaws?