LotR -- Book 2 - Chapter 09 - The Great River

[Lalwendë]

Frodo:
'In that land, maybe, we were in a time that has elsewhere long gone by. It was not, I think, until Silverlode bore us back to Anduin that we returned to the time that flows through mortal lands to the Great Sea’

Aragorn:
…in that land you lost your count. There time flowed swiftly by us, as for the Elves

This realisation that time has somehow been corrupted has a lot in common with both ancient and modern phenomena. The modern is the conviction of people who believe they have been abducted in some way by aliens; in many ‘sightings’ people believe they have lost several hours of their life, as though they have been asleep. The ancient is the journey into the otherworld of the faeries. There is much folklore concerning mortals who have spent what they believe to have been seven days in Faerie, but in fact have spent seven or even seventy years there. It is as though they themselves have become immortal simply by entering that place.

I do believe Tolkien was drawing upon this time-shift folklore, but that he also attempted in some way to ‘explain’ it as it related to the Elves and other immortal creatures. When Legolas gives his speech, this is an attempt at that, but it is a very difficult concept to grasp, so it does bear careful consideration.

Legolas:
For the Elves the world moves, and it moves both very swift and very slow. Swift, because they themselves change little, and all else fleets by: it is a grief to them. Slow, because they do not count the running years, not for themselves. The passing seasons are but ripples ever repeated in the long long stream. Yet beneath the Sun all things must wear to an end at last

The above statement bears reading through several times, and breaking the concepts down does help.

Swift, because they themselves change little, and all else fleets by: it is a grief to them. Imagine having been born two thousand years ago and still being alive today. You would have seen the world move through all its many changes. You would have known so many mortals that you would as likely as not have forgotten even some of the most important ones in your long life.

I’m no mathematician so I can’t give any numerical comparisons, but if you consider how, in what seems like no time at all, a kitten grows into an adult cat and then sadly grows old, this is what an immortal would experience with their mortal friends. In terms of what Arwen gave up for Aragorn, it could be compared with giving up your life at the age of 25 just to spend two weeks with somebody you met yesterday. Sometimes I think it is not surprising that so many Elves are portrayed as keeping their distance from mortals – it would indeed have been heart-breaking to see people die in no time at all, so perhaps it may have been better to keep away from the possibility.

Slow, because they do not count the running years, not for themselves. The passing seasons are but ripples ever repeated in the long long stream. This, I think, refers to the fact that mortals’ running years are quite literally not counted by the elves for themselves. Their concept of a year would be much longer than ours; 144 years of mortal time made up one Yeni of Elven time, if I’m correct. To put this into the context of time passing slowly, instead of clock watching for one hour until you can go home, an Elf might have to do this for say, 3 or 4 days.

To an elf, a phase of the moon would pass by as though we had just clicked our fingers. Sayings such as ‘once in a ‘blue’ moon may mean once a month, i.e. something regular. It makes you wonder if they would celebrate events such as birthdays or anniversaries in the way that mortals might.

Yet beneath the Sun all things must wear to an end at last. This is an enigmatic and beautiful statement. It suggests ‘the end of all things’. Or does Legolas refer only to the end of Elvenkind in Middle Earth by saying ‘under the Sun’?