Babes in the Wood

[doug*platypus]

Starting on the thread, What Does Elrond Mean?, a discussion popped up about the meaning of Elrond's name. I got the following from Letters of Tolkien.

The El- part is star (of course), from the same root that produced Elbereth or Eldar. -rond is used for a cave, such as Aglarond or Nargothrond. -ros is the spray from a waterfall (can't think of any other examples - Henneth Annûn is something to do with curtains). After Elrond and Elros were abandoned in the woods by Maedhros and Maglor, the twins were found in a cave with a waterfall coming down the front of it. Elros was playing in the fall, and Elrond was in the cave behind.

Although Tolkien later changed the meaning of Elrond to "vault of the stars", the similarity to Nargothrond and Aglarond stands. Regardless, anyway, Inderjit asked,

Why did the Sons of Fëanor abandon them in the woods?

I just assumed it was because they were all around bad guys, although they were clearly starting to reform. Eluréd and Elurín, the sons of Dior, starved to death after being abandoned by the Fëanorians. Elros and Elrond seem to have been left in a slightly better position, and so maybe in the future the Sons of Fëanor would be fully rehabilitated and perhaps not even abduct children in the first place!

I'm a little unclear on what the final version of the story was. Letters of Tolkien covers a pretty big timeframe. Also, being abandoned in the woods is a theme that occurs in old mythologies as well. Can anyone shed some light on a possible significance?

[Iarwain]

Well, I believe Romulus and Remus (the supposed founders of Rome) were abandoned at birth and raised by a wolf pack in their den.

Iarwain

[Arvedui III]

YAh, and they were abandoned by Mars or something(Sons of Feanor?). But they weren't lost in the woods, the were abandoned by a river. Also, Hermes, the greek messenger god, was abandoned at birth and raised in a cave. and I'm sure that there is some Norse verson of a god or son of a god getting dumped somewhere. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

[Inderjit Sanghera]

Maedhros and Maglor reforming? It was the other way around. They were getting progressively worse as the Oath went on. None of the sons of Feanor abandoned Elured or Elurin, it was Celegorm’s servants, out of malice for the fall of their lord, maybe. Maedhros later went out of his way to look for them. Maedhros and Maglor seem to me to be very noble Elves. They too control of the place where Morgoth was most likely to attack, and Maedhros effectively offered himself up as ‘bait’ so to speak, in the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. I think Maglor loved Elrond and Elros too just abandon them for no good reason. I think that he and Maedhros may have abandoned Elrond and Elros before they went to steal the Silmaril, not wanting the twins to be wit them in their fey moods.

I’m going to diverge a bit here, and talk about the sons of Feanor
.

I really don’t think the Sons of Feanor were that bad except for Celegorm and Curufin maybe. Maedhros was probably my favourite Elf, he is noble strong, red haired and supposedly had a great body. (Hence his Quenyarized mother name-Maitimo-well shaped one.) All this without working out in the gym. He was also said to be the handsomest of his brothers. It surprises me that he was never married.
Maglor, was, a very kind and noble Elf. I think that he joined in the rebellion for the love of his father and his wanting to return to Aman could by symbolising this. Caranthir also seems to be a reformed character. He treated Haleth with respect ,and it seems that he liked men quite a bit, hence his accepting of the Ulfangians into his army. Amrod and Amras seem to be rather young and innocent. Amrod never really wanted to go to M-E, and his fathers deeds shocked him, and so when the Feanorian ships landed in Drengist, he slept on the boat, in order to return to Nerdanel, but Feanor burnt the ships at night, unwittingly killing his own son. Celegorm was also pretty strong of body (hence his Quenya father-name, Turkafinwe) and it seems that he may have been good once upon a time, hence his nickname ‘the fair’. The only ‘bad’ son of Feanor, in my opinion, was Curufin, he seemed to be really cruel and nasty.
One thing that I would like Tolkien to have written more about was what Feanor and his sons were like before the rebellion and Oath-that way we could be able to see what they were really like, and when they weren’t under the influence of that Oath. Sorry, about the divergence, but I just had to get that off my chest.