Silvan Elves

Origins

When Lenwë led the Nandor away from the Great Journey, they spread along the Anduin and into the great forests on both sides of the river. Those who remained there when Denethor took a part of them west became the Silvan Elves, the Tawarwaith or people of the woods. Over the ages they were joined by Avari drifting westward, and the mixed folk of the Anduin valleys had less memory of the Eldar and the West than any other Elves who had set out from Cuiviénen. They were nevertheless of Eldarin descent, and the Noldor and Sindar who came among them later recognised them as kin.

Under Sindarin kings

After the drowning of Beleriand, Sindarin lords from Doriath went east to find peace away from the Noldor. Oropher came to Greenwood the Great and was taken as king by the Silvan Elves there; his son Thranduil succeeded him. Amdír became king of Lórien, and after him his son Amroth. These kings adopted the ways of their Silvan subjects rather than imposing their own, so that the Silvan realms kept their woodland simplicity and their people spoke a dialect of Sindarin coloured by Silvan speech. Unfinished Tales records that Oropher deliberately moved his people northward, away from the shadow of Moria and the influence of Galadriel, and that the Silvan kings resented the tutelage of the High Elves. Both kings marched to the Last Alliance with great hosts and both fell at the Battle of Dagorlad, and the Silvan Elves, lightly armed, suffered terribly.

Mirkwood

In the Third Age a shadow fell on Greenwood from Dol Guldur, and Men renamed it Mirkwood. Thranduil withdrew his people to the north-east of the forest and made his halls in caverns beside the Forest River, in the manner of Menegroth. His folk were the Elves whom Bilbo and Thorin's company met, feasting in the woods and imprisoning the Dwarves in Thranduil's halls. They traded with the Men of Lake-town, floating barrels down the river, and had an ancient grudge against the Dwarves. Thranduil fought in the Battle of Five Armies and later, in the War of the Ring, drove back an assault from Dol Guldur.

Lothlórien

After Amroth was lost, Galadriel and Celeborn took the rule of Lórien, and under the power of Nenya the Silvan Elves there, the Galadhrim, lived in the timeless wood in flets among the mallorn-trees at Caras Galadhon. They were wary and secret, and their marchwardens like Haldir blindfolded strangers. The Galadhrim were the only Silvan Elves who came under the direct rule of the Calaquendi, and they were the last to see Galadriel before she sailed.

What sets them apart

The Silvan Elves were counted less wise and less dangerous than the Eldar of the West, but they were more numerous, and they were in every way the Elves of Middle-earth rather than of Aman. They loved woods, streams and starlight, feasted in the open, and trusted to bows, hidden paths and the trees themselves rather than to walls. Their weakness in open battle was shown at Dagorlad; their strength was endurance in their own country. Legolas, son of Thranduil, was the Silvan Elf whom the wider world came to know, though his father's house was Sindarin.

Relations with other peoples

The Wood-elves of Mirkwood traded with Lake-town and Dale and were allies of the Beornings and the Dwarves of Erebor after the Battle of Five Armies. The Galadhrim had a long quarrel with the Dwarves of Moria after the Balrog woke. With the Orcs of the Misty Mountains and Dol Guldur they were at constant war.

Fate

The Silvan Elves were the last Elves in Middle-earth. Thranduil's realm was renamed Eryn Lasgalen after the War of the Ring and shared with Celeborn's East Lórien; Legolas brought Silvan folk south to Ithilien. They faded slowly through the Fourth Age and were the source of the tales of Elves in the woods that survived among Men.

The Silvan Elves were of Nandorin and Avarin blood, dark or brown of hair, quick and light; their Sindarin kings were tall and silver- or golden-haired by contrast. They dressed in greens and greys and were hard to see among the trees.

The Silvan Elves lived in the forest, in flets or in caverns, and feasted under the stars. They were archers and boatmen, traders in wine and goods with Men, and singers whose voices Bilbo heard in the dark of Mirkwood. Their tongue was a Silvan dialect gradually replaced by Sindarin; in Lórien the old speech lingered longest. They were ruled by kings of Sindarin blood, and in Lórien by Galadriel and Celeborn.

The Silvan Elves descend from the Nandor who stayed in the vales of Anduin after Lenwë turned aside from the Great Journey, mingled over the ages with Avari from the east.

They endured in Greenwood, Lórien and Ithilien into the Fourth Age, longer than any other Elves, and slowly faded from the knowledge of Men.