Elven Children

[Valier]

While I was reading Unfinished tales something caught my eye....

Turin to Sador-- "Was Lalaith indeed like an elf-child, as my father said? And what did he mean when he said that she was briefer?" "Very like' said Sador. "For in their first youth the children of Men and Elves seem close akin. But the children of Men grow more swiftly, and their youth passes soon, such is our fate."

I was wondering about Elf children....How long would it take to grow to adult stature? And what would they be like? would they have all the same teenage problems as Men do? What would the Elf-children learn and do each day? I can find little more info on Elven children and want to know if anyone else knew more.

[Mithalwen]

Morgoth's ring and the laws and customs of the Eldar therein has the info you require.

Basically an elf takes at leat 50 and up to 100 years to be fully grown.

At first they develop quicker than mortals, able to walk talk and dance by the end of their first year but then linger in the "first spring of childhood". Roughly speaking it work out that an human child will have the physical development of an elf child two and a half times older.
They need little teaching or governance and I will look up the rest if someone doesn't beat me to it!!!

[Raynor]

They need little teaching or governance and I will look up the rest if someone doesn't beat me to it!!!

We've decided to let this one _slide_.
[/jk][/spam]

[Folwren]

Where in Morgoth's Ring can this be found?

[Farael]

Originally Posted by Folwren

Where in Morgoth's Ring can this be found?

Now, now Folwren there is no need to swear...

....
....

ohhh so Morgoth's Ring is one of the books in HoME.... anyway.

I think this thread raises another question. If an elf takes 50 years to be fully grown, how long does s/he take to mature? would a 45 year old elf be mature like a grown up man or would he behave like a 45 year old teenager?

[Raynor]

It is mostly found in the Later Quenta Silmarillion:

Originally Posted by AElfwine's Preamble, Of the laws and customs among the eldar pertaining to marriage and other matters related thereto: together with the statute of Finwe and Miriel and the debate of the Valar at its making.

The Eldar grew in bodily form slower than Men, but in mind more swiftly. They learned to speak before they were one year old; and in the same time they learned to walk and to dance, for their wills came soon to the mastery of their bodies. Nonetheless there was less difference between the two Kindreds, Elves and Men, in early youth; and a man who watched elf-children at play might well have believed that they were the children of Men, of some fair and happy people.
...
Children of Men might reach their full height while Eldar of the same age were still in body like to mortals of no more than seven years. Not until the fiftieth year did the Eldar attain the stature and shape in which their lives would afterwards endure, and for some a hundred years would pass before they were full-grown.

[Farael]

Originally Posted by Raynor

The Eldar grew in bodily form slower than Men, but in mind more swiftly.

That is really interesting. I wish Tolkien had spent some time writing a few Eldar children into LoTR, perhaps in Lorien and Rivendell. An elf with the body of a teen and the insight of an old man would have, to me, really highlighted that "sadness" that all elves had deep inside them.