You say 'Faeries' & I say 'Fairies'

[Numenorean]

Greetings Davem, Drigel , Lalwendë et al, sorry to backtrack a wee bit on this fascinating thread of yours, but I’ve also often pondered aspects of Tolkiens Faerie and its reflections/divergences from the Faerie of folklore and tradition.

Davem:

Thinking about it, (& with drigel's earlier mention in mind)I find the Elves of TH quite 'traditional'

Certainly in comparison to the Elves who undertook the Great Journey and received wisdom and strength from Valinor, particularly the Noldo who returned to Middle Earth with their lordly ways and crafts. I find that the Mirkwood Elves- as described in the Hobbit - have a fey quality to them very reminiscent of the Faeries of British tradition, their behaviour can also be seen to reflect this feyness. Firstly they seem to bewitch and tease Bilbo and the starving Dwarves with illusive twinkling lights and tantalising glimpses of a wondrous unattainable woodland feast, then they repeatedly disappear entirely leaving the group in terrible danger near and at the mercy of the large evil spider colony. Furthermore, the Mirkwood Elves also have no hesitation in kidnapping, imprisoning and placing a spell on Thorin, and I find all these incidents to have a strong echo of traditional Faerie shenanighans – let alone the drunkenness and revelry. On P.162 of the Hobbit Tolkien describes them thus:

Though their magic was strong, even in those days they were wary. They differed from the High Elves of the West, and were more dangerous and less wise.

Dangerous indeed. The very gates, the physical manifestation of the Elvenkings inner realm are also notably magical, Thranduil himself says “There is no escape from my magic doors for those who are once brought inside.”

As has already been discussed, the Elves from Valinor are very different and feel more ‘humanized’/Christianised than the Avari and the Faeries of folklore. However, I also perceive a strong seam of what Drigel calls the ‘unhindered, chaotic, wild and untamed aspect’ of Faerie, in at least some of the other Elves of Tolkiens Legendarium. In this regard the first of whom that springs to mind are the Green-elves of Ossiriand:
The Silmarillion.(P171) has these two intriguing passages concerning them and their relationship with Men:

Now the Green-elves of Ossiriand were troubled by the coming of Men, and when they heard that a lord of the Eldar from over the Sea was among them they sent messengers to Felagund.’Lord,’ they said, ‘if you have power over these newcomers, bid them return by the ways that they came, or else to go forward. For we desire no strangers in this land to break the peace in which we live. And these folk are hewers of trees and hunters of beasts; therefore we are their unfriends, and if they will not depart we shall afflict them in all the ways that we can.’

I am particularly drawn to Tolkiens use of the words ‘unfriends’ and ‘afflict’ in that passage, and note that the Green-elves do not confront Men directly here, rather they use a go-between – a ‘humanised’ Elf from Valinor, further distancing themselves from Men folk, humans. Are their words merely threatening with no real intent as it were? I tend to think not, I get the sense that they are genuinely and actively hostile to Men, as the next passage reveals, Silmarillion.(P171):

First came the Haladin; but meeting the unfriendship of the Green-elves they turned north and dwelt in Thargelion, in the country of Caranthir son of Feanor

Given what we know of the deep moral fortitude and grim determination of the Haladin, the unfriendship of the Green-elves must have been considerably fierce to spur them into such a retreat. It may also be worth considering that from the point-of-view of the Haladin folk, the Green-elves most probably never revealed either themselves or their ‘reasons’ for afflicting them, and that feels quite wild and disturbing to me.

In Beleriand there are also individual Elves who seem to be borderline traditional Faerie if not wholly so. Eol, Maeglin and Saeros all pervade an aura of darkness, a sense of mystery and of unfathomable hostility towards change as it were, and Men folk particularly.

You mentioned earlier Davem:

they (Faeries) made the natural world a place of terror, a place to be avoided. It was their realm and humans entered at their peril. There is an echo of that in Doriath and Lorien

I would maybe also add Nan Elmoth and Nan Dungortheb, despite the fact that the latter was not an Elven realm as such, it certainly bordered them. This dreadful valley had an atmosphere of enmeshing shadows, fell creatures and poisoned streams, any or all of which could prove utterly perilous to the unwary traveller who tried to cross it. Tolkiens world, or the fear inspiring wildness of traditional Faerie?