The Greatest of the Eldar

[obloquy]

This thread pops up every couple of minutes on Tolkien boards, and usually ends up several hundred thousand posts long, each poster declaring one elf (out of a pretty consistent pool of about six or seven elves) to be the most groovy.

Usually one or two posters have actually read some Tolkien, and will cite Unfinished Tales:

Galadriel was the greatest of the Noldor, except Fëanor maybe, though she was wiser than he, and her wisdom increased with the long years.

This portion of the UT material happens to have come from another essay, published in HoMe XII - The Peoples of Middle-earth, called The Shibboleth of Feanor. In that essay, the following is also stated:

These two kinsfolk [Galadriel and Feanor], the greatest of the Eldar of Valinor, were unfriends for ever.

In an Author's Note connected to this sentence, Tolkien states:

Who together with the greatest of all the Eldar, Lúthien Tinúviel, daughter of Elu Thingol, are the chief matter of the legends and histories of the Elves.

So there you have it. The greatest of all the Eldar was Luthien Tinuviel. Now this question never has to be asked again!