Do Elves Have Pointy Ears?

[Estel the Descender]

I have tried looking, but in all the descriptions of the elves in Tolkien's works I cannot seem to find a place where it was said that elves have pointy ears. All the movies show elves with pointy ears, even that Rankin-Bass cartoon.

Can anyone help me here?

I think they did that in the movie to discern elves from men.

[obloquy]

In a letter dating back to 1938 we have, regarding Hobbits:

I picture a fairly human figure, not a kind of 'fairy' rabbit as some of my British reviewers seem to fancy: fattish in the stomach, shortish in the leg. A round, jovial face; ears only slightly pointed and 'elvish'; hair short and curling (brown). The feet from the ankles down, covered with brown hairy fur. Clothing: green velvet breeches; red or yellow waistcoat; brown or green jacket; gold (or brass) buttons; a dark green hood and cloak (belonging to a dwarf).

He may have been referring to traditional elves when he said "elvish" instead of the elves of his own writings, but that seems like a stretch. Elves are elsewhere said to be identical to Men, so whatever ear shape the Elves had, Men had it too.

[Elenhin]

The Etymologies (in HoME V), written in the end of the thirties, has the following entry:

LAS- *lasse leaf: Q lasse, N lhass; Q lasselanta leaf-fall, autumn, N lhasbelin (*lassekwelene), cf. Q Narqelion. Lhasgalen Greenleaf, Gnome name of Laurelin. (Some think this is related to the next and *lasse 'ear'. The Quendian ears were more pointed and leaf-shaped than [?human].)

(JRRT's handwriting was hard to read, and the last word is only Cristopher's best guess about it; we can't be exactly sure that it's really 'human'.)

This is the only piece of text which gives Tolkien's Elves pointed ears. It should be noted that this was written before the LotR was published, so JRRT's conception of Elven ears may have changed after that. Also, that piece of text says that the Quendian ears were only more pointed than human - not that they were ridiculously dagger-like (like in some artists' pictures...). The Elven ears can't have been a feature which distinguished them from humans, as humans were sometimes mistaken for Elves. It was only through eyes that the difference could be seen. I can easily picture pointy-eared humans, though, so Elven ears were probablyon average more pointed than human ears - but not enough to make a real difference between the two peoples.

[ March 22, 2002: Message edited by: Elenhin ]

[Lady of the Lake]

Hey cool! Someone rated me! Who did that? that's awesome!!
Anyway, I think pointy ears are SO commercialized! If Tolkien meant for us to imagine elves with pointy ears he would have said so in the books!
Cheers!
LotL ~ Lady of the Lake! Hehe [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

[Lomelinde]

Doesn't it say somewhere in LOTR or perhaps the Silmarillion (sorry, don't have the books with me [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] )that elven ears are shaped kind of like the leaves of the mallorn trees? Someone correct me if I'm wrong. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

[Ahanarion]

That would be disturbing to me because I imagined malorns with sort of maple leaf shaped leaves.

[ March 24, 2002: Message edited by: Ahanarion ]

[Gorin Icearms]

Elves, fairies, pixies, gnomes, and whatever else is out there have, IMO, been stereotyped so long that whenever people think of them they automatically assume that the fantasy creatures have pointy ears.

[Dior]

I think that Tolkien didn't have to say that elves had pointy ears, that it was just implied, since he was sort of doing an alternate history of how Europe was percieved long ago.

[Olo Gamwich]

I think elves may have somewhat pointy ears, but that may just be a characteristic of Santa's short, toy-making elves.
[img]smilies/cool.gif[/img]

[VanimaEdhel]

How would one confuse Elves from Humans in the movie anyway? They make them look so different facially. I don't mean that they physically looked really different, but facially...somehow they just made them different. Different makeup I guess, and almost all men had beards, but the Elves had none. Who knows, maybe that's the reason.

Also: really? they refer to Elvish leaves as pointed somewhere? Good: because some of my friends were really criticizing the ears in the movie.

[Niere-Teleliniel]

(at the risk of blasphemy [again]): does it really matter? does it change the characters? no, it just changes the way we picture them, and if youre like me, you dont give a dingo's kindey about they way the chatacters are "supposed to look" i dont mind elves having pointed ears in the movie, and if theyre not (according to tolkien) supposed to, whatever! not to offend anyone, i know im pushin it [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

[Aralaithiel]

Thank you for that quote, Elenhin! You have shed some light on this subject. I love my pointy elven ears! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

I never pictured elves with pointy ears.
The forest elves in my mind are tall and slender with soft flaxen curling hair. They have brown, glowing eyes. There is no usual beauty in their faces, but there's sharp cleverness and dreamy wisehood.
The valley elves are shorter, but broader of shoulder and build; their hair is the darkest brown without being black; their eyes are green-grey and their faces are wise and beautiful with wistful memory.

[TarElendil]

i always imagined them having ears similar to Men until i read an essay by Tolkien.

[Sharkû]

Would you mind pointing us to that ominous essay that rebuked the image of Elven physiology being the same as human?

[TarElendil]

I cant rightly remember. Just recall skimming over something of the sort in what of his letters/essays.