The Line of Elros

Iolanthe · Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2009 12:41 pm Post subject:

I think there must be somewhere - a cursory look through my History of Middle Earth reveals that Christopher Tolkien refers to them as twins several times in his notes, so there must be a prime source in there somewhere. Unfortunately it would take hours of ploughing through indices to find it!

Lindariel · Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2009 1:45 pm Post subject:

Io, in The Peoples of Middle-Earth, "The Problem of Ros," I have been able to determine that Elured and Elurin were brothers, not twins. Elured was the elder.

It sounds like Elrond and Elros also were brothers, not twins, and that Elros was the older of the two. "Her [Elwing's] sons she named Elros and Elrond; and after the manner of her brothers [Elured and Elurin] the first ended in a Beorian word, and the second in an Elvish. Elros was indeed close in meaning to her own name: it contained the Beorian word for 'foam' and the white crest of waves: ros."

So, it looks like Elladan and Elrohir are the only set of identical twins in Tolkien's tale. LOTS of fan fiction writers have got in wrong!

Iolanthe · Posted: Sat Nov 07, 2009 12:13 pm Post subject:

In that case Christopher T has also got it wrong in his notes Think

. Maybe it would be worth ploughing through those indices because he must have got the idea from somewhere....

Lindariel · Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 5:25 am Post subject:

Io, it is possible that "first" refers to the older TWIN and "second" to the younger twin. However, The Professor is SO specific with his words, and he went to great length to make it clear that Elladan and Elrohir were not just twins, but IDENTICAL twins. However, he only refers to Elured/Elurin and Elros/Elrond as brothers -- at least in all of the references I've found so far. I would think that if he intended either of these sets of brothers to be twins, he would have gone to the same lengths as with Elladan/Elrohir. I confess that I'm disappointed because I think it would be interesting to see this tendency toward twin sons in Elrond's bloodline.

Iolanthe · Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 4:11 pm Post subject:

It could be Tolkien made it very clear in some of the earlier versions of the Sil and then forgot to make it clear in the re-edited later versions. Sometimes if you know something as a fact you forget that you've not put it down clearly.