The Grey Havens And Our Longing For Tolkien's Elves

"'They are sailing, sailing, sailing over the Sea, they are going into the West and leaving us,' said Sam..." -The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1, Chapter 2: The Shadow of the Past

Sam Gamgee's poignant observation captures the feeling of longing evoked by J.R.R. Tolkien’s elves. Here, a silver-haired elf mother leads her two children towards the waiting ship. They drift across the sand like the clouds in the sky, a gull accompanying them on this pilgrimage. The identity of this family group is up to you. We know so few of the elves by name, and so many made this journey. The elves were tied to Middle-earth in a way that was quite different from mortal Men, and they had to live in faith that they would be part of the new world to come in some way when it was remade. It's such a complex and beautiful story Tolkien wove, full of questions and mystery.

The sea-longing of the elves is one part of that mystery, and our own wistful elf-longing is another. Why do so many of us revere the elves of whom Professor Tolkien wrote? I have been slowly working out my own thoughts on this. The closest I've yet come to a satisfactory personal answer is that they embody the On Fairy-Stories description of "freedom from domination of observed fact."

I would like to share my fuller exploration of this in future, but, in brief, the enchantment I feel in the presence of the elves stems from the invitation offered by their secondary world to question the apparent boundaries of the primary one.

They make the seemingly impossible seem possible. They dispel the illusions of materialism, when they are at their best. Elves who can walk atop snow, transform their spirits and bodies into winged birds, craft sustaining waybread, and live as neighbors with the sub-created angelic Valar offer our imaginations valuable freedom to explore and believe beyond perceived borders.

"Lothlórien: The Chamber of Celeborn and Galadriel" - Miriam Ellis

Professor Tolkien once explained that the mind of the writer of fairy-stories could sometimes be on far higher things. Do you share my thought that, in the elves, we may be seeing just what he meant by this, and how this may be bound up with his explanation to C.S. Lewis of the one true myth? Imagination is an open Road to full joy and an elf-level gift to the fortunate possessor.

It is little wonder that almost any Tolkien reader finds themselves in sympathy with Sam's sense of loss concerning the elves who had to leave Middle-earth or fade, taking with them all their beauty and splendor and possibilities.

Yet, the Middle-earth they were awakened to bring into full fruition is still here, and still filled with many things in nature and in spirit that they loved. In standing under an autumn tree breathing through silver and gold, or looking at Eärendil, who still sails the sky as our token of hope, we may live like folk who remember the elves.

Please enjoy a contemplative minute accompanying this elven family on the last stage of their journey to the Grey Havens via this video short: