Tour 1: The People of Middle-Earth

Elves

The hobbits sat in shadow by the wayside. Before long the Elves came down the lane toward the valley. They passed slowly, and the hobbits could see the starlight glimmering on their hair and in their eyes. They bore no lights, yet as they walked a shimmer, like the light of the moon above the rim of the hills before it rises, seemed to fall about their feet. They were now silent, and as the last Elf passed he turned and looked toward the hobbits and laughed.
    'Hail, Frodo!' he cried. 'You are abroad late.' --FotR, "Three is Company"

And Elves, sir! Elves here, and Elves there! Some like kings, terrible and splendid; and some as merry as children. And the music and the singing--' --Sam describes his first impression of Rivendell, FotR, "Many Meetings"

The Eldar grew in bodily form slower than Men, but in mind more swiftly. They learned to speak before they were one year old; and in the same time they learned to walk and to dance, for their wills came soon to the mastery of their bodies. Nonetheless there was less difference between the two Kindreds, Elves and Men, in early youth; and a man who watched elf-children at play might well have believed that they were the children of Men, of some fair and happy people. For in their early days elf-children delighted still in the world about them, and the fire of their spirit had not yet consumed them, and the burden of memory was still light upon them. --Morgoth's Ring, "Of the Laws and Customs Among the Eldar"

Legolas' page    Galadriel's page