Chapter VIII of The Nature of Middle-earth is about Elvish legends that sprang up around the awakening at Cuivienen. Right up front, there’s a passage that caught my eye.
During the waking of their first hröar from the “flesh of Arda” the Quendi slept “in the womb of Arda”, beneath the green sward, and “awoke” when they were full grown. … Imin, Tata, and Enel awoke before their spouses, and the first thing that they saw was the stars, for they woke in the early twilight before dawn.
The Eldar were under the grass at first, but when it was time for them to wake up they were lying on top of the grass. They woke up just before dawn, in the dark.
Dear readers, Tolkien here is describing a fungal mycelium, producing mushrooms overnight when it’s time to reproduce. An area big enough to produce a gross of elf-couples is not unheard of among fungi. And from personal experience, it’s normal for a few mushrooms to appear one night, and then the whole rest of the batch the next night.
I love this idea. Mushrooms pop up from my lawn in a circle, which we were all taught to call a “fairy ring“. Fairies and elves are the same thing, just in different languages. The Wikipedia article I just linked has “elf-circle” in the list of synonyms at the top. So it’s likely that the first elves who awoke did so in a big circle. Ages later, when Celebrimbor wanted to design a device to preserve Elvish things the way they were in the beginning, what would be more natural than to do it in the form of a ring?
tom hillman
Joe, I believe you have hit on precisely the idea Tolkien had in mind. No really. (It’s a good thing the hobbits don’t know the elves are mushrooms.)
Joe
Wow. I’ve just re-assessed Sam’s fascination with Elves. Gildor Inglorion was braver than I knew.