Elven Holidays...

[zhie]

This was my comments from a discussion over at Stephanie's LJ; anybody wanna add to it?

To start; Tolkien, being Catholic, more than likely did not intend for his elves to celebrate anything other than 'Christianesque' holidays. Something in Catholicism (and I believe Greek Orthodox, perhaps others), are feast days for saints. Something along those lines is found in Gondolin (which has more religious things in it than most people realize, but for now, the holiday)...

Tarnin Austa: Better known as the Gates of Summer. Celebrated prominently in Gondolin (during the first age), but likely in other realms as well. From 'Annals of Arda' website:

The Gates of Summer or Tarnin Austa was held once every year in Gondolin. It was a great feast greeting the summer who followed the festival of Nost-na-Lothion or the Birth of Flowers and was held for the good promise of that year. The ceremony started at midnight and continued until the dawn of the day Tarnin Austa broke. No voice was uttered in the city from midnight to break of dawn but the streets and squares was filled with silver lamps and in the new-leafed trees lights of jeweled colors hung and low music was heard along the ways but no voice sang until dawn. When the first light was seen above the hill in East the dawn was was hailed with ancient songs and music and choirs from the people of Gondolin standing upon the gleaming Eastern wall.

Also, there are Mettarë and Yestarë which are 'last day' and 'first day' (think: New Year's Eve & New Year's Day), but these correspond with March 27 and March 28, not in January.

Yule is celebrated by Hobbits; not Elves. (Well, not Tolkien's Elves... mine celebrate it... but only after introduced to it by the Hobbits... which I've managed to confuzzle more than one poor soul about)

Begetting day is the day you were conceived, yes. (hee hee hee, and as for me, I know exactly when my begetting day is, but it wasn't until running into lotr that i happened upon anyone else who thought that was cool... however... for all my life my parents wish me a happy birthday on my begetting day, so it just makes it elfy now... anyhow...) And it is said that that is the day the elves remember, for they give birth after one year, so that the day of birth and the day of begetting is the same. Whether or not there's a celebration and cake and a clown and bunny rabbits, etc, is pretty much anyone's guess - I get the feeling that after fifty, they don't pay quite so much attention to that anymore.

Hope that info helps... it seems like there is another holiday I'm not thinking of at the moment...

Comments

[chaotic-binky.livejournal.com]

I agree with you about Tolkien probably intending christianesque holidays and when i first read the lord of the rings i was struck at just how much of an allegory it is but it is so well done and adaptable that it can quite happily fit into the ideas of non christian faiths. I believe this is because christian feast days were often held at the same time, to supplant, pagan feast days. In some english churches you can still see the green man and sheela na gig on their walls because the pagan element was never truly lost. Taking this into account it would have been easier for tolkien to write about feast days that could be construed as pagan also.

An after thought - my lover is an archeologist and when we go on train journeys we play this game called 'reading the land' and if we happen across an old church he walks around wittering about the pagan icons he can see often to priest who are completely unaware of the meaning of the symbols there. I wish he wouldn't do it sigh! lol!