A half-elf is a mythological or fictional being, the offspring of an immortal elf and a mortal human. They are often depicted as very beautiful and endowed with magical powers; they may be presented as torn between the two worlds that they inhabit. Half-elves became known in modern times mainly through J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth writings but have origins in Norse mythology. A half-elf appeared in Lord Dunsany's 1924 book The King of Elfland's Daughter.
In Middle-earth, half-elves are the children of Elves and Men, and can choose either Elvish immortality or the mortal life of Men. The elf-maidens Lúthien and Arwen in Tolkien's works both chose mortality to be with the Men that they loved. Scholars have noted that this enabled Tolkien to explore several key themes, including love and death, time and immortality. As a Catholic, he believed that Men, freely choosing to let go, gain release from the world's limitations; whereas if they tried to hold on to life and material things, they would end in darkness. His Elves – except for half-elves – were unable to gain this release. In On Fairy-Stories Tolkien wrote that since men write Fairy tale, these concern the escape from death; and conversely that Elves would tell human-stories about the escape from deathlessness. Since their popularisation by Tolkien, half-elves have become widely-known in role-playing games, and in turn in and spin-off films. The role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons features its own race of half-elves, including the character Tanis Half-Elven.
Norse mythology
In
Norse mythology, a half-elf is the offspring of an
elf and a
human. Major examples include Skuld and Högni.
Högni was a hero in
Thidreks saga, born to a human queen when an elf visited her while the king was away.
Skuld was a Danish princess, as told in
Hrólf Kraki's saga. King Helgi, sleeping alone as he had not been invited to King Adils's wedding, let in a ragged person on a midwinter night. As she slept, he saw she was a radiantly beautiful woman dressed in a silk gown. She told him he had freed her from a curse and asked to leave. He asked her to stay and marry him, and she agreed. They slept together. She told him they would have a child, and asked him to visit the child the next winter at the harbour. The King forgot to do so, but three years later the woman, an elf, returned and left a daughter at his door. She told him that the child's name was Skuld, which means "what you should do". She said that the King would gain the reward for breaking the curse, but that the King's people would suffer as the King had not done as she had asked. She never came back, but Skuld was always angry.
The scholar Hilda Ellis describes Skuld as evil, recalling that in the saga, Skuld used magic to raise an army against Hrólf, her half-brother. As quickly as Hrólf's warriors kill Skuld's men, they spring up, fighting more strongly than ever. Leading the fight for Hrólf, Bodvar Bjarki calls Skuld's men Draugr, 'undead', saying "they are grimmest to deal with after they are dead, and against this we have no power."
Högni too is "essentially a demonic character", his name connected to the German Hexe, 'witch', and to the English "hag"; the scholar Alexander Krappe sees his being the son of an elf as fitting in to that role, while his daughter Hildegund similarly has "certain magical qualities", such as awakening fallen warriors.
Lord Dunsany
Perhaps the earliest published half-elf in modern literature is the character Orion in
Lord Dunsany's 1924
The King of Elfland's Daughter. The lord of Erl sends his son, Alveric, to fetch the King of Elfland's daughter, Lirazel, as his bride; the couple have a son, Orion. Lirazel, pining for
Elfland, returns there. Alveric and his father search for her helplessly. Lirazel now longs for her mortal husband and half-elven son. The King of Elfland changes Erl into a part of Elfland, and the family live forever in a timeless realm.
In 1977, two members of the folk rock band Steeleye Span (Bob Johnson and Pete Knight) created a concept album also named The King of Elfland's Daughter, inspired by Lord Dunsany's book. Christopher Lee appears as the narrator and the King of Elfland.
Tolkien's Middle-earth
In J. R. R. Tolkien's
Middle-earth, the
Half-elven (
Sindarin singular
Peredhel, plural
Peredhil,
Quenya singular
Perelda) are the children of the union of Elves and Men. Of these, the most significant were the products of couplings between the Eldar (the Elves who followed the Call to
Valinor) and the
Edain (the Men of the Three Houses of early Men who allied themselves with the Eldar in their war against
Morgoth). Three recorded unions of the Edain and Eldar generated descendants: Idril and
Tuor; Lúthien and
Beren; and
Arwen and
Aragorn. The first two couples wed during the final part of the
First Age of Middle-earth, while the third married at the end of the
Third Age (some 6500 years later). The third couple descended not only from the first two couples, but also from the twins Elros and
Elrond, who chose mankind and elvenkind respectively—thereby severing their fates and those of their descendants. In Appendix A of
The Return of the King, Tolkien notes that by the marriage of Arwen and Aragorn "the long-sundered branches of the Half-elven were reunited and their line was restored". The second union was the only one of the three marriages in which the Elf involved (Idril) did not become mortal; instead Tuor was joined to the Elves. In all these cases, the husband was a mortal Man, while the wife was Elven.
Beren and Lúthien
The first of these was between the mortal
Beren, of the House of Bëor, and Lúthien, daughter of the Elf
Thingol, king of the
Sindar, and Melian, a Maia. Beren died in the quest for the
Silmaril, and in despair, Lúthien's spirit departed her body and made its way to the halls of
Mandos. Mandos allowed them a unique fate, and they were re-bodied as mortals in Middle-earth, where they dwelt until their second deaths. Their son Dior, heir of the Sindarin kingdom of Doriath and of the Silmaril, was thus one-quarter Elvish by blood and one-quarter Maian, and half-human. He was killed while still young, when the sons of Fëanor sacked Doriath. Dior's wife was Nimloth, a Sindarin Elf, and with her he had three children, Elwing and two sons (thus, half-elven but not between Edain and Eldar, men and Elves of the highest blood).
Tuor and Idril
The second marriage of Men and Elves in the First Age was between
Tuor of the House of Hador, another branch of the
Edain, and Idril Celebrindal, an Elf, though half
and half Vanyarin in ancestry. Their son was Eärendil. After the fall of
Gondolin, Eärendil also escaped to the Mouths of Sirion, and married Elwing who was also half-elven. They had twin sons,
Elrond and Elros.
Aragorn and Arwen
Uniquely, Eärendil and Elwing, together with their sons Elrond and Elros, were granted their choice of fates: to be counted as Elves (free to dwell in the blessed
Undying Lands for as long as Arda endures) or to be counted as Human (entitled to the Gift of Men whereby, through death, their spirits are freed to enter the unknown beyond Arda). Should this Choice not have been granted, they, like all other Half-Elves, would have been automatically mortal. Elros chose to be counted among mortals, and became Tar-Minyatur, the first king of Númenor. He finally took his death (for those kings had the freedom and grace to die at will) at the age of five hundred. The descendants of Elros were not given this choice, but their lifespan was several times that of ordinary Men. In later times the Númenórean kings, descendants of Elros, regretted their forefather's choice, and this helped lead to the Downfall of Númenor. Elrond chose to be counted among the Elves, joining the
royal court of
Gil-galad until the end of the
Second Age.
[ ch. 24 "Of the Voyage of Eärendil and the War of Wrath"] He also founded
Rivendell in the Second Age.
[ "Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age"] He married the Elf Celebrían, daughter of
Celeborn and
Galadriel, and sailed into the West at the conclusion of the War of the Ring.
[ Appendix B "The Tale of Years", "The Third Age"][ book 6, ch. 9 "The Grey Havens"] The children of Elrond were also given choice of kindred,
[ Appendix A, (i) Númenor.] and therefore
Arwen could choose to be counted among the Edain even though her father hoped she would accompany him to Elvenhome in the West. But she chose otherwise, marrying
Aragorn, king of the Reunited Kingdom, at the start of the Fourth Age, and bringing noble elvish blood into his dynasty. He ruled for 120 years, choosing to die at a great age for a man, but while still in full health. She died alone at the age of 2,901 years, grieving the brevity of her mortal happiness.
[ Appendix A (v) The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen]
Line of the Half-elven in Middle-earth
Other lines
According to "the tradition of the house" mentioned in
The Lord of the Rings, the line of Princes of
Dol Amroth originated from the union of Imrazôr the Númenórean, a Prince of Belfalas,
[, Introduction, Part Three, II: "Cirion and Eorl and the Friendship of Gondor and Rohan", note 39, p. 316.] and Mithrellas, a Silvan Elf and companion of Nimrodel, an Nandorin Elf from Lothlórien.
[, "History of Galadriel and Celeborn", p. 248.] They had two children: a boy Galador and a girl Gilmith, though it is said that Mithrellas later vanished in the night. Galador, according to this tradition, became the first Prince of Dol Amroth.
Tolkien initially worked on a genealogical table linking Imrazôr's children with
Imrahil, but eventually abandoned it.
[The table is reproduced in The History of Middle-earth, Vol XII, "The Heirs of Elendil", pp. 222-23.] The claim of elvish heritage figures in the perception of Prince Imrahil among the people of Minas Tirith, illustrated by the following line of dialogue: "Belike the old tales speak well; there is
Half-elven in the veins of that folk, for the people of Nimrodel dwelt in that land once long ago".
[ "The Siege of Gondor", p. 98.] Legolas, an Elf of
Mirkwood, believed as much about Prince Imrahil's alleged heritage upon meeting him during the events of
The Return of the King.
[ book 5, ch. 4 "The Siege of Gondor"] He remarked that "long since the people of Nimrodel left the woodlands of Lórien, and yet still one may see that not all sailed from Amroth's haven west over water",
[ "The Last Debate", p. 148.] though the matter is probed no further.
In The Hobbit reference is made to a rumour among Hobbit folk that a Took ancestor of Bilbo Baggins had long ago taken a "fairy" (i.e. Elf) wife, but the allegation is immediately dismissed as a simplistic explanation for the sometimes atypical behaviour of the Took clan.[, ch. 1 ""An Unexpected Party"] Even if hobbits have some elvish blood, however, they are "endearing rather than frightening", unlike other half-human hybrids such as Dracula.
In The Book of Lost Tales (published in two parts), the young Tolkien originally intended Eärendil, then spelled Aurvandil, to be the first of the Half-elven.[ book 2, ch. 5 "The Tale of Eärendel"] Early versions of The Tale of Beren and Lúthien had Beren as an Elf.[ book 2, ch. 1 "The Tale of Tinúviel"] The earliest version of the tale of Túrin Turambar had Tamar, the character Tolkien later renamed Brandir, as a Half-elf; Tolkien mentioned this in a way that implied he did not consider Half-elven descent especially remarkable at the time he wrote that story.[ book 2, ch. 2 "Turambar and the Foalókë"]
Interpretations
The Tolkien scholar Richard C. West notes the resemblance between the half-elves Arwen and Lúthien, and analyses Arwen's understanding of her fateful choice, between love for Aragorn and mortality on the one hand, and her father's wishes and immortality on the other.
Richard C. West (2025). 087462018X, Marquette University Press. 087462018X
West analyses the scene at the camp on Weathertop where Aragorn recounts to the hobbits in poetry and prose the tale of Beren and Lúthien, with West highlighting Aragorn's words and "pensive mood" as he tells them that Lúthien "chose mortality, and to die from the world, so that she might follow Beren" and that "together they passed, long ago, beyond the confines of this world" and that she "alone of the Elf-kindred has died indeed and left the world, and they have lost her whom they most loved".
West speculates that Aragorn may be thinking here of the consequences of what will happen should Arwen marry him, and later states that he finds "the lonely death of Arwen the most moving tragedy within
The".Canterbury Tales'', Aragorn's stories of his ancestors "open a window into his private desires and fears".
The scholar of English literature Anna Vaninskaya studies how Tolkien uses fantasy to examine the issues of love and death, time and immortality. Given that Tolkien's Elves are immortal, they face the question of death from a unique vantage-point.
Critics including the Polish scholar of religion in literature and film, Christopher Garbowski, note that while Tolkien contrasts Elves and Men throughout The Lord of the Rings, he introduces the Central conceit that an Elf may marry a Man on condition of surrendering her immortality, something that happens exactly twice in Middle-earth: with Lúthien, and then with Arwen.[, Part Four. Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth, pp. 303–366]
The scholar of English literature Catherine Madsen notes the reflection of mortality in the "fading" of Middle-earth from the enormous powers like Morgoth and Elbereth that battled in the First Age. She writes that "Aragorn is a hero and a descendant of heroes, but he is brought up in hiding and given the name of Hope Estel; Arwen possesses the beauty of Lúthien, but she is born in the twilight of her people and her title is Evenstar; these two restore the original glories only for a little while, before the world is altered and 'fades into the light of common day'".
The medievalist Verlyn Flieger wrote that nobody knows where Men go to when they leave Middle-earth, and that the nearest Tolkien came to dealing with the question was in his essay On Fairy-Stories "where, after speculating that since 'fairy-stories are made by men not by fairies', they must deal with what he called the Great Escape, the escape from death. He went on to the singular assertion that 'the Human-stories of the elves are doubtless full of the Escape from Deathlessness'."
Flieger remarks further that by attaching herself to men's lives and deaths, Lúthien is running against the current of elven life, but at the same time, by undergoing death and darkness Beren and she manage to come to the light. What is more, Flieger writes, their union creates a new race, the half-elven, who have the privilege of choosing either fate, and "new hope for both races".
In role-playing games
Both Tolkien's
The Lord of the Rings (1954) and
Lord Dunsany's
The King of Elfland's Daughter (1924) greatly increased popular awareness of half-elves. As a result, half-elves have become common in other
fantasy writings and role-playing games, the best-known being the 1974
Dungeons & Dragons.
Half-elves are also featured in the role-playing game
Pathfinder.
Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons has featured its own race of half-elves as a
player character option in multiple editions of the game.
Josh Williams of
Screen Rant stated that "half-elves are popular because they're a great choice for those wanting to play as a fantasy race without stepping too far away from humanity".
Williams commented that "half-elves struggle to fit in" when growing up but "thanks to being born of two worlds, half-elves are perfect for players wishing to be the charismatic diplomat of the group".
Gus Wezerek, for
FiveThirtyEight, reported that of the 5th Edition "class and race combinations per 100,000 characters that players created on D&D Beyond from" August 15 to September 15, 2017, half-elves were the third most created at 10,454 total, preceded by elves (16,443) and humans (25,248). The three most popular class combinations with the half-elf were bard (1,808), warlock (1,401) and rogue (1,325). Wezerek noted "some of the common character choices can be explained by the game's structure of racial bonuses".
Matthew Byrd, for
Den of Geek in 2023, also highlighted that half-elves have "stats/attributes" reflective of two races which offer "some unique role-playing options" and that mechanically the race has "benefited from a pretty generous base stat distribution and useful base skills".
However, the terminology and the way in which the game structures inherited mechanical traits for characters with mixed ancestry, such as half-elves, has been criticised.
As a result,
Dungeons & Dragons is moving away from having the half-elf as a distinct race in the game
and it is not listed in the
Player's Handbook (2024) as a character option.
A well-known character from Dungeons & Dragons fiction is Tanis Half-Elven.
Notes
Primary
Secondary
Sources
