Elven Traditions
Beliefs, and Culture

Marriage;  handfasting

Permanent marriage was in accordance with elvish nature, and they never had need of any law to teach this or to enforce it. Marriage of the Elves is by and for the Living, and for the duration of life. Since the Elves are by nature permanent in life within Ëa, Earth, so also is their marriage. But if their life is interrupted or ended, then their marriage must be likewise.

Marriage for the elves is also of the spirit and body together. Therefore when one of the partners of a marriage dies, the marriage is not yet ended, but is "changed". For those that were joined are now sundered; but their union remains a union of will.

But first there is a vow, or wish, announced at a meeting of the two houses concerned, and the elven male give a silver ring to his love one. According to the laws of the Eldar, this wish was bound to stand for one year at least, and it often stood for longer. During this time it could be revoked by a public return of the ring, the ring then being molten and not again used for such a wish.

After the wish, it was the part a costum to appoint the time of the wedding, called camlann daethro, when at least one year had passed. Then, at a feast, again shared by the two houses, the marriage was celebrated.

At the end of the feast the loved couple stood forth, and the mother of the bride and the father of the bridegroom joined the hands of the pair and blessed them. For this blessing there was a solemn form, but no mortal has heard it; though the Eldar say that Varda was named in witness by the mother and Manwe by the father; and moreover that the name of Eru was spoken (as was seldom done at any other time).

The betrothed then received their golden rings (and treasured them with the silver ones); which were worn over the silver rings. 

Among the Noldor, also, it was a custom that the bride's mother should give to the bridegroom a jewel upon a chain or collar; and the bridegroom's father should give a gift to the bride. These gifts were sometimes given before the feast, in person.

 

Children and names
 

When an elven lady learned that she was pragnant, her mate took her to the "elven druid",  and then she was telling the dream that she had the night before this meeting. This dream was special, as it was believed that this dream was poured by the Ancient Ones, the Gods, as they were making the soul of her child.

After this, the "druid" gave her a special tea and they were going in the Sacred Grove, where the mother was planting a seed given by the druid. The Sacred Grove was a place full of trees, planted by in-coming-mothers and fathers. Each elves had its tree, and they were growing and living close by them.

"oak for an elven boys and birch for elven girls. If you still don't know, plant a willow!".

After a prayer told by the "druid" over the seed, holding the hands of the mother, the seed nourrished by sacred water, poured by the father. When the tree appeared, the new child was borned.

When this child entered is majority, a short ceremony would be done around this tree.

After the planting of seed, the "druid" took times around this strange forest, alone, for a day or more if needed, until he heared the names of this futur elf. The druid, to hear the names, was meditating in the Sacred Grove, travelling to the Land of the Blessed Ones, asking the help and the assistance of the Gods, for having a vision of the faith of the futur elf. He then took a leaf from the tree of the mother, wrote the names of the elf on it (two names are written, a third is kept secretly, until the boy is old enough to ear it), and the druid send this leaf to the young couple.

It was a tradition to make a feast in the grove.

In elder times the 'Chosen Name', or second name, was usually freshly devised and framed, according to the structures of the language used by the clan of elves.  In later ages, when there was a great abundance of names already in existence, it was more often selected from names that were known.

Soon after its birth, the child was named. It was the right of the father to devise the first name, and he it was that announced it to the child's kindred upon either side. It was called, therefore, the father-name, and it stood first, if other names were afterwards added. It remained unaltered, for it lay not in the choice of the child or the druid. 

Now both these names, the father-name and the chosen-name, were 'true names', not nicknames; but the father-name was public, and the chosen name was private, especially when used alone. The chosen names were regarded by the Noldor as part of their personal property, like their rings or other possessions, which they could lend or share with kindred and friends. The use of the chosen name, except by members of the same house (parents, sisters, and brothers), was a token of closest intimacy and love when permitted. It was, therefore, presumptuous or insulting to use it without permission. It was the third name that was given by the druid, given by the Gods.

"A name to use kindly, a name to use with friends and familly, and a name to us with spirituality".

The wood elves used this tradition differenly. Only the pregnant female would be blindfolded and left to listen to the voice of the trees. She would listen for the ones singing her baby's name. She would then recieve a seed from that tree to plant at the birth of her little one.

Later, when the child grew up and took a mate, they would each then take a seed from their birth trees and plant them together the night of their mating ceremony. If the seeds grew together as one tree they would be blessed by the stars with long life and happiness. When they moved on to the next life, the mates were buried at the roots of their mating tree. If an Elf did not take a mate, they were buried at the roots of their birth tree only.

This is why it was and still a terrible crime to harm the trees, and is the only crime punishable by death for the elves. The trees were sacred not only for their own unique lives, but for those that they protected at their roots.

Death and Rebirth
 

 Elven After Life begins in a boat, within the Myst called Afallah. An Elf do not die, properly speecking. He/she just ears a strong calling, called Cân (the strongest call of all...a kind of longing or pressur), coming from the Sea. The elf then prepare for the "Last Travel", the Medui Galph (the last vessel). A priest help this Elf to prepare for this travel.

Just like the Vikings, a special boat is made and the Elf travel to the "Promised Land", where he/she will meet the Gods, the Ancients Ones.

A friend wrote this:

When I meditated on death, on my death and my elven soul, I was shown something which may or may not be relevant.  It was this lifetime, probably no more than a year ago.  I was shown a great marble hall, with pillars cut from green marble with veins of black and perhaps a deep blue.
It was perhaps fifty yards from door to dais, upon which sat a single throne.  Each two yards or so, there was a pillar on either side and in the spaces to the left and right, between each pair, was a lithos sarcophagos, a stone coffin.  I knew that each coffin held my body and each body was a life spent in service.
From door to throne ran a carpet, along which I walked and I stopped at the foot of the steps that lead up to the throne. The throne was occupied by...  by the one I call patron.  She had a single guard at her left side, one I know from my first incarnation, and a space at her right that was reserved for me when I returned to her.
Doing the maths, that is about 40 bodies.  I remember three lives, so perhaps I have some more awakening to do or perhaps I only remember what is relevant.
 

Position of Men and Woman

In all such things, not concerned with the bringing forth of children, the neri and nissi (that is, the men and women) of the Eldar are not quite equal. They are both elves, but have different "jobs" or "tasks" or "properties". Men can't do what women do the best, and same things for women.

The nissi are the makers of things new, which is for the most part shown in the forming of their children. They  are the oracles, the healers, who sing songs for the dead and the forests, who do magic with faeries. Nissi are the ones who creates.
There are indeed some differences between the natural inclinations of neri and nissi, and other differences that have been established by customs (varying in places and in time, and in the several races of the Eldar). For instance, the arts of healing, and all that touches on the care of the body, are among all the Eldar most practised by the nissi as said previously; whereas it was the elven-men who bore arms at need. And the Eldar deemed that the dealing of death, even when lawful or under necessity, diminished the power of healing, and that the virtue of the nissi in this matter was due, rather to their abstaining from hunting or war, than to any special power that went with their womanhood.

Indeed in dire straits or desperate defence, the nissi fought valiantly, and there was less difference in strength and speed between elven-men and elven-women that had not borned child than is seen among mortals. On the other hand, many elven-men were great healers and skilled in the lore of living bodies, though such men abstained from hunting, and went not to war until the last need.  It was only a matter of "nature".

As for other matters, we may speak of the customs of the Noldor. Among the Noldor, it may be seen that the making of breads was done mostly by women, and the making of the lembas is by ancient law reserved to them. Yet the cooking and preparing of other food is generally a task and pleasure for all. The nissi are more often skilled in the tending of fields and gardens, in playing upon musical instruments, and in the spinning, weaving, fashioning and adornments of all threads and cloths. In matters of lore, they loved most of the histories of the Eldar and of the houses of the Noldor; and all matters of kinship and the ancients are held by them.

 But the neri, the men, are more skilled as smiths and wrights, as carvers of wood and stones, and as jewelers amd musical instruments makers. It is them, for the most part, who composed music; they are the chief poets and students of languages and inventors of words. Many of them delight in forestry and in the lore of the wild woods, seeking the friendship of all things that grows or live there in freedom. But all these things, and other matters of labour or play, or of deeper knowledge concerning beings and lives of the World may, at different times, be pursued by any among the Noldor, be they neri or nissi