Hi

I just finished reading “Numenoreans in Endor” and I’m intrigued by this sentence.

“In the following years other embassies were exchanged with Gil-galad, but given elven attitude for trade, it is unlikely that the Numenoreans sought for goods they could not find on their island such as metals.”

Now we find in “The Hobbit” the Wood-elves engaging in trade so I take the sentence to mean that elves do trade but they don’t do it to gain wealth. Instinctively I would agree with this but is there anything in Tolkien’s writings to support this or is this a personal elaboration?  

Thanks,

Bernie

Hi Bernie,

Previously Bernie Roessler wrote:

Now we find in “The Hobbit” the Wood-elves engaging in trade so I take the sentence to mean that elves do trade but they don’t do it to gain wealth. Instinctively I would agree with this but is there anything in Tolkien’s writings to support this or is this a personal elaboration?  

Hello Bernie,

it's been long time since I haven't look at that essay, but from what I remember, the sentence could be explined like you imgained, which is that Elves don't engage in trade to obtain wealth, but they rather do it to obtain things they like. Being creatures with much less needs than Men, they work when they need it, to obtain what they want at that moment, and I'd say this logic drives their daily actions.

So if on one side we have "proof" of the Wood-elves' trade with Esgaroth, we can imagine that almost all the trade is meant to obtain Dorwinion's wine, to which I would add possibly some metals and some curios which the rustic Elves can't easily find in their kingdom. But for Lindon it is different: that land is so vast that Elves could hardly need to import anything. They have cultivable land, cattle, metals, wood, stone, and can produce almost anything they need. If I think hard, I can only think that some vain aristocrats could develop a taste for spices (pepper, cinnamon, cardamom and so on) which the Numenoreans could supply to them, thus creating some trade flows. However, given the low volumes (albeit high value) of this supply, I imagine the trade could be carried on by Elves or secretely by Faithful Numenorean captains, without any significant influence of Numenorean trade flows.

Hope the answer is satisfying!

Regards,

Gabriele

In the chapter "Flies and Spiders" in The Hobbit, there is this passage:

[Thranduil's] people neither mined nor worked metals or jewels, nor did they bother
much with trade or with tilling the earth.

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But as has been pointed out, they did trade with the Lake-men.