anghraine

An anon on Tumblr said:

First of all congrats on nearing the end of your PhD program!!! Woohoo!!!

Second of all, I’m muy late to the party here (been off tumblr for a bit) but WRT these tags ( https://www.tumblr.com/anghraine/749212904253947904/khazzman-tolkien-elendil-was-called-the ) what do you mean the pregnancies were strange lol how strange can they be…?

[The tags in question: #and that's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of how distinct and peculiar númenóreans are #fandom has slept on it for decades but they are reallyyyyyy unusual #they have weird pregnancies (and few of them) and horse telepathy and can rarely even get injured much less sick #there's this part where tolkien is trying to mathematically figure out elvish aging (hilarious tbh) and pencils in 'and númenóreans' #that's not even getting into the uncanny valley of númenórean kids...]

My reply:

As for the first point: Thank you! I'm really looking forwards to being done, lol.

As for the second point: anon, I delight in your innocence.

Okay, we've got to rewind a bit. When The Nature of Middle-earth came out a couple of years ago (I think. what is linear time), the fandom was up in arms over various things, many of which I think were already established or strongly indicated by other sources (like Númenórean height + the natural beardlessness of Elros, Denethor, Aragorn, Imrahil, Boromir, and Faramir—aka my personal trivial pet issues since 2003 :D). But some of the things explained in NOME were genuinely remarkable (BEARS & SQUIRRELS), and there were additionally some genuine peculiarities in the details Tolkien came up with about Elvish pregnancy.

Throughout the numerous Tolkien documents compiled in NOME, one essential idea about Elvish pregnancy that recurs is the concept that a certain amount of spiritual exhaustion for both parents is just part of how their reproduction¹ works, though it's harder on the mother. Elves typically have relatively small numbers of children because it's spiritually and physically draining to reproduce. This is most prominently seen with Míriel and her son Fëanor, and in an opposite way, with Fëanor himself and his wife Nerdanel—their seven children represent not just fertility, desire, interest, and so on, but a remarkable degree of spiritual fortitude in both parents as well, and NOME notes that this is the highest number of recorded children among all the Valinorean Elves (21).

Anyway, because of this aspect of Elvish nature, Elves traditionally set aside a period of time in their lives that's specifically dedicated to supporting the strain of reproduction on the parents. Tolkien has a few names for it including onnalúmë, most of which translate as "Time of the Children" or something similar. Elves avoid having children at other times, though not invariably. Tolkien adds:

"childbirth is not among the Eldar accompanied by pain. It is nonetheless not an easy or light matter, for it is achieved by a much greater expense of the vigour of hröa [body] and fëa [spirit] (of "youth" as the Eldar say) than is usual among Men; and is followed after the begetting by a time of quiescence and withdrawal [from ordinary activities of life]" (23).

In a later revision, Tolkien again says of Elves:

"the production of children expends a very great amount of physical and spiritual energy" (26).

The whole reason I'm talking about Elves is because Númenórean reproduction worked in basically the same way!

"in the begetting and still more in the bearing of a child far more of their [Númenórean] vigour both of mind and body was expended [than among other Men] (for the longevity of the later generations was, through a grace or gift, transmitted mediately by the parents). A rest both of body and will was, therefore, needed, especially by the women" (319).

Númenóreans also had their "Time of the Children" equivalent, and the draining quality of reproduction meant they, too, could rarely produce more than four children (if that many), something that seems to have held true for Third Age Númenóreans as well.

Elvish and Númenórean women would have to rest and recuperate during/after pregnancy, not in terms of normal, identifiable symptoms associated with pregnancy and childbirth, but a general sort of malaise that arose from the sheer effort it took to bring a being such as an Elf or Númenórean into the world. This recuperation could take quite a bit of time (to the point that some of the Edain did not even realize their Elvish lords had wives because those wives might go into total retirement to recuperate from childbirth, and this period of recuperation could take up most of an entire mortal lifespan).

On Númenor, Tolkien notes that, except in the households of the very powerful, Númenórean men often took over most other household labor during their wives' pregnancies due to the general ... exhaustingly eldritch nature of it (319). After this ~~ordeal~~ affirming spiritual experience, both parents tended to be fairly disinterested in sex, but especially the mother. Typically, both parents preferred to focus on other interests they'd had to neglect during this time, something which Númenóreans tended to be more preoccupied with anyway.

Despite the limited number of children they could produce, Númenórean women—especially of the Second Age²—were fertile for much longer than other mortal women, by the nature of their vastly expanded lifespans. That is, their period of fertility took up a similar proportion of their lifespans as among other mortal women, but what this actually meant in real years was fertility between the ages of 18 and 125 or so, sometimes a bit longer (see pg. 320). They would not literally have children at 18, however; 20 would be very young, and a woman's first marriage (usually the only one) was more likely to be at around age 40-45 for "normal" Númenórean women and still later for female descendants of Elros (an understated footnote on this on pg. 321 remarks that Tar-Ancalimë "was exceptional in many ways").

Also, Númenóreans of all kinds, including women, tended to be less preoccupied across their lives with sex, childbirth, and the upbringing of children than other humans (318). Like Elves, they considered these things natural and desirable parts of life, but generally during the specific period dedicated to them. Now, according to Tolkien, they remained steadfast romantic partners throughout their lives, generally, and divorce³ and anything other than extremely strict monogamy were largely forbidden and rarely desired (319, 321). But beyond the Time of the Children, this stuff interested them less than the irresistible lure of—

:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ✧ ✿ ARTS AND CRAFTS ✿* :･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ✧

Númenórean pregnancy was more like other mortal women's in one respect that I could tell, though—duration.

Tolkien's ideas about exactly how long Elvish pregnancies last are all over the place, and there's extra confusion from his loose usage of the word "year." Basically, he tried to come up with a bunch of increasingly elaborate mathematical equations for the functional rather than literal ages of Elves, half-Elves, and Númenóreans, and sometimes uses "year" to mean a literal calendar year of the sun and sometimes a functional year. As a result, you get sentences about how, for instance, a generic male Elf "was not 19 years old till he had lived for 216 years"). Even when Tolkien is leaning towards shorter Elvish pregnancies, he reiterates that the duration is more variable than among humans, depending on the baby, and that poor Míriel was pregnant with Fëanor for a full year—even Tolkien feels this merits an exclamation point (26 fn. 15). A Númenórean pregnancy would be the normal length, though (317).

Tangentially: once the standard gestation period passed and a Númenórean child was born, that child would continue to physically mature at a human rather than Elvish rate until reaching young adulthood. That said, from about age 7 on, their mental development and acquisition of knowledge would be more similar to Elvish children than other human ones. Given Númenóreans' literal telepathic powers, this rapid development would probably be necessary, but the idea of uncanny valley Númenórean ten-year-old horse girls who are like, six feet tall is ... there's a lot going on.

Another thing, also mostly unrelated: Tolkien tries to wrangle half-Elves into shape in the course of all this, as well, and incidentally drops the absolute bombshell that the ostensibly unfair metaphysical treatment of Elros's children vs Elrond's actually didn't happen. I don't mean that Tolkien comes up with another rationale for why Elrond's children getting to choose between mortality and immortality while Elros's don't get that choice is metaphysically justified and good. In this version, that literally did not happen. Tolkien says Elros's son Vardamir (and presumably Vardamir's siblings Tindómiel, Manwendil, and Atanalcar) actually did get to choose which kindred to belong to, just like Arwen (and Elladan and Elrohir, though Tolkien doesn't mention them here, either). Then Tolkien simply never brings it up again, ever (78, 82).

I love him so much, lmao.

(Yes, I know a lot of this is incredibly wtf, and yet ... dropping that revelation and then breezing on to further math equations is a delightfully peak Tolkien move.)

---

Notes:

¹Tolkien generally uses "begetting" or some variant thereof to talk about sex in this section, and honestly, the more he talks about sex, the funnier I find his euphemisms.

²Arwen, at least, was also affected by this in the Third Age as well. It was not only her choice of a mortal life with Aragorn, but specifically her pregnancy with Eldarion that fully bound her to a mortal existence (Eldarion's sisters, like Vardamir's and Arwen's siblings, are not mentioned—though Tolkien does point out on pg. 22 that absence from these kinds of records does not indicate nonexistence). Tolkien says that it was after Eldarion's conception that Arwen's lifespan began to fully operate on Númenórean rather than half-Elvish (or ordinary mortal) terms (78).

Even Melian's relationship with materiality and gender was affected by getting pregnant with Lúthien. Tolkien says that "Melian, having in woman-form borne a child after the manner of the Incarnate, desired to do this no more ... To have borne more children would still further have chained her and trammeled her" (21). Her power as a Maia, especially her power of foresight, was limited by taking physical form in the first place, but then even more extensively by using that physical form to bring forth Lúthien. The implications of "in woman-form" and "still further have chained her" are ... um. A lot! This is a bit remote from the Númenórean question, but there is SO MUCH going on with pregnancy here.

³Tolkien specifically provides an example of a case where divorce would definitely not be allowed on Númenor: to provide an heir for a king. Given Tolkien's devout Catholicism and ... you know, English history, it's not exactly difficult to imagine why this specific scenario is the one that came to mind as an example of how Númenóreans are built different. But this was already strongly implied in "The Mariner's Wife," where it's made clear that the estrangement between Aldarion and his wife Erendis means he will never have another heir than their daughter Ancalimë. This leads Aldarion to the unprecedented move in Middle-earth history of making the royal line of succession absolutely gender-neutral. He didn't just make it possible for a daughter to inherit in the absence of a son (such as was Ancalimë's case), but established a norm and possibly a law that the eldest child would always inherit, regardless of gender. There actually is an example of this being applied on Númenor to give preference to an elder daughter over a younger son—Tar-Telperiën actually had a brother, but she was the firstborn.