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Like all people, Elves are sometimes honoured with epithets, such as 'the Fair' or 'the Wise', and become known by these sobriquets - their 'afternames'. I have never been honoured such, nor sought to be: I am content to be Legolas of the Greenwood, now that my home has earned back that name.
Some gain their titles for their infamy. They are 'Kin-Slayer' or 'the Dread'. When we fought against the Dark Lord, Sauron, he was known simply as 'the Enemy', for it was thought ill even to mention his name. And yet, though I have heard and read much of the history of Elves and Men, and of Dwarves now that I have come to know Gimli son of Gloin, I have only once been truly surprised by one of these titles: Isilme, Beloved of her Brother.
Isilme was a Numenorean lady who lived in the Second Age, daughter of Tar-Elendil and sister to Tar-Meneldur. Though she was the elder, she did not inherit their father's throne, for the Men of Numenor held that brothers took precedence over sisters in the line of inheritance. Almost nothing is known about her save her name and family. Yet there exists a tale about her that she and her brother conceived a great passion for one another, and that he married her in front of witnesses and they lived as man and wife.
Outraged, their father ordered their separation, and Irimon - as Tar-Meneldur was known at that time, far before his accession - was married to another lady, who bore him children who continued the line of Numenor. But he first interceded on behalf of his sister, and begged their father that although he, Irimon, would renounce Isilme and marry another, she should not be forced to do the same. Tar-Elendil relented, either out of pity or because there could be no decent man who would wish to marry his daughter, and Isilme remained unwed for the rest of her life - still, the tale said, in love with her brother, and he with her.
There is no comparable tale among the Elves, who have the same horror of familial intermarriage as the Men of Numenor did. We know the tragic story of Turin Turambar and his unknowing coupling with his sister Nienor, and among Elves the unconsummated love of Maeglin for Idril: yet the notion of a brother and sister knowing their close relation and choosing to couple anyway is beyond our comprehension.
Or rather, I should say, beyond the comprehension of most of us. For a few, perhaps no more than a handful, can well understand the enduring love between Isilme and Irimon. There is a name that will never be given to me, yet I own it secretly: that I am Legolas, Beloved of my Father.
As a child, I loved my parents as children should, and was loved in return. Although the Elves once had large families with many children, in my time they rarely have more than two. I am an only child, though I would have liked to be one of two or three. I grew into a youth secure in the unstinting affection of my parents and the respect of my peers. My father ruled justly, and though he was haughty to outsiders and proud in defense of our home, he was never too stiff to speak kindly to me. He saw to it that I did what was expected, and if I fell short of the mark I was told so, but he was never unduly harsh in his reproach.
When I was already grown, perhaps a century before Thorin Oakenshield and his company were held captive in my father's halls - among them Gimli's father, Gloin, as he reminded my father when they first met - my mother grew weary. She was older than my father, and until she met the young prince she had not expected ever to marry. She was a Wood-Elf, the most skilled of all the Mirkwood elf-ladies in dancing and needlecraft, and my father married her not for her beauty - for there were more beautiful Elves than she in Mirkwood - but for her charm and gaiety. No-one could come away from her company without feeling better than when he had joined it.
But, as I have said, she grew weary, and the longing for the sea came upon her. She was still kind and generous and attentive to my father and to me, but some essential part of her had withdrawn from Middle-earth. She was no great age for an Elf, but she had seen many things and many troubles. All her life she had given to others, and now her spirit sought rest.
Father and I journeyed with her to the Grey Havens and she kept us and our retinue entertained all the while, prompting my father to recount stories of his youth in Lindon, where he had been born after his father Oropher left Doriath. She found passage on a ship of Noldor, whose group we had met on the road and travelled with, and she spoke so sweetly to the grim Cirdan the Shipwright that an unaccustomed smile came to the Lord of the Havens' tired, aged face. The Noldor had brought instruments for their journey, and I watched my mother depart from Middle-earth with a lyre in her hand and a smile on her face.
My father and I were both affected by my mother's departure. Elves do not grieve for the departed as Men and Dwarves do, for they are not dead, merely far away, awaiting our reunion; yet often in the years since I have wished dearly to speak with her and hear her gay laugh. It gladdens my heart to think that I shall see her again soon, once I am finished here in Ithilien.
My father too was lonely, and we spent much time in each other's company: for not only did we share a natural familial bond of affection, but my father had often remarked how I resembled my mother in looks and temperament. She had always repaid the compliment by contradicting him, saying that it was well that I was growing to take after my father. In truth, I would say I resemble both of them equally, but it is natural to esteem what one sees of one's beloved in the child.
Although I was esteemed among my peers and it was always my pleasure to hunt and talk and dance with them, I was most at peace when I was alone with my father in the lofty underground halls of Mirkwood - for the shadow of the Enemy was growing at that time and our people had already retreated to the northern part of the forest. We sat together in my father's chambers and played music or shared tales, and our shared company soothed both our hearts.
In my father's halls, there are bath-chambers fed from underground streams. Elves love cleanliness and therefore love to bathe, and my father and I spent happy hours in the steaming water. Although Elves are by and large modest and do not walk around publicly undressed, there is no shame in nudity among a family or close friends when bathing - even if those groups include the opposite sex, which I have seen amaze many non-Elves - and so there was nothing unusual in us sharing a bath. I have seen my father naked many hundreds of times, and my mother too when she was with us. I told this once to Boromir of Gondor when the Fellowship of the Ring were travelling together, and his eyebrows nearly flew off his face.
So I was not ensnared by my father's beauty, for I had no thought of it: his naked body, slim and pale and strong, was no mystery to me. He is beautiful in the way all Elves are, but to me he was simply my father.
But the time we spent together was always the best spent, as far as I was concerned. I took on something of my mother, in that I cheered him and heard his confidences. And he became both father and mother to me, taking care of all my education and providing me with all affection. He called me the same pet names he had called me since I was an infant, and I did not regard myself as so grown up as to spurn them.
Most Elves marry before they reach their first century. Passion follows love, and they quickly set about begetting or bearing children. Physical intimacy outside marriage is all but unknown, since consummation and vows are all that is needed to make the marriage valid; nor do Elves marry more than once, for we do not die and there is no way to break a marriage vow once made, with the famous exception of Finwe and Miriel, after she chose not to return from the Halls of Mandos.
I had passed my five hundredth year shortly before my mother left for Aman, and I still had no thought of love. My parents never taxed me about it. They themselves had married late and took the view that love was worth waiting for, so they were not troubled that I was imitating them. I was still young for an Elf - indeed, I am still thought young now, having not attained even a thousand years - and I had plenty to occupy me, so I was not troubled either. I had been told that I would know my love not long after I met her, and she me, for Elves are quick to make up their minds on this point: so I was content to let love come upon me as it would.
And it did, though not in the way I had expected.
We rode out from my father's royal halls into Mirkwood. I rode out often with the guard of Mirkwood, in which I had a place in the company led by Culim. True to his name, he was a great archer, and he taught me much of my later skill.
My father the king rarely joined his Silvan subjects in patrolling the borders, but once a year he went to see for himself the shadow encroaching on Mirkwood. So it was that we went out together on fine-boned, sure-footed grey ponies. We took no retinue, trusting in our steeds' swift hooves to bear us from danger. From my vantage now, after the War of the Ring, this seems foolhardy; but the Enemy had worn away at my father's kingdom so slowly and patiently that we did not understand the true depth of the danger.
We rode together in gay mood despite the ostensibly serious nature of our mission. My father was as he always was with me in private moments, unguarded and youthful. I was as comfortable with him as I was with any of my friends of similar age, never fearful of being impertinent. We understood each other's mood and humours.
We came to a stream, not the broad Anduin but merely a tributary of it, perhaps six feet in width and no more than that deep in the middle. My father, typically capricious, turned to me and said,
"In my youth I used to bathe here with friends, when we had hunted a foaming boar or a many-antlered stag." So saying, he began to remove his clothes.
I was no stranger to disporting myself in woodland streams with friends. I was mildly scandalised at my esteemed father behaving like a youth, but it soon passed in the face of my delight at seeing him so gay and uninhibited. I too undressed and joined him in the cool water.
We swam a little, enjoying the natural flow of the water and all the creatures in its currents. Four tiny silver-scaled fish darted past us, glinting in the sun through the forest canopy. It was a charming place, though it must have been yet more charming before the strange shadow had fallen on the Greenwood.
I looked at my father, up to his chest in the water, as content as any animal that lives in it. He rose as he walked out of the river - for it was not so deep - and his shining body was revealed to my unsuspecting gaze.
Feeling my eyes on him, he turned and cast me a smile. His noble face was kind and open and shining with sympathy for me, his son. And it was then that I first knew the pangs of love. I beheld him as if for the first time, as not merely my father, but another Elf who knew me so well and I knew in return as to be my true heart's companion.
We dried ourselves, dressed, and finished our ride. I tried to speak in my usual way so he might not think anything was amiss. I could not take my eyes from his tall, beloved form.
I did not speak of my love, for how could I? I remained my father's companion, gay and loving. But I had seen him as one being sees its other half, and my soul yearned to be united with his.
We were so close that he could not help but catch my thought and discern what my occasional thoughtfulness meant. What parent does not know that their child is in love?
"There are many fair Elven ladies in Mirkwood," he remarked over wine at supper. "You spend a good deal of your time in their company when you hunt and ride out in your band." For in Mirkwood, Elves of both sexes are to be found in companies of guards and hunters. My father was right that I counted many pretty Elf-ladies among my companions, and it had been among them that I had expected to find a mate. But it was not for any of them that I longed.
Our closeness only inflamed me further. My filial love was satisfied, but this new love reared up and touched our every moment together. My father's embraces and touches, freely bestowed, evoked terrible desire in me.
I could take counsel with no-one regarding my affliction. My close friends noticed a change in me, but I could give them no reason, for if I said only that I loved unwisely and to no avail, they would do everything in their power to find out the object of my love so that they might help me attain her. My friends were like me, curious and tenacious. I must either lie to them or reveal a yet more terrible truth that would drive them away forever. I chose therefore to conceal and dissemble as far as I could.
When I truly could not bear my longing, I escaped through hunting alone. This was foolish of me, for in those days the shadow on the Great Greenwood had grown so deep that it was already known as Mirkwood; but in chasing down a panting stag or foaming boar I became something other than what I was. I was not Legolas, unhappily in the throes of unspeakable incestuous love, but a nameless hunter, less Elf than avatar of the spirit of the hunt.
Of course, this could not avail me forever. Nor could I cheat the dangers of my huge prey. I felled a great stag, ten points on his antlers and a bellow that resounded for miles. But he nearly felled me, and I limped back to my father's halls with his corpse and a nasty gash in my thigh where he had gored me with those magnificent antlers.
I did not collapse over the threshold, nor make any fuss about my injury even though it hurt most bitterly and blood soaked my hose. But as if through some connection of our minds my father flew out to meet me and intercepted me on my way to our house of healing.
He supported me there himself, reproaching me as we went for my foolishness. I bore it, for I knew I deserved his recriminations; and besides, I was very weary.
My father stayed with me as Mariel the healer tended to me.
"You are lucky to be not more seriously injured," he told me sternly. The antler had dug deep, but missed the vital artery. I would heal in time.
"Yes, Father," I replied meekly, almost swooning with pain and weariness. I called him Ada, as I have always done.
He saw to it that I was bandaged up; and then he took me, indeed almost carried me, to my bed. Some who saw us remarked on my condition.
"The little fool has been out hunting a stag by himself," my father bluntly informed Culim who came hurrying up to us full of alarm.
"Has he!" I saw from the expression on Culim's face that I would face reproach from him too. I sighed.
"I have done badly today," I remarked as my father laid me on my bed.
"That you have," he agreed sternly, but his hand was stroking my hair. "My dearest, never do that to me again."
"Never," I agreed, stifling a yawn. My father's fingers in my hair were the most wonderful counterpoint to the throbbing in my leg. "I'm sorry, Ada. Forgive me, I beg."
"I will always forgive you." My father's warm low voice seemed to come from far away. "You need never beg me for anything. I would forgive you anything."
But I was almost asleep, and past the point of consciousness where I could think about his words.
The next day, the poultice on the deep wound in my thigh needed replacing. I was much better after my healing sleep and was perfectly capable of tending my own wounds: but my father insisted on doing it himself.
I watched my father's fair head, bent over my bare thigh, and a tremor ran up my legs and into my belly. Thinking I was in pain, he put his other warm hand on my thigh to steady me. I bit my lip and willed my body to stillness in the face of wonderful yet excruciating physical intimacy.
I limped for a few days, but Elves are quick to heal and soon enough it was as if I had never been injured at all. I still had to suffer the reproaches of my friends, who remarked on and discouraged my new habit of hunting alone. I agreed with them that I would not seek such dangerous prey again in solitude. I was thought to have been rash and foolhardy, too proud of my skill with the bow, as young hunters often are.
And so I had been. But it was not my wounded pride that truly ailed me.
The best cure, I suppose, would have been to go away. If I left Mirkwood and no longer passed my time in my father's company, surely at length the unnatural attachment would fade. But even if I had left, never to return - how could I forget my father?
So I lingered long in his company, and I sat beside him and listened to him speak as if he had enchanted me. I had the advantage of other lovers, for I could display my lovestruck face quite openly and have it thought the expression of a loving, dutiful son. No-one remarked on my great attachment to my father, for it is perfectly natural for children to love their parents. Elves quickly learn to see their parents as other beings, greater in age and wisdom but fundamentally equal, and it is common for grown Elves to pass much time in their parents' company for sheer pleasure rather than out of duty.
My father has a warm, mellifluous voice. He is very tall, even for an Elf, and he has a wicked sense of humour that tempers his pride. Although my love was unnatural, it did not seem so. Indeed, how could I not have fallen in love with him? I loved him as a son and as an equal.
Nothing might have happened, had I not lingered very late one night and been invited to share his bed. I might have pined silently and in vain for many years, many centuries, for the life of an Elf is indeed a long time to be love-sick.
But we lingered over wine until the small hours, until at last my father said,
"Dear, it is late indeed. Will you lie down with me, as you did when you were a little child? It would please your father's heart."
I would deny him nothing, though in truth my feelings were those of the tempted lover rather than the child. I stripped to my shirt and he did the same, and demurely I did not let my eyes linger where they should not.
We went to bed, the great bed in my father's chambers where as a child I had sat between my parents, drowsing as I listened to their grown-up talk. My father snuffed out the beeswax lamp - for we do not use tallow for light inside, it being foul-smelling, but we have many bees and their produce is abundant - and we lay down together.
Although I was sure that I should find no rest, in truth I slept in chaste comfort. My father's great tall slim body was warm next to mine and the familiar feather mattress was exquisitely comfortable. Elves can sleep anywhere, and those accustomed to the woods can take the roughest accommodation and rise as if they had taken their ease in the softest bed in Rivendell; but we know the pleasure of a comfortable bed all the same.
It was not until I awoke that my predicament became clear to me. I gazed drowsily on my father's fair face, relaxed in repose, and felt my love swell within my chest. But also deeper in my body, the longing for bed and the marital act that sharing a bed with my love-object had naturally brought on.
I did not stir, lest I wake my father and the moment be broken. I continued to admire his beloved face in silence. It was a still morning in his underground halls, where little birdsong reached. It enveloped me in the peace that four stone walls bring, that Dwarves know so well. The chamber was yet high and airy, and the arched roof had windows so the natural light of the world above gleamed green panes over the bedcovers.
A sweet stillness held us both. I gazed on my father as he slept, happy to be near him, yet aching with frustrated love. I wanted to be not only son to him, but wife also. I wanted to kiss his finely-wrought lips slowly, warmly, lingeringly. I would press as many kisses to his lips as there are grains of sand on the sea shore.
He called me his dear and kissed me when we met and spoke with me long into the night as an equal; and yet I still burned with unfulfilled love. I wished deeply that to be his son could be enough, as it had been for so long. But once an Elf falls in love, his heart is not easily changed.
My father stirred. I still watched him like the lovestruck fool I was. I could not take my eyes from his long, intelligent face. The familiar face I had loved all my life and could have drawn to the very life from memory.
He opened his eyes and his gaze caught mine. Trapped as I was, I could only stare at him in longing adoration. I could have gazed on him happily for the rest of my life, on that face which held some of the light of the Trees, on which I would never look in all my long life. The ageless, beautiful face of the person most dear to me.
He considered me drowsily. His eyes rested on each feature of my face individually. What did he see there? My love, writ plain.
He lifted his hand from beneath the coverlet to touch my face, tracing my cheek. My eyes half closed in pleasure to feel that tender caress. I desired his touch more than ever.
"My dear," he addressed me in a sweet voice, only a murmur in the privileged confines of our bed. He smiled. And he cupped my face with his warm long-fingered hand and used that to guide our mouths together.
We had always kissed whenever we met, as is customary; briefly touching our lips in friendship as any child would do with a parent.
Our embrace was not a kiss of that sort.
For a long moment, my mind went perfectly blank. I returned his chaste, passionate kiss, my body understanding what it meant. Sweet union drove any other thought from my mind. I was loved and desired by my father just as I loved and desired him.
"Ada," I managed to murmur against his lips when at last we parted.
"Yes." He stroked my hair, a gesture both paternal and amorous. "Forgive me, my dear. I had not understood your heart as I should. I had not recognised in you what my own soul suffered." His face was so tender and kind as he told me the words I had longed to hear.
I might have wept then, but he took me in my arms and kissed me lovingly, and I abandoned myself to his embrace with no more thought of tears. I loved, and my love was returned. What being - Man, Elf, Dwarf, halfling - knows greater happiness than this?