Wood-elves
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For Warhammer Fantasy race, see Wood Elves.
Wood-elves are Elves that live in forest or wood, often also called Silvan (or Sylvan) Elves. A prime example are the Giane of Italian folklore.
Wood-elves in the works of Tolkien
In J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional universe of Middle-earth, the best known Silvan Elves are the Elves of northern Mirkwood and Lothlórien. In the First Age the Elves of Ossiriand, or Laiquendi were also referred to as wood-elves.
Silvan Elves are of Nandorin descent, but they are mainly ruled by Sindarin princes. Examples of these are Thranduil, lord of northern Mirkwood, and Amroth, last prince of Lórien before Galadriel and Celeborn.
Silvan Elves are described as being less wise than other Eldar, and some of them almost are indistinguishable from the Avari, who never joined the Great Journey.
Mirkwood
The Silvan Elves of Mirkwood are described as distrustful of Dwarves, but friendly to Men, with whom they trade. In The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins has to rescue the Dwarves of Thorin Oakenshield's company from these Elves. Later in the book they are one of the Five Armies in the Battle of Five Armies.
Legolas of the Fellowship of the Ring, although he lived among them and in their culture, was not one of the Silvan Elves. As a son of the Elven-king Thranduil, who had originally come from Doriath, Legolas was actually a Sindarin Elf. This is complicated by the fact that a small minority of Sindarin Elves ruled the predominantly Silvan Woodland Realm of Northern Mirkwood, a minority to which Legolas belonged. The Sindarin minority in that realm, who should have been more noble and wise than the Silvan Elves, can be seen as having "gone native" at the end of the First Age: after Morgoth was defeated and all of the grand Elf-kingdoms of Beleriand were destroyed, they can be seen as going back to "a simpler time" in their culture.
In the 1977 animated adaption of The Hobbit, they have green skin and brown clothes.
Lórien
The Silvan Elves of Lórien are also called the Galadhrim, literally "tree-folk". They are ruled by Celeborn and Galadriel. At the time of the War of the Ring they spoke an accent or dialect of Sindarin which had changed so much that Frodo Baggins, who spoke Sindarin, could not understand them. Additionally, few Elves of Lórien could speak Westron, so that Haldir, one of the few that could, had to accompany them on their way to Caras Galadhon.