On Elves: An Outsider’s Perspective

It’s rare a human is invited to write a piece for the Library. Sure, there are musings and treatises written by my kind here, and if I’m being absolutely honest, the volume of scrolls gathered here is staggering, but it’s rare the Librarians of Breiamhbéo ask one of their human colleagues to pen something of import. Then again, if I wanted someone to write about humans, and I wanted an unflinching look at my race, I would ask an elf. They may be condescending bastards at time, but analysis is always better when done from the outside. (Quite true, then again, some of us have been around for quite a few human generations, and as such we see humanity’s follies repeated over and over again. ~K)

The leap I’m about to make might seem a little farfetched, but please bear with me. I’m certain you will understand.

For a human, childhood ends around age fourteen, by that time we’re supposed to be able to work, father and bear children, go to war. Yet, those veteran mercenaries or warriors I spoke to say a new adult is worthless on the battlefield. There may be exceptions, sure, but in the end very few of these baby-faced warriors survive the first clash of a shield wall. Their heads might be filled with tales of glory, and they certainly don’t lack the confidence – until the walls clash. It is then that their mettle evaporates. Some warriors say training should begin at that age, sure, but none of those young men and women should be anywhere near a battle.

In a chronicle containing snippets from before Gathran’s Contraction, I read a quote from a Leghany, a general, who stated that “We train, a lot. It’s mind-numbing, infuriatingly repetitious. When we don’t march or build camps, we’re at it, stab with Cannus or sword. (The Cannus is a steeloaken miniature lance, not much longer than a knife, which the Obhanh reminds that it once was a much longer piece of wood. A solid line of shields hasn’t stopped anybody from charging, but if timed right, the front ranks’ Cannusses extend in unison, forming a horizontal array of spears ready to receive a charging enemy. ~K) These mind-numbing exercises are bloodless battles. In reverse, our battles are blood-drenched exercises. We’re so used to the commands, the magic, the sudden changes of our shield and Cannus, the maneuvers our Leghany have drilled into us, that when the battle does come, it feels quite mundane.

How can someone think about battle that way? Sure, human veterans are somewhat used to the madness, but, on Taogh at least, no warleader has the time or money to keep their band in training for a year or more. The Leghary back in the day spent a fifth of their life in the army. Elves have, so I’m told, a lifespan of eight hundred years, minimum. Provided they aren’t killed. A Leghary spent around one-hundred and fifty years in the army, most of the time enforcing the law, sometimes fighting a skirmish, and on the rare occasion going to war. In this century and a half, they also trained, a lot.

A century and a half. It still boggles the mind, even after having spent years reading up on the subject. A human generation is maybe twenty or twenty-five years, so by the time a Leghary musters out, six human generations have gone by, and at least four generations have already been cremated.

With so much time on one’s hands, what does one do?

Let’s ask a dog or housecat what they think of the time humans have on their hands, shall we? I know it’s impossible to talk to animals this way, but the question is still a valid one. A healthy dog lives some twelve years or so, a human seventy or so. A dog lives a sixth of a human’s lifespan. In those twelve years, a dog lives a fulfilled life, if all goes well. (It never does but we’re talking the ideal case.) 

A dog will stay with a human for those twelve years; if the human was twenty, the dog perishes when the human is thirty-two. For a dog it must seem like a miracle that their friend whom they have known since they were a babe has barely changed. What does a human do with all this time on their hands? Because for the dog, whose life has been crammed into twelve years, that is a lot more life to live and to experience. Yet the question seems, of course, silly.

That’s the same for elves, really. Sure, they have more time on this world than us humans, but do we use our lifetime which is six times that of a dog for more?

Elven interests are broad; they may start a project, and then seemingly abandon it to start something else. To humans it seems like a waste, to leave a statue standing, half-finished, but the elven sculptor might need to study some aspect of what he is working on that he hadn’t considered. Or they find something else that catches their fancy.

This does not mean elves leave harvests unattended or stop fighting an enemy just because of a pretty butterfly. Far from it, when something needs to be done, they do it, relentlessly, until that task is finished, or, in case of the battle, they are killed. I’ve seen elves build a house in days, not timber-frame and wattle and daub, but brick and mortar. I’ve also heard of a barely touched statue lingering in a woman’s workshop for over a decade while she mastered the lute. It may seem wrong to our very limited point of view, because, like the dog, we don’t have the time.

If humans start something, they usually finish it only to move on to the next task, rarely able to enjoy the fruits of their labor. We rush about from one task to the next, but elves – elves have learned to live life to the fullest.

This, of course, does not mean one dawdles when the Emperor or Empress gives you a task. Far from it! But many of these tasks aren’t meant to be done immediately, because the Empress or Emperor are also elves, and they might as well get distracted with something new, or remember a task they put off a century ago. (Yes, it’s been known to happen that a Chronicle stopped in mid-sentence, only to be picked up again a century later, at the exact point it had been abandoned. ~K)

I don’t put elves on a pedestal; I’ve studied elven history for over a decade and barely scratched the surface. What’s interesting, however, is that elves can be the same kind of bastards humans can be. Only when they react to an offense, they can already draw on, maybe, a century of prior experience which makes said retribution a swift and rather final affair. Feuds among the commoners don’t last long, a stab through the eye, a cut throat, and the problem is solved. Sometimes the victim’s family retaliates, but it’s rare because they know things are prone to spiral from there. Also, commoners rarely murder each other without a cause.

Nobles, however, are a completely different animal, in the figurative sense. (I know what you meant. ~K) (Everybody does. ~P) The rich and powerful have a lot of spare time, much like our own nobles. And just like our nobility, they rarely are up to something good when they’re bored.

It is said, or whispered rather, that Chiath was initially played with elven game pieces. These rumors have persisted over the millennia, but that truth lies with the gods. Still, the rumor shows quite elegantly what elven nobility might find entertaining. Imagine a Chiath board, and each of the game pieces an elf, a warrior most like, at least that’s the most common version of the rumor. Recruits as Peons, and so forth, the more skilled the fighter, the better his or her game position; and as such they were moved by their noble patrons. Unlike our modern version, a Peon striking a Rider was not an automatic win. Sure, according to those rules, the Peon was armed and the Rider wasn’t, but that didn’t necessarily mean the Peon was bound to win. Odds lay clearly with the more experienced combatant, but the Peon could still win.

This kind of elaborate bloodshed will give humans an idea of what an elf considers a jolly good pastime. Things haven’t changed, much. Nowadays, the nobles still use peons, but now the dirty deeds are sabotage and intrigue, which, if caught, would still result in the death of the peon, but the peon is fully aware of this. To the nobles it’s a game, the peons are paid handsomely, and even their families are well taken care of in the event of a less than fortunate turn of events. (Nicely said. ~K)

It may sound appalling to us humans, but think of the dog, and its owner going to war for what must be a very long time for the canine, are we any different?

This only reflects primarily my experience with Breiamhbéo, other elves might live differently, so please don’t take it as a guidebook for traveling abroad. Kalduuhn’s elves are, for example, much more brutal, and have very little tolerance for such behavior.