4: Elf Etiquette and Other Lessons

As it happened, Glorfindel decided to just let the Twins sleep off their drunk while he went for the run. He dumped Elrohir on his bed, removing shoes and jeans, then covering him with a blanket. The ellon never stirred. Daeron did the same with Elladan.

“I hope they wake with a vicious hangover,” Daeron said with a smile as they exited the room. “I think the last time either of them passed out like that was when the East Coast suffered that blackout in 1965 and we held that blackout party. Remember?”

Glorfindel nodded but did not bother to comment. Daeron gave him a strange look. “What’s the matter?”

“I need to run and work off this urge to kill them both and send them to Mandos with a personal note to Lord Námo giving him my regards.”

“I’m sure the Lord of Mandos would appreciate hearing from you, even if indirectly,” Daeron quipped. “Go. Run.”

“What about you?” Glorfindel asked.

“I have music running through my brain that is dying to be written down,” the once minstrel of Doriath said. “I’ll be up all night composing.”

“We’re not going to be much fun with our roommates, are we?” Glorfindel commented with a wry smile.

“They’ll get used to it and us,” Daeron said equably. “Now go.”

So, Glorfindel went, first stopping at his room to change into running gear, leaving a note for Zach not to wait up for him. Then he made his way downstairs and out the front door. He stretched a bit while taking his bearings. He wasn’t sure how long he would be running, but he had a feeling that it would be well after dawn before he made it back to the college. Looking about in the polar twilight his gaze landed upon the mountains rising behind the college. Nodding to himself, he loped off in the direction of the main road leading out of the campus grounds. He knew from the map that there was a road leading up into the mountains and that was where he was headed.

No one was about and there was almost total silence as he jogged up the road, letting his mind wander where it would. The peace of the night crept slowly into his soul and he felt himself letting go of the anger and frustration he had felt towards the Twins and their antics. He allowed the smooth rhythm of his running to soothe him, and felt his muscles begin to unwind as he ate up the miles. His inner time sense told him that it was now nearly four in the morning. The sky was already light and the stars had faded into the blue some time before. He continued along the mountain road a little further and then simply turned around and headed back. By the time the college was in sight the people of Wiseman were already waking up and enjoying their Sunday mornging. He had run for over five hours without breaking a sweat, but he felt immensely better for it.

Entering the Academy, he spied Daeron sitting in the reading lounge with his harp on his lap and the ubiquitous music notebook on the table before him. Daeron looked up from scribbling something and gave him a smile.

“Nice run?”

Glorfindel nodded. “I’m going to go take a shower and have breakfast. Care to join me?”

“What? In the shower?” Daeron exclaimed in mock dismay. “I think not, but breakfast sounds like a good idea.” He glanced up at the clock on the wall. “I believe the schedule says that the cafeteria will open at eight.”

“Good enough,” Glorfindel said. “I’ll meet you there, then?”

Daeron nodded and went back to plucking on his harp while Glorfindel climbed the stairs to the third floor, letting himself into his room without disturbing Zach, who never stirred. He gathered some clean clothes, a towel and other bathing paraphernalia, then headed for the showers. This early in the morning, and considering the party that must have continued until quite late, he had the place to himself and enjoyed the quiet and the hot water. By the time he finished and was dressed, his hair carefully dried and combed, he was ready for breakfast and made his way to the cafeteria.

Daeron was already there and soon the two of them sat at a table next to the windows looking out upon the mountains, eating scrambled eggs with bacon and homefries and english muffins slathered with raspberry jam. Glorfindel had tea with his breakfast while Daeron went for the coffee. Surprisingly, they were not the only ones there, and Glorfindel suspected that the score or so students sharing the cafeteria with them had not over imbibed on the beer, assuming they hadn’t simply stuck to soda. None of them appeared the least bit hungover.

“How is the music coming along?” Glorfindel asked Daeron.

“Well enough,” he answered after taking a sip of his coffee. “That lead guitarist, Darien, is a true musician. He has an almost elven flair for it. We shared our music. I would probably still be with him but he was falling asleep as we were speaking, so I sent him home and came looking for you and the others just in time to see the end of the show the Twins were giving.”

Glorfindel scowled. “I really should put a leash on them both.”

Daeron chuckled. “They are a handful sometimes, aren’t they?”

Glorfindel gave Daeron a wry look. “Want to bet how long they continue sleeping?”

“If we’re lucky, neither will waken until tomorrow morning,” Daeron quipped and Glorfindel nodded and smiled. “So what are your plans for the rest of the day?” the minstrel asked.

Glorfindel shrugged. “I think I’m just going to relax, go over the orientation materials more carefully and perhaps walk around the campus and into the town and acquaint myself with the environs.”

“Sounds good,” Daeron said. “I doubt too many of the children are going to be stirring any time soon.”

“And who are you calling children?”

The two ellyn looked up to see Nimrodel and Mithrellas standing there with trays in their hands. Lily was also with them, but not Shane.

“The Twins, naturally,” Glorfindel answered with a laugh and the others joined him.

“That song they sang,” Lily commented as she and the two ellith sat down to eat, “it was really... naughty.” She gave them a pained look.

“Naughty doesn’t even come close, my dear,” Nimrodel said with a knowing smile. “Appalling is more like it.”

Lily giggled. “It was really funny though,” she said as she buttered some toast. “I’d like to learn it and then sing it for some people who give the phrase ‘prim and proper’ a bad rep.”

The Elves raised their eyebrows in amusement. “Well, perhaps one of the Twins will teach you,” Mithrellas said with a mischievous smile.

“Teach you what?”

They all looked up to see Jud and Zach there, each bearing a tray.

“That terrible song Dan and Roy were singing,” Lily answered.

“It was pretty terrible,” Jud said with a chuckle. “Terribly funny and obscene. Did they make it up, do you suppose?”

“I can assure you that they did not,” Glorfindel said firmly.

Then Daeron smoothly changed the subject by asking the Mortals what they were planning to do that day. None of them had any specific plans, though Zach mentioned wanting to check out the college’s indoor pool, stating that he liked to swim laps. “It’s very re-re-relaxing,” he said.

“Well, I guess this is a do-whatever-you-want day, then,” Mithrellas said. “Why don’t we just plan to meet later on for dinner? Perhaps by then Dan and Roy will have risen from the dead and will join us.”

The others all laughed and agreed to Mithrellas’ idea and shortly thereafter Glorfindel and Daeron, having finished their meal, excused themselves. Once away from the cafeteria, Daeron claimed he wished to sleep for an hour, so Glorfindel left him and wandered out to see the rest of the college and walk into town for lunch.

****

The Twins ‘rose from the dead’ as Mithrellas had put it, around three in the afternoon, both of them looking, as Jud put it, ‘like death warmed over’. Neither appreciated the reference and scowled as they went in search of coffee — lots of it. By the time the dinner hour had arrived, though, they were feeling — and looking — much better and all six Elves along with their six Mortal friends met at the cafeteria.

“So, tomorrow is the big day,” Lily said. “I’m really excited about the classes.”

“They should be interesting, to say the least,” Glorfindel replied as he dug into his pasta salad.

“I’m not sure I want to learn to make gingerbread cookies, though,” Elrohir groused. “I mean, really! Gingerbread cookies!?”

“What’s wrong with gingerbread cookies?” Cassie asked. “I’m looking forward to learning how to make them and all the other goodies.” She made a ‘hmmm’ sound and rubbed her stomach.

“I’ve always been fascinated by those gingerbread houses that you see in store windows around Christmas time,” Lily said. “It’s a real art form making them.”

Elrohir just sighed. “I wonder if I can just skip that particular class,” he said and Elladan nodded in agreement.

Glorfindel gave him a hard look. “We will take each course that is assigned to us, and we will attend every class and we will do so with joy. Is that clear? Remember what I told you earlier.”

The coldness of his tone affected even the Mortals, who blanched somewhat. Elrohir and Elladan just nodded, straightening automatically as they had done in ages past when Glorfindel had led their patrols and had given them their orders. The other Elves, aware of the effect that Glorfindel’s words were having on their Mortal friends, spoke softly to them, easing their fright until they were all relaxed. Glorfindel continued staring at the Twins for another moment or two before returning to his meal, refusing to apologize.

“So, what is the first class everyone is taking?” Jud asked during the lull that followed.

“Something called ‘Elf Etiquette’,” Shane said with a shrug.

“Something you two definitely need a refresher in,” Daeron said, giving the Twins a sly grin. Elladan grimaced and Elrohir rolled his eyes.

As it turned out, when they compared notes, they learned that they had all been assigned to take the same courses at the same time. Cassie explained. “This class is large enough that it’s been divided into two sections and each section has been further divided into four more or less equal groups of students. All of us apparently have been placed together in one section. We’ll take the same classes for the first eight weeks: Elf Etiquette, Elf Legends, Making Gingerbread Cookies and that course about Dealing With Children of All Ages. The other section will be taking courses in Winter Survival Skills, First Aid, Nature Studies, where they’ll learn about the various wildlife in the area, and On Being a Tour Guide, then after eight weeks we’ll switch.”

“I can’t believe we’ll be spending eight weeks making cookies every day,” Elladan said.

“Nah. I looked at the schedule,” Shane replied. “All the classes are ninety minutes long, except for the cooking class, which is three hours long and they all just meet once a week. Tomorrow it’s just Elf Etiquette and Elf Legends.”

“That gives us lots of free time,” Daeron said.

“Not really,” Glorfindel said. “I noticed that in between classes there are planned field trips to the different resorts in the area as well as visits to the safari companies to acquaint us with them. They’ll have people teaching us about how to handle husky sleds, reindeer-driven sleighs, snowmobiles and such. Also, I think there will be physical activities in which we are required to participate in order to keep fit. Being a tour guide in this region requires a certain level of fitness.”

“Plus, we’ll also be helping out answering letters to Santa that are sent to the post office from all over,” Matt added, “and packaging gifts for families to pick up at the Christmas Market, although that won’t open until after Halloween.”

“So our days will be full,” Mithrellas said.

“Which will keep us all busy and out of trouble,” Glorfindel added, giving the Twins a significant look. They both gave him stare for stare, but in the end they were the ones to break eye contact first.

They continued eating, more or less in silence, broken only by other students stopping at their table to tell the Twins how much they had enjoyed the show the night before. “When are you going to give us an encore?” and “You’ll have to teach us the lyrics,” were the most common comments made, accompanied by leers and guffaws. Elladan and Elrohir just rolled their eyes, looking decidedly embarrassed. The others at their table just smirked.

****

The next morning, just before eight-thirty, the Elves all filed into one of the classrooms along with their roommates, Cassie and Matt, finding seats towards the back of the room. Other students joined them until there were about thirty or so students altogether. Deirdre Clannach came bouncing in just as the bell rang, a huge smile on her face.

“Good morning,” she said and everyone dutifully returned her greeting. “Right, then. I’m Deirdre Clannach and this class is called Elf Etiquette. Now why would we need a course in this?” she asked rhetorically. “Very simply, we need to ensure that all our elves know how to behave in the public sphere. We want to have a uniform code of conduct. We want to be our elfin best!” She smiled at them brightly.

“Elven,” Nimrodel muttered.

“Excuse me, Miss....?” Deirdre looked pointedly at the elleth.

Nimrodel smiled. “Della White,” she said. “You said ‘elfin’ but that is incorrect. The correct adjective is ‘elven’, just as the correct plural is ‘elves’ and not ‘elfs’.

“What’s the difference?” someone asked, looking confused.

“Elfin describes those sickening Victorian Tinkerbell-type fairies with wings sitting on a cowslip leaf,” Nimrodel answered disdainfully. “Elves don’t have wings.”

“And you know this for a fact?” Deirdre asked rather archly.

Before Nimrodel could reply, Daeron spoke up, canting his voice in the sing-song of a bard and loremaster. “You are Irish, are you not?”

“My grandparents came from there,” Deirdre averred.

Daeron nodded. “Then no doubt they spoke of the Tuatha Dé Dannan.”

“Some,” Deirdre said with a shrug.

“So who are these... um... tooa-whatevers?” Shane asked.

“Tuatha Dé Dannan,” Daeron corrected smoothly. “They were the Fair Folk, the Elves if you will, of Irish legend. Perilous folk they were, with great powers. For Mortals to fall into their grasp was dangerous.”

“For them or for the Mortals?” one of the male students asked with a grin.

Daeron grinned back. “Often enough, for both.”

“Well, thank you for the language lesson,” Deirdre said a bit haughtily, “but let us go on. As I was saying, we need to be our... uh... elven best,” she looked to Nimrodel as if for confirmation and the elleth nodded graciously. “Now we’ll all have costumes which I believe are being made and will be available for fittings in the next week or so.”

“Ah, excuse me, Ms Clannach,” one of the young men raised his hand, looking a bit nonplused. “Costumes?”

Deirdre smiled and nodded vigorously. “You’re going to be elves, after all, and so you will be wearing costumes especially designed so all will know that you are indeed elves.”

“If those costumes come attached with wings,” Elrohir whispered darkly, sure that only his fellow Elves would hear him, “I’m out of here.” Even Glorfindel nodded at that.

“So,” Deirdre continued. “Etiquette, the art of being courteous....”

“Not to mention knowing which spoon to use with your coffee,” someone quipped and the rest of the class laughed.

Deirdre ignored the interruption. “Now, some of you will be asked by the safari company or resort for whom you will be working to drive to Fairbanks and pick up clients at the airport or train station. What are you going to say to the clients when you meet them?”

“Hello?” Lily said in a loud whisper and giggled. Others joined her.

“Do you really think elves would just say hello?” Deirdre demanded with a smirk.

“I usually do,” Elladan whispered and the other Elves snickered.

Deirdre picked up some papers on her desk. “Here is a hand-out of typical phrases you can use when addressing the clients. We’re going to memorize these and practice speaking them to one another.”

Glorfindel took the hand-out and read through it, his eyebrows rising in disbelief. He stole a glance at Daeron, who was frowning as he stared at his own hand-out.

“‘Greetings, fair mortals?’” Mithrellas read out loud. Then, she looked up at Deirdre. “You have to be kidding.”

“Oh, I like this one,” Elrohir said with a malicious grin as he stood up and struck a rather ridiculous pose. “‘Be welcome, my lords and ladies, to the Land of the Midnight Sun.’” He paused and gave an exaggerated bow while several of the female students giggled. “‘May your journey in our land of ice and snow be filled with warmth and cheer.’” He gave Deirdre a jaundiced look. “Couldn’t we just say ‘Welcome to Alaska. Bundle up ’cuz it’s cold outside’?”

Now most of the class started laughing. Deirdre looked as if she were about to cry. Glorfindel decided to step in. “Perhaps we as a class can use this hand-out as a model and come up with our own phrases that we will feel more comfortable speaking. I do agree with Ms Clannach that as Elves we should speak a bit more formally than most of us are used to doing.”

“That’s an excellent idea,” Daeron said, picking up on Glorfindel’s suggestion. He took a quick count of the class. “Let’s see, there are thirty-six of us. Why don’t we split into groups of six and come up with some ideas of how we should speak and then we’ll share with the other groups and come to a consensus.”

The rest of the class seemed to find that a good idea. Daeron flashed Glorfindel a smile. “Let’s make sure each of us is in one of the groups,” he said in Sindarin and Glorfindel nodded.

“What did you say?” Deirdre asked, looking rather flustered as she lost control of the class.

“They claim it’s Welsh,” Shane spoke up, “but I’m not so sure.”

“Hey! Maybe we can use some, like, you know, made up phrases that sound elvish,” one of the other students suggested.

“Do you even know how elvish sounds?” another student asked.

“I’ve always thought it would sound something Celtic,” the first student said, “so maybe we can use some Welsh phrases.”

“Why don’t we just concentrate on appropriate phrases in English for now?” Daeron said smoothly. “We’ll count off.” He pointed to himself. “One.” Then he pointed to Glorfindel who dutifully said, “Two.” One by one he pointed to the other four Elves and then pointed to the six Mortals with whom they had become friends before turning to the rest of the class. Eventually, everyone had a number and the groups scattered to different parts of the room amidst much laughter. Deirdre just stood there by her desk not quite sure what to do.

Glorfindel felt a pang of pity for the Mortal woman. She had obviously spent a great deal of time preparing her class and now it was being taken over by the Elves. Before joining his group he went to her, giving her his warmest smile. “Perhaps you could wander from group to group and make sure they are actually working on the phrases instead of chatting about their latest boyfriend or the last time they were in a role-playing game online. Sometimes a teacher’s role is not so much to teach as it is to monitor the learning of the students as they interact with one another.”

She gave him a startled look and then nodded. “Thank you,” she said quietly. Glorfindel nodded and went to his group, which consisted of Matt and another male student named Evan, as well as three young women named Maggie, Jen and Chloe. All three females just sat there staring open-mouthed at Glorfindel.

“Gad! What I wouldn’t give to have hair like that,” Chloe practically wailed, fingering her mousey brown hair.

Before Glorfindel could respond, Deirdre happened by. “We’re here to discuss suitable greetings, dear, not hair color,” she said, giving Glorfindel a smile as Chloe muttered an apology, now looking embarrassed. Glorfindel smiled back and nodded as Deirdre went on to the next group.

“So, do any of you have any ideas?” Glorfindel asked and the others studied the hand-out and began making some tentative suggestions. Glorfindel half-listened to their ideas while keeping an eye on the other groups, especially those being led by the Twins. Cassie was in Elladan’s group and Zach was in Elrohir’s. Lily, Shane and Jud were in the groups led by Daeron, Nimrodel and Mithrellas, respectively. His attention became more focused when he heard Elladan teaching his group some inappropriate phrases, claiming them to be Welsh though they were really Sindarin.

“‘Orchvann!’” He heard the ellon say in a bright manner. “That means ‘Good day!’ in Welsh and ‘Mell gîn gâr îr an yrch’ means ‘May you have a pleasant day’.”

Glorfindel could see the five Mortals trying out the phrases with Elladan correcting their pronunciation, his expression deadpan. He noticed Elrohir trying to smother a laugh while the other three Elves just rolled their eyes.

“And ‘pui-en-orch’ means ‘farewell’,” the ellon continued his language lesson. At that, Glorfindel excused himself from his group, telling them to keep working, and walked over to Elladan’s group, giving everyone a smile as he bent down to whisper in Elladan’s ear. “‘Hara máriessë mi Mandos’ means ‘you’re dead if you don’t behave’.”

Elladan visibly cringed while the other students looked on in confusion. Glorfindel gave them another smile. “Stick to English,” he said. “It’s safer.” He returned to his own group where Maggie gave him a shrewd look.

“Does ‘orchvann’ really mean ‘good day’ in Welsh?” she asked.

Glorfindel shook his head. “No. Dan was just making it up. The word has no meaning in any language. Now, I like Jen’s suggestion of using ‘thou’ though that’s the singular form. The plural would be ‘ye’, so when greeting a group of people we can say something like “May ye be welcome to the Land of the Midnight Sun, fair guests....’”

****

The rest of the class continued without further incident and by the end the six groups had a variety of different phrases which were written down and given to Deirdre who agreed to make copies of them for next week’s class where they would be voted on. Then the class time was over and everyone filed out of the room for a thirty-minute break before the next class.

“I had not intended to spend so much time on greetings,” Deirdre suddenly said to Glorfindel just as he was about to exit the room, being the last to leave. He paused and gave her a quizzical look. “We still have to deal with things like elven customs,” she explained, “and even the state laws of Alaska as they apply to the tourism industry and professional ethics of tour guides.”

Glorfindel’s expression turned sympathetic. “Why don’t you leave the elvish aspects to the students? Let us work it out for ourselves instead of you just handing it to us? You can just concentrate on covering the legal matters that we will need to know about.”

“Then what?” Deirdre asked sharply, pushing her hair out of her eyes in a frustrated manner. “Will the other students taking the course also get to make up greetings and such? We have four groups of students for this section who are taking this course, then there are the students in the other section who will be taking this course two months from now. The whole idea is to have everyone saying the same things in the same way and acting the same. We don’t want clients to get mixed messages about their elven guides.”

“I agree that having the students in the other section do as we are doing is pointless,” Glorfindel said. “Perhaps, though, all the students in this section can do as we did. Tell them that in the end our section will be responsible for creating appropriate phrases, customs and modes of behavior for everyone else.”

“And what of the students in the other section? What do they do?” Deirdre wondered.

Glorfindel shrugged. “Perhaps you can have them take what we come up with and design a... um... a ‘Handbook On Being Elves’ for everyone to keep and refer to.”

Deirdre sighed. “I suppose that would work,” she said, then she gave him a jaundiced look. “I hope when I teach the course on Dealing With Children of All Ages you and your friends won’t be taking over that class as well.”

“I doubt it,” Glorfindel said with a smile. “I have no clue about children, whatever their age.”

“You seemed to do well enough with Dan,” Deirdre retorted mildly. “I saw how you handled him.”

“He and his brother are special cases,” Glorfindel said in all sincerity. “Truly, none of us have had any real experience with children. I don’t think you’ll have to worry about us taking over that particular class.”

“You seem so much older than most of the other students,” Deirdre said suddenly, “yet you don’t look much older than any of them.”

Glorfindel shrugged. “Let’s just say that having to deal with the Bobbsey twins” — Deirdre snickered at the reference — “forces you to act in a more mature manner, if only to provide them with a visible example of how to act.”

Deirdre nodded and glanced at the clock on the wall. “You should go and take your break before the next class... uh....”

“Loren,” Glorfindel supplied. “Loren DelaFiore. I could do with a cup of tea right about now. Would you care to join me?”

“Thank you, Loren,” Deirdre said. “A cup of tea sounds quite lovely.”

Glorfindel gestured for Deirdre to precede him out of the classroom and then the two walked side-by-side to the lounge area where drinks and snacks could be gotten between classes. He bought tea for the both of them and they found a table where they sat and talked about inconsequential things, with Deirdre doing most of the talking about her teaching career. Glorfindel ignored the amused expressions on the faces of the other Elves as he sipped his tea and listened with all seriousness to Deirdre describing her first teaching job at a secondary school in some place called Homer that apparently was somewhere south of Anchorage.

****

Words are Sindarin unless otherwise noted.

Tuatha Dé Dannan: (Irish Gaelic) People of the Goddess Danu, pronounced too'-a-haw day dah'-nawn.

Orchvann!: ‘Orc food!’

Mell nîn gâr îr an yrch!: ‘Your dear (one) has sexual desires for orcs!’

Pui-en-orch: Orc-spit.

Hara máriessë mi Mandos: (Quenya) ‘Welcome to Mandos’, literally, ‘Stay in happiness in Mandos’. (Hara) máriessë is an attested phrase used only in greetings, the first word being optional. [Parma Eldalamberon 17:162].