#húrin of emyn arnen

Oh, one of the other things about NOME and part-Elvish beardlessness: Tolkien says something to the effect that the beardlessness is one of the most enduring part-Elvish traits. You’ll get people who aren’t really very Elvish, but if there’s any amount of Elvish blood left, they’ll still be naturally beardless. And he particularly associates this with the House of Elendil’s descent from Elros, with a whole explanation of why that applies to the House of the Stewards also.

The short version is that Húrin of Emyn Arnen, while not a direct-line member of the royal house, wasdescended from Anárion and a recognized kinsman of King Minardil, which was part of the reason he was appointed to the Stewardship. We’ve known this was rattling around Tolkien’s head since POME, but it’s very clearly laid out in NOME in order to explain that Boromir and Faramir are Elrosians through Denethor and therefore beardless (+part-Elvish through Finduilas as well).

The thing I’m thinking is … it’d be interesting if there was some kind of, hmm, cultural cachet around beardlessness? I know a lot of people are really into bearded Dúnedain, but if natural beardlessness is one of the most lingering marks of royal ancestry, it seems like it’d be kind of loaded, esp in Gondor. Has it affected the Gondorian aesthetic? Is it some Gondorian value of punk for a young man to grow a beard, or pretend to? Are there ever any misunderstandings with, say, the Rohirrim re: age/status/etc?

I do suspect that, although beardlessness ultimately derives from Elvish ancestry, the fact that in most cases it comes through the royal line would lead to it being more associated with Númenórean royalty than Elves per se. Gondorians care a lot more about Elendil than Turgon.