Get your own Free Home Page(b) the Edain in Beleriand were less numerous (at least in the beginning) than the Elves. And there were some thousands of them.
(c) At arrival, Turgon's folk was 1/3 of the total of Fingolfin's folk (that also included Fingon's folk)
(d) At arrival, Feanor's folk was close to (but less than) 1/2 of the total number of Noldor
(e) Turgon's army in the Nirnaeth was composed of 10,000 elves
From these data, and supposing that the Elves doubled their numbers in Beleriand [*], I propose the following numbers, at arrival:
So, the initial 12 male Noldor were multiplied to 17,000 males in 4300 Years. If we suppose a constant number (k) of children per couple, and a period of 100 years between generations, we have:
So: 12 * (k44 - 1) = 17000 * (k - 1)
The solution to this is around k = 1.10, or 2.2 children per couple. So, at the start of the trip, there would be from 600 to 900 elves, of which half of them went to Valinor, and half of them were male.
One problem mentioned in the list was that Orome had given weapons to the travelling elves. Orome had to bring 150 to 225 weapons - not a great feat of strength for a Demiurgic Creature!
[*] Of couse, now I must revise this statement. From the 17,000 Noldor that arrived, 12 * k43 = 700 are young (and fertile). Supposing that they married Sindar Elf-maidens, in the 5 generations in Beleriand they would add more 1400 * (k + k2 + ... + k5) elves, or 9500, of the order of the initial estimate.
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