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(Yeah... but Denmark is consistently damp and moist. In New England it's more like twenty year...)
Maybe I'm grasping at straws here; Tolkien's MacDonald-influence was limited.
But MacDonald heavily influences my own thinking and this may be another reason this is bugging me....
MacDonald described the grave as the door, or very threshhold, of eternity. Elves' doors seem green. Rohirrim graves, even for the kings, are barrows, mounds. Green. But Gondor's royalty-- like Numenor-- are buried in stone, buildings, in the Avenue of the Dead. Brrr. Merry and Pippin end up in Rath Dinen too-- a most un-hobbitlike, stony burial.
They have a stone threshhold to eternity, not a green one? Whereas the Rohirrim have green thresholds? Is it just a hangover from Numenorian customs? Or is there something else?
Balin was buried in Stone but as a dwarf that seems appropriate.
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...down to the water to see the elves dance and sing upon the midsummer's eve.
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