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White elephants were once considered sacred in Asia. There is a story amongst Buddhists that on the eve of Gautama Buddha's birth, his mother had a dream wherein she was presented with a lotus blossom by a white elephant (the lotus being a symbol of purity as is the white coloration of the pachyderm). Whether Tolkien considered this during writing is perhaps unlikely. Still, he was well read and Burma was an English possession well into the 20th century.
I have yet to find the root language for Tolkien's műmakil. It sounds vaguely Turkic.
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And your little sister's immaculate virginity wings away on the bony shoulders of a young horse named George who stole surreptitiously into her geography revision.
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