[Kalimac]

Birdland, that sounds like a really good scenario - in fact, when you think about it, it probably be the best way to approach immortality; always something new on the horizon, so to speak, even if the horizon is 500 years away. You'd probably get a few who specialize in one thing only, but everyone else would probably have a rotation.

My only addition to this would be to guess that any serving-elves would largely be younger, rather in the way that in pre-industrial society, children even of fairly well-off families would often go into service for a few years in their teens, to learn how to run a household and save up money/materials for their marriage. While I can't see the monetary consideration being the same, it would make sense for the Elves to do something like this - and it would certainly be good for their rulers to have a youthful experience of having served others.

Besides, Thranduil's butler doesn't sound like, shall we say, the most wise of characters [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]. I'd always pictured him as middle-aged, but perhaps he was youngish still and hadn't quite learned his wits yet. Or maybe he was just a slow learner - I'm sure even the Elves had a few.

[ October 25, 2003: Message edited by: Kalimac ]