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Originally Posted by davem
On your second point, I can only say I like to think I am writing for posterity, rather than the moment
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Oh my dear fellow! Writing for posterity on the internet: An oxymoron!
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Originally Posted by davem
Shadowfax?
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Oh now I was expecting a challenge about crows but not Shadowfax, who after all runs so swiftly he almost flies, doesn't he? Check out the description of Pippin's experience riding with Gandalf in V,i.
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. . . presently the thudding of hooves was heard, and three riders swept up and passed like flying ghosts in the moon and vanished into the West. Then Shadowfax gathered himself together and sprang away, and the night flowed over him [Pippin] like a roaring wind.
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What I find intriguing are the ways various animals are used as descriptors in Tolkien's legendarium. Despite his clear respect for and love of the natural world, that love is usually given (unconditionally ?) only to flora and fauna, one could say. Tolkien seems to rely upon a traditional semiotic for creeping, crawling critters. The bestial, the earthy, the dirty are all negatively connoted, which is interesting because in medieval times, the odour of sanctity was indeed an odour. There is a hierarchy of evaluations for animals I think, a great chain of beasts one might say, although it is not absolute.