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Originally Posted by Kuruharan
I think "fell" is a morally neutral way of saying "dangerous" or "unpleasant." It would be both to be at the sharp end of the Rohirrim army and the food given the fell beast (which was also dangerous and unpleasant) was probably not the most savory of substances.
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Hmm. Well, it is not my experience of the word 'fell' to say it is morally neutral.
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Originally Posted by OED
1. of animals and men, their actions and attributes: Fierce, savage; cruel, ruthless; dreadful, terrible. Also in cruel and fell, fierce and fell. Now only poetical or rhetorical.
2. Of things, esp natural agents, weapons, diseases,suffering etc: Keen, piercing, intensely painful or destructive. Of poison: deadly. Still dial. in colloquial use, in literature only poetic and rhetoric:dire appaullingly cruel or destructive.
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However, it still seems to me that to describe both the food of the beast and the Rohirrim with the same word collapses the distance between the two at the moment of pitched battle when the difference seems so very important. They share the same quality.