Quote:
Originally Posted by Inziladun
The more I think about this, the less likely I think it is that the stream's magic was the work of the Mirkwood Elves.
Think about the Lórien Elves: they crossed rivers with single ropes tied at either end over the water. Legolas told Haldir he had no trouble doing that. Wouldn't that have been a hallmark of the wood-elves in Mirkwood too? If they had enchanted that stream as a barrier to the entrance of the realm from the forest path (that according to Beorn was hardly used by anyone), wouldn't they have set up a way for them to cross it in the same way they did it in Lórien? As it was, all it took was a party with a small hook to grab the boat on the eastern bank and drag it to them. Every member of Thorin's group would have made it across, if not for a deer jumping out of the trees at the wrong time. Would the Elves, having taken the trouble to put a sleep-spell on that stream, really have been so careless as to have left a boat reachable by intruders that they could use to cross?
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That's actually interesting and it makes sense. On top of that, if we take into account what kind of monsters one encounters in Mirkwood, the river is really not the best of a defense: spiders can climb trees and they can cross the river that way. Also, the river protects the Elves mostly from the west, not really from south, which is the direction of the strongest evil powers. Again, if it was aimed against intruders from outside Mirkwood, coming from the west, why to put that boat there. One could speculate that it might be used as defense against the Orcs, in case they would - for whatever peculiar reason - decide to travel weeks down from the mountains through the forest, and counting on that they will be stupid enough not to use the boat. But that's rather farfetched... well, it is true that it would stop an army from invading (I mean, carrying 1000 Orcs across the river would take a while with one small boat, and a few clumsy ones could fall into the water). But that's about the only thing the river would be good for. Even the most dangerous local "predator", the Nazgul, against whom the river would be very good defense by itself (although not sure if you can put Nazgul to sleep, probably not) cannot be driven back by it anymore when there is a boat there, in fact, putting a boat there is the only way (except for straightaway building a bridge) how to ensure a Nazgul can get past. So it really does not make sense to do such a thing unless you have stronger reasons to have the boat there.
As for
ecthelion's question (and indeed, welcome to the Downs!), however, I think if Thranduil wanted, he could make something like that. I don't think it's such a big deal for an Elf of his kind, and he was powerful after all, at least relatively.