Lothlorien- self sufficient community?

[Lyta_Underhill]

Though I still giggle at the Elf-in-overalls mental picture. Can't you just see one playnig the opening bars of "Dueling Banjos"?

They's a lot of people in overalls 'round heah, but very few Elves. Mostly they look like Gimli in a pickup truck or the animated Boromir with bad legs! (You might be able to tell I'm speaking from the Deep South here!)

But seriously now, I wonder at the grains of sand in the box Galadriel gave to Sam (besides the Mallorn seed). "I suspect every grain has a value." Perhaps the Lorien Elves had discovered the secret of fertilizer and crop engineering. Maybe they had advanced arts of agriculture that would make them more likely to be self-sufficient, or maybe it's just the magic of Nenya! Whatever it is, it's deep down...

Cheers,
Lyta

[Ophelia]

Yeeeees .... I almost forgot about that ...
Well if the content of the box , which Galadriel gave to Sam , made things grow faster and healthier , why not say they didn`t have to put too much of a work in to the growing of plants
And I did not mean hat the Elves of Lorien had such heavy equipment and they lived in hasey style . They might have done things like that with a hoe (it doesn`t even have to be made of mithril , gold or silver could do aswell ) . But the point is - they had to do some work like this to keep their flower gardens , at the least , in some order , so why not grow some veggies aswell ?
And besides , even if they did trade with other elves , where did these other Elves get the products to trade . I tend to think they grew it all . So if others can do that , howcome you do not like the idea of Lorien Elves growing plants to survive ?

-Ophelia-

[Lady Snickerdoodle]

So if others can do that , howcome you do not like the idea of Lorien Elves growing plants to survive ?

I'm not against it, I just like arguing.

[Lobelia]

I like this discussion! It's a thought I've had for a while, and wrote an article (fanzine) called "Who Washes The Dishes In Rivendell?". Elves all seem to be aristocrats, except in Mirkwood, where there are Elvish servants, guards, even peasants. It says in THE HOBBIT that they don't grow anything or make stuff, but they buy from Laketown and the south (that's where the wine comes from - from other Elvish communities? (Elvish vineyards and wineries would probably produce gourmet stuff. ) No wonder Thranduil is so keen to go to Erebor to pick up some treasure after Smaug is dead! It does, though, say that his people help in the re-building of Laketown and are very good at their work.

But Lothlorien? I think it is, more or less, self-sufficient. They're a small community and probably wouldn't need a whole lot. What Galadriel gives Sam is soil from her orchard, so they grow fruit. And if fruit, why not other stuff? We don't know what the rope is made from, but the Elves tell Sam they could have shown him how to make it if they'd known he was interested, so presumably there's nothing magical about the process, even if the finished product does strange things. If you can make rope, you can probably make cloth too. Hemp is a fine alternative to cotton. Lothlorien - and Rivendell too - strikes me as a sort of artists' colony. It's not so much what they make as how well they make it. They can make even bread and fruit taste wonderful, as Frodo, Pippin and Sam find when they meet Gildor and co.

[drigel]

Nice points being made here! Dueling mandolins.. mabye?? hehe hmmm squeal like a warg?

I think that in The Hobbit we get to see the goofy underbelly of a typical elven community, because of the theme of the book (cmon, in The Hobbit, even the Rivendell folk were a fun loving crowd, 'a la The Knights of the Round Table of the Holy Grail) and because of Bilbo being invisible and sneaking around. In LOTR, the communities seem more "aristocratic" only because of the serious nature of the theme.

I would like to think that if one were to walk invisible amonst the rank and file of Lorien, one would observe the goofy fun loving folk that is demonstrated by Thranduils kin in The Hobbit. Granted, the Mirkwood elves were mainly Avari, and the "aristocrats" there were probably more rustic than those in Rivendell or Lorien. But there would be a segment of the population that, while contributing to the community by farming or doing the dishes, would prefer a goblet of wine and a song over anything else. I think that for and elvish community in any local, donning the overalls and growing things, or having a hunting expedition would be a task that is easily taken.

[Lachwen]

..."Who Washes The Dishes In Rivendell?"

I wonder if the Rivendell dish-washer uses Dial or Dawn soap? No, wait, if they're like the Elves in The Hobbit, they probably use Joy.

[Lachwen]

Hate to be a double-poster, but I just thought of this...

In his early writings, Tolkien often called the Noldor "Gnomes." Now, Galadriel is of the Noldor, so one would assume that some of the other Elves of Lórien were also Noldor, so obviously the raising of crops would have been seen to by...Garden Gnomes...