Did elves smoke?

[narfforc]

I've just thought, it's a good thing Elvish Parsley did'nt combust, it would have took a week to put the flames out.

[narfforc]

I have been giving some thought to the problem of Elven Combustion and The Peredhil. Did the Arf'n'Arf's loose some part of their anatomy, say a leg or an arm, then the fire would splutter out, or in it's weakened state did this disease cause hot flushes and a heat rash. Because of the internal heat cause by the Elven part, the Edain part sweated a lot, this helped somewhat, sort of like an external sprinkler system, however there was a problem if the Elven part was stronger, the Arf'nArf might then boil to death. Now if Gimli and Galadriel ever got it on, their children would have an inner coat of fire retardent material, and the family motto would be Runya Asbestoshini or Flame Retardent Children and look a bit like garden gnomes...................now I wonder if they had an affair.....ummm

I wonder if Big Ears was the secret love child and Father of The Garden Gnomes..

I wonder if Noddy knows, I think I will tell him at bed-time

[Morgul Queen]

This begs the interesting question of what really happened to Glorfindel? We are told that he got dragged of a cliff by the hair, but what kind of idiot would you be to leave your hair out in battle? 'Tis far more likely that the balrog's flames set him alight, blowing up both Glorfindel and the cliff he was standing on.

[narfforc]

Would that be a case of: Hair today, gone tomorrow; and did Cliff survive the battle.

[davem]

Re the resurrected Glorfindel: we know that when Frodo looks back from the Ford he see Glorfindel as a being of 'shining light'. At this point G. is clearly on fire with the excitement. Yet, he appears later at the Council. There seems only one possible explanation for his survival - he fell into the Bruinen & was thereby extinguished. Tolkien doesn't give us a detailed description of Glorfindel's appearance at the council, but I think we can legitimately picture him sitting there in bandages, with smoking clothes & frizzled hair.

This, I think, is the more likely reason for Elrond's refusal to send him as part of the Fellowship (Gandalf's justification for sending M&P instead is obviously an attempt to spare G.'s blushes).

Its also quite likely that the reason only one Elf was included was the very real risk of combustion if two or more Elves were close enough together to rub against each other & start a fire, thereby warning the spies of Saruman or Sauron. Even the presence of Legolas made this danger likely. An Elf suddenly going up like a roman candle would bring the Orcs running. (As an aside, I note that one type of firework that Gandalf made was an 'Elf-candle' - this can only be accounted for by the fact that Elves were known to ignite.)

Its of course more than likely that the 'Bonfire Glade' in the Old Forest was caused not by the Hobbits of Buckland, but by wandering Elves having a picnic & spontaneously combusting during an argument over who got the last fish paste sandwich. Why the Hobbits would take responsibility for the resulting devastation is a difficult one. My own suspicion is that they wanted to look big....