Did elves smoke?

[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....