Snow angels

[alatar]

Originally Posted by Rikae

Conclusion: it's a learned skill, and elves can make snow angels.

Glad to see that you and Celuien have made in-depth analyses. Presently we have ice-encrusted snow, which you'd think would add to my chances of having a Legolas experience, but, alas, all that it does is creep out the dog as every footfall kerthunks! right through.

[Farael]

Ahhh lovely to see this thread still living.

With all the snow we've gotten this winter, I should try it out, but we've been having EXTREMELY cold weather. It's better now (about -20 C or -8 F) but for a while it was lower than -40 (which is the same C and F) and that's too cold to be outside, unless you MUST.

Prediction: Farael will sink right through the snow which is probably higher than the rim of his boot, and as he tries to get his foot out of the snow the snow will get inside the boot and he'll have to run back inside before his toes freeze.

[alatar]

Note that, if you walk on a light dusting of granular snow (not the wet sticky kind) that sits atop concrete or other hard surface, in a moderate to strong wind, you will leave no (or almost no) footprints. Maybe Legolas, and the elves entire, just knew where to place their slippers.

[Folwren]

Well, now, we had an ice/snow storm a couple months ago, and everyone, including horses, could walk on top of it all without leaving any marks at all!

[Bêthberry]

Good to see such a sweet thread bumped up and maintained with light-hearted faire. It would be a grim bit of northern humour to see a jaundiced post consider the gravity, specific or otherwise, of yellow snow.

[alatar]

I'm restraining myself...and just how would a jaundiced eye perceive yellow snow? White and untainted? Anyone with some lemonade and a pair of appropriately tinted glasses/goggles can put this too to the test.

Speaking of yellow eyes, do we know the color variation of the elven eye, and just what spectra are perceptible from the same? Elves see things that remain unseen to the human eye (moon letters, portends, running orcs at great distances, etc). Do elves see the thicker patches of snow, and again, just know where to step? Do they guard this secret to make themselves more interesting?

[Celuien]

While yellow snow's specific gravity and density may be higher than that of the surrounding white snow, I suspect that its other properties make it unsuitable for travel or snow angels. I believe that I am fortunate in having the ability to distinguish yellow from white easily.

Roa's theory regarding the Elven spirit of flame suggests a new possibility. What if the Elves are able to slightly melt the snow as they stand on it, then allow it to refreeze in the cold temperatures? They could then skate on a film of ice (as I saw a few enthusiastic skaters at the edge of a nearby horse farm doing yesterday). I know that I can't tell the difference between frozen and non-frozen snow visually unless I look very closely. Perhaps the difference produced by this sleight-of-hand (or, more accuratelym slight of foot) was imperceptible to the non-Elf members of the Fellowship.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by alatar

Do elves see the thicker patches of snow, and again, just know where to step? Do they guard this secret to make themselves more interesting?

Well, if this be so, it suggests that their art or 'magic' leads them into a wee bit of deception, a quality which was recently attributed to the Ring on one of our serious threads. This could be interesting to explore as elves exist in the same dimension, simultaneously as they exist in ours, as that of the Ringwraiths. (Yes, there is a Tolkien comment about this, which I posted elsewhere, but my books are not at hand at the moment.) Maybe elves do have a different density than humans or hobbits?

Is Legolas' ability to walk upon snow (not water, now, snow), part of elven knowledge of the dark dimension? This is a very different take from that of Roa and Celuien's thoughts on the warming condition of the secret flame.

Originally Posted by Celuien

What if the Elves are able to slightly melt the snow as they stand on it, then allow it to refreeze in the cold temperatures? They could then skate on a film of ice (as I saw a few enthusiastic skaters at the edge of a nearby horse farm doing yesterday). I know that I can't tell the difference between frozen and non-frozen snow visually unless I look very closely. Perhaps the difference produced by this sleight-of-hand (or, more accuratelym slight of foot) was imperceptible to the non-Elf members of the Fellowship.

Now this raises in interesting possibility. Could elves have invented the game of hockey? Note, I am assuming that Celuien's friends at the horse farm were engaging in a game of shinny, but perhaps elves would limit themselves to the more elegant form of freeskate or figure skating. Not that Legolas would have been wearing blades on his slippers, although if swords could be fired and tempered to great sharpness, there's no reason why elves wouldn't have come up with the idea of attaching them to their slippers.

I seem to be developing two different lines of arguments here. The topic is so slippery.