Legolas and the Balrog

[burrahobbit]

Doesn't seem likely that he would be shocked by the trees and Ents of Fangorn yet be familiar with crebain.

Oh well. I guess even Tolkien makes mistakes sometimes. Which may acount for the fact that Legolas was able to identify the Balrog before any of the rest of the Company.

Crebain are crows, there are crows all over the place.

Why wouldn't any elf know what a Balrog is? Wouldn't they tell stories about the most hard core fighters that the enemy had back in the day? Legolas's father and grandfather were around when the Balrogs were fighting the elves. Wouldn't they tell stories about that? Wouldn't Legolas recognize it from these stories?