Purely Speculative: Limits to Elvish Creativity?

[Greyhame]

I'd like to expand on what Lush said earlier...

I believe that there is a very real link between "reality" and "fiction". Some made-up stories contain a great deal more truth than what you'd see on the evening news, for instance. Why? Because the truth about reality has been scattered like a shotgun blast throughout the universe, and every now and then, in the quest for beauty (which I also believe to be closely intertwined with truth), we mortals stumble onto something that can't be expressed in dry, factual statements. This is where the line between fantasy and reality is most effectively blurred for me.

So, what does this have to do with elves? I think it was probably the other way 'round for them. They were in a world that was so much more real than our own, and yet was absolutely "fictional" in terms of what we today conceive of as the natural order. While their songs and poetry are (as far as we can tell) all based on real events, the magic of Middle-earth (an early version of our own world according to the Professor), summed up so wonderfully in the phrase "history became legend, legend became myth", worked its way even into the writings of the immortal, wise elves.

If anything, an elf in today's world would not understand the dichotomy that has been created between fiction and non-fiction. Alas, that is the price we pay for allowing evil to seep into the very fabric of the physical world...