My very own thoughts have been skating down this very path! The Ringwraiths, it is said, 'see' the living as shadows on their minds, which only the noon day sun erases. Aragorn tells us that these same undead creatures fear fire. Now, I don't know much about overt or covert 'flames' nor much about dimensions, save the usual four, but I have read something about light.

We see in, obviously, what is called the visible spectrum (7000 - 4000 Angstroms). Bugs can see in ultraviolet, and so organisms aren't limited to the visible. The sun puts out much UV light, especially in the morning hours, as those that tan might have noted. Fire and other sources of heat emit infrared radiation. So, knowing these facts and what we've heard about the Nazgul, I would hypothesize that the Ringwraiths 'see' in both the infrared and ultraviolet spectra. This is why they dislike heat - it's like a blinding light - and minds are scrambled by noon (unlike mine which is done well before).

What does this have to do with elven snow angels? Well, if the elves can perceive that which we cannot, it may be that they too see in other spectra, and this permits them to see the ice and snow in a more favorable (and favoring) light.

It seems to me that Nazgul cannot see visible, or "White", light. If they could, they would see the living as more than just shadows. You see, cameras designed specifically to pick up UV light and nothing else will almost always create "black and white" photos, or "shadowy" looking objects. This being the case, I could believe that Nazgul see in UV, but not in Infrared. The wavelengths are far too different and on opposite sides of the visible spectrum. It wouldn't make sense that they could pick up light of such widely different wavelengths, but not the wavelengths in between.

As for Elves using UV to see which snow can be stepped on, I'm afraid not. You see, snow relfects UV light so well that no difference can be seen between varying depths, etc, as you can see here. The picture on the left is with a regular camera, and the one on the right is taken with a UV camera. As you can see there are no differences in the snow. Also, this picture was taken under UV, and there is no difference in the snow.

However, polarized white light is plausible. Here is an article about NASA using the same method to prepare snow for the different events in the winter Olympics. Using polarized white light, they can tell how hard or soft the snow or ice is, and even how dense it is.

Though it is still possible that Elves could view UV light. Many birds do this. Here's a quote from an article on it:
So, it is entirely possible that Elves have a 4th type of cone in their eye, and infact see in 4 primary colors. Could explain the difference in their art.

Of course, we are asuming that they can tell what snow can be walked on by sight. They may not be able to see it any differently they we do, but use other methods- how cold the ambient air is, whether the snow is icey or powdery, and they use the proper shifting of their weight to walk on it. Their natural lightness and thin-ness would be a great factor involved.

Maybe we're just overthinking it.

Ah, but Ms. Roa (or is it Ms. Aoife? :p) you are wrong. We indeed have cones in our eyes that "absorb" certain specific wavelenghts. Another thing that absorbs specific wavelenghts is the pigment Chlorophyll in plants. If we see the absorption spectra of this pigment, it absorbs well in both ends of the visible light spectrum, but there is a clear dip in the middle. This light reflected comes out as green, which is why plants are green.

And do you know what else is green? the unhealthy green light that Minas Morghul emanates. What is present in Minas Morghul in a higher concentration than anything else?

Nazghul.

Therefore, what can this green sheen be correlated to? Again, the presence of a Nazghul. So Nazghul somehow emit a green light... furthermore, the light wavelenghts of visible light fall right in between UV and IR lenghts.

Therefore I postulate that Nazghul had cones in their eyes that had evolved somehow from Chlorophyll, although this "dip" in the middle of the absorbance was expanded to almost all of the visible light spectrum (thus they only see "light" as shadows in another context) while they see both UV and IR. A side-effect of this is that they also glow with a green colour.

Now, if you are still sticking with me here, when Gandalf talks about the Nazghul seeing Glorfindel he says that they saw him "as he is in the other side". This "other side" therefore can only be seen through UV or IR radiation.

Furthermore, we all know elves are "hot" (if not, ask any Movie-Legolas fans) thus there is conclusive evidence that whatever this "other side is" elves emit IR radiation in it, also known as heat.

This confirms beyond any reasonable doubt the theory proposed by our very own Celuien, the elves indeed melted the snow, let it re-freeze and then walked on ice.

We could assume that, as once being human, the Ringwraiths could see in the visible spectrum, but as they began to fade, losing their physical eyes, they learned to sense radiation in other spectrums. Now, to say that the Nazgul could see in both IR and UV might be wild speculation, but I have seen that others have created tools (cameras) that do the same, as noted here.

I'd sleep much better at night knowing that one of these cameras was watching over that foggy area next to my house, as one never knows what could come creeping out that might remain unseen until it was too late...

A snow job!
 

Interesting hypotheses here.

So, IF elves and Ringwraiths have this enhanced visual acuity, could this possibility suggest that orcs--who are twisted or perverted elves--have maintained this ability? Would they in fact 'see' better/farther/faster than the armies of men they fight or simply see differently?

Or would this enhanced ability be lost in the process of perverting them? I find it difficult to envision an "orc angel", perhaps because I find it difficult to conceive of orcs at play.

I'm sure 'keen sighted orcs' have been mentioned somewhere...

Orcs do 'see differently,' as noted, and like the elves see better in the dark than humans. However, in regards to all things winter, I think that, when possible, orcs avoided snow and cold as we don't read that orcs crossed the frozen Brandywine back in 2911 (Third Age), nor read of the existence of 'snow orcs' even amongst the writings or the songs of the Lossoth. Anyway, so I'm guessing that the orcs have little to no 'snow-sense.' Even if they had the ability to see the denser patches of snow, or however the elves are doing it, I think that they would purposely sink to show their contempt for nature.

Also there's that common saying in the Shire used to note that the probability of the event is small to zero, which also speaks of orcs and snow, which is "...like a snowball fight's chance in Mordor."

Somewhat related to the thread: Each day I pass by a neighbor's yard. This lawn is immaculate; green beyond green, each blade of grass the same length as the other, no weeds or even a different species of blade, no blight, patches or stain. Truly an example of what Lothlorien lawn care must be like. The retiree and his wife work on the yard incessantly; it seems so precious to them that when we as a family walk by, I steer my family to the other side of the road so that my children will not mar this grassy carpet. I'd take a picture, but in good conscience (I've had one transplanted in for a 30-day trial), I'd have to explain why, and going into the whole 'snow angel and elves' thing with a stranger - yet neighbor - can't bode well for my standing in the community.

But anyway, it got me to thinking.

Somewhere in LotR, it is said that the slipper-footed Legolas's footfalls barely bruise, if touch at all, the blades of grass upon which he steps. This, of course, is contrasted with the iron-shod orcs that leave a scathing destructive trail. Now, in my backyard, where the grass is pounded down daily by the constant rolling of battery-driven vehicles - that which isn't dug up by the dog - I could walk across the grass and leave no trace. However, in the neighbor's yard, I assume that I could, with a slight press of my finger, leave a print that could be used to track me down.

The question is, then, could Legolas cross this grass undetected, and if so, could he make a 'grass angel' on the same?


**For those of you apt to test this hypothesis, please get the permission of the lawn's owner, as some folk take yard work a bit too seriously.

It's threads like this one that make me glad I joined the Barrow-Downs. With such a limited focus, all kinds of ideas pop up that would never have occurred to me on another forum.

'The Custard Theory' still cracks me up. I just love that name. :D

The Drag Theory of Aerodynamic Thrust
 

Frankly, I doubt Legolas could have the same affect on lawn as on snow, due to the very different natures of the media through which he would be passing.

The wind created by his passing would produce several consequences. First, the frictional drag could in fact create higher temperatures than the grass could sustain, with the effect that Legolas would leave a trail of burnt grass tips marking his path. One possibility.

A second would be the effect simply of the sway in the grass caused by the aerodynamic force of his body through the air. This sway in the grass could then create an ever-so-slight beaten path in those areas over which he flew/trod--flod? Yes, perhaps elves do flod. Furthermore, turbulance is a natural effect of movement through air. This could in fact produce a random pattern of grass damage. Not crop circles I would think, but still erratic patches where the grass has been bent.

Either way, I think Legolas and other elves had best graze elsewhere than your neighbours' lawn.

True, frozen water and grass are somewhat different. Grass contains a lot of water, but also, unlike H2O, it contains cellulose, which can be found in glasses of water when a natural laxative is prepared, but that has nothing to do with elves as far as we can tell.



Have considered this, and have noted that tornadoes drive, at the very least, particles across grass at very high speeds. I've seen pictures of the devastation left in the wake of a tornado, but have never noted any fires causes by the tornado that weren't generated by other means (downed power lines, petrol/natural gas leaks, etc). So I'm not sure that Legolas's passage would create enough heat to singe the grass tips. Even if it did, not sure how the same would play out on the snow, as one, at the very least, would see meltings where Legolas's slippers touched the frozen water, and so would negate the observation that the elf prince left little to no evidence of his passing.

Also, if enough elves singed enough grass, as surely the First Age elves would have done to a greater degree, we would have seen a response from Yavanna. On the other hand again, we never did discover the purpose of the ent-wives...

On even yet another hand, didn't the touch of Lúthien Tinúviel cause the spontaneous appearance of flowers? So maybe there is something to the toes of fire theory, as some plants, such as Jack pines, require fire to grow (well, to be seeded). Were the elves the 'honey bees' of the forest and grassy plains?


I'm sure that elven flodding is well-documented in story and song:



In my neck of the woods, anyone looking like Paris Hilton prancing upon one's lawn is just asking for trouble.

hunka hunka hunka burning fëa
 

Let me tell you 'bout the birds and the bees
And the flowers and the trees
And the moon up above
And a thing called e ... e... e ... elves


I think you are on something here, alatar. While your survey of the effects of Seventh Age tornados fails to uncover any burnt blades, we do know that many processes in Middle earth have faded. We also know that with elves, their fëa gradually burns away their hröa (possibly a speedier form of composting?), so clearly they have an excess of energy, once could say. Why, I could even rewrite Einstein's famous equation for this if only I knew how to make the nifty raised square sign.

So great is this energy in elves that it is well to remember the fate of Fëanor, whose very name signifies this process. Remember that his hröa was completely consumed by his fëa upon his death. I don't have to mention how hot this must have made the Great Elf, as we all know what temperatures are needed to cremate a human body. Now, if this was true of Fëanor, it must be true at least in some measure for Legolas, who is undoubtedly the hottest elf of the Third Age.
He was, after all, instrumental in the regreening of Ithilien--making it the fairest land in all the west--after the fall of Sauron, so he must have had an extraordinary hand at pollinating. Perhaps the lack of burnt blades could simply be attributed to his artful use of withdrawing his fëa so that his hröa as well as the grass was not consumed.

I think that you’d have more than just singed grass tips. If you have air moving fast enough to cause that level of heat via friction, you have an influx of enough oxygen to feed a smoldering grass blade into full flame, reducing it to ash in scant milliseconds. That’s why folks trying to start a fire using the old boy-scout method will blow on the smoldering tinder to coax a flame from it. You wouldn’t have singed tips – at the least you’d have blackened footprints, and possible forest fires.

I am reminded of an account I read some years ago of a reporter taken for a ride in an SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance jet who was warned not to touch the windshield once they hit Mach 2 (approximately 1500 mph or 2450 kph) – the temperature of the glass was high enough to blister the skin. Even so, I doubt that even that speed could have started a fire.

Further, if elves could generate that level of moving air, what’s to prevent them from actual flight? If they can “flod” over grass without harming or even marking it, it would surely be a small step to actual flight. I think there must be some other mechanism by which the elves negated the effects of their weight on snow or grass.

At the risk of bringing Treknobabble into a Tolkien website, I used to think that the elves lack of effect on snow or grass involved a partial negation of the effects of gravity – not so much as to become weightless, otherwise they’d just float away – but enough that their weight does not press down with enough force to mark their passing. However, this theory has as many problems as the wind/friction idea, because what’s to prevent elves from exerting this power just a bit more and achieving actual flight? Or at least the ability to hover over a battle out of reach of swords? (Wow, think of the advantages of a battalion of air-elves at an altitude of 500 feet or so, shooting arrows into a ground-bound division of orcs?)

Hmm ... well, I always had this idea that Elf bodies were light while their spirits made up the difference. So they could dance on a rope stretched across a river, but put their spirit as well as their body strength behind blows or landing on someone. Their spirit (is that their fëa? ::ignorant:: ) is what makes them quick, have high endurance, &c., &c., &c.

Fantastic! :D

Think that we're talking about 'specific heat,' or 'heat capacity.' It's been said that, when you're baking/cooking, you're not as concerned about touching the thing that you're making as much as the thing that you're using to make it. In other words, the cake may be hot, but the pan will surely burn you. This metaphor comes up a lot when people discuss firewalking - walking barefoot across burning coals without harm to the skin. Many love to attribute this feat to magic and mysticism and the alteration of quantum auras (gotta use the word quantum to give it that new science smell), but it's simply physics. Hot burning wood 'holds' less heat than would an iron plate set across the same coals. You'll get away unscathed walking the coals, but not the plate.

Anyway, so even if the elves had hot feet, not sure if this heat would more than wilt the grass tips. But that's conjecture.


"That's one small flod for Nóm, one giant flod for elfkind..."


Problem with anti-gravity - physics aside (we ARE discussing elves ;)) - is how do these floating ones swing a sword, hoist a wine barrel or taunt a Dwarf? All, or at least two of the three, require the elf's feet to be firmly pushing against Arda in the equal and opposite direction as the action being performed (if I got that right). Just try to swordfight on wet ice...actually, don't, as that would fall under the 'that's silly and you most likely will get harmed or dead, and so don't do it' list of suggestions best disregarded.

These aren't Peter Jackson's elves, are they? ;)

Any mention of auras deserves a reply from me.

Oh now I'm really confused. There's a product called "Hot Foot" for roof tops and buttresses, etc, designed to keep pigeons away. I believe it is filled with chili powder, which, when stepped on by said avians, results in high stepping birds who lite out of the place quickly.

Thinking about chili in "Hot Foot" made me reconsider this comment by Thenamir. What exactly happens to grass when it is stepped on or bent? Could it not be possible for elven healing arts to be able to reverse almost simultaneously the damage made by stepping on grass? Their feet could possibly be coated with some sort of healing herb that would, um, reforge the broken blades. If King's Foil heals people, perhaps there is a similar herb* to heal plants.

*Or possibly the same effect could be achieved by the delicate nature of elven foot sweat. Elves eat lembas. Perhaps some of the extraordinary qualities of the lembas are exuded in elven sweat?

EDIT: Given elven sensibilities, anyone offended by the use of the word "sweat" could substitute for it the word "perspiration."

Surely Orcs sweat, Dwarves perspire, Elves glow !! :)

You may be on to something, Rumil. If elves don't have this physiological air conditioning system in their body, they are indeed very hot properties. No wonder their fëa gradually burns away their hröa. And here I thought, after reading Dickens, that it was only extreme alcoholic consumption that could cause self-immolation.

Solved?
 

Getting back to the somewhat original issue, I may have figured out how Legolas successfully walked over the snow without leaving a print.

What if the souls of his slippers weren't as small as we tend to think? Someone in the Fellowship noted that Legolas wore slippers. To me, these are light duty shoes that barely cover the feet. The area of these shoes would be no larger than anyone would think odd.

So we've been working diligently trying to figure out how to decrease the pressure Legolas exerts on the snow, where pressure = weight (force)/area, and thinking that the shoes were normal size, tried to reduce the elf's weight.

But what if the slippers had an area three to five times that which is expected? Think snowshoes. The pressure on the snow would decrease linearly as the area increased. If Leggy weighed in at 150 pounds, increasing the area of his slippers 3-5 fold drops his virtual weight to 50-30 pounds.

But you're saying, "Come on, alatar, the Fellowship may have been snowblind, but they weren't totally blind. Surely someone would have noticed that large slippers..."

Would they? What if Legolas (and all other elves) carried snowshoes made of Aerogel? Would anyone see what Legolas had on his feet in the snow? If the soles were given some type of pattern that looked natural, would even a tracker know that an elf walked that way?

We truly live in a magical world, and this is only 2007. What wonders will our children see? :)

We had rain a day or two ago, which is only unusual because the temperature has been in the single digits (Fahrenheit). It had warmed up enough to pour, though even the hard rain couldn't wash away the snow that has been falling, off and on, for what seems like months.

Thankfully, yesterday, the temperature dropped back down to where it belongs, that is, in the mid-teens.

So, while waiting for the bus to arrive this morning, the kids occupied themselves with running across the snow, which they were amazed that they could do. Yesterday, they sunk to the ankles; today (due to the subzero temperature and rain-induced frozen crust) they barely left foot prints on the snow.

Nice one Alatar - or do you have elvish kids? ;)

Sounds generic, but if they can gather enough strength to hammer away at swords and shields, I'm pretty sure they can press their backs to snow. After all, they're elves. They might just consider it a work of art, and when they're done they'll stand up and say 'Whee! Snow art! Now let's rebuild Gondolin." :p

Though one thing did fox me:

"...and for running light over grass and leaf, or over snow - an Elf." Unless, of course, he meant those tiny leaves that grow from the ground :p

Another point to consider is that we may be thinking from a somewhat too modern persepective with regard to what "slippers" is defined as. If we assume that ME clothing technology is roughly Dark/Middle Ages, then the slippers would not be all that similar to any sort of shoe we were familiar with. Back then slippers were heel-less, in fact in a certain sense they were usually sole-less (that is they often had no seperate piece of material added onto the bottom to thicken and re-enforce it) Slippers at that time would have been less like shoes as we understand them, but more along the lines of thick cloth/leather socks or foot gloves, whose "sole" was often created by he wearer, out of whatever dirt and junk they would walk on as they wore them (this is why slippers were usually inside wear for the well off, the comparitively smooth stone and wood floors were pretty much the only place you could wear slippers and not shred them to bits) so Legolas's steps would be less like those of someone walking on snow in boots and more like someone walking on snow in socks/barefoot. Usually your bare foot is a lot better at weight distribution than your shod one since the hard rigid sole usually confines the force to a smaller area (it's sort of a lesser version of the same force equasions that explain why a woman wearing stilletto heels can suddenly start leaving hammer holes in a wood floor whereever she walks if she is not careful) This would not explain all of it (even a barefoot person would leave tracks in the snow) but it might explain some of it.