a pale glow.....
 

I know plenty of LOTR knowledge up in this mush of a brain as it takes up about 99.9% of my being, but I still to this day do not know where the pale glow mentioned in LOTR and the hobbit, where Sting, Glamdring, Orcrist, etc. the elven blades glows when orcs are near. Dont give me something like "Its because the elves hate the orcs" or some crap like that please, I would like to know....

The swords were made in the First Age by the Elves of Gondolin for the Goblin Wars in Beleriand, they were made to glow when the enemy was near. That's about all that is known about them.

It's sort of like when you are playing a video game and the controller starts to buzz. Bad-guy radar.

Magic, of course. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

(Sorry. I suspect that's just the sort of stupid crap you didn't want.)

[ June 25, 2002: Message edited by: The Silver-shod Muse ]

Well, the elvensmiths of old had some secrets we can't unwrap. We will have to be content with that, because I doubt there is a way to find out how they made their swords with this special ability.

Well since we don't know, we can always make up something interesting.
Here's my thought: Perhaps they captured some orcs and did some biological experiments on them. Then they saw some ligtning bugs and thought of the biolumensence thing they do. They made a concotion of chemicals that would react to Orc flesh or blood, sweat. etc. when its near so that would cause this new chemical to glow. They coated their swoards in the stuff and Voila! they have Orc detectors.

don't forget, this is only my wacky theory; Tolkien never stated this....

Interesting theory... And maybe you are not far from the truth. I mean, when we have no sure facts, then everything is open to your imagination...

Many of the old elven swords (Like Turin's) had personalities of their own. The sword may have been getting excited/angry when the enemy it was designed to kill came near.

maybe, but maybe not as to the idea of coating the swords with chemicals it would have to be a realy thick coating to last from the first age to the end of the third, the elve wouldnt do some crazy experiment to orcs the way Morgoth and sauruman did, whatever made the swords glow, it was probably miwed into the steel during the forging of the swords

Nice run-on sentence there, Sarin [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] anyway, i completely agree with O'Boile. Though i'm not too sure why the swords would glow when they were "excited"... ah well. Elves and their magic is like real people and their magic: they'll never tell how it's done [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

[ July 26, 2002: Message edited by: Galadrie1 ]

Is it possible that the evles put a very small part of their fea into the swords? Or maybe put some other outside spirit into the sword? Because the swords were aware of the world around them. That is proven by Turins sword agreeing to kill him.

And I always thought it was odd that the swords could detect orcs but not other types of evil creatures.

[ July 26, 2002: Message edited by: Elendur ]

I think there's something to the idea that the elves put a little bit of themselves into what they made. And the reason the swords glow only when orcs are around may be because orcs were originally elves, corrupted by Morgoth. It just seems to make sense that the positive and negative would have a strange reaction/repulsion regarding each other. Of course, the orcs sure hated the dwarves, too, but that's another story.

-lmp

The reason that Elves do not explain their Magics to others is not usually for secrecy, but more for the reason why you don’t explain how you walk or talk, it is innate to you. Its like the Elves of Lórien being puzzled by the question "is it magic", as making rope that unties itself, like making a sword that glows when Orcs are around, is just something they do. There are very few times that elves acknowledge magic, and these are usually in the case of Maia (the Istari) or
Half-Maia (Lúthien).

Hear hear, Galorme. I have seldom read a better expression of that point.

lmp

I always saw it as the swords containing a form of melted Mithril, and that with the Elves inhearent magick made them glow when their hated enemys, the orcs, were near. But I honestly have no idea how I came up with that. Just my odd speculation...