LotR -- Book 3 - Chapter 01 - The Departure of Boromir

[Child of the 7th Age]

Just a brief allusion back to Aldarion's suggestion that Legolas and Gimli would have had the skills to compose such a song on the spot. I would heartily concur. The key factor here would not be that a few contemporary entertainers possess this ability even today, but rather the very nature of Middle-earth and how learning and story is passed on in a traditional culture.

This world is so different than ours. It is a culture where oral tradition holds equal or even greater weight than that which is written. Many things would be memorized and passed on orally from one generation to the next. In such a setting, most people would have had a small stock of funereal rites and songs in their memory that could be adapted and tweeked to fit a particular situation. They would draw upon this in the same way that I would automatically go to my library and find a particular book of poems that would contain something with meaning for a given situation.

It's also interesting to consider that, by all rational standards, it was a terrible mistake for the "good guys" to be standing about singing while the Orcs are dragging the captured Hobbits further and further away. But as badly as the company needed to take off after the kidnapped Hobbits, it was even more essential that they show and define who they are. Unlike the Orcs who let their comrades die without giving them a second thought, Aragorn and his companions take time to show respect and honor for those who have fallen, even if it puts them further behind the kidnappers. To gain time by disregarding a fundamental principle--that of respect for an individual life--is not something Tolkien could countenance in his "heroes".